Listen! You little man, get up now at once. There comes an old woman.
The horrible [old thing] is coming, only a little way off. Listen!
Quick! Get your bed and let us run away. Yû!
Listen! You little woman, get up now at once. There comes your
grandfather. The horrible old fellow is coming only a little way off.
Listen! Quick! Get your bed and let us run away. Yû!
_Explanation._
In this formula for childbirth the idea is to frighten the child and
coax it to come, by telling it, if a boy, that an ugly old woman is
coming, or if a girl, that her grandfather is coming only a short
distance away. The reason of this lies in the fact that an old woman
is the terror of all the little boys of the neighborhood, constantly
teasing and frightening them by declaring that she means to live
until they grow up and then compel one of them to marry her, old and
shriveled as she is. For the same reason the maternal grandfather, who
is always a privileged character in the family, is especially dreaded
by the little girls, and nothing will send a group of children
running into the house more quickly than the announcement that an old
“granny,” of either sex is in sight.
As the sex is an uncertain quantity, the possible boy is always first
addressed in the formulas, and if no result seems to follow, the
doctor then concludes that the child is a girl and addresses her in
similar tones. In some cases an additional formula with the beads
is used to determine whether the child will be born alive or dead.
In most instances the formulas were formerly repeated with the
appropriate ceremonies by some old female relative of the mother,
but they are now the property of the ordinary doctors, men as well as
women.
This formula was obtained from the manuscript book of A‛yû´ⁿinĭ,
who stated that the medicine used was a warm decoction of a plant
called Dalâ´nige Unaste´tsĭ (“yellow root”--not identified), which
was blown successively upon the top of the mother’s head, upon the
breast, and upon the palm of each hand. The doctor stands beside the
woman, who is propped up in a sitting position, while repeating the
first paragraph and then blows. If this produces no result he then
recites the paragraph addressed to the girl and again blows. A part of
the liquid is also given to the woman to drink. A‛yû´ⁿinĭ claimed
this was always effectual.
(HIĂ´ TSUNSDI´GA DIL‛TADI´NATANTI´YI. II.)
Hitsutsa, hitsu´tsa, tleki´yu, tleki´yu, ĕ´hinugâ´ĭ,
ĕ´hinugâ´ĭ! Hi´tsu´tsa, tleki´yu, gûltsû´tĭ,
gûltsû´tĭ, tinagâ´na, tinagâ´na!
Higĕ‛yu´tsa, higĕ‛yu´tsa, tleki´yu, tleki´yu, ĕ´hinugâ´ĭ,
ĕ´hinugâ´ĭ! Higĕ‛yu´tsa, tleki´yu, gûⁿgu´stĭ,
gûⁿgu´stĭ, tinagâ´na, tinagâ´na!
_Translation._