The development of children among the Xikrin, an indigenous people of Northern Brazil, is examined through the study of their own conceptions of childhood and growing up, along with an analysis that focuses on the way children actively enact themselves on this process. Thus, the paper aims to contribute to the ongoing effort towards recovering those anthropological analyses of childhood among other societies which focus on conceptions of the Self and of the active participation of the child in its insertion in social life, refusing a view of socialisation as the way to impinge on "immature people", which imitate adult life, proper values and behaviours.
anthropology of childhood; socialisation; anthropology of learning; knowledge transmission