Note 425.2 — 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.
Reading edition
Two other examples may be given of widely sundered peoples among whom essentially the same superstition is current. It is believed in the west of Europe—certainly in Brittany and Flanders—that the body of one drowned will bleed on the approach of a kinsman.425.2 The Zulus speak of sympathy by the navel. It is their conviction that a man will recognise his kindred by some mysterious influence of the navel. “A man,” they say, “knows one of his blood-relations by the navel. We have been wondering at the treatment of the man by So-and-so. We thought he knew him; yet he did not know him; he sympathised with him by the navel only.”425.3 Obviously this is the birth-tie.