Note 39.3 — Chapter XV · THE COUVADE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE STRENGTH OF THE BLOOD-TIE—CONCLUSION OF THE INQUIRY INTO THE THEORY OF THE LIFE-TOKEN.

Frazer, ii. Golden Bough, 329. Mr. Frazer also notices that in the Cameroons the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree; but it does not appear how this is believed to arise. Here, perhaps, I may call the attention of students to the following superstitions as yet unexplained. The Makololo of the Zambesi Valley object to plant mangoes, lest they die. (Does the mango in growing absorb the planter’s life?) The native Portuguese of Tette think that a man who plants coffee will never be happy after. Livingstone, Zambesi, 47. In Southern India the person who sows cocoa-nut seed is expected to die when the trees which grow from the seeds he has planted bear fruit. Pandit Natesa Sastri, in i. N. Ind. N. and Q., 101. On Bowditch Island in the South Pacific Ocean cocoa-nuts could only be planted on the king’s death: he who planted them at other times would die. Lister, in xxi. Journ. Anthr. Inst., 54. In Devonshire and Gloucestershire parsley must not be transplanted. Dyer, 3; County F.L., Gloucestershire, 54. I have found the superstition still rife in Gloucestershire.