At
Last She Retires Alone, Or Accompanied Only By Some Other Women, To The
Forest, Where She Ties Up Her Hammock; And Then The Child Is Born.
Then in
a few hours - often less than a day - the woman, who, like all women living
in a very unartificial condition, suffers but little, gets up and resumes
her ordinary work.
According to Schomburgk, the mother, at any rate among
the Macusis, remains in her hammock for some time, and the father hangs
his hammock, and lies in it, by her side; but in all cases where the
matter came under my notice, the mother left her hammock almost at once.
In any case, no sooner is the child born than the father takes to his
hammock and, abstaining from every sort of work, from meat and all other
food, except weak gruel of cassava meal, from smoking, from washing
himself, and, above all, from touching weapons of any sort, is nursed and
cared for by all the women of the place. One other regulation, mentioned
by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint; the interesting father may not scratch
himself with his finger-nails, but he may use for this purpose a splinter,
specially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm. This continues
for many days, and sometimes even weeks. Couvade is such a wide-spread
institution, that I had often read and wondered at it; but it was not
until I saw it practised around me, and found that I was often suddenly
deprived of the services of my best hunters or boat-hands, by the
necessity which they felt, and which nothing could persuade them to
disregard, of observing couvade, that I realized its full strangeness.
No satisfactory explanation of its origin seems attainable.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 193 of 1350
Words from 51654 to 51947
of 370046
