- H.C.]
NOTE 3. - This is precisely the account which Lieutenant Garnier gives of
the people of Laos: "The Laos people are very indolent, and when they are
not rich enough to possess slaves they make over to their women the
greatest part of the business of the day; and 'tis these latter who not
only do all the work of the house, but who husk the rice, work in the
fields, and paddle the canoes. Hunting and fishing are almost the only
occupations which pertain exclusively to the stronger sex." (Notice sur
le Voyage d'Exploration, etc., p. 34.)
NOTE 4. - This highly eccentric practice has been ably illustrated and
explained by Mr. Tylor, under the name of the Couvade, or "Hatching," by
which it is known in some of the Bearn districts of the Pyrenees, where it
formerly existed, as it does still or did recently, in some Basque
districts of Spain. [In a paper on La Couvade chez les Basques,
published in the Republique Francaise, of 19th January, 1877, and
reprinted in Etudes de Linguistique et a' Ethnographie par A. Hovelacque
et Julien Vinson, Paris, 1878, Prof. Vinson quotes the following curious
passage from the poem in ten cantos, Luciniade, by Sacombe, of
Carcassonne (Paris and Nimes, 1790):
"En Amerique, en Corse, et chez l'Iberien,
En France meme encor chez le Venarnien,
Au pays Navarrois, lorsqu'une femme accouche,
L'epouse sort du lit et le mari se couche;
Et, quoiqu'il soit tres sain et d'esprit et de corps,
Contre un mal qu'il n'a point l'art unit ses efforts.
On le met au regime, et notre faux malade,
Soigne par l'accouchee, en son lit fait couvade:
On ferme avec grand soin portes, volets, rideaux;
Immobile, on l'oblige a rester sur le dos,
Pour etouffer son lait, qui gene dans sa course,
Pourrait en l'etouffant remonter vers sa source.
Un mari, dans sa couche, au medecin soumis,
Recoit, en cet etat, parents, voisins, amis,
Qui viennent l'exhorter a prendre patience
Et font des voeux au ciel pour sa convalescence."
Professor Vinson, who is an authority on the subject, comes to the
conclusion that it is not possible to ascribe to the Basques the custom of
the couvade.
