If the mother's milk runs dry, they use the dried bodies of the little
fish caught in the shallow water of fields and tanks, and sometimes
supposed to have fallen down with the rain. They are boiled in a little
water and the fish and water are given to the woman to consume. Here
the idea is apparently that as the fish has the quality of liquidness
because it lives in water, so by eating it this will be communicated
to the breasts and the milk will flow again. If a woman's children
die, then the next time she is in labour they bring a goat all of
one colour. When the birth of the child takes place and it falls
from the womb on to the ground no one must touch it, but the goat,
which should if possible be of the same sex as the child, is taken
and passed over the child twenty-one times. Then they take the goat
and the after-birth to a cemetery and here cut the goat's throat by
the _halal_ rite and bury it with the after-birth. The idea is thus
that the goat's life is a substitute for that of the child. By being
passed over the child it takes the child's evil destiny upon itself,
and the burial in a cemetery causes the goat to resemble a human being,
while the after-birth communicates to it some part of the life of
the child. If a mother is afraid her child will die, she sells it for
a few cowries to another woman. Of course the sale is only nominal,
but the woman who has purchased the child takes a special interest
in it, and at the naming or other ceremony she will give it a jewel
or such other present as she can afford. Thus she considers that
the fictitious sale has had some effect and that she has acquired a
certain interest in the child.