As a consequence, by the time they reach puberty Matsigenka kids have mastered most of the skills necessary for survival.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

While Izquierdo was doing field work among the Matsigenka, she was also involved in an anthropological study closer to home.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

Not long ago, in the hope that our sons might become a little more Matsigenka, my husband and I gave them a new job: unloading the grocery bags from the car.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

The Matsigenka hunt for monkeys and parrots, grow yucca and bananas, and build houses that they roof with the leaves of a particular kind of palm tree, known as a kapashi.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

Ochs and Izquierdo noted, in their paper on the differences between the family lives of the Matsigenka and the Angelenos, how early the Matsigenka begin encouraging their children to be useful.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

In 2004, Carolina Izquierdo, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, spent several months with the Matsigenka, a tribe of about twelve thousand people who live in the Peruvian Amazon.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten

The Matsigenka prize hard work and self-sufficiency.

NEWYORKER: Spoiled Rotten