Note 11 — Chapter V · EL RIO META

Dobrizhoffer, a noted missionary in Paraguay, in his very interesting History of the Abipones, is even more explicit about this superstitious practice. “No sooner,” he says, “do you hear that the wife has borne a child, than you will see the Abipone husband lying in bed, huddled up with mats and skins, lest some rude breath of air should touch him, fasting, kept in private, and for a number of days abstaining religiously from certain viands. You would swear it was he who had had the child.... They are fully persuaded that the sobriety and quiet of the father is effectual for the well-being of the new-born offspring and even necessary.... And they believe, too, that the father’s carelessness influences the new-born offspring, from a natural bond and sympathy between both. Hence if the child comes to a premature end, its death is attributed by the women to the father’s intemperance, this or that cause being assigned. Among these would be that he did not abstain from meat, that he had loaded his stomach with waterhog, that he had swum across the river when the air was chilly, that he had neglected to shave off his long eye-brows, that he had devoured underground honey, stamping on the bees with his feet, that he had ridden till he was tired and sweated. With ravings like this the crowd of women accuse the father with impunity of causing the child’s death and are accustomed to pour curses on the unoffending husband.”11