Note 407.1 — 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 mode of accounting for the practice may seem defective in that it fails to explain the martyrdom suffered by the Carib father, as detailed by Du Tertre. After the unfortunate father has endured a course of fasting for forty days the relatives and best friends, we are told, are invited to a feast, which they preface by scarifying him with agouti-teeth, and then having mashed in water sixty or eighty grains of strong pimento, or Indian pepper, they wash his wounds with the infusion. Not a sound, however, must be drawn from him by his agony, if he would not be deemed a coward and despised by all.407.1 In like manner, among the aboriginal inhabitants of Celebes, if the first-born be a son the mother bathes the child in the nearest water-course, while the father, fully armed and dressed in his finest garb, awaits her return. In his turn he then goes to bathe, and when he steps out of the water his neighbours are waiting for him to beat him with reeds all the way back to his dwelling. On arriving there, he seizes his bow and shoots three reed arrows over the hut, saying: “I wish much happiness to my son: may he grow up to be a valiant man.”408.1 I do not know whether the Carib ceremony was performed on the birth of a girl, but the Minahassee ceremony is entirely omitted; and the extreme severities of the Carib fast were at all events confined to the first child. The object of the Minahassee father is unquestionable; and from it we may infer that of the Carib. In his person his son undergoes the first tests of his endurance, valour and skill. Success in this is doubtless the guarantee of the child’s courage and of his value to the tribe as hunter and warrior.