Note 404.2 — 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.

This long list exhausts not the prohibitions in force on the island of Nias; but we may treat it as a sample not merely for that one island but for many other places, and pass on to a few instances of rules imposed at and after the time of delivery. On the Melanesian island of Saa, both before and after the birth, the father “will not eat pig’s flesh, and he abstains from movements which are believed to do harm, upon the principle that the father’s movements affect those of the child. A man will not do hard work; he keeps quiet lest the child should start, should overstrain itself, or should throw itself about as he paddles.” In the Banks’ Islands when the child is born both parents eat only what it could digest. “After the birth of the first child, the father does no heavy work for a month; after the birth of any of his children he takes care not to go into those sacred places into which the child could not go without risk.” In the New Hebrides “he does work in looking after his wife and child, but he must not eat shell-fish and other produce of the beach, for the infant would suffer from ulcers if he did. In Lepers’ Island the father is very careful for ten days; he does no work, will not climb a tree, or go far into the sea to bathe, for if he exert himself the child will suffer.”404.2 Turning to the American continent, we will take the report of the latest traveller in the interior of Brazil, Dr. Karl von den Steinen. Here let it be noted that the father is so far from imitating childbed, that the mother is, all over South America, usually delivered on the ground, whereas the father lies in his hammock. So it is among the Schingù Indians visited by Dr. von den Steinen. Their opinion was that the father lay in the hammock because he was obliged to fast, and that he took care of the child because he was obliged to remain at home, while the mother went out to her work, rather than from any intention to simulate the natural conduct of the mother. The father it is who cuts the navel-string; and he is not a free man until the string falls off the child. By these and other American peoples fish, flesh and fruit are tabooed to the father expressly on the ground that for him to eat them is all one as if the babe itself ate them. Among the Ipurina he is forbidden to taste tapir-flesh or pork for a whole year. On the other hand, what very much astonished the worthy apothecary of the Brazilian military colony, the Bororó father, when his child is sick, is in the habit of himself taking the medicine provided for the patient. The Bororó father and mother eat nothing for two days after the birth; and on the third day they may only take warm water: if the father ate anything both he and the infant would sicken. The mother, though she attends to her work, must not bathe until her menstruation has returned. The Paressí parents remain in the hut for five days, until the navel-string falls off; and the father is only allowed to taste water mingled with beijú, otherwise the baby would die.405.1 The humorous accounts of the practice among the Tamanacs and Abipones, quoted at length by Dr. Tylor from the Abate Gilij and the Jesuit missionary Dobrizhoffer, need only be referred to here to emphasise the reason given in both cases, namely, that the abstinence described is for the benefit of the offspring. To partake of certain food, to kill any animal, to sneeze, or to commit some other act, would injure the little one.