ABSTRACT
Childhood is usually equated with play, and in Silwa it is the only period in which play and games are tolerated. Organized games form the major part of children’s play life in Silwa. On very few occasions children engage in constructive or imaginative play by making animals, in the case of boys, or pots and jars in the case of girls, or by constructing a whirlwind toy out of paper and a palm-tree branch. Tin lids attached to a long palm-tree stick are sometimes used as wheeled instruments of play.
