deliveries and fatal cases do occur exceptionally. The custom exists in
various places for the mother to throw the after-birth into the river or
the sea after confinement (Williamson, p. 178; Seligmann, p. 85). Of the
Mafulu Williamson says that when the after-birth is thrown into the
river the mother gives the new-born child some water to drink. If the
child partakes of it, it is considered a good omen; otherwise the child
is believed not to be viable and is drowned. Williamson thinks that the
purpose of this custom is to enable the mother to choose whether she
wishes to keep the child alive or not. It also may happen that a
childless woman accompanies the mother to the river and there adopts the
child. Wilful abortion also occurs very often, not only in single girls,
but also in married women, who thus keep their families small.
Among the Barriai in New Pomerania the woman is confined whilst sitting
on a log of wood, being massaged from above downwards by an older woman.
The husband is not allowed to be present. The birth generally passes off
quite easily. The navel cord is cut off with an obsidian knife. The
parents may not eat pork and certain kinds of fish until the child has
begun to walk. Disregard of this prohibition is believed to bring about
the death of the child. The parents abstain also during this time from
sexual intercourse. Abortives do not seem to be known, though
miscarriages sometimes occur through the rough treatment of pregnant
women by men (Friederici, p. 89). In Polynesia abortion is generally
produced by women professionally. This is brought about by the use of
certain foods or drinks, by the application of mechanical means, etc.
How widespread feticide is in Melanesia can be seen from a statement of
Parkinson, according to whom in New Mecklenburg quite young girls make
no secret of having produced abortion three or four times. Among the
Jabim (Finschhafen) the mothers present their daughters with abortives
when they get married (Buschan, I., p. 62).
On the eastern islands of the Torres Straits (Australia) the women chew
as a prevention of pregnancy the leaves of Callicarpa, or of a Eugenia
species called _sobe_, also the leaves of a large shrub called _bok_;
but these remedies are inefficacious. Medicines and mechanical methods
are used for abortion. Among the former are the leaves of the
convolvulus, of Clerodendron, _Pouzolzia microphylla_, _Macaranga
tanarius_, _Terminala catappa_, Eugenia, _Hibiscus tiliaceus_, and
Callicarpa. If these do not help, the abdomen is beaten with large
stones, with a rope or twigs or a wand, or a heavy load is put on it.
Sometimes the woman leans with her back against a tree, and two men
grasp a wand and press it against her abdomen, so as to bring about the
delivery of the foetus. This often results in the death of the mother.
On the Easter Island, in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, there were several
men with a knowledge of midwifery, but recently only one of them has
survived. Nowadays older women act as midwives. Walter Knoche writes
(1912, pp. 659 _et seq._): "The birth takes place either in the open or
in the house, the woman standing with legs spread out, or recently in a
sitting position. The accoucheur stands behind the parturient woman,
embracing her abdomen. The thumbs are spread out, and touch each other
in a horizontal position somewhat above the navel, while the remainder
of the hand is turned diagonally downwards. In this way massage is
applied by a slow, rhythmical, strong and kneading movement vertically
from above downwards. When the birth is sufficiently advanced, the child
is drawn out; the assistant bites off the navel cord (among some
Brazilian Indian tribes the husband does this, but on the Easter Island
he takes no part in the delivery); then a knot is made a few centimetres
from the navel. The after-birth is not specially dealt with; it is
buried. The navel cord, however, is placed in a calabash, which is
buried or put under a rock. After the event the lying-in woman lies down
upon a mat in the house, and warm, flat, fairly heavy stones are applied
to the abdomen. Perhaps this is the reason why even women who have had
difficult confinements still preserve a good figure. The infant remains
at the mother's breast for about a year." Knoche also heard that the
women sometimes pass a piece of an alga into the vulva right up to the
womb before intercourse with a stranger, believing this method to be a
very safe one. It could, unfortunately, not be ascertained whether this
precaution was formerly, as seems likely, resorted to generally in order
to limit the number of children, or whether its use was only intended to
keep the tribe untainted by foreign blood. The latter assumption is
contradicted by the fact that "the Easter Island women have children
from strangers living for some time on the Easter Island, and that
nowadays the use of contraceptives in the case of strangers who come and
go quickly may simply be due to the circumstance that at the birth of a
child there would be no man to support it. It is most probable that the
use of preventives had its origin in Malthusian principles. The little
island, whose population has been variously estimated by travellers of
the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century at a few
thousand, must herewith have reached its maximum number of inhabitants,
which could of necessity not be exceeded. Deaths and births had
therefore to balance. This employment of contraceptives in Polynesia is
unique, and it may be truly reckoned as a sign of a higher civilisation,
together with other facts, such as the existence of a script, of stone
houses and of large stone idols, the Moai, which have made this lonely
little island so famous. On the other Oceanic Islands, as, for instance,
on the westward-situated Tahiti, infanticide, committed by the mother as
many as ten times in succession, served to limit the number of children,
either on account of economy or for reasons of convenience.
Contraceptives are otherwise unknown in Oceania."
Of the Jao in East Africa Karl Weule relates (p. 61): "During the
delivery the parturient woman lies upon her back on a mat on the floor
of the hut. The older children and the husband are not allowed to be
present, but a number of older women are there, amongst whom there is
always a near relative of the husband, who takes special note of any
evidence of extra-marital intercourse given by the parturient woman. It
is the chief business of the midwives to submit the woman to a very
strict _questionnaire_: 'How many men have you had, three, or four, or
even more? Your child will not come until you have mentioned the right
father. Yes, you will die, if you do not tell us how many men you have
had.' Such speeches are hurled at the woman from all sides. No
mechanical help is given her. She rolls about in pain, under great
bodily and mental torture, and shrieks and cries until all is over. The
navel cord is cut off by an old woman. Ancient instruments, such as are
used by the East African Bantu tribes, are unknown among the Jao. The
cutting of the navel cord seems to be performed clumsily, for umbilical
rupture, which has become an ideal of beauty in many places in Eastern
Africa, is here frequent. The after-birth and the navel cord are buried,
if possible without a witness. They are considered effective magical
remedies. The new-born child is washed and then wrapped in a cloth or a
piece of bark fabric. A real lying-in is not kept up; the mother gets up
again the same or the following day. Sex intercourse can only be resumed
again with the permission of the village elder. It is only given when
the child can sit up, or when it is six or seven months old. Children
are welcome; twins are no less joyfully received. But infanticide is
said to occur. If, however, children are not wanted, married women as
well as girls resort to abortion. Plant juices are generally used for
this purpose, though sometimes mechanical means are resorted to.
Abortion is in no way considered reprehensible. In order to prevent
conception, the woman puts herself into communication with a _fundi_,
who understands something of making knots. The _fundi_ goes into the
wood, seeks out two different barks, and twists them together into a
cord. Into the cord he rubs the yolk of an egg, for to the Jao the curse
of infertility abides in the egg. He knots into the cord three knots,
saying at the same time, 'You tree are called thus and thus, and you
thus; but you egg, you become a living animal. But now I do not want
anything living.' He then twists the final knot. This cord is worn by
the woman round her body. Boots are also placed under her head at night
to prevent conception. If the woman wishes to become pregnant again, she
needs only to untie the knots in the cord, to put it into water, and
then drink the water. Afterwards the cord is thrown away."
Among the Makua, on the Makonda plateau in East Africa, at the first
sign of labour pains the woman lies down upon her back on a mat in the
house. A cloth is put under her back by the helping women, which is
drawn tightly and pulled up when the pains become stronger. After the
birth the navel cord is cut, not with a knife, but with a splinter from
a millet stalk. Here, as in other phases in the life of man, an ancient
implement has survived for sacred purposes long after the period of its
common use. The navel cord is not tied, but dries off. The removed part
is buried. The lying-in woman remains at home three or four days.
Among the Masai an old woman is always called in as midwife. If the
birth goes on normally, no superstitious or useless operations are
undertaken (Merker, pp. 189 _et seq._). Should an increase of labour
pains appear necessary, the parturient woman is led round by the women
for a few steps, and if this does not produce the desired result light
massage is applied. Only when these remedies prove to be inefficacious
an extreme step is taken: the labouring woman is slowly lifted up by her
feet by several women until her body hangs perpendicularly and her head
touches the ground, whereupon the midwife massages the body in the
direction of the navel. Medicaments are seldom used for hastening the
delivery. Internal manual or operative manipulations do not seem to be
practised anywhere. In the case of a narrow pelvis preventing birth, no
help is available; mother and child perish. The confinement takes place
on all fours or in a sitting position; in the latter case the legs and
the back are pressed against the posts of the hut. For the production of
abortion a decoction of dried goat dung or of _cordia quarensis_ or some
other remedy is used.
Of the Hottentots it has sometimes been reported that the women have
easy births. According to Schulze's inquiries (p. 218), this is not
always the case. The birth takes place in the side position. During very
difficult births the women attempt to widen the vulva of the parturient
woman. If that does not help, the perineum is deliberately torn up to
the anus. No attempt is made to cure the perineal tear, for the belief
exists that it would hinder the passage of the next child. All
manipulations are carried out beneath the skin rug under which the woman
lies. The navel cord is cut without delay; no one troubles about the
delivery of the after-birth. The woman resumes her occupation generally
on the seventh or eighth day. Feticide is not unusual among the
Hottentots. A hot decoction of badger urine, drunk, if necessary, for
several days in succession, is considered an effective abortive remedy.
The procedure itself is characteristically called "drinking and falling"
(Schulze, p. 320).
Among the Uti-Krag Indians of the Rio Doce (Espirito Santo, Brazil) the
woman goes through the labour alone. She disappears in the bush, and
herself bites off the navel cord; after the delivery she goes to the
nearest stream to wash herself and the child, and rejoins her tribe
immediately (Walter Knoche, 1913, p. 397).
Among the Indians of the Aiary, when a woman is taken with labour pains
all the men leave their house, which is common to several families. The
woman lies in her hammock in her part of the house, which is securely
closed by a lattice railing. All the women remain with her and help at
the birth. The navel cord and after-birth are buried immediately on the
spot. After the birth the mother and the child remain strictly secluded
for five days. The husband remains in the house during the lying-in
period, but there is no real _couvade_ (the male lying-in custom).
The women of the Kobéua Indians give birth in the common family house,
or in an outlying hut, or even in the wood, with the assistance of all
married women, who first paint their faces red for the festive occasion.
The navel cord is cut off by the husband's mother with a blade of
scleria grass, and is immediately buried, together with the
after-birth. Of twins the second born is killed, or the female if they
are of different sexes. After the birth, the witch doctor performs
exorcism. The parents keep up a five days' lying-in, and eight days
after the birth a drinking feast is held (Koch-Grünberg, I., p. 182;
II., p. 146).
Among the Bakairi of Brazil, according to Karl von den Steinen (p. 334),
abortion is said to occur frequently. The women are afraid of the
confinement. They prepare for it by drinking tea, and mechanical
measures are also resorted to. The women are delivered on the floor in a
kneeling position, holding firmly to a post. The hammocks must not be
soiled. Women who have had experience declared with emphasis, and showed
by pantomime, that the pains were great. But they soon get up and go to
work, the husband going through the famous _couvade_ (the man's
lying-in), keeping strict diet, not touching his weapons and passing the
greatest part of his time in his hammock. He only leaves the house to
satisfy his physical needs, and lives completely on a thin _pogu_,
manioc cake crumbled into water. There exists the belief that anything
else might injure the child, as if the child itself ate meat, fish or
fruit. The _couvade_ only ends when the remainder of the navel cord
falls off.
Among the Bororo, according to the same author (p. 503), the woman is
delivered in the wood. The father cuts the navel cord with a bamboo
splinter, and ties it with a thread. For two days the parents do not
eat anything, and on the third day they may only partake of some warm
water. If the man were to eat he and the child would become ill. The
after-birth is buried in the wood. The woman is not allowed to bathe
until the reappearance of menstruation; but then, as generally after
menstruation, she does it frequently. Abortion by the help of internal
means is said to be frequent, especially among the Ranchao women. If the
mother wishes to stop suckling, they squeeze the breasts out, and "dry
the milk over the fire, whereupon it keeps away." Medicine for sick
children, which the chemist had prepared, was swallowed by the parents,
as among the Bakairi.
Among the Paressi the woman is confined in a kneeling position, being
held by her mother under her breast. The _couvade_ is also customary
among them.
VI
IGNORANCE OF THE PROCESS OF GENERATION
The mentality of the different branches of mankind varies a great deal.
A good example of this is the fact that there are peoples who do not
know the connection between cohabitation and conception. There are other
tribes, again, who, as we have reason to assume, did not possess this
knowledge previously. In fact, Ferdinand von Reitzenstein thinks that
there was a time when the connection between cohabitation and pregnancy
was unknown to all mankind, and he adduces examples which show that
traces of such a state are to be found in the legends and customs of
many peoples. And, says von Reitzenstein, we need hardly be surprised at
this ignorance of the generative process when we consider that "it is
only since the days of Swammerdam, who died in 1685, that we know that
both egg and spermatozoon have to come together for fertilisation, and
only since Du Barry (1850) that we know that the spermatozoon must
penetrate the egg." The belief in supernatural conception has been
preserved, not only in the Christian Churches, but also in the myths of
the gods in most religions. Originally man could not conclude from the
mere appearance of a pregnant woman that the cohabitation which had
occurred months ago was the cause of her condition. Primitive people do
not bring into causal connection phenomena separated by wide intervals.
Von Reitzenstein writes that primitive people, who generally marry their
girls before the advent of puberty, must have been turned aside from
seeing the connection between cohabitation and pregnancy because these
girls had no children at first in spite of having sexual intercourse.
But to this it may be objected that even the lowest races must have
noticed that pregnancy only occurs after the advent of the first
menstruation. The appearance and abeyance of menstruation must have
formed a step towards the understanding of the generative process. It is
otherwise with von Reitzenstein's objection that by far the largest
number of cohabitations do not lead to pregnancy. Even among
comparatively enlightened races this observation led to the assumption
that some additional supernatural process is necessary for
fertilisation. Among the Australians, the least developed race of man,
the necessity of cohabitation for pregnancy is totally unknown. Baldwin
Spencer and Frank J. Gillen have shown (1899, pp. 123 _et seq._; 1904,
pp. 145, 606) that among the natives of Northern and Central Australia
there exists the general belief that the children penetrate into the
woman as minute spirits. These spirits are said to come from persons
that have lived once before and are reborn in this manner. The belief in
rebirth, together with the ignorance of the generative process, is very
widespread in Australia, _e.g._, among many tribes in Queensland, in
Southern Australia, in the Northern Territory and in Western Australia.
It is now too late to get reliable information in this matter from those
parts of Australia where the natives are in regular contact with whites.
Spencer takes it as certain that the belief in asexual propagation was
once general in Australia.
Among all those tribes by whom this belief has been preserved up to the
present the traditions concerning the tribal ancestors are quite
definite. Among the Arunta, for instance, who live in the district of
the transcontinental telegraph line between Charlotte Waters and the
McDonnel mountains, and among whom ignorance of the process of
generation was first discovered, there exists the tradition that in
bygone times, called _altcheringa_, the male and female ancestors of the
tribe carried spirit children about with them, which they put down in
certain places. These spirit children, like the spirits of the tribal
ancestors, themselves enter into the women and are borne by them. The
Arunta believe that at the death of a person his spirit returns to a
special tree or rock, out of which it came, and which is called
_nandcha_. It remains there until it thinks fit once more to enter into
a woman, and thus go amongst the living. All these spirits are called
_iruntarinia_. But before the first rebirth of an _iruntarinia_ there
arose another spirit from the _nandcha_, which is the double of the
_iruntarinia_, and is called _arumburinga._ This _arumburinga_ never
becomes embodied, but remains always a spirit, which accompanies its
human representative whenever inclined, and, as a rule, remains
invisible. Only specially gifted people, particularly witch doctors, can
see _arumburinga;_ they can even speak with them. Among other Australian
tribes which believe in rebirth, no belief in spirits like the
_arumburinga_ has been traced (compare B. Ankermann, "Totenkult und
Seelenglauben bei Afrikanischen Völkern," _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,_
Jahrgang 50, pp. 89 _et seq._).
There is, however, general agreement in the belief that the ancestral
parents brought into the world the spirit children, who are continually
reborn. Among many tribes, as the Dieri and the Warramunga, it is
believed that the sex changes at every rebirth, so that the ancestral
spirit once takes the form of a male and the next time that of a female.
The conditions are such among the Australians that their ignorance of
the connection between sexual intercourse and propagation is not at all
surprising. Spencer points out that among the Australians there are no
"virgins," for as soon as a girl is sexually ripe she is given to a
particular man, with whom she has sexual intercourse right through life.
In this respect there is no difference among the native women; yet the
people see that some women have children and others none, and also that
the women with children have them at unequal intervals that have no
connection with sexual intercourse. Besides, the women know that they
are pregnant only when they feel the quickening, and that is often at a
time when they have had nothing to do with a man. Therefore they attempt
to explain the origin of children in some other manner, which is in
accordance with the very primitive mode of thought of these
unprogressive people. In this connection it may be mentioned that the
Australian mothers attribute the birth of half-castes to their having
eaten too much of the white man's flour. Therefore old Australians
accept without question as their own the half-caste children of their
wives, and treat them as such. Though the natives of Northern Queensland
know that the animals propagate sexually, they dispute this as regards
human beings, because man, in contradistinction to the animals, has a
living spirit, a soul, which could not be begotten by a material
process. A. Lang thinks that with regard to the genesis of mankind the
psychology of these primitive people has obscured their knowledge of
physiology. According to him, the idea that there is no connection
between cohabitation and generation cannot be considered as primary in
man.
A proof of this ignorance of the fertilisation process among the
Australians is the splitting of the penis practised by them. Otherwise
these tribes, which have a scarcity of women and children, and which
desire progeny, would not perform an operation by which the semen fails
to fulfil its function in the majority of cases of cohabitation. It is
becoming more and more certain that this splitting of the penis serves
exclusively the purpose of lust, and is least of all intended as a
deliberate birth preventative (von Reitzenstein).
Evidences of the ignorance of generation are also to be found elsewhere
in cases where the above-mentioned objection of Lang does not apply. In
Melanesia the connection between cohabitation and conception seems to
have been unknown until lately. R. Thurnwald says that among the tribes
on the Bismarck and Solomon Islands visited by him this connection is
well known nowadays, but the causal relationship is not so clearly
conceived as by our psychologically trained physicians. As a natural
phenomenon conception sometimes occurs and sometimes not. Intentional
and real forgetting, inexact calculation of time, and the strangeness of
men towards women, who are held as inferiors, all make it appear
logically probable that conception can take place without cohabitation.
To this must be added the weirdness of the whole process, which is
therefore given a mysterious interpretation, and also that mode of
thought which connects the young product with the place where it is
found, with the fruits of a plant, and with the young ones of a bird,
etc. Codrington reports the same conditions among the Banks Islanders.
Many tribes of Central Borneo, being mentally and economically far above
the Australian natives, assume that pregnancy only lasts four or five
months, namely, as long as it is recognised externally in the woman,
and that the child enters the body of the woman shortly before the sign
of pregnancy. These tribes of Borneo also do not know that the testicles
are necessary for propagation (Nieuwenhuis, p. 144).
In Africa it has been established, at least of the Baganda, that they
believe in the possibility of conception without cohabitation.
Conceptional totemism, the assumption of impregnation by the animals
venerated as totems, which exists among the Bakalai in the Congo region,
points to a similar belief. Conceptional totemism also exists among the
Indian tribes of North-western America (Frazer, Vol. II., pp. 506, 507,
and 611, 612).