ABSTRACT
Implicit in the concept of "growing up" is the idea that children's lives are all about gaining the skills to become successful adults. The term Martu conventionally refers to foraging groups whose traditional estates surround Lake Disappointment, the Rudall River, and the Percival Lakes in the northwest section of Australia's Western Desert. An ethos of self-sufficiency surrounds Martu children. Desert-born adults recall a childhood spent foraging with other children to keep themselves fed while the women hunted burrowed game and men hunted mobile game. If learning and experience account for Martu children's hunting decisions, this would suggest that it takes over ten years to learn to hunt like adults in the sandhill patch. Martu children are active and independent hunters. Their efforts are unsupervised without direct instruction by adults. Their skills and decisions, while praised by their elders, are more directly influenced by other children.
