Suffer the Little Children: Death,
Autonomy, and Responsibility in a
Changing "Low Technology"
Environment
1969 Maria Carmen Guamiui Sbunaula's angel
wings are slightly crooked, but the pleated red
and blue bandanas are arranged neatly on the
altar behind her along with the candles and the
flowers. Sitting on a low wooden bench, the
drummer and accordionistplay their music while
men and women, girls and boys, dance, whirling
and stomping on the dirt floor. [esbuco moves
through the crowd with a bottle of contraband
aguardiente and a cup, insistently offering a drink,
"courtesy of taita Manuel," to anyone he can
corner. He fills the small cup and waits until the
recipient drinks, grimaces in response to the un-
diluted power of the raw cane alcohol, flips the
remaining drops on the floor, and hands the cup
back with the thanks, "God will pay you."
All night long there is much laughter, drinking,
dancing, singing, shouting, and talking. A few
people have left the party afterhaving eaten bowls
of mutton soup. A few others have passed out,
drunk or tired. and are lying-covered with pon-
chos or blankets-on the floor.
Now the sun has long since risen above the
edge of the Andes. Maria Carmen is placed into
the tiny coffin on the table. Children and adults
gather around, placing flower petals and notes
on scraps of paper into the coffin. The coffin is
closed. The drunk and the asleep are aroused.
Four brightly dressed young girls usinglong woven
lames Belote is a research anthropologist, Houghton,
MI 49931. Linda S. Belote is Associate Professor of
Anthropology and Dean of Students at Michigan Tech:
nological University, Houghton, MI49931.
I!:) 1984 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technolof ~~d4the P;esident and Fellows of Harvard College. Published by John Wiley &. Sons
Science. Technology, eV Human Values, Volume 9, ss
James Belote and Linda S. Belote
belts as carrying straps lift the coffin and, with
the two-man band playing, everyone begins the
three-mile walk to the cemetery.
"You should be happy and celebrate when a
child dies," we are told.
*
1969 "How many children do you have!" mama
Ashuca asks.
"Two," says Linda.
"How many dead ones!"
"None."
"Oh, what a pity," Ashuca responds.
* * *
1968 Around eleven in the evening the room
began to shake. Dust rose from the floor and
there was an all-pervasive sound of rumbling and
rattling. Instantly we grabbed our son and ran
out of the room, down the stairs, and out into
the street. Roof tiles fell off the cracking buildings
as the earth continued to move violently; it was
difficult to stand still in one place. People filled
the streets, crying, kneeling, praying-anxiously
awaiting the end of the earthquake, if not the
end of the earth.
When the tremors and accompanying noises
ceased, we immediately noticed that there were
few children in the streets and that screams were
coming from inside many homes. No buildings
had collapsed completely, and no one had been
killed or seriously injured in the Saraguro area.
The screams we heard were being made by chil-
dren who had been left behind-locked in their
rooms-by fleeing parents.
"Why did you leave your children locked in!"
,PP· 5-4B (Fall 19841 CCC 0162.2439/84/040035·14$04,00
36 Science, Technology, ev Human Values-Fall 1984
we asked, barely suppressing our incredulous self-
righteousness.
"They are only children," was the consistent
reply. "If they should die they would go right to
heaven. If we should take the time to unlock
their doors and try to get them out we might
.
die-and if we die we might go straight to hell."
Anthropologists have found it worthwhile to view
cultures as integrated wholes, as complex systems
of interacting variables, none of which can be
assumed to be entirely separable from each other.
This is not to say that any sociocultural context
is without conflict, contradiction, or dissonance
between units or categories composed of people
or traits as they are integrated into that context.
As Marshall Sahlins has said, what may be most
striking about a sociocultural system are the "idi-
ocies of its functional connections, the irrelevan-
cies of its structures. III Conflict, contradiction,
and dissonance are particularly likely to be en-
gendered by technological change that involves
such elements as new systems of production and
distribution of wealth, new systems of health care,
and new systems of political organization and
integration. In other words, differential rates of
change may lead to a lack of fit between various
parts of the sociocultural context, "culture lag"
is a term that has been used in reference to this
kind of situation."
Given the contextual nature of the anthropol-
ogical enterprise, we cannot satisfactorily examine
or understand cultural features in isolation. Like
snippets from "Ripley's Believe It Or Not," isolated
facts or observations may be amusing or enter-
taining or disturbing, but they tell us almost
nothing worth knowing. Part truths may lead us
further from the truth than no information at all.
We must, therefore, place sociocultural traits-
objects, observable behaviors, and mental activ-
ities-inta appropriate contexts, to see how these
traits are integrated into a natural and human
environment existing in a historical dimension.
Our purpose in this article is to examine the
place of children in a particular society that has
undergone considerable modernizing change in
the last 20 years. Three features-death, autonomy,
and responsibility-will be highlighted in order
to show how the values, beliefs, and behaviors
concerned with children's place in that society
were integrated satisfactorily into a broader so-
ciocultural context. We will then examine some
of the modernizing changes that have taken place
in that society and how these changes have af-
fected, or may affect, the place of children in that
society. We will not be examining the conse-
quences of the introduction of particular tech-
nological products such as steel axes or
snowmobiles" on the place of children in Saraguro
society. Rather, we shall investigate the conse-
quences of the growing integration of the Saragumg
into a more complex technological milieu for those
children. Although each sociocultural system has
its own concatenation of features, the case pre-
sented here has broad relevance to an understand-
ing of similar processes of modernization in similar
sociocultural systems elsewhere in the Third World
as well as to the greater understanding of where
we-and our children-in the developed world
are today.
Approximately 15,000 people known as Sara-
guros live and work in the Andean and upper
Amazon basin areas of southern Ecuador." They
are an ethnically distinctive, indigenous group,
bilingual in Quichua and Spanish, and traditionally
have been involved in subsistence farming and
small-scale commercial cattle-raising. The main
production units are nuclear family households,
comprised of three to six persons, which own and
control more than ten or fifteen hectares of rea-
sonably good agricultural, forest, and pasture land
and which raise more than ten or twelve head of
cattle." This is not much, to be sure, but it is
enough to put them economically ahead of abOut
90% of the rest of the rural population of Ecuador. 6
Their relative wealth greatly moderates for them
some of the worst features of rural agricultural
life prevailing elsewhere in Ecuador. However, as
a distinctive indigenous group, the Saraguros re-
main subject to some patterns of abuse and
aggression at the hands of nonindigenous members
of the dominant national society.'
In the early 1960s, when we first went to the
area as U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, most Saraguros
still lived apart from direct contact with many
clements of the modern world, and of modern
technology and its consequences. For example,
none of the Sarnguros had watches or transistor
radios, health conditions, especially infant mor-
tality rates, were about as bad as in poorer parts
of the Third World, few Saraguros had gone throUgh
more than two or three years of rudimentary
schooling. and very few Snraguros worked any_
where other than on their own family farms. Sar-
aguros valued their independence and self-suffi_
ciency and they had a high degree of subsistence

autonomy on the family or community levels.
Using their own land and labor resources, Saraguro
households were able to provide for most of their
own food, fuel, clothing, and shelter needs, and
most of what could not be provided by the house-
hold was available within the indigenous com-
munity. Saraguros were rural generalists, all having
a wide range of skills; only a few were part-time
specialists in occupations such as curing, weaving,
or pottery manufacture, but most of whom served
only the limited number of Saraguro households
that did not have these skills or did not have the
time to practice them. Saraguros, then, were not
dependent, either on a day-to-day or month-to-
month basis, on outside sources of goodsor services
for survival. Metal tools ILe., axes, knives, mach-
etes, saws, plow blades, or needles) were the only
survival necessities produced outside their area
upon which the Saraguroshad become dependent-
and for the most part these were durable products
that, once obtained, lasted for years. Such was
the strength of their self-sufficiency, of their local
control of their low technology subsistence econ-
omy, that, had they been cut off from the rest of
the world in the early 1960s, the Saraguros could
have maintained the subsistence component of
their lifestyle without drastic alteration-at least
until all their metal tools became broken or worn
out,"
By the 1980s, many of these conditions had
been altered radically. We will discuss this change
later. First, we will present a few more repre-
sentative observations on Saraguro childhood in
the 1960s, and will examine the way the values,
beliefs, and behaviors regarding childhood fit into
the low technology Saragurocontext of that decade.
Saraguro Children in the Low
Technology Context of the 19608
1964 Jose Maria crawls toward the three-stone
cooking fire in the middle of the kitchen. His
mother, Aleia. continues to spin yarn as she
watches him. No caution or command interrupts
the whirring of the spindle. Jose Maria touches
a hot stone, burns his hand, and begins to scream.
Aleia stops her work to comfort him.
. Eight-year-old Juan is helping his father to carry
1962 Angela is playing with a sharp knife on
the patio. She drops it near her bare feet, picks
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 37
it up again, and continues to play-looking at
the knife, handling it, licking it, rubbing it on
her small body. Her parents do not stop shelling
beans to interfere with her activity.
. .
1963 Six-year-old Manuel is sick. His mother
asks if we will use Our influence with a doctor
to have him cured. We agree and walk up the
trail to their house. Manuel is in bed and his
mother goes into the house to get him ready to
go to the doctor. Manuel runs out of the house
and to the top of the nearby knoll. "I won't go!"
he shouts. We look at his mother. "He won't go,"
she says, and apologizes for having bothered us.
.
1963 Angelina Guachisaca and Pedro Poma are
visiting our house with their three small children.
A tape recorder, cameras, radio and other such
delicate objects are scattered about the place.
The children are into everything, investigating
every knob, button, and dial, until we put them
out of reach. Angelina and Pedro do not reprimand
or control their children with any authority.
1964 It has been more than forty days since
she gave birth to Vicente, so Balbina is now able
to leave the house and attend mass. We meet
her on the street and she has Vicente with her.
Vicente is swaddled and wrapped, but we can
see his face. "What a beautiful child," Linda
comments. "Oh, but he is completely useless.
All he can do is eat and dirty his clothes," replies
Balbina.
19605
Two-year old Abel is shooing chickens out of the
kitchen.
Three-year-old Mariana is gathering weeds from
the cornfields to feed the guinea pigs.
Four-year-old Angel is sweeping the porch.
Five-year-old Carmela is giving milk-whey to the
pigs.
Six-year-old Jorge is watching his two younger
sisters while his parents are in town selling a
bull.
Seven-year-old Clementine is on the hillside,
tending the family's flock of sheep.
firewood down from the mountain forests.
Nine-year-old Francisca is chopping weeds out
of a potato field.
38 Science. Technology, eJ Human Values-Fall 1984
Ten-year-old Valentin is learning to weave on a
backstrap loom.
Eleven-year-old Rosa is spinning wool while on
her way to town to sell cheese for her mother.
Twelve-year-old Joaquin is helping his father to
drive their herd of cattle along the trail to the
iungle.
Viewed from the context of American society,
these and many similar, representative observa-
tions made during our years of residence and re-
search in southern Ecuador, raise some important
questions about the nature of Saraguro society
and the place of children in it. Do Saraguros not
love their children? Do they really welcome the
death of a child and, if so, is it because they have
too many mouths to feed with limited resources
las is claimed by many non-indigenous people in
the area)? Or, loving their children, are they merely
fatalistic about the course of life and death, pas-
sively accepting whatever happens as being the
will of God? Do they ignore the welfare of their
living children when they are in danger, and view
their surviving children only as objects to be ex-
ploited for cheap labor, giving them little time
to play, to interact with other children, and to
explore the environment?
Death
In the 1960s, mortality was high in Saraguro.
Nearly one-third of all children died in their first
five or six years of life. Birth control was not
practiced, thus many were born and many died-
usually of gastrointestinal or respiratory disorders.
After early childhood, the mortality rate dropped
sharply. This pattern is common in many Third
World countries; although infant and early child-
hood mortality rates may be more than an order
of magnitude higher than they are in developed
countries, life expectancy for those who survive
early childhood is not much lower than it is for
the same age category of people in developed
countries,"
It is not surprising, then, that Saraguro culture
provides coping strategies for dealing with the
deaths of young children that are quite different
from the strategies used to deal with the deaths
of older children and adults. The deaths of young
children [Including infants) are accepted and cel-
ebrated by large numbers of relatives, friends, and
neighbors. Deaths of older children and adults are
seen as tragic events to be mourned by all who
knew and cared for the dead."
The Saraguro acceptance and celebration of early
childhood death can be seen as a psychosocial
adjustment to its frequent occurrence. Childhood
mortality is so high that if all friends, kin, and
neighbors were expected to mourn the death of
a child, and to do so for any significant length of
time, most Saraguros would spend much of their
lives in mourning.
The supporting ideology for this psychosocial
adaptation comes from the Saraguro interpretation
of Roman Catholicism. In this belief system, young
children [below the age of six or seven I have not
yet reached the age of accountability-they are
not in danger of dying in a state of sin. When
they die, therefore, they will not be subject to
the Judgment; their souls will go straight to heaven
to be in the presence of God. The deaths of adults,
on the other hand, engender much uncertainty
and fear. One cannot be sure of the destinies of
adult souls in the hereafter; there is no "assurance
of salvation" for those in Samguro who have
reached the age of accountability.
These beliefs about the deaths of children and
adults arc shared with the nonindigenous [white]
inhabitants of the town of Saraguro and were
powerfully manifested in the reactions of the
whites to the earthquake of 196B, as recorded
above." Although indigenous and nonindigenous
people share these contrasting beliefs about the
consequences of death for adults and young chil-
dren, the indigenous belief system contains more
complex elaborations on the theme of childhood
death. They arc as follows. The souls of dead
children exist in the form of angels. These angels
live eternally in heaven at the side of God. This
is perceived as good for the children who have
died because they will not have to suffer through
this life on earth and be subject to life's dangerous
temptations. It is also seen as good for the family
and friends the dead children have left behind,
for the child-angels will serve as messengers to
God-the living will have someone with influence
in heaven to work on their behalf. One of the
ways to send messages to God and deceased kin
is to place notes in the coffins of dead children.
Saraguro Catholicism adds a further restraint
upon the expression of grief. Children die because
they have been chosen by God to be with Him
in heaven. Furthermorc, Saraguros usc the met-
aphor of marriage-the marriage of the dead chil-
dren to Jesus Christ-to explain the phenomena

that occur when children die, and they express
this metaphor by including certain dances and
other ritual forms in children's funerals that occur
elsewhere only in wedding celebrations. Therefore,
according to the religious ideologyof the Saraguros,
the death of a child should be a source of happiness
and satisfaction to the parents. To reject God's
choice-to grieve over the death of a young child-
would be to show an unacceptable jealousy of
God and His desires.
Saraguros, in fact, do love their children. What
may seem strange to us is that they try to act in
accord with their beliefs-accepting the death of
a loved one because they believe that the loved
one is actually better off. In Saraguro, great love
for children, and the acceptance and celebration
of their deaths, are not manifestations of disso-
nance in the culture, but of consistency and co-
herence-of goodness of fit between ideology,
emotion, and action. But the consistency and co-
herence emerge from a low [health care, sanitation,
and medicalJ technology context in which there
has been a tragically high mortality rate among
young children and infants.
The fit is not perfect in Saraguro. Although the
cultural rule is that people should not feel or
show grief upon the death of a young child, parents
are rarely able to abide by this rule completely,
In the midst of the death celebration, the tears
and grief of the parents, particularly those whose
child was more than a few months old, do oc-
casionally burst forth. The point is, then, not the
perfection of the fit, but the fact that the Saraguro
belief system helps to reduce the pain of bereave-
ment for parents, and helps to reduce the potential
circle of mourners.
Autonomy
We now have a partial context that indicates how
it is that love for children does not necessarily
conflict with the celebration of their deaths. But
if parents love their children, and really do not
wish for them to be hurt or die, how do we account
for the observations that seem to imply a lack of
concern, on the part of the parents, for the welfare
of their children? Why, for example, do they let
them play with knives and fire? Why do they not
make them go to the doctor when they are sick?
A possibility that may immediately come to
mind is that the Saraguros must have a fatalistic
orientation towards life-that God or fate deter-
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 39
mines what will happen to them, that they have
little control over their destinies, and that therefore
they should accept what comes in life without
attempting to struggle against it. This kind of
fatalism is commonly attributed to many Third
World peoples in order to account for behaviors
such as those we discussed here in regard to the
acceptance of the deaths of young children.
Fatalism of this sort is not, however, charac-
teristic of the Saraguros land is probably not char-
acteristic of many of the peoples to whom it has
been attributedl.P The only fatalism assignable
to the Saraguros in general is that after something
happens then they will accept it as being the "will
of God" or "fate. II Their responsibility in life is
to work and struggle for what they want as long
and as hard as necessary. Success in life comes
to the Saraguros not through fate, but through
hard work and a little luck or supernatural aid.
"God helps those who help themselves," is a bit
of Western folk wisdom with which Saraguros
would agree.
Saraguro attitudes-and behaviors-related to
hard work, luck, and supernatural aid are grounded
on an economic base which, as we have pointed
out, is quite strong and secure in Ecuadorian rural
terms, and which still provides opportunities for
expansion, In other words, unlike the situation
in some other parts of the Third World, hard work
in Saraguro is likely to be rewarded with economic
success-and attitudes toward work and toward
the control one has over one's destiny conform
to that reality.
It is "control over one's destiny" rather than
"fate" that is linked to the apparent lack of concern
of Saraguro parents for the welfare of their children.
Saraguros assert that every individual is a unique
and autonomous being, responsible for his or her
own behavior and destiny. Ideally, no one has the
right to give anyone orders, in particular, orders
relating solely to that person's own welfare; no
one should wish to control directly the behavior
of others; no one wishes to be controlled by oth-
ers. 13 This does not mean that there is no way
of maintaining social order in Saraguro. Like res-
idents of small-scale, face-to-face communities
elsewhere, Saraguros are subject to powerful means
of informal social controls. Gossip and ridicule
are the negative agents, and praise and social ac-
ceptance the positive agents, of these controls,
and all together ensure a high degree of conformity
in many areas of life-ranging from moral behavior
and religious beliefs to clothing and hairstyles.
40 Science, Technology, eJ Human Values-FaI11984
But these controls do not include the right of
anyone to tell or order anyone else what to think
or feel or do. Saraguros, then, are autonomous
human beings living in a dense milieu of diffuse
social controls.
Discussion of two domains-work for others,
and community organization-may help to high-
light how the value of personal autonomy is clearly
manifested in Saraguro life. First, when Saraguros
work for other people they insist, where possible,
on doing so only on a contract (piece-work) basis;
they strongly dislike working for hourly or daily
wages. One who works on a contract basis-say
clearing two hectares of land, or weaving six meters
of cloth-can accomplish the task more or less
how and when he or she wishes to do so. Working
for wages, however, assumes the participation of
a "boss" who is concerned that an adequate
amount of work be done for the money paid per
unit of time. The boss in this situation will be
much more concerned with giving orders, of being
in a dominant position vis-a-vis the worker. Sara-
guros do not want any bosses around giving them
orders. Preference for piece-work rather than time-
based wages is probably common among people
who place a high emphasis on personal autonomy.
Many of these people, such as the Saraguros, are
members of low technology societies that have
had simple [noncornplex], household-based labor
organization."
Second, Saraguros have very weak forms of
community organization. The weakness of their
community organization seems to be associated
logically with their strong ideology of individual
autonomy. They are suspicious of any organiza-
tional scheme that might give some people au-
thority over others; this suspicion extends to
elected community councils. Although the gov-
ernment of Ecuador has insisted that rural com-
munities organize themselves formally, and the
Saraguro communities have done so, the people
of the communities feel no obligation to obey
anyone on any council-elected or appointed.
Furthermore, those who are on community coun-
cils refuse to give orders to anyone-no matter
what powers are supposed to be vested in council
positions. Rather, decisions are supposed to be
made on the basis of general consensus and where
there is no consensus those who do not agree with
group decisions are free not to obey them. Thus,
Saragurosoften have difficulty accomplishing tasks
for the good of their communities-for example,
constructing and maintaining trails, roads, bridges,
or irrigation canals. Just as important, Saraguros
have difficulty organizing themselves to prevent
exploitation and abuse at the hands of nonindi-
genous outsiders.
Saraguro children are raised, then, in a society
in which personal autonomy is valued highly on
an ideal level and where it is guarded jealously
on a practical level. Just as the Saraguros exhibit
a coherent, logical system in their ability both to
love their children and to accept their deaths, so
do they manifest a coherent, consistent manner
of viewing, and treating, both children and adults.
In terms of autonomy, children differ from adults
in degree, not in kind-there is no magical age
or phase marking a transition from dependent
child to autonomous adult (except in the spiritual
realm, as indicated above I.
Parents do exercise some direct control over
the behavior of their children, but this control is
gradually lessened as the children grow older. Fur-
thermore, this control is almost entirely restricted
to two arenas of life: children must not hurt other
people, and children must contribute to the com-
mon welfare of the household. Where their own
welfare (the condition of their own person or
property) is at stake, children are left as free as
possible to make their own decisions and mis-
takes-and to learn from them. Parents who let
their children play with fire or sharp knives, or
who do not insist that their children receive med-
ical care against their wills, are not neglecting
their children, accepting fate, nor hoping that their
children die and become angels. They are re-
specting the rights of children to make their own
decisions. And under these conditions, children
learn rapidly to make their own decisions, to deal
successfully and autonomously with the envi-
ronment in which they live. IS At a very early age,
children learn how to handle fire and knives with-
out suffering injury and without hurting anything
or anyone else, and most are quite willing to seek
medical care when they feel sick.
The nature of the environment in which they
live is crucial to this kind of autonomous up-
bringing. In the particular low technology envi-
ronment of the communities of Saraguro, there
is little that is likely to injure young children
seriously and there is little that they arc likely
to damage or destroy. They can, therefore, afford
to learn through experience, and others can afford
to permit them this experiential learning. Although
childhood mortality is high, almost none of this
mortality is linked to the autonomous nature of

Saraguro child-raisingpractices. Children may bum
themselves, they may cut themselves with knives,
a horse may step on them, they might get scratched
by a spiny bush, they may fall off a rock, and so
on, but they are not likely to be killed or seriously
injured from such events. Mortality rates come
primarily from childhood diseases and infections
and, over these things, Saraguros-adults or chil-
dren-had little control under 1960s' conditions
of knowledge and resources. In addition, Saraguro
homes are built with mud walls which will not
bum, and most implements and furnishings in
the home are simple and strong. Children, then,
are not likely to damage valuable objects while
engaged in undirected activities.
All this is quite different from the context of
child-raising in modem technological society.
Parents in modem societies cannot permit their
children to learn by experience not to be run over
by cars in the street. Parents do not usually let
children learn by experience not to be hurt by
electrical outlets and appliances, not to be burned
by a hot stove or fireplace, not to drown in the
tub, etc. Furthermore, the home and other areas
in modem technological societies are filled with
valuable objects that small children can easily
damage or destroy: radios and television sets, vases
and dishes, glass windows, and antique furniture.
The entire home can be destroyed by children
"experiencing" matches or electrical or gas
appliances.
In a low technology society like that of Saraguro,
it is easier to be more relaxed about the behaviors
of children as they explore their environments.
Parents do not have to be warning their children
continually to keep away from that, or don't do
this, or don't go over there, or put that down, or
leave that alone. Nor do they have to devise dif-
ficult alternatives to control behavior (such as
putting all fragile or dangerous objects out of reach
of small children, fencing in yards or stairways,
or creating or learning other subtle psychological
techniques].
Responsibility
Finally, we come to the responsibilities of Saraguro
children. As is true in many parts of the world
where the economy is household-centered-where
the main production units are family enterprises-
children in Saraguro can be seen as economic
assets; they rapidly become net contributors to
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 41
the family welfare. Because of the nature of their
land use and land-owning patterns, this is par-
ticularly clear for Saraguros. The nuclear family,
which is the main unit of production, owns and
uses land in small scattered pieces. In the highlands
alone, one family may have plots scattered 15
kilometers apart, and those who utilize the "jun-
gles" of the upper Amazon basin have holdings
70 or more kilometers distant from each other.
The-utilization of such dispersed resources is fa-
cilitated by a very flexible division of labor in
terms of both age and sex. Father, mother, and
one or more of the children may all be apart from
each other, engaged in productive activities in
separate family plots.l?
Efficient use of such scattered resources in such
a manner is made easier by the two features of
child-raising we have mentioned: autonomy and
responsibility. In Saraguro, the simultaneous
management of widely dispersed resources requires
workers (boys and girls, women and men] who
can make important decisions on their own, both
under ordinary circumstances and in times of crisis.
Independent decisionmaking is a quality most
easily engendered by accepting and respecting the
autonomous nature of human beings from a very
early age. A requirement of childhood responsi-
bility does not necessarily also require a degree
of childhood autonomy; responsibility can be ac-
companied by very authoritarian structures.
Saraguro children are given strong incentives
to accept responsibility (and autonomy). First, dif-
fuse, informal social pressure encourages them to
be known as good, hard workers. Respect and
praise accrue only to children-and adults-who
are viewed as economically productive. Second,
there are not only social but material rewards as
well for the hard-working child. The Saraguros
ideologically justify hard work and the accumu-
lation of wealth as a means to provide a good
inheritance for one's children. All children, male
and female, share equally in the inheritance they
receive from their mothers and fathers. Further-
more, children receive advances on their inher-
itance: cows and sheep which they begin to get
after the age of seven or eight and use to start
their own herds; and land, which they receive in
their late teens or at marriage. Although they will
be chiefly responsible for these animals and land
and willbenefit lrom theirproducts; care for them
is integrated with the general operation of the
family enterprises until they have married and
formed independent nuclear households.
42 Science, Technology, etJ Human Values-Fall 1984
Work by children thus contributes directly and
indirectly to their own present welfare, as well
as to their future welfare as adult members of
independent households-and to their ability in
turn to provide well for their own children. Under
these conditions, "child labor" in Saraguro should
not be viewed as exploitative-and is not so viewed
by either children or adults.
The degree of productive responsibility required
of children fits well into a low technology en-
vironment characterized by gradual childhood
learning of adult tasks through close association
with, and learning from, performing experts such
as parents, older siblings, and friends. Not only
do children learn from an early age to engage in
productive activities, but they can also take sat-
isfaction in being contributing members of society.
Under such circumstances, Saraguro children ex-
press little doubt about their feelings of self-worth.
Furthermore, in this context, children are much
more familiar with the adult working world-its
difficulties and rewards, its problems and how
they are solved-than are children in high tech-
nology societies where the worlds of childhood
and of productive work are more rigidly separated.
No doubt, this familiarity greatly eases the tran-
sition from childhood to adulthood in Saraguro.
Saraguro childhood is, of course, not all drudgery
and hard work. The cyclical nature of agricultural
life, both on an annual and daily basis, gives chil-
dren time to play, to explore, and to interact with
others, and they engage in these activities with
gusto. Some work patterns themselves provide
times of nonwork pleasure. For example, while
caring for cattle in the high pastures, older children
and young adults may take time to doze in the
sun, to talk with neighboring herders, to play
games, or to engage in courtship activities.
Summary: The Low Technology Context of the
1960s
In the low technology context of the 1960s, there-
fore, although deaths of small children were cel-
ebrated, Saraguro children were loved. Children
had considerable autonomy, but not license. Chil-
dren were not exploited, but were expected to be
productive, responsible members of their fami-
lies-in order to provide for both the family welfare
and their own future well-being. Saraguros did
not feel or act as if they should accept their fate
passively, hut felt and acted as if they had con-
siderable control over their own destinies-and
this internal control was extended to children as
much as possible. Although there was a critical
division between infancy and childhood at the
age of six or seven, defined in terms of the age
of spiritual accountability and usually marked by
first communion and gifts of animals with which
children were to start their own herds, there were
no other noticeable breaks or stages along the
dimensions of autonomy and responsibility." Well
before they reached the age of six or seven, children
were being brought up to make their own decisions
and to participate in productive activities. Finally,
these patterns of childhood were all well integrated
into a particular low technology society in which
11) there was a high childhood mortality rate, (2)
the nuclear family was the main production unit,
(3) productive resources were widely scattered,
and (4) opportunities for economic expansion and
accumulation through hard work were available.
Into the Future: Saraguro Children in a
High Technology Context
Ecuadorian society in general has been undergoing
considerable change since the early 1960s. These
changes were accelerated in 1972 when Ecuador
became an oil-exporting country land member of
OPEC) and have included such infrastructural de-
velopments as improved transportation and com-
munications systems, increased construction and
utilization of formal educational facilities, ex-
panded access to health care and medical services
and information, and improved electrification
systems. In addition, there has been a growth in
opportunities for some Indians as Indians to be-
come engaged at higher levels in both regional
and national political, occupational, and educa-
tional structures. And, nonagricultural wages and
prices have risen dramatically in the country as
a whole as a consequence of the infusions of oil
money in the national economy (for example, per
capita GNP rose nearly 500% between 1970 and
1980). However, a combination of declining oil
production and declining world market prices for
oil has given rise to serious doubts about contin-
uing infrastructural and economic development
in Ecuador in the 1980s and has raised fears of
instability and severe economic depression. IS Not

knowing what the future holds, we can only spec-
ulate (in an educated mannerI on how the Saraguros
will move through the coming years and how
current changes will affect the place of children
in Saraguro society.
In Saraguro since the early 1960s, improved
water supplies and sanitation, more widespread
immunization programs, and greater access to
medical facilities have initiated considerable re-
duction in child mortality rates. Infant and child-
hood mortality is still high but nevertheless con-
tinues to decline. Formal education has become
more important to and widespread among the Sara-
guros, in the 1960s few went beyond two or three
years of schooling, now many are finishing high
school and university educations. The possession
of artifacts of high technology systems has in-
creased dramatically; watches and clocks, radios,
tape recorders, motorcycles, sewing mahines,
chainsaws, gas stoves, and cameras are now among
the items to be encountered in Saraguro
households.
Dozens of Saraguros are now engaged primarily
in nonagricultural occupations such as high school
and elementary school teaching, bilingual literacy
instruction, auxiliary nursing, government agency
employment, skilled and unskilled labor, and
ownership of small businesses. Saraguros have
been pushed into these occupations by a continuing
population expansion that has increased pressures
on land resources and therefore decreased the
widespread opportunities to expand agricultural
enterprises; they have been pulled into them by
the fact that nonagricultural occupations are much
more attractive than they were in the past because
of higher inflation rates in nonagricultural than
in agricultural prices and wages in recent years
in Ecuador. Both the push and the pull factors
have operated in a changing national context in
which Indians have been freer to seek alternatives
to traditional nccupations.i''
Both directly and indirectly, Saraguros are be-
coming rapidly integrated into a world of complex,
high technology. In the direct sense, they are not
so much participants in high technology enter-
prises or users of technology in their productive
activities as avid consumers of the products of
modem, technological productive systems [radios,
motorcycles, gas stoves, etc.], In the indirect sense,
the Saraguros arc becoming more heavily involved
in a national milieu that itself is being transformed
by growing integration into the modem techno-
logical world.
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 43
As this integration occurs, the Saraguros have
not shed their ethnic identity. Rather, they con-
tinue to value their status as a unique and dis-
tinctive people. In holding on to their ethnicity,
they do not maintain tradition for its own sake,
they are willing to modify cultural practice in
order to promote, enhance, and defend their ethnic
distinctiveness. Continuing Saraguro ethnogenesis
is stimulated by a higher technology context of
increased information flow-of increased aware-
ness by the Saraguros of what is going on in Ec-
uador and in the world-provided by the current
ubiquity of the transistor radio, by the Saraguros'
greater participation in formal educational systems,
and by their travel to other parts of Ecuador and
adjoining countries."
Death
Declining mortality rates among young children
and infants in Saraguro may lead eventually to a
restructuring of the rules and behaviors related
to childhood death. If the deaths of children become
increasingly rare-approaching the mortality rates
of more "developed" societies-then the accept-
ance and celebration of children's deaths will no
longer play such an important psychosocial role
in helping people adjust to the high frequency of
childhood mortality. If, in addition, the Saraguros
become more involved in the skeptical, secular
(scientific/rational) aspects of the modern world
land some of them already have been], the religious
ideology that helps to rationalize the acceptance
and celebration of the deaths of children will al-
most certainly be weakened. Furthermore, as they'
become more integrated into the modem world,
Saraguros will become more aware of the pre-
dominance of very different ways of dealing with
the deaths of children. As a consequence, they
may be (or may feel) pressured into changing their
own ways in order to conform to modern ideals
and values. We suggest, therefore, that as Saraguros
experience the likely results of greater integration
into a more technologically developed society
(lowered mortality rates, increased secularization,
greater pressure to gain acceptance as members
of an "enlightened" if distinctive group), there
will be a decline in the values, beliefs, and be-
haviors associated with the acceptance and cel-
ebration of the deaths of children, and the deaths
of children will be increasingly mourned by a
larger network of kin, friends, and neighbors.
44 Science, Technology, eJ Human Values-Fall 1984
Autonomy
At least since the Incas and later the Spaniards
conquered the southern Ecuadorian highlands,
Saraguros have been forced to deal with non-Sara-
guro, hierarchical, authoritarian structures in
which individual autonomy was suppressed. Doc-
umentary evidence indicates that in the 18th and
19th centuries Saraguros themselves may have
also been internally organized into authoritarian
structures. However, by the middle of the 20th
century at the latest, Saraguro communities had
become organized internally along strong egali-
tarian lines, with individual private property rights
and personal autonomy being highly emphasized
features of that organization (or disorganization,
as it might better be put)." Thus, although Sara-
guros have "always" had to deal with the hier-
archical, authoritarian structures (governmental
and ecclesiastical] of the outside world, recent
generations of Saraguro children have been raised
in an ethnic group context [where most daily living
and learning takes place) of egalitarianism and
personal autonomy. But greater educational and
occupational integration into the national society
and attempts to organize indigenous community
structures more formally for the purposes of pro-
moting and defending Saraguro interests arc
bringing nonegalitarian, nonautonomous patterns
into daily life and learning among the Saraguros,
For example, many Saraguros now work in au-
thoritarian structures as school teachers, govern-
ment employees, or wage laborers. Children and
young people now may have formal schooling of
from six to more than sixteen years [compared
with the two- or three-year maximum of the early
1960sl. These Saraguros must adapt to new con-
ditions of living, learning, and working. It appears,
at this point, that the rewards of the new struc-
tures-higher monetary remuneration, training for
greater economic opportunities-have been enough
to overcome the reluctance to become involved
in authoritarian structures. In spite of their au-
tonomous upbringing and in spite of the stigma
they suffer as Indians in Ecuadorian society, many
Saraguros also have done quite well in some of
these structures. For instance, most teachers [who
now include Indians, non-Indian Ecuadorians, and
Spanish priests) claim that Saraguro children in
general do better work-in school than their non-
Indian peers. This is reflected by the frequency
with which Saraguro children achieve top ranking
in classes that include non-Indians and is probably
due in part to the work ethic with which Saraguro
children have traditionally been raised.
In addition to the increasing numbers of Sara-
guros who arc being assimilated individually into
authoritarian educational and occupational struc-
tures that arc ultimately dominated and controlled
by non-Sarnguros, the Snraguros are now involved
in trying to create internal structures that will
enable them to defend themselves from outside
exploitation and to promote Snraguro interests.
They face a dilemma in that they desire the es-
tablishment of organizational forms that, on the
one hand, will be effective enough to enable them
to compete successfully with non-Saraguro in-
terests, but which, on the other hand, will not
diminish the autonomous rights of individuals by
giving too much decision making, or implemen-
tation, power to others. Activist Saraguros openly
recognize and discuss this dilemma. So far, they
have been able to operate with some success by
using consensus-based decislonmaktng and im-
plementation forms.
As they increasingly move into all levels of the
more diverse occupational structure characteristic
of a national society that is entering the modem
technological world, the Snraguros will face an-
other dilemma. Although there have always been
inequalities within Snrnguro society, the Oppor-
tunity structure of traditional Saraguro society
was fairly open to all those who were willing to
work hard. Under the new conditions, however,
the opportunity structure will probably become
more unequal, and social, economic, and educa-
tional differentiation will probably be exacerbated.
Internal divisions along class lines, or between
educational/occupational elites and nonelitcs, may
emerge.
We do not know where all these changes will
lead in terms of Saraguro child-raising customs.
It seems probable that as Saraguros become more
integrated into a world where egalitarianism and
personal autonomy arc not much valued in prac-
tice, there will be changes toward a less autonomy-
oriented form of child-raising. The shift would
also be pushed along by the changing material
components of the environment in which Saraguro
children arc brought up. Many of these components
arc either more dangerous or more fragile than
what was present in the traditional Saraguro en-
vironment. Now the children face such techno-
logical hazards as motorcycles, chainsaws, gas

stoves, and electrical networks and they can also
more easily damage the consumer goods of modem
society such as radios, tape recorders, and cameras.
Under all these conditions, then, it will probably
become increasingly difficult for Saraguro parents
to maintain a high level of acceptance of the au-
tonomous nature of their children; there will
probably be a gradual increase in authoritarian
relations between parents and children in which
children will be prepared for incorporation into
a more hierarchically organized world and in which
children will be controlled more rigidly, both to
protect them, and to protect fragile things from
them.
Some of the difficulties engendered by the new
conditions of Saraguro life are reflected in the
following observations made in 1981. These ob-
servations are fairly representative of many that
seem to indicate that the Saraguro parents who
are most involved in the new conditions of life
have not yet developed child-raising practices well
accommodated to the new conditions.
* Children in the new context of occupational
1981 The parents of Incacbo, a bright and
curious child of six, are university students living
in a small apartment in a large city. When we
visit them, we find it difficult to be around In-
cache, confined to the small apartment, with little
to do, he is constantly underfoot, interrupting
adult conversations, running around noisily, or
playing carelessly with anything he can get his
hands on. Although they sometimes appear an-
noyed, his parents do little to controlhis behavior.
The family visits relatives in Saraguro during
university breaks. lncacho doesnot seem to adjust
well to country living; he chases the chickens,
breaks down corn plants, and does not easily
participate in household tasks usually assigned
to Saragtuo children. One day, his grandmother
sends him to take care of the sheep. He goes,
seemingly quite willing to do so. However, the
family soon discovers that lncacho has tired of
taking care of the sheep and is unconcernedly
playing around on the hillside. The sheep, un-
tended, are grazing in the cornfields of the
neighbors.
Responsibility
Incacho, and other children like him, are not only
being raised in an environment that contains more
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 45
hierarchical, dangerous, and fragile elements, but
also one in which it is more difficult to define a
useful role for children. No longer are all Saraguro
children full participants in a family economic
enterprise. Thus, while children of teachers, uni-
versity students, government employees, or some
wage laborers may, and do, engage in activities
that serve to maintain the household in some
ways, they are unlikely to contribute directly to
the economically productive activities (or training
for those activities) in which their parents are
engaged; the nature of their parents' occupational
engagement makes the participation of children
difficult or impossible. Furthermore, as the parents
of Saraguro children engage in these new occu-
pations, and as the children themselves spend
more time in school, children will probablybecome
increasingly disconnected from land unfamiliar
with) the adult working world. As a consequence,
a well-marked-and potentially difficult-tran-
sition period between youth and adulthood may
develop in Saraguro society."
specialization will no longer be likely to learn
their adult occupational roles smoothly and grad-
ually, from parent-experts. Rather, these, and many
other children in Saraguro will be more engaged
in the formal educational process as the primary
training ground for future occupational roles.
Whether given to children of agriculturalists or
nonagriculturalists, schooling raises the costs of
children to their parents, and reduces their con-
tribution to the welfare of the family. And, we
can speculate, it may begin to affect negatively
the feelings of self-worth-of being valuable con-
tributors to the welfare of the family-that has
been engendered traditionally among children in
Saraguro society, unless Saraguros deliberately
devise some new strategies of chid-raising. We
cannot speculate further, however, about what
these strategies might be or whether Sara-
guros will be particularly successful in creating
them.
None of this should be taken to imply that a
"work ethic" will not remain strong in Saraguro
as long as there are opportunities to achieve some
success as a result of hard work (in either agri-
cultural or nonagricultural occupations!. The
problem for Saraguro parents is the smooth in-
corporation of their children into this ethic, given
the. changing context in which children are now
being raised.
46 Science, Technology, etJ Human Values-Fa111984
Summary and Conclusions
In this article, we have shown how the Saraguros
accommodated to high infant and early childhood
mortality rates and how they raised their surviving
children to be both autonomous and responsible
human beings. We showed, furthermore, how their
orientation toward children and child-raising fit
into a particular low technology environment. We
then raised the issue of modernizing change in
Saraguro society, pointing out that as the Saraguros
have become more engaged in the modern world
and its accompanying technological complexity-
and the artifacts of that technological complexity-
what "fit" in the past may no longer "fit" so well
into the present, and may not "fit" at all into the
future.
As childhood mortality has declined, as Sara-
guros as individuals and in groups have become
more involved in specialized, nonagricultural oc-
cupations embedded in hierarchical, authoritarian
structures, as more dangerous and more fragile
artifacts of industrial/technological civilization
have increasingly pervaded the Saraguro environ-
ment, and as children have become more costly
and less economically active, the place of children
in Saraguro society has begun to change. We do
not know how, or how well, Saraguros will ac-
commodate to these new realities. Nor do we
know if the tradeoffs they must make in order
to become more engaged with the modern tech-
nological world will lead to a more satisfactory
human condition in Saraguro. On the one hand,
for example, greater engagement may mean a de-
gree of loss of self-sufficiency, of autonomy, and
of some cultural traditions, and of greater alien-
ation from the fruits of their own labor. On the
other hand, greater engagement will probably lead
to continued declines in childhood mortality, to
expanding economic/occupational and political
opportunities in a wider system, and to increased
access to worthwhile products of higher
technology.
Like members of small-scale societies every-
where, Saraguros probably do not have much
choice about becoming more engaged with the
modern technological world. The question is not
whether they will be a part of that new world,
but how well they will be able to define their
place in that world; how well they will be able
to prepare themselves and their children to develop
and maintain a coherent and satisfactory life within
it; and to what extent they will be able to preserve
and use such traditional values as hard work, per-
sonal autonomy, and responsibility in a changing
environment.F'
Acknowledgments-We thank the Department of
Anthropology, University of Illinois (Urbana-
Champaign), the National Institute of Mental
Health, the Midwestern Universities Consortium
for International Activities, and Michigan Tech-
nological University for funding that made the
research reported herein possible. We also wish
to thank Mary Buser for helpful criticisms of an
earlier draft.
Notes
1. Marshall Sahlins, "Culture and Environment: The
Study of Cultural Ecology," in Robert Manners and
David Kaplan, eds., Theory in Anthropology (Chi-
cago, IL: Aldine, 19681, p. 370.
2. William Ogburn, Social Change (New York: Viking,
1950).
3. Classical anthropological examples of this kind of
study arc Lauristan Sharp's "Steel Axes for Stone
Age Australians," in Edward Spicer, cd., Human
Problems in Technological Change (New York:
Russell Sage, 195211 and Pertti Pelto, The Snow-
mobile Revolution: Technology and Social Change
in the Arctic (Menlo Park, CA: Cummings, 1973).
4. Most research in the area, including that reported
herein, has focused on the 3000 or so Saraguros
residing in the countryside of the parroquia (parish)
of Saraguro. The parish scat is a town also called
Saraguro, it is inhabited by 1600 people, all of them
blancos.
5. In the frequency with which they handle large,
mobile livcstock, the Sarnguros arc similar to pas-
toralists. It is our impression that the Saraguros
have many personality traits commonly found
among pastoralist groups. One of the better known
studies of pastoralist personality is in Robert Ed-
gerton, The Individual in Cultural Adaptation
[Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971).
Charlene Bolton, Ralph Bolton, Lorraine Gross, Amy
Koel, Carol Michelson, Robert Monroe, and Ruth
Monroc, in a paper entitled "Pastoralism and Per-
sonality: An Andean Replication" (Washington, DC:
American Anthropological Association annual
meeting, 1976l have given a similar analysis of a
group of Andean (Peruvian) pastoralists.
6. According to the Junta Nacional de Planificaci6n
y Coordinaci6n Econ6mica [in Division Territorial
de 1a ReplibJica del Ecuador [Ouito: JNPCE, 1971),
p.61!, 92.1 % of all highland rural agricultural land

holdings in Ecuador in 1968 were ten hectares or
less. James Belote, "Changing Adaptive Strategies
among the Saraguros of Southern Ecuador" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Uni-
versity of Illinois, 19841 provides an analysis of the
economic situation of the Saraguros.
7. For details on ethnic relations in Saraguro, see Walter
Schmitz, "Interethnic Relations in Saraguro (Ec-
uador/ from the Point of View of an Anthropology
of Communication," Sociologus, Volume 27 (19771:
64-84; Peter Masson, "Aspectos de 'Cognicion' y
'Enculturacion' en el Habla Interetnica: Terminos
de Referencia y Tratamiento Interetnicos en Sar-
aguro, Ecuador," Ibero-Amerikanisches Archiv, N.F.
9 (1983): 73-129; Linda Belote, "Prejudice and Pride:
Indian-White Relations in Saraguro, Ecuador," Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Uni-
versity of Illinois, 1978; and Linda Belote and Jim
Belote, "Drain from the Bottom: Individual Ethnic
Identity Change in Southern Ecuador," Social Forces,
Volume 63, Number 1 (1984, forthcoming].
8. See James Belote, op. cit.
9. For more detailed data on children and health in
Saraguro, see Ruthbeth Finerman, "Pregnancy and
Childbirth in Saraguro: Implications for Health Care
Delivery in Southern Ecuador," Medical Anthro-
pology, Volume 6(1982): 269-278; and"A Matter
of Life and Death: Health Care Change in an Andean
Community," Social Science and Medicine, Volume
18 (1984, Iorthcoming]: 329-334.
10. For recent cross-cultural views on death and death
rituals, see Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf,
Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mor-
tuary Ritual (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1979); and the book edited by
Maurice Block and Jonathan Parry, Death and the
Regeneration of Life (Cambridge, England: Cam-
bridge University Press, 19821. Such Saraguro fea-
tures of dealing with the death of a child as the
placement of the dead child on a decorated altar,
of calling the dead child a "little angel," the sending
of messages with the dead child to the other world,
and the prohibition against mourning the death of
a child are also recorded for a Peruvian Andean
community by Oscar Nunez del Prado in La Vida
i la Muerte en Chinchero [Cuzco, 1952), pp. 10-
13. For Andean views of death as a process, see
George Urioste, "Sickness and Death in Preconquest
Andean Cosmology: The Haurochiri Oral Tradi-
tion," in Joseph Bastien and John Donahue, eds.,
Health in the Andes (Washington, DC: American
Anthropological Association, 1981), pp, 9-18.
II. In a chapter entitled "The Ritual of Death in Spanish
America" in his book, Culture and Conquest:
America's Spanish Heritage (New York: Viking
Fund publications in Anthropology, 1960), pp. 143-
166, George Foster points out the Catholic, Southern
Belote and Belote: Suffer the Little Children 47
European origins of the celebration of the deaths
of children.
12. For example, the study by Raymond Buriel and
Lydia Rivers, "The Relationship of Locus of Control
to Family Income and Familism among Anglo- and
Mexican-American High School Students," The
Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 23 (19801:
27-34, finds no support for the common idea that
fatalism is a cultural characteristic of Mexican-
Americans. Rather, external locus of control is pos-
itively correlated with extremely low socioeconomic
standing.
13. We follow Eleanor Leacock, "Women's Status in
Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evo-
lution," Current Anthropology, Volume 19(1978):
242-275, in her use of the term "autonomy" to
refer to the condition where those who make de-
cisions are those who carry them out.
14. Preference for piece-work rather than hourly rates
has been noted, for example, by Manning Nash,
Machine Age Maya: The Industrialization of a
Guatemalan Community (Washington, DC:
American Anthropological Association, 1958); see
.also, Gladys Villavicencio, Relaciones Inteietnicas
en Otavalo-Ecuador [Mexico: Instituto Indigenista
Interamericano, 1973), p. 206.
15. See Dorothy Lee, Freedom and Culture (New York:
Prentice-Hall, 1959), for a discussion of childhood
autonomy in several other non-Western societies.
16. "Transhumance in the Central Andes," by Norman
Stewart, Jim Belote, and Linda Belote, in Annals
of tile Association of American Geographers, Vol-
ume 66 (1976): 377-397; "Apuntes sobre Dos Mi-
graciones de los Saraguros," by Anny de Tual, in
Revista de Antropologia (Cuenca), Volume 61I9791:
117-129; and James Belote, op. cit., present infor-
mation on the dispersed nature of Saraguro land-
holdings and the techniques used to exploit them.
In contrast to Saraguro, where dispersed holdings
may be simultaneously managed by individual
members of the nuclear family household, in other
areas dispersed holdings may be managed by small
family units that together constitute an extended
family production-organization. See, for example,
Marshall Sahlins, "Land Use and the Extended
Family in MoaIa, Fiji," in Andrew Vayda, cd., En-
vironment and Cultural Behavior (Garden City,
NY: Natural History Press, 1969). Another alter-
native to the use of child labor is the use of reciprocal
or exchange labor (mingal. Minga participation has
declined greatly in Saraguro sinee the 1960s ac-
cording to Jim Belote and Linda Belote, "The Lim-
itation of Obligation in Saraguro Kinship," in Ralph
Bolton and Enrique Mayer, eds., Andean Kinship
and Marriage (Washington, DC: American An-
thropological Association, 19771. See also, Charles
Erasmus, "The Occurrence and Disappearance of
48 Science. Technology, eJ Human Values-Fall 1984
Reciprocal Farm Labor in Latin America," in Dwight
Heath and Richard Adams, cds., Contemporary
Cultures and Societies of Latin America {New York:
Random House, 19651.
17. In a survey of the literature on childhood in The
Intimate Environment: Exploring Marriage and the
Family, 3rd ed. (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1983),
Arlene Skolnick finds that most cultures recognize
at least one "great transformation," that between
infancy and postinfancy, at around five to seven
years of age. Other transformations or stages be-
tween infancy and adulthood appear to be culture-
specific.
IS. Ecuador is a nation the size of Colorado with a
population of around 8,500,000 people. A good,
short overview of Ecuadorian economic, political,
and social structures is found in a book by Osvaldo
Hurtado and Heman Salgado, Dos Mundos Super-
puestos, 3rd ed. (Quito: Inedes, 1980). See also Nes-
tor Vega Moreno, La Economia Ecuatoriana en la
Decada de los 70 y Perspectivas Puturas (Quito:
La Union, 1980); The World Bank, Ecuador: De-
velopment Problems and Prospects (Washington,
DC: World Bank, 1979); and Ray Bromley, Devel-
opment and Planning in Ecuador (London, England:
Latin American Publications Fund, 1977). Ecuador
has a many-faceted population. The single best
source of ethnographic information on ethnic and
underclass groups as they deal with the changing
national context of Ecuador is the book Cultural
Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador,
edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr.lUrbana, IL: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1981).
19. See James Belote, op. cit.
20. For more details on Saraguro ethnogenesis in a
COntext of greater integration into the modem world,
see Linda Belote and Jim Belote, "Development in
Spite of Itself: The Saraguro Case" in Whitten, op.
cit. pp. 450-476; and Jim Belote and Linda Belote,
"From the Incas to OPEC: A Process of Andean
Ethnogenesis," 1984, unpublished manuscript.
21. For a review of the historical data on the Saraguro
area since the Spanish conquest, sec James Belote,
op. cit.
22. In at least one modem technological society, the
Soviet Union, formal attempts are made to give
children a high degree of familiarity with the adult
working world; see Urie Brofenbrenner, Two Worlds
of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R.(New York: Pocket
Books, 1973), pp. xxi-xxiii.
23. A number of general works have given insights to
us in our thinking about Saraguro. Lee, op. cit., is
one of the most important of these. Philippe Aires,
Centuries of Childhood, Robert Baldick, translator
(New York: Knopf, 19621; Skolnick, op. cit.; and
Brofenbrenner, op. cit., provide interesting insights
into the place of children at various times and
places. Jules Henry, On Education [New York:
Random House, 19661 and Ivan Illich, Deschooling
Society [New York: Harper and Row, 1973) give
critical examinations of the impact of formal
schooling on sociocultural life. Thought-provoking
ideas on the interrelationships between technology
and society are given in E. F. Schumacher, Small
is Beautiful [New York: Harper and Row, 1973);
Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destruc-
tiveness (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
19731; Bernard Gendron, Technology and the Hu-
man Condition {New York: St. Martin's Press,
19771; and Arnold Pacey, The Culture of Technology
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983) among oth-
ers. Some anthropological views of technology/cul-
ture interrelationships are provided by George Fos-
ter, Traditional Societies and Technological
Change. 2nd cd. [New York: Harper and Row, 1973)
and H. Russel Bernard and Pcrtti Pelto, cds., Tech-
nology and Social Change (New York: Macmillan,
1972). Finally, our theoretical orientation has been
informed, although not dominated, by the ideas of
cultural materialism-the assumption that the
material conditions of life have a powerful lif not
totally one-directional) influence on the values, be-
liefs, and behaviors of individuals and on the nature
of the structures of the societies in which these
individuals live. This view has been most prom-
inently expressed by Marvin Harris in such books
as Cannibals and Kings: TI,e Origins of Cultures
(New York: Random House, 1977) and Cultural
Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture
(New York: Random House, 1979).