Primitive paternity; the myth of supernatural birth in relation to the history of the family

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THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

[LXV.]
[1909]

PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

THE MYTH OF SUPERNATURAL

BIRTH IN RELATION TO THE

HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

BY
EDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND

F.S.A.

AUTHOR OK "THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS," ETC.

C3 R45

o

VOLUME I

LONDON : DAVID NUTT

AT THE SIGN OF THE PHCENIX

57-59 LONG ACRE

1909

Printed by Ballantyne <*^ Co. Limited
Tavistuck Street Covent G^irdcn, Ixindon

PREFACE

In the year 1 894, in the first vokime of a study of The
Legend of Perseiis (3 vols., London, D. Nutt, 1894-5-6),
I examined the world-wide story-incident of Supernatural
Birth. Summing up the results of the inquiry, I sug-
gested that the incident and the actual practices and
superstitions corresponding to it originated in the
imperfect recognition, or rather the non-recognition,
in early times of the physical relation between father
and child. At that time I was not in a position to
carry the conjecture further. It remained, however, in
my mind as a subject for investigation. During the
period that has since elapsed large contributions have
been made by explorers, missionaries, and scientific
anthropologists to our knowledge of savage and bar-
barous peoples in many parts of the world. In the
light of these contributions I now venture to lay before
the reader the case for the conjecture I made sixteen
years ago.

The beliefs, customs, and institutions of tribes in a
low degree of civilisation are our only clue to those of
a more archaic condition no longer extant. They are
evolved from them, and are in the last resort the
outgrowth of ideas which underlay them. When, there-
fore, we find a belief, a custom, or an institution — still
more when we find a connected series of beliefs, customs,
and institutions — overspreading the lower culture we

V

vi PREFACE

may reasonably infer its root in ideas common to man-
kind and native to the primitive ancestral soil. The
inference is greatly strengthened if vestigial forms are
also found embedded in the culture of the higher races.
It is raised to a certainty if unambiguous expression of
the ideas themselves can be discovered to-day among the
lower races. The advance of even the most backward
from primeval savagery has been so great that a large
harvest of these ideas is not to be expected. But the
researches of the last few years have yielded enough, it
is hoped, to afTord a satisfactory solution of, among others,
the problem under consideration in these volumes.

The Legend of Perseus has been out of print for
several years. Consequently I have not hesitated to make
use of the material comprised in the first volume. The
myth of Supernatural Birth is now admitted to be in
one form or another practically universal, and I have
deemed it enough to present as the starting-point of the
inquiry a mere summar}^ of the stories. Of the other
material I have made larger use ; but its presentation
has been revised, and much new and important matter
has been included. The chapters that succeed, occupying
the remainder of the first and the whole of the second
volume, are intended to exhibit the argument from
institutions and customs. Incidentally they traverse
conclusions arrived at by some distinguished anthro-
pologists on the subject of the conjugal relations of
early man. But this is beside their chief object, and I
have abstained from controversy.

HlGHGARTH,

Gloucester,
August^ 1909-

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE STORIES

The subject proposed. Stories of supernatural birth defined. Birth
as a result of eating or drinking. Birth from absorption of some
portion of a dead man. Birth from smell or from simple contact
with a magical substance. Mediaeval and other fancies as to the
Annunciation. Impregnation by wind, by bathing, by rain or
sunshine, by a glance, by a wish Pp. 1-39

CHAPTER II

MAGICAL PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN

It is still thought possible to obtain children in the manner described
in the stories. Use of vegetable substances. The Mandrake. Use
of animal substances. Use of minerals. Sacred wells. Use of
water and other liquids. Ceremonies to obtain a transfer of
fecundity or of the life of another. Bathing or sprinkling. Puberty
rites and taboos of girls considered as means to obtain, or for the
moment to avoid, conception. Conception by sun, moon, stars,
fire. Midsummer fires. The Lupercal. Discussion of the meaning
of the blows by the Luperci, and similar practices in Europe and
elsewhere. Conception by the foot. The attempt to share the
fecundity of another. The virtue of sacred vestments. Amulets.
Contact with sacred stones, images, and other substances.
Marriage rites. Jumping over a stone, broomstick, or other object.
Votive offerings and the throwing of stones. Vows. Simulation.
Belief in fecundation by the eye and ear and by wind. The stories
beliefs and practices disclose an ancient and widespread belief
that pregnancy was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse

Pp- 30-155
vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER III

TRANSFORMATION AND METEMPSYCHOSIS

Birth is often a new manifestation of a previously existing personage.
Ballads and stories in which the dead manifest themselves as
trees. Corresponding beliefs and practices. Transformation after
death into brute-form. The converse transformation of brutes and
vegetables into human beings by birth. Buddhist doctrine of
Transmigration. Celtic doctrine. New birth of human beings.
Belief in multiple souls. Rites to ascertain which of the ancestors
has returned. Naming a child after a deceased member of the
family. Rites to secure a transfer of life. Australian behefs in
re-birth. Warehouse of children. Relation between Transforma-
tion and Transmigration Pp. 156-252

CHAPTER IV

MOTHERRIGHT

Ignorance in the lower culture on the physiology of birth. Such
ignorance was once greater and more widespread than now. For
many ages the social organisation of mankind would not have
necessitated the concentration of thought on the problem of
paternity. Descent was and by many peoples still is reckoned
exclusively through the mother. The social organisation implied by
motherright. Kinship is founded on a community of blood actual
or imputed. The Blood-Covenant. The father not recognised
in motherright as belonging to the kin. His alien position and its
consequences. The Nayars. Combat between father and son.
The Blood-feud. Children the property of the kin. The ; otestas
in motherright. Evolution of the family. The mutual rights and
duties of the children and their mother's brother. Father a wholly
subordinate person. The origin of motherright not to be found in
uncertainty of paternity. Paternity in patrilineal societies

Pp. 253-325

CHAPTER I

THE STORIES

The subject proposed. Stories of supernatural birth de-
fined. Birth as a result of eating or drinking. Birth from
absorption of some portion of a dead man. Birth from
smell or from simple contact with a magical substance.
Mediaeval and other fancies as to the Annunciation.
Impregnation by wind, by bathing, by rain or sunshine,
by a glance, by a wish.

Stories of supernatural birth may be said to have a
currency as wide as the world. Everywhere heroes
(and what nation has not such heroes ?) of extra-
ordinary achievement or extraordinary qualities have
been of extraordinary birth. The wonder or the
veneration they inspired seems to demand that their
entrance upon life, as well as their departure from the
earth, should correspond with the total impression left
by their career. Moreover women desirous of off-
spring are everywhere found to make use of means to
produce conception analogous to and often identical
with the means attributed to the mothers of those
heroes : means that in any case are equally remote
from the operations of nature. To examine these
phenomena, so extended if not universal in their
range, and to determine if possible alike the origin of
the stories and of the customs, is the object of the
following pages.

2 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

The attempts of savage and barbarous peoples to
explain the existence of the universe as they con-
ceive it, or of mankind, abound in tales of personages
in human form, though often monstrous in propor-
tions, who because they are the beginnings of the
race cannot be described as issuing from birth. Thus,
to give a familiar example, the giant Ymir, in the
Scandinavian mythology, was produced by the melt-
ing of the primseval ice ; from his sweat other beings
were produced who became the progenitors of the
Frost-giants ; subsequently the first man and woman
were formed from two pieces of wood. Cosmogonical
myths of this kind are not within the scope of the
present inquiry. As little have we to do with heroes
who were the result of amours between women and
beings of supernatural order, whether in human form
or that of the lower animals. Such heroes were
indeed born. As the children of gods like Zeus or
Apollo they boasted a supernatural parentage. But
though their fathers were no ordinary mortals the
manner of their generation was regarded as taking
the normal course.

Our concern is with children whose mothers gave
them birth without sexual intercourse, and as the
result of impregnation by means which we now know
to be impossible. It will not be necessary to treat the
stories at length. A summary sufficient to mark the
salient points will enable us to enter upon the inquiry
as to the ground of the belief which they embody.
Stories which include the incident of supernatural
birth may be divided into two kinds : Mdrcken, or
stories told for mere pleasure without any serious
credence being attached to them ; and sagas, or

THE STORIES 3

stories believed in as recording actual events.
Between these two classes there is often no clear line
of demarcation. Especially in the lowest stages of
culture it is often difficult to say whether a story Is
regarded as a narrative of facts or not. In either case
we expect to find marvels. In either case the realm in
which the personages of the story live and move and
lave their being is beyond the realm of nature as we
understand it. It is a fantastic world where magic
reigns, where shape-shifting is an ordinary incident ;
Dut it is the world in which the savage dwells. For
lim it is hardly too much to say the laws of nature do
not exist : everything depends on the volition and the
might of beings conceived, whatever their outward
"orm, in the terms of his own consciousness. In such
a world events happen that we know to be impossible.
The conviction of their impossibility however is
arrived at only gradually ; and not until intellectual
evolution has reached a much higher stage can we
distinguish with certainty between the mdrchen and
the saga. Even then when marvels are rejected
as matters of everyday occurrence they are often
held to have occurred in exceptional persons, and
they form the subject of many a saga sacred or
profane.

In this brief account of the stories therefore I shall
confine myself in the main to those I have called
sagas. They are as widespread as the mdrchen ; they
rest upon the same foundation ; they result from the
same view of the universe ; many of them are a part
f the religious tradition of the peoples who tell them.
I hope the selection which follows will present typical
specimens and enable the reader to judge of the world-

o

4 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

wide distribution of the stories and their inexhaustible
wealth.

We will take first the stories in which pregnancy is
attributed to eating or drinking. Heitsi-eibib, the
divine ancestor of the Hottentots, owed his birth to
this cause. In one of the legends a young girl picks a
kind of juicy grass, chews it, and swallows the sap.
Thence becoming pregnant she gives birth to the hero.
In another legend it is a cow that eats of a certain
grass, and Heitsi-eibib is consequently born as a bull-
calf.^ The quasi-divine hero of the tribes of British
Columbia, Yehl, was many times born. His ordinary
proceeding was to transform himself into a spear of
cedar, a blade of grass, a pebble, or even a drop of water.
In this form he was swallowed by the lady who was
destined to bear him.^ The Sia, a pueblo-people of
the south-west of North America, relate that their hero
Poshaiyanne, was born at the pueblo of Pecos, New
Mexico, of a virgin who became pregnant from eating
two pinon-nuts.^ According to the sacred legends of
the Hopi, another pueblo-people, a horned Katcina, a
mythological personage, appeared in a time of re-
ligious laxity and of distress to the oldest woman of
the Pdtki tribe, and directed that the oldest man
should go and procure a certain root and that she and
a young virgin of the clan should eat of it. After
a time the old woman, he said, would give birth to a
son who would marry the virgin and their offspring
would redeem the people. The Katcina was obeyed,

^ Hahn, Tsuni-\\goam, 69, 68.

2 Bancroft, iii. 99, apparently quoting Holmberg, Ethn. Skixz,;
Niblack, Nat. Mus. Rep. 1888, 379. The incident is very
common in stories of the North- West,

^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 59.

THE STORIES 5

and the old woman brought into the world a son with
two horns upon his head. But the design of the
supernatural power was frustrated by the people, who
called the child a monster and killed it. The virgin
also gave birth later to a daughter, whose offspring,
twins, were sacred beings known as Aldsaka. They
however in their turn were put to death, and the
miseries of the people continued.^

Fo-hi, the founder of the Chinese Empire, was the
child of a virgin named Ching-mon, who ate a certain
flower found on her garment after bathing.^ The
ancestry of the present or Manchu dynasty is traced
to a similar adventure on the part of a heavenly
maiden who found on the skirt of her raiment after
bathing a red fruit, placed there by a magpie, and
having eaten it was delivered of a son ordained by
heaven "to restore order to disturbed nations."^ The
story in one form or other is in fact quite common in
the east of Asia. Not less common is it in India.
Of the birth of Raji RasAlu, the hero of the Panjab,
we are told that Rani Lon^n, one of the two wives of
Raja Salbahan of Sialkot, fell in love with her stepson
Puran and because he did not return her passion
traduced him to her husband, who cut off his hands
and feet and threw him into a well. Pfiran however
survived this treatment, and being rescued by the Guru
Gorakhnath, a Brahman of great sanctity, became a
celebrated fakir. Not knowing who he really was

^ Fewkes, Amer. Anthr. N.S., i. 536.

* De Charencey, 204, citing Barrow's Voyage to China.

' James, 31 note, citing a Chinese chronicle; De Charencey,
185, citing Koppen, Die Religion des Buddha; and 195, citing
Amyot, Ambassade memorable a I'Empereur du Japon. The story,
however, is not Japanese.

6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the rani and her husband desirous of offspring came to
him to pray for a son. He induced her to confess her
crime ; then revealing himself he gave her a grain
of rice to eat and told her she would bear a son who
would be learned and brave and holy. That son was
Raj^ Rasalu, a monarch identified with the historical
Sri Syalapati Deva.^ The birth of an older but
equally famous hero, Visvdmitra, is attributed by the
Vishnu Purana to a similar cause.^ Guga Pir, the
Mahratta saint, was born of a mother whose husband
had deserted her, but who received from Gorakhnath
some resin to be eaten mixed with milk. Her father's
mare Lilli, licking round the basin of resin and milk,
also became pregnant and foaled the winged stallion
Lila, afterwards Gtlga's steed. We need not pursue
Guga's wonderful career in detail. Suffice it to say
that this mode of propagating the species was a family
specialty. His mother's sister brought into the
world two sons from two barleycorns given her by
the Guril Gorakhnath ; and he himself was childless
until his guardian deity bestowed upon him a similar
gift, by means of which he obtained from his wife a
son and from his favourite mare the famous steed
Javadiya.^ The traditions of the Malayan Minang-
kabau population of the Highlands of Sumatra speak
of a particular kind of cocoa-nut called niver balai that
had the property of causing pregnancy without fleshly
intercourse. The hero Tjindoer Mato was thus
called in allusion to this immaculate generation.*

^ Temple, Leg. Panj. i. i ; Steel, 247.

* Wilson, V. P. 399 (/. iv. c. 7),

8 N, Ind. N. and Q. iii. 96 (par. 205) ; Elliot, N. W. Prov. i.
256; Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 211.

* Van der Toorn, Bijdragen, xxxix, 78.

THE STORIES 7

Such marvellous tales are not confined to trans-
actions of the distant past. Maba' Seyon is a saint
whose deeds are related in an Ethiopic manuscript
of the fifteenth century, probably written very shortly
after his death. His miracles were numerous. A
barren woman came to him one day for help,
promising that if the Lord gave her a son she would
dedicate him as an offering to the commemoration of
the Redeemer. The saint "gave her some of the
bread of the commemoration of the Redeemer, and
she ate it," and the saint blessed her. So success-
ful was the performance that in two years she returned
with two children.^ A satiric poet of the court of
Earl Eric Hakonsson, a Norse ruler who assisted in
the conquest of England by Sweyn and Cnut, recounts
in one of his lampoons that a nameless lady ate " a
fish like a stone-perch, soft of flesh," which " came
ashore with a tide on the sand." The outward and
visible signs of her resulting pregnancy are described
with gusto. She gave birth to a boy, "a currish
morsel. "2 This lampoon, if not based on actual gossip
respecting the persons intended to be satirised, is at
all events evidence that such a birth was not then
reckoned impossible. A story current in Iceland
in the middle of the last century witnesses to the
same belief. It is that a lady of rank who desired to
have a child laid herself down at a brook, on the
advice of three women who appeared to her in a
dream, and drank from it. In so doing she contrived

■*■ Lady Meux Manuscript No. i. The Lives of Maba' Seyon and
Gabra Krastos. The Ethiopic Texts edited with an English trans-
lation by E. A. Wallis Budge, M.A. Litt.D. (London, 1898, 64.)

^ Corp, Poet. Bor. ii. 109.

8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

that a trout came swimming straight into her mouth.
She swallowed the fish and her wish was by that means
fulfilled/ The three women of the lady's dream are ob-
viously mythological figures of pre-christian antiquity.
In the modern European marchen belonging to the
cycle of Perseus, one of the favourite agencies of
conception is a fish. The typical story comes from
Brittany, and is called the King of the Fishes. A
poor and childless fisherman once caught in his net a
fish whose scales shone like gold. It prayed for life,
which was granted and the fisherman obtained a
bountiful catch in exchange. But the fisherman's wife
desired to eat the King of the Fishes ; and when her
husband again caught it he was not to be moved by
its supplications. The fish then directed its captor to
gives its head to his wife to eat, and to throw the scales
into a corner of his garden and cover them with earth,
promising that his wife should give birth to three
beautiful boys with stars on their foreheads, and that
from its scales should grow three rose-trees correspond-
ing to the three children. One of the rose-trees was
to belong to each of the boys and to become his life-
token, so that when he should be in danger of death
his tree should wither.^ In some variants parts of the
fish are to be given to the fisherman's mare and his
bitch, which accordingly bring forth young to the
number of the children. Beyond the limits of
Europe the Tupis of Brazil in one of their sacred
legends represent a supernatural being as fertilising a
young virgin by the gift of a mysterious fish ; ^ and in

^ Bartels, Zeits, Ethnol. xxxii. 54, citing Arnason.
2 Sebillot, Contes Pop. i. 124 (Story No. 18).
^ Denis, 94.

THE STORIES 9

Samoa a similar incident occurs.^ Flesh-meat is more
common as a fecundating substance in North American
tradition.^ It is significant in this connection that the
ordinary mode of wooing in many of the North
American tribes was by gift of the produce of the
chase.

In Ireland the legends of supernatural birth date
back to heathen times although not put into writing
until after Christianity had become the dominant
religion. We have space only for one or two. In
the saga entitled " Bruden da Derga," Etdin, the
daughter of a more famous heroine of the same name,
was married to Cormac, King of Ulaid. Being barren
she applied to her mother, who made her some pottage.
She ate it ; but the result was not wholly satisfactory,
for she gave birth to a daughter, whereas Cormac
desired a son. No other child was born ; consequently
he forsook her.^ The births both of Conchobar and
his sister's son Cuchulainn were ascribed to their
mothers having drunk water and swallowed worms in
the draught.* Of another sister of Conchobar it is
quaintly said that she " suffered from hesitation of

^ von Bulow, Internat. Arch. xii. 67.

^ Boas, Kathlamet Texts, 155 ; Kroeber, Univ. Cat. Pub. iv. Amer.
Arch. 199, 243; Catlin, i. 179 {cf. Will and Spenden, Peabody Mus,
Papers, iii. 139, 142).

3 The Sack of Da Derga's Hostel, Translated by Prof. Whitley
Stokes, Rev. Celt. xxii. 18.

* Rev. Celt. vi. 179; D'Arbois de Jubainville, Epopee Celt. 16;
both translating MSS. of the fourteenth century now in the library
of the Royal Irish Academy; Rev. Celt. ix. 12 ; D'Arbois, op. cit.,
37, translating Leabhar nah Uidhre (Book of the Dun Cow), MS.
dating back to about the year 11 00. According to one account
however, Dechtire, Conchobar's sister, succeeded in vomiting the
creature forth '■^ and thus becoming virgin again" She then con-
ceived in the ordinary course.

lo PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

offspring, so that she bore no children." A certain
Druid, however, promised her offspring if his fee were
good enough. On her accepting the terms, he fared
with her to the well and there he "sang spells and
prophecies over the spring. And he said : ' Wash
thyself therewith and thou will bring forth a son ; and
no child will be less pious than he to his mother's kin
to wit, the Connaught-men.' Then the damsel drank
a draught out of the well, and with the draught she
swallowed a worm, and the worm was in the hand of
the boy [sc. whom she thereby conceived] as he lay
in his mother's womb, and it pierced the hand and
consumed it." The boy was Conall Cernach.^ As
Irish civilisation advanced, however, such incidents
were frequently softened into mere dreams. Thus the
Irish life of Saint Molasius of Devenish preserved to
us in a manuscript written probably from dictation in
the sixteenth century presents the holy man's mother as
dreaming " that she got seven fragrant apples and the
last apple of them that she took into her hand her
grasp could not contain it for its size ; gold (as it
seemed to her) was not lovelier than the apple." Her
husband interprets the dream of " an offspring excellent
and famous, with which the mouths of all Ireland shall
be filled : " an interpretation justified of course by the
saint's birth. We can hardly doubt that as the story
was originally told Molasius was the direct result of
his mother's eating an apple. The same manuscript
indeed contains an account of his blessing a cup of
water and giving it to a childless woman to drink with

^ Nutt, Bran, ii. 74, quoting translation in Whitley Stokes' Irische
Texie of an eleventh-twelfth century work.

THE STORIES li

intent that she should thereby become pregnant ; and
" the very noble bishop Finnacha " was the result/

But not merely animal and vegetable substances,
even stones have been described as fructifying women.
We have already found an instance of this in the
traditions of the north-western tribes of Canada.
The Aztecs too attributed the birth of their famous
god Quetzalcoatl to a precious green stone, identified
by Captain Bourke with the turquoise, but perhaps
rather jade, which his mother Chimalma found one day
and swallowed.^ A pearl fell into the bosom of a girl
and she swallowed it, as the Chinese tell, with the
result that a boy was born (according to one version,
from her breast) who afterwards became the great
emperor Yu.^ In the extreme north-east of Asia in a
lower stage of culture than the Chinese or the Aztecs,
the Koryaks report similar incidents. For example,
two incautious ladies, we are told, found an arrow and
ate it. Thereafter one of them gave birth to a son
with five fingers, and the other to a daughter with
only three.* In India the Jain Kathdkofa, or Treasury
of Stories, relates that a female servant who had
become a devout convert having died, " her soul was
conceived again " by Jayd the wife of King Vijaya-
varman. " At that moment the Queen saw a flaming
fire enter her mouth. The next morning she told the
King, who said : * Queen, you will have a truly

^ Silva Gad. ii. 19, 23, translating MS. in the British Museum.
Stories of dreams of this kind are common as an alternative to the
more materialistic concept. The dreams of Athelstan's mother and
Cyrus' mother are the best-known examples of a numerous class.

^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 590, quoting Mendieta.

' Da Charencey, 202.
Jochelson, /fs«/> Exped. vi. 214.

12 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

remarkable son.' " And the epithet was certainly
justified by the account which follows of that son's
adventures in the process of securing a harem/ The
Celtic saint Aidan or Maedoc was born of a star which
fell into his mother's mouth while she slept.'

In various parts of the world stories have been told
of women who have been fertilised by semen imbibed
through the mouth or even through the nose. An
Irish manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth
century tells us that Cred the daughter of Rondn,
King of Leinster, gathered cress on which the sperma
genitale of a certain robber Findach by name had just
fallen and ate it, " and thereof was born the ever-
living Boethin." ^ We need not dwell on this unsavoury
subject. Let it suffice to say that stories containing
this incident are found among the Salish of North
America, among the ancient Peruvians, and repeatedly
in India. The Gipsies of Southern Hungary tell a tale
of a woman who was transformed into a fish as a
punishment for repulsing Saint Nicholas when he
appeared to her as a beggar. She was condemned to
remain in that form until impregnated by her husband.
This was effected by devouring a leaf on which some
of his spittle had fallen.**

The drinking of water or some other liquid is a
frequent cause of impregnation. The birth of
Zoroaster is attributed in a Parsee work of the ninth
century a.d. to his mother's drinking of homa-juice and

^ Tawney, Kathako^a, 64.
a Rev. Celt. v. 275.

2 Prof. Whitley Stokes, Rev. Celt. ii. 199, translating the Leabhar
breacj a MS. now in the Royal Irish Academy.
* von Wlislocki, Volksdicht, 300.

THE STORIES 13

cow's-milk infused with his guardian spirit and glory.*
The mother of Nanabozho, the culture-hero of the
Lenape of the Delaware, became pregnant in conse-
quence of drinking out of a creek." One rainy autumnal
night a woman of Annam put an earthen vessel to re-
ceive the drippings of her roof and saw a star fall into
the vessel. She drank the water and became pregnant.
She was delivered of three eggs from which three ser-
pents were hatched. They were heavenly genii, and
/two of them are still worshipped as the tutelary divinities
of the village in which they were born.^

Almost any portion of a human body may be
possessed of fructifying power. The mdrchen attribute
it variously to a hermit's heart cooked and eaten, to
the gratings of a bone found in the churchyard or to
the ashes of a burnt skull. According to a manuscript
in the Khedivial Library at Cairo a bone crushed in
/the hand of a man and thrown on the dungheap grew
up into so fine a tree that no one had ever seen the
like. His daughter desired to see this tree. Drawing
nigh to it she embraced it and kissing it took a leaf in
her mouth. As she chewed it she found the taste
sweet and agreeable and accordingly swallowed it.
At the same instant she conceived by the will of God.*
The analogy of other stories leads to the belief that
the tree here is neither more nor less than a trans-
formation of the man from whose bone it grew. The
oldest known story wherein transformation of this kind
forms an incident is the Egyptian tale of the Two

^ Sacred Books, v. 187. See a curious tradition concerning the
birth of St, John the Baptist, cited by Saintyves, Les Vierges Meres,
263. ^ Brinton, Lenape, 131.

^ hatxidts, Annam., 12. * Oestrup, 26.

14 PJIIMITIVE PATERNITY

Brothers. The manuscript now in the British Museum
was written by the scribe Enna, or Ennana, and
belonged to the monarch Seti II., of the nineteenth
dynasty, before he came to the throne. We have
the story therefore in the shape it bore about the
earlier half of the thirteenth century before Christ. It
is long, and I have only space for the material points.
Bata, the hero, is betrayed by his wife, who becomes
the King's mistress and by her advice causes the king
to put her husband to death. Bata's brother, however,
restores him to life, and he assumes the form of a great
bull with all the sacred marks. In this form he obtains
an opportunity to make himself known to his wife. She
for her part was by no means pleased to see him ; and
having wheedled an oath out of the king that he
would grant her whatsoever she asked, she demanded
the bull's liver to eat. As he was being slain two
drops of his blood fell upon the King's two door-posts,
and forthwith grew up two mighty persea-trees. One of
these trees spoke to the King's mistress, accusing her
of her crimes and declaring : " I am Bata, I am living
still, I have transformed myself." She persuaded the
King to cut the trees down ; but while she stood by
to watch, a splinter flew off and entering her mouth
rendered her pregnant. In due time she gave birth to
a son, who was none other than a new manifestation
of Bata. When at the King's death he succeeded to
the throne he summoned the nobles and councillors ;
his wife was brought to him and he had a reckoning
with her.^

* Records of the Pasty ii. 137; Maspero, 3; Le Page Renouf,
Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xi. 184. Bata and his brother were wor-
shipped at Cynopolis. The former, whose name means " the soul

THE STORIES 15

Bata's metamorphoses are parallel to a long series
of similar adventures found in mdrchen and saga all
over the world. For the present we confine ourselves
to a few examples in which birth is occasioned by a
woman's consumption of some portion of a dead
human body. The twin heroes of the Bakairi of
Central Brazil owed their origin to a woman who was
married to a jaguar. In her husband's house she
found many finger-bones ; for the jaguar was ac-
customed to kill and eat Bakairi and to make his
arrow-heads from their finger-bones. Two of these
bones she swallowed ; and the story expressly says that
it was from them and not from her husband that she
became pregnant.-^ Among the legends current in classi-
cal times of the birth of Bacchus was one that claimed
him as the son of Jupiter and Proserpine, According
to this story he was torn in pieces by the Titans, but
his heart was pounded up and given by Jove in a drink
to Semele, whence he was born again of her.^ The
story with some slightly different details was told in
connection with the Orphic mysteries in order to
identify Zagreus and Dionysus but it is probably in
origin independent of them and was only seized upon
and adapted to their requirements as stories have been
in all ages and by all religions. At all events, as
Prof. Jevons observes, the incident " in which some
one by swallowing a portion of the bodily substance of
the hero becomes the parent of the hero in one of his
re-births . . . must have been familiar to the average
Greek, else it would not have proved so successful as

of the loaves," seems to have been identified with Osiris, and the
latter with Anubis {Rev. Hist. Rel. Ivii. 89).

^ von den Steinen, 372. ^ Hyginus, fab. 167.

i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

an explanation of the fundamental identity of Zagreus
and Dionysus." ^ The relics of Christian saints and
martyrs have a special procreative virtue. A Nestorian
legend edited from a Syriac text by Dr. Wallis Budge
relates that a certain man whose name was Zedkoi of
the village of Perath was deprived of the blessing of
children. He came with his wife to Rabban Bar
*Idti and with bitter and sorrowful tears besought his
help. On the promise if she have three sons to give
one of them to the holy man, the latter says to the
woman : " My daughter, take these three little cakes
of martyr's dust and go to thy house in faith, and each
day take one little cake." Her compliance is rewarded
by the birth of a son, whom she sets apart in payment
of her vow, and by the subsequent birth of two more
boys.^ In a Breton legend the Apostle Philip is burnt
to death in obeying a command of the Saviour to set
fire to a chapel. "Poor Philip!" says the Saviour;
" but let us see if we cannot find any remains of him,
any piece of calcined bone." He finds a piece of bone
which has the shape of a soup-spoon, and puts it in his
pocket. That evening He comes with Peter and John
to a farmer's house. They are well received ; but there
are only two spoons. The Saviour produces the bone
and asks the servant-maid if the soup is good. " I
think so," she replies. "But have you tasted it?"
"No." "Then take a spoonful to see." And He
gave her a spoonful of soup, but she swallowed the
bone-spoon and all. "Good God!" she exclaimed,
" I have swallowed the spoon. I don't know how
that happened." Of that spoon she became pregnant,

^ Jevons, Introd. 556,

^ Budge, Rabban Hormuzd, ii, 262.

THE STORIES 17

and was turned out of the house. In a stable on the
straw she gave birth to a magnificent boy who was no
other than Saint Philip born again/

In tales of both hemispheres women are represented
as conceiving by smell or by simple contact of the
magical substance. When from the blood of the
mutilated Agdestis a pomegranate-tree sprang up,
Nana the nymph gathered and laid in her bosom some
of the fruit wherewith it was laden, and hence in the
belief of the Greeks, Attis was born.^ Danae conceived
Perseus through the shower of gold. The ancestress
of one of the clans of the Lynngams in the Khasi Hills
of Assam was conceived by the touch of a flower which
fell on her mother as she slept.^ A legend of the
island of Tanah- Papua relates that the hero Konori
owed his birth to a marisbon-fruit flung on the breast of
a maiden.* Coatlicue, the serpent-skirted, was the
mother of Huitzilopochtli, one of the great Aztec
deities. A little ball of feathers floated down to her
through the air. She caught it and hid it in her
bosom ; nor was it long before she found herself
pregnant.^ Further north, in a Wichita tale, a man of
extraordinary powers contrives that a maiden shall
pick up and put in her bosom a small bone-cylinder or
pipe-bone, such as used to be worn round the neck.
It disappears and she becomes pregnant without

^ Luzel, Leg. Chret. i. 44.

' Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, v. 6; Pausanias, vii. 17 (5). According
to the latter the tree was an almond-tree.

2 Gurdon, 195.

* Bastian, Indonesien, ii. 35 ; cf. Featherman, Papuo-Mel. 43.

^ Bancroft, iii. 296, quoting Torquemada ; Brinton, Essays, 94 ;
G. Raynaud, Rev. Hist. Rel. xxxviii. 279, 280, quoting a hymn
preserved by Sahagun.

i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

having been embraced by a man.^ In a Hopi story a
young woman is fecundated by wet clay while she is
kneading and trampling it to prepare it for making
pottery.^ Servius commenting on the y^neid has
preserved the legend that Caeculus the founder of
Praeneste, was conceived by a spark that leaped into
his mother's bosom. In India we hear of a woman
who was fertilised by happening to sit down on a rock
on which the childless Rajd Bhishma had lain and
slept.^

More direct masculine action is sometimes invoked.
The Buddhist Birth-stories comprise a narrative to
which we shall have occasion to refer in another
connection, wherein a childless queen is impregnated
by a divine being by means of the touch of his thumb.*
Sagas from New Guinea and British Columbia repre-
sent impregnation as effected by the finger.^ The
saliva of the lynx in a tale told by the Indians o
Thompson River falling on a girl's navel causes|
conception.^ The Todas tell how an eagle fertilised
woman by sitting on her head. In another story
Toda divinity knocks a woman on the head with a
iron stick which he habitually carries, and at once sh
becomes pregnant.' In a Balochi tale a remarkabl
boy is begotten, as he himself subsequently assure
his mother's husband, by the shadow of AH, of who
the Balochis are devoted followers. The lady'
husband was away at Delhi with his army. As sh
was one day washing her head a shadow passed i

^ Dorsey, Wichita, 172. 2 Voth, 155.

3 N. Ind. N. and Q. iii. 141 (par. 297).

* Jdtaka, V. 144 (Story No. 531).

^ /. A. L XIX. 465 J Boas, Ind. Sag. 198.

' Teit, 37 ' Rivers, 196, 191.

THE STORIES 19

front of her and disappeared ; from that shadow the
child was born.^

Conception takes place sometimes by the hand or
the foot. Hun Ahpu and Xbalanque, the twin divinities
honoured by the Quiche of Central America, were born
in consequence of the head of their murdered father
spitting into a maiden's hand.^ A similar incident is
told by the people of Annam concerning an historical
personage who was put to death in the year 1443 of
our era.^ In China the Skih-KingvQ\dl&s of Hau-A'i, the
ancestor of the kings of Aan, that his mother Alang-
Ytian was childless until she trod on a toe-print made
by God. That instant she felt moved ; she conceived
and at length gave birth to a son. The poet does not
mention her husband, and the common Chinese tradi-
represents her as a virgin.^

Impregnation by an unusual part of the body is
in fact by no means a rare incident in sacred and
historical traditions. During the Middle Ages it seems
to have been seriously believed — at all events the idea
was current — respecting the conception of Jesus
Christ. The Fathers had dwelt upon the physio-
logical details of the Incarnation with prurient
rudeness. They were as familiar with at least the
negative results of the miracle, as minute and positive

1 Dames, 138.

2 Popol Vuh, 89. ; Journ. Am. F. L., xx. 148.

3 Landes, Annam-. 63. In two Yana myths from California a
child originates directly from masculine spittle without female
intervention (Curtin, Creation Myths, 300, 348).

* Sacred Books, iii. 396. There seems some ambiguity in the
word translated God (see Rev. Hist. Rel. xli. 11 ; xliii. 137). The
historian Se-ma-thsien, who flourished in the middle of the second
century B.C., relates that iTiang Yiian became pregnant by walking
on the footsteps of a giant (De Charencey, 199).

20 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in their descriptions, as if they had made an obstetrical
examination. In their zeal for the virginity of the
Saviour's mother they insisted that he was conceived
and born without any physical changes in the body
that bore him.^ This naturally led to speculation on
the manner of this conception. Grave divines like
Saint Augustine asserted that " God spake by the
angel and the Virgin was impregnated through the
ear." ^ The hymn of Saint Bonaventura phrases it

Gaude Virgo, mater Christi,

Quae per aurem concepisti,

Gabriele nuntio.

Painters represented the Holy Ghost as entering at
Mary's ear in the shape of a dove, or hovering over
her while a ray of light along which the babe is de-
scending passes from his beak to her ear.^ Other
opinions, however, seem to have contended for
popularity with this. In the chapel of the Palazzo
Pubblico at Siena, for example, are benches carved
by Domenico di Niccolo, the backs of which are
inlaid with intarsia work illustrating the Nicene Creed.
One of them shows the Annunciation with a full-
formed babe descending in rays from the Father's
outstretched finger. The Church of the Magdalen at
Aix in Provence contains a picture, attributed t(

^ Lucius, Anfdnge^ 427, The context of the passage just citec
from the Shih King asserts the same phenomenon of Hau K\^\
birth : " There was no bursting nor rending, no injury, no hurt
showing how wonderful he would be."

' Several passages from the Fathers are collected by Maury, Leg
Pieuses, 179 note.

^ L^cky, Rah'onalism, i. 232; Elworthy, Evil Eye, 322. Th
hymn was popular, whether written by the gentlest or the mos
arrogant of mediaeval saints.

THE STORIES 21

Albert Diirer, wherein waves of glory descend from
God the Father, and in the midst of them a micro-
scopic babe floats down upon the Virgin. These
works of art leave the precise channel of impregnation
vague. They embody an opinion which seems to have
been common in the fifteenth century, namely, that
Our Lord entered already completely formed into the
Virgin's womb — an opinion which orthodox theo-
logians in their perfect acquaintance with the divine
arrangements were able summarily to pronounce
heretical. A picture by Era Filippo Lippi, painted
for Cosmo de' Medici and now in the National Gallery,
exhibits the Virgin seated in a chair with her Book of
Hours in her hand. The angel bows before her.
Above is a right hand surrounded with clouds. A
dove, cast from the hand amid circling floods of glory,
is making for the Virgin's navel and is about to enter
it ; while she, bending forward, curiously surveys it.
So Buddha in the form of a white elephant entered
his mother's right side.^ The parallel is instructive.
Mohammedan tradition, it may be added, ascribes the
miraculous conception by the Virgin to Gabriel's
having opened the bosom of her shift and breathed
upon her womb.^ In like manner one of the variant
legends of the birth of the Aztec divinity, Quetzalcoatl,
relates that the Lord of Existence, Tonacatecutli
appeared to Chimalma and breathed upon her,

^ Sacred Books, xix. 2 ; Rhys Davids, Birth Stories, 63, trans-
ating the Niddna Kathd ; Id. Buddhism, 183. In the earlier
iccounts the incident appears only as a dream ; later it is soberly
related as a fact. A similar story is told in China of Laotzij ; but it
s probably borrowed from Buddhist tradition.

^ Sale, Koran, note on ch. xix. citing Arab authors.

22 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

thereby quickening life within her, so that she bore
Quetzalcoatl/

Wind has been deemed sufficient to cause the
birth of gods and heroes. The examples most
familiar to us are those of Hera, who conceived
Hephaistos without male concurrence by simply
inhaling the wind, and of the maiden (in Longfellow's
poem called Wenonah) who was quickened by the
west wind and bore Michabo, the Algonkin hero better
known to us as Hiawatha. The incident appears in
the mythology of more than one American people. In
the Finnish Kalevala the virgin Ilmatar is fructified
by the east wind and gives birth to the wizard Vaina-
moinen.^ The Minahassers of Celebes claim to be de-
scended from a girl in primseval days who was
fecundated by the west wind.^ According to the
tradition current in the Luang-Sermata group of islands
in the Moluccas the earth and the sky were once
nearer together than they are now. The sky was
then inhabited, but not the earth. One day, however,
a sky-woman climbed down along a rotan-palm-tree
whose root is still shown turned to stone on the
island of Nolawna. Arrived on earth she was im-
pregnated by the south wind and bore many children,
who had access to the sky, until the Lord Sun, as the
result of strife with them, cut the rotan in two.^ In a

^ Brinton, Amer. Hero-Myths, 90 ; Bancroft, iii. 271 ; both citing
the Mexican Codex in the Vatican and the Codex Telleriano-
Remensis. See also Preuss, Globus, Ixxxvi. 362, who claims that
according to Mexican belief the masculine breath was necessary to
conception,

2 Kalevala, runes i. xlv. ; cf. Abercromby. Finns, i. 316, 318, 322.

' J. A. T. Schwarz, Int. Arch, xviii. 59.

* Riedel, 312.

THE STORIES 23

Samoan tale a snipe is fecundated in this manner, and
bears a daughter.^

Stories of conception by bathing have been seriously-
believed alike in the Old and New worlds. A Zulu
saga represents a king's daughters as bathing in a pool
in the river. The youngest, a mere child, comes out
with breasts swollen as large as a woman's. By the
counsel of the old men she is driven away. After
wandering from place to place she gives birth to a boy
who grows up a wise doctor. From what is said of
his beneficent deeds it has been conjectured that we
have here a corrupted account of Our Lord's birth,
derived possibly from the Portuguese.^ There is how-
ever no evidence to support this improbable suggestion :
the story in all its details is purely native. The
Black Kirghiz of Central Asia asserted that their great
foremother was a princess who became pregnant by
bathing in a foam-covered lake.' Some of the
Algonkins traced the lineage of mankind from two
young squaws who swimming in the sea were im-
pregnated by the foam and produced a boy and girl.*
Virtually the same incident appears not infrequently in
North American tradition. The Yurupari of South
America relate a story of some women who were for-
idden by an old wizard to bathe in a certain holy
Dool. They disobey and are fertilised by his semen
which is mingled with the water.^ The same incident
was part of the religious belief of the ancient Persians.
Three drops of the seed of Zoroaster, we are told in

^ Inf. Arch.xv'i. 90. * Callaway, Tales, 335.

• De Charencey, 184, citing Girard de Rialle, Mernoire sur I'Asie
"entrale.

* Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 80. * Ehrenreich, 47.

24 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

their sacred books, fell from him. They are preserved
by the agency of angels and at the appointed time a maid
bathing in the lake Kasava will come in contact with
it, will conceive by it and bring forth Saoshyant, the
Saviour who is to reduce all peoples under the yoke
of the true religion and prepare the world for the
general resurrection.^ In the twelfth century the
Moorish philosopher Averrhoes of Cordova related,
as having actually occurred, a case of a woman who
became pregnant in a bath by attracting the semen of
a man bathing near. In Christian Europe, it is need-
less to say, parthenogenesis was long held possible.
Controversy on the subject was lively even in the
seventeenth century.

Rain has begotten children too. Montezuma, the
culture-hero of the Pueblos of New Mexico, was the
son of a maiden of exquisite beauty but fastidious and
coy. When the drought fell on her people she opened
her granaries and fed them out of her abundance.
" At last with rain fertility returned to the earth ;
and on the chaste Artemis of the Pueblos its touch
fell too. She bore a son to the thick summer shower,
and that son was Montezuma."^ The Pimas of Cali-
fornia, the Mojave of the Rio Colorado in Arizona,
and the Apaches all tell the same story.^ According
to the Chinese historian Ma-twan-lin, the founder
of the kingdom of the Fou-yu was the wonderful son

* Indeed she will be thrice fecundated and bear three sons ; or
three maidens will be thus successively fecundated. Sacred Books,
iv. Ixxix ; v. 143 note, 144; xxiii. 195, 226, See also Tavernier,
Six Voyages, 1. iv. c. viii ; E. Blochet, Rev. Hist. Rel. xxxviii. 61.

* Bancroft, iii. 175 note; DeCharencey, 235 ; Gushing, Z«mF. T.

^ Payne, i. 414 note; Jotirn. Am. F. L. ii. 178. ^

THE STORIES ' 25

of a woman on whom, so she said, a vapour about the
size of an egg descended from the sky and caused her
pregnancy/

So also the rays of the sun fertilise women. Perhaps
this was the original form of the story of Danae : the
incident appears in several modern European mdrchen
which are variants of that story. In China impregna-
tion by the sun seems to have been a common fate of
the mothers of distinguished emperors.^ A Japanese
legend tells of a poor maiden, into whose body as
she slept by the shore of a lagoon the rays of the sun
drove like the shafts from a celestial bow and caused
her to be pregnant. She was delivered of a red jewel
which, acquired at length by the chiefs son, was
changed into a fair girl and became his wife.^ A
Siamese legend reported by a Jesuit father in the
seventeenth century attributes the birth of the deity
Sommonocodon (an obvious form of Buddha) to the
same cause. ^ The Admiralty Islanders deduce the
descent of mankind from a woman who was fecundated
by the sun.^ The Samoan saga of the invention of
the fish-hook relates that a woman was fructified
by the rays of the rising sun and directed by a
sunbeam to call the child Aloaloalela.^ Among the
Pueblo peoples of North America the tale recurs
more than once. In all cases the offspring are twins,
who are benefactors of their tribe.' The Kwakiutl

^ De Charencey, 188, citing the Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denis.

* Instances are collected by De Charencey, 208, 203.
3 Rev. Hist. Rel. lii, 43 note, 46 note.

* Second Voyage du Pere Tachard, 247.

6 Anihropos, ii. 938. * Inf. Arch. xv. 170.

' Matthews, Navaho Leg. 105, 231 ; Fewkes, Journ. Am. F. L,
viii. 132 ; Gushing, Zufii F. T. 431 ; Rep, Bur. Ethn. xi. 43.

26 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Phaethon named Born-to-be-the-Sun was begotten by
the sun's suddenly shining on the small of a woman's
back.^ A hero of the Skidi Pawnee of the plains was
the offspring not of the sun but of a passing meteor
that flashed upon a maiden at night while her father
and mother were standing on guard beside her.^
In Egypt Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, was
believed to have been begotten by a blaze of light
descending from heaven (according to Plutarch, from
the moon) upon the cow which was to become his
dam.^

Analogous to this method of impregnation is the
glance of a divine or quasi-divine being. To this cause
in Kirghiz tradition was ascribed the birth of the
famous Genghis Khan/ According to orthodox belief
in India Parvati, the consort of Siva, was conceived
by a look and spit forth upon the world. The
Brahmans have a legend whereby the Musahar, a
Dravidian jungle-tribe in the eastern part of the
United Provinces, descend from a maiden who waited
on a certain hermit. Siva visited the hermit in
disguise and his eye fell on the girl. From that
glance she became pregnant, and the twin children,
boy and girl, whom she bore were the ancestors of the
Musahar.^ Similar incidents are reported in legends
from Further India and the Marquesas." The culture-

^ Boas and Hunt, Jesup Exped. x. 80.
^ Dorsey, Skidi Pawnee^ 307.

3 Herod, iii. 28; Mela, i. 9; ^lian, De Nat. Anim. xi. lo ;
Plut. De hide, 43. 4 Radloff, iii. 82.

^ Crooke, Tribes and Castes, iv. i6, quoting Calcutta Rev. Ixxxvi.

• De Charencey, 210, citing Father Giov. Fil. Marini ; Southey,
Comtnonpl. Book, iv. 41, quoting Picart; Ellis. Polyn. Rts. i. 362.

THE STORIES 27

hero and creator (or rather transformer) of the Hupa
of California fertilised two women by his look. The
incident is related not merely in the sacred narrative,
but also in a charm used to facilitate childbirth/ The
Yana, another Californian tribe, tell of two sisters each
of whom gave birth to a boy in consequence of the
chicken-hawk's son's looking at them through his
fino-ers.^ At Rome the birth of Servius Tullius was
by tradition imputed to a look. His mother, Ocrisia,
was a slave of Tanaquil the wife of Tarquinius Priscus.
The likeness of a phallus appeared on the hearth ;
and she, who was sitting before it, arose pregnant of
the future king. The household Lar was deemed his
father, in confirmation of which a lambent flame was
seen about the child's head as he lay asleep.^

Numerous m'drchen found throughout the continent
of Europe belonging to the cycle of the Lucky Fool,
represent conception as the result of the utterance of a
wish by a man. The power to wish with effect is
bestowed sometimes by a supernatural being, some-
times by one of the lower animals. But in a story
from Damascus a supernatural being himself is by
this means the father of the child.^ So in a saga of
the Wishosk of California a supernatural being bearing
the euphonious name of Gudatrigakwitl, who was
as near an approach to a savage creator as can be
found, seems to have formed everything by a wish.

^ Goddard, Hupa, 126, 279,

^ Curtin, Creation Myths, 348.

3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 70. Ovid (Fasti, vi. 629) and Arnobius
(Adv. Gent. v. 18) regard Ocrisia as not quite so innocent. Accord-
ing to the former, Vulcan it was who was the father. Livy (i. 39)
rationalises the tale ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch add
pomp and circumstance. * Oestrup, 57 (Story No. 3).

28 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Afterwards he went about and when he saw a woman
and wished her to be pregnant, forthwith she conceived/
Sometimes a wish uttered by the woman herself has
the same effect. Dr. Paton reports two Greek tales
from the ^gean, in one of which a woman wishes for
a child *' were it but a laurel-berry," in the other for
"a son even though he were a donkey." In both the
wish is granted literally.'^ The might of a curse or
any other verbal charm is one of the commonplaces of
folklore. It is deeply rooted in savage belief, where the
mere expression or even the formation without ex-
pression of a wish is sufficient to obtain the result.
Assyrian tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs yield in-
cantations without number. The repetition of these
formulae is supposed to produce the effect desired.
Virtue, or to use a Melanesian term mana, goes out
from the speaker or the chanter, or the person who
wills the event ; and the object is attained. Stories of
pregnancy caused by a wish are merely examples of
incantation employed for a particular purpose. The
power which animates the form of words is magical,
that is to say, supranormal ; it is mana.

The tales of Supernatural Birth are practically
inexhaustible. In the foregoing pages I have done no
more than select and summarise a few belonging to
various types within the limit of our inquiry, namely,
narratives of births independent of sexual intercourse
but the result of means we now know to be inadequate
and inappropriate for the reproduction of mankind. It
is not too much to say that the myth of Supernatural
Birth as thus defined is worldwide. Efforts have often

^ Kroeber, /o«r«. Am. F. L. xviii. 96.
* F. L. xi. 339 ; xii. 320.

THE STORIES 29

been made to prove that it has travelled from one
centre and thence become diffused throughout the
earth. Such efforts are generally connected with a
desire to uphold the truth of divine revelation, and
consequently to trace the tale to a corrupted form of
Hebrew-Christian tradition. They are doomed to
failure. The myth is too far-spread — what is more
important, it is much too deeply rooted in the savage
belief and practices of both hemispheres — to be
accounted for by the plain and easy theory of borrowing.
This I shall proceed to show in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II

MAGICAL PRACTICES TO OBTAIN
CHILDREN

It is still thought possible to obtain children in the
manner described in the stories. Use of vegetable sub-
stances. The Mandrake. Use of animal substances.
Use of minerals. Sacred wells. Use of water and other
liquids. Ceremonies to obtain a transfer of fecundity or
of the life of another. Bathing or sprinkling. Puberty
rites and taboos of girls considered as means to obtain, or
for the moment to avoid, conception. Conception by sun,
moon, stars, fire. Midsummer fires. The Lupercal.
Discussion of the meaning of the blows by the Luperci,
and similiar practices in Europe and elsewhere. Con-
ception by the foot. The attempt to share the fecundity
of another. The virtue of sacred vestments. Amulets.
Contact with sacred stones, images, and other sub-
stances. Marriage rites. Jumping over a stone, broom-
stick, or other object. Votive offerings and the throwing
of stones. Vows. Simulation. Belief in fecundation by
the eye and ear and by wind. The stories, beliefs, and
practices disclose an ancient and widespread belief that
pregnancy was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse.

Since then, amid all differences of race and culture,
birth has thus been held, broadly speaking over the
whole world, to have been caused on various occasions
in the marvellous ways enumerated in the foregoing
chapter, it is natural to ask whether it has also been
thought possible still to make effectual use of such
means to produce pregnancy in barren women. The

30

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 31

answer is, that It has been, and still is, thought
possible. In other words, the traditions of past
miracles are organically connected in the popular mind
with practices expressly calculated to produce re-
petitions of those miracles. It will be observed, how-
ever, that parthenogenesis is often spoken of in the
stories ; whereas, for the most part, the object of the
practices I am about to describe is to promote concep-
tion by women who are in the habit of having sexual
intercourse. The distinction is often immaterial. In
the stage of civilisation, whether among a barbarous
or savage people, or among the more backward classes
of modern Europe, wherein the stories are told and the
practices obtain, medicine and surgery are not as yet
separated from magic, nor is there any clear boundary
in the mind between the natural and the supernatural.
We cannot, therefore, speak positively as to the mean-
ing and intention of all the practices. But it is clear
that a large number of them, as well as of the stories,
imply, if we are not told in so many words, that the
origin of the child afterwards born is not the semen
received in the act of coition, but the drug or the
magical potency of the ceremony or the incantation.
In the stories, especially those that have reached us
from a comparatively developed civilisation, this is
often emphasised by the allegation of the mother's
virginity. Among savages and very commonly among
peoples whose civilisation is low, though they may be
above the status of actual savagery, virginity is of
little account, and maidenhood, except of mere infants,
is practically unknown. But the fact that the failure
of the ordinary means of reproduction in these circum-
stances leads to the trial of other methods presupposes

31 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

a faith in the latter as an efficient means to the end.
And such means are used not merely in combination
with, but in many cases independently of, sexual
intercourse. ,

One of the favourite methods of supernatural
impregnation in the stories is by eating some fruit
or herb. Nor is this method by any means neglected
in practice. The maxim attributed to the Druids
leaps to the mind, namely, that the powder of mistletoe
makes women fruitful. In this form it is perhaps
apocryphal ; but Pliny records their belief that a decoc-
tion of mistletoe gives fecundity to all barren animals ;
and in the book of medical recipes deemed to be
derived from the ancient Physicians of Myddfai in
Carmarthenshire and printed in the year 1861 from a
Welsh manuscript bearing date in 1801, we find
it stated that such a decoction causes fruitfulness of
body and the getting of children.^ The same virtue is
ascribed to the plant by the Ainu of Japan, who hold
it in peculiar veneration and among whom barren
women have been known to eat it in order to bear
children.'^ We are not called upon to decide whether
in the Welsh book, the virtues of the magical plant
have faded into merely natural efficacy. Two manu-
scripts are printed in the volume. The earlier includes
two recipes for the cure of sterility in women, ap-
parently regarded as a disease to be dealt with by
ordinary medicaments.^ On the other hand, in the

^ Pliny, xvi. 95; Meddygon Myddfai, 269. The Physicians of
Myddfai were of supernatural descent, and their knowledge and
skill were attributed in the first instance to their fairy ancestress.
Both MSS. comprised in the volume sadly need careful reprinting
and proper editing. * Batchelor, 222.

3 Meddygon Myddfai^ 7, 27, 45, 76.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 33

later manuscript something more than the light of
common day still glorifies the rosemary. Among
other things we are told that to carry a piece of this
plant is to keep every evil spirit at a distance, and that
it has all the virtues of the stone called jet. It was
because it was obnoxious to evil spirits that it was used
at funerals. But it was not only used at funerals.
There is a story told by an old writer of a widower who
wished to be married again on the day of his former
wife's funeral, because the rosemary employed at the
funeral could be used for the wedding also. For its
use at weddings there was an additional reason which
may be inferred from the Welsh manuscript, where it
is prescribed as a remedy for barrenness/ For the
same purpose it was administered elsewhere by
physicians in the seventeenth century with grains of
mastic,^ and it appears to have a reputation still in some
parts of Belgium,^

We tura to less ambiguous proceedings. Among the
ancient Medes, Persians and Bactrians the juice of the
sacred soma was prescribed to procure for unpro-
ductive women fair children and a pure succession.^
Thus the birth of Zoroaster himself was, as we have
seen, believed to have been caused.^ One of the rules
for the performance of the Vedic domestic ceremonies,

^ Meddygon Myc/d/m, 263; Friend, 113, 124, 581, Compare the
parallel uses of rue (i. Arch. Religionsw. 108 ; Hofler, Volksmed. 104).

* Ploss, Weib, i. 434. Some of the many similar prescriptions by
physicians and in folk-medicine are given in the context. A Gipsy
charm quoted by Leland from Dr. von Wlislocki prescribes oats to
be given to a mare out of an apron or gourd, with an incantation
expressly bidding her " Eat, fill thy belly with young ! " {Gip : Sore.
84). ' Am Urquell, vi. 218.

* Ploss, Wcib, i. 431, citing Duncker. * Supra, p. 12.

c

34 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

given in the Grihya-Siltras , directs the householder
who does not study the Upanishad treating of the rules
for securing conception, the male gender of the child,
and so forth, to give his wife in the third month of her
pregnancy, after she has fasted, in curds from a cow
which has a calf of the same colour as the dam, two
beans and a barleycorn for each handful of curds.
Then he is to ask her: "What dost thou drink?"
To which she is to reply : " Generation of a male
child." When the curds and the question and response
have been thrice repeated, he is to insert into her
right nostril the sap of a herb which is not withered.-^
One can hardly doubt that this is a ceremony to
procure offspring, though according to the rubric not
performed until after conception has taken place.
Modern Hindu women adopt various means for this
purpose. " The most approved plan," says Mr.
Crooke, "is to visit a shrme with a reputation for
healing this class of malady. There the patient is
given a cocoa-nut (which is a magic substance), a fruit
or even a barleycorn from the holy of holies." A
cocoa-nut in particular " is the symbol of fertility, and
all through Upper India is kept in shrines and pre-
sented by the priest to women who desire children."^
Every morning at the shrine of Siva an offering of
milk, honey and small cakes is made. " A woman
who eats tiiese offerings is preserved from sterility" —
that is, she is blessed with issue. ^ In Bombay a
woman who wishes for a child, especially a son,

^ Sacred Books, xxix. i8o; cf. 395.

2 Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 227 ; ii. 106.

3 Mel, viii. 109. A number of prescriptions of vegetable and
animal substances from old pharmaceutical and magical sources have
been collected by M. Tuchmann, Id. vii. 159, sqq.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 35

observes the fourth lunar day of every dark fortnight
as a fast and breaks her fast only after seeing the moon,
generally before nine or ten o'clock in the evening. A
dish of twenty-one balls of rice like marbles having
been prepared, in one of which is put some salt, it is
then placed before her ; and if she first lay her hand on
the ball containing salt, she will be blessed with a son.
In this case no more is eaten ; otherwise she goes on
until she takes the salted ball. This is a ceremony
which may only be observed a limited number of times ;
once, five, seven, eleven or twenty-one times. If she
fail altogether to pick out the salted ball first, she is
doomed to barrenness.^ At the festival of Rahu, the
tribal sfod of the Dosadhs of Behar and Chota
Nagpur, the priest distributes to the crowd tulsi-leaves
which heal diseases else incurable, and flowers which
have the virtue of causing barren women to conceive ; ^
b:;t whether they are to be eaten or (more probably)
worn does not appear.

An old Arab work relates concerning the Isle of
Women at the extremity of the Chinese Sea, that it
was reported to be inhabited only by women who
were fertilised by the wind, or according to another
manuscript by a tree the fruit of which they ate.^ The

^ Ind. N. and 0. iv. io6.

2 Risley, i. 256. In ancient Greece certain flowers possessing
similar virtue were sacred to Hera (Farnell, i. 182). Mr. Rose has
Icollected {J. A. I. xxxv. 271 sqq., 279 sqq.)a. number of observances
[by Hindoo and Mohammedan women in the Panjab during and
previously to pregnancy. They include in all cases the gift of
fruits, rice, and sweets to the woman. Sometimes where these gifts
are made to a woman already pregnant she divides them among the
kinswomen (even young girls) who assemble on the occasion, the
dea being as Mr. Rose with probability concludes " to convey equal
fertility to all of them." ^ L'Ab/ege des Merveilles, 71.

36 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

eating of fruit is in fact practised by Arab women to
procure fecundity.^ A Tuscan woman who desires
offspring goes to a priest, gets a blessed apple and
pronounces over it an invocation to Saint Anne.^ The
mother of the Virgin is a most sympathetic saint for
these cases, since she only gave birth in her old age.
Presumably the apple is then eaten ; but Mr. Leland
in reporting the custom does not explicitly say so.
In the Morbihan a story is told of a girl who was
crossed in love and bargained with the Devil for the
man of her choice, the consideration being her first
child. The Devil however was defrauded by her
husband, who plunged the child immediately on birth
into a large basin of holy water. In revenge the
Evil One carried off the mother, and she was found
by a seigneur of Pleguien hanging by the hair to one
of the oaks in his avenue. He took her down.
She was just able to tell him her story, and to
add that she had by incessantly making the sign
of the cross protected herself from the tortures
which the Devil had designed for her in hell, and
consequently he had kicked her with one blow back
to earth, where she had been caught by the tree.
Before she had time to give her name and place of
abode she died. Since that time, whenever a woman
of the neighbourhood desires a child she eats a leaf

1 Jaussen, 35.

2 Leland, Gip Sore. loi ; Id. Etr. Rom. 246. At King-yang-fu
in the Chinese province of Kan-su a goddess of fecundity is wor-
shipped by the women. Her shrine is on the top of a mountain
and is approached by a long flight of stone steps, which the devotee
must ascend on her knees. The goddess appears in a dream and
gives fruit to the pilgrim, an apple or a peach if she is to have a
boy, plums or pears if a girl {Anthroposy iii. 762),

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 37

of the oak in question, and her wish is sure to be
gratified.-^

In the county of Gomor, Hungary, it is believed
that a bride, who, at the beginning of summer eats
fruit which has grown together [zusammengebackenes
Obst) will give birth to twins. ^ In the Spreewald no
Wendish woman dares to eat of two plums grown
together on one stalk, or she will bear twins. ^ An
unmarried girl in Bavaria will not venture to eat two
apples or other fruit which have Q^rown together, or
she will when married bear twins/ In Poitou a
woman who eats a fruit having two kernels in one
envelope will suffer the same penalty.^ The aboriginal
inhabitants of Paraguay supposed that a woman who
ate a double ear of maize would give birth to twins.*
In the East Indies the Galelarese are also of opinion
that if a women eat up by herself a twin banana (that
is, two bananas the rinds of which have orrown
together) she will have twins.' On the island of
Riigen, in Mecklenburg, Voigtland and Saxon Tran-
sylvania and about Mentone only pregnant women are
threatened with the penalty.^ Among the Tagalas
the husband of a pregnant woman is forbidden for the
same reason to eat such fruit.® These taboos are

^ Rev. Trad. Rop. xvii. 1 1 1 . Compare Queen Isolte's lily (De
Charencey, 230).

^ Temesvary, 10. ^ von Schulenburg, 232.

* Lammert, 158. * Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 391.

^ Featherman, Chiapo-Mar, 444. ' Bijdragen, xlv. 467.

8 Am Urqitell,Y. 1803 Ploss, Kind, i. 30; Wuttke, 376; Johann
Hillner, Prograimn des Evang. Gymnasiums in Schdssburg, 1877,
13; J. B, Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. iii. The limitation to
pregnant women is probably a late form of the superstition.

^ H. Ling Roth, /owrM. Anihr. Inst. xxii. 209. In the island of
Aurora, a woman sometimes takes it into her head " that the

3^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

inexplicable save on the supposition that the fruit
causes pregnancy.

The Kwakiutl of British Columbia chew the gum
of the red pine. " That of the white pme is not used
by girls, because it is believed to make them
pregnant."^ The Querranna, one of the cult societies
of the Sia, possess a medicine called sewz/i, composed
of the roots and the blossoms of the six mythical
medicine plants of the sun, archaic white shell- and
black stone-beads, turquoise and a yellow stone. This
is ground to a fine powder with great ceremony. To
a woman who wishes to become pregnant it is ad-
ministered, a small quantity of the powder being put
into cold water, and a '* fetish" of Querranna dipped
four times into the water. A single dose ought to be
sufficient. The same medicine is also administered on
ceremonial occasions to the members of the society for
the perpetuation of their race ; and the honaaite (priest
or theurgist) taking a mouthful squirts it to the
cardinal points, " that the cloud people may gather
and send rain that the earth may be fruitful." Quer-
ranna was the second man created by Utset, one of

origin, or beginning, of one of her children is a cocoa-nut, or bread-
truit, or something of that kind " ; and this gives rise to a pro-
hibition of the object for food, just as in the case of a totem
(Codrington, in Id. xviii. 310 ; Rep. Austr. Ass. ii. 612). I hardly
know how to account for this notion except by the suggestion that
such a woman may have eaten the fruit about the time her preg-
nancy commenced, and thence have been led to believe that the
pregnancy was due to it. Upon inquiry, however, of Dr. Codrington,
he informed me that he had never heard of any belief of the kind.
It is perhaps worth noting as a coincidence, if nothing more, that
on Lepers' Island, the two intermarrying divisions are called '■'■ branches
of fruit, "as if," says Dr. Codrington (Melanesians, 26), "all the
members hang on the same stalk."
^ Boas, in Rep. Brit. Ass. 1896, 579-

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 39

the creative heroines of the tribal mythology. He
received from the sun the secret of the medicine which
would make both the earth and women fruitful. Hence
the society bearing his name has charge of the
medicine and performs the rites necessary for both
purposes.^ Among the Kansa, a Siouan tribe, a man
was reported as having had a red medicine, which was
used for women who desired to have children, for
horses and for causing good dreams ; but whether it
was to be taken internally does not appear." In the
Lower Congo a barren woman goes to a nganga
ndembo, who takes certain leaves (the identity of
which is kept secret), squeezes their juice into palm-
wine and gives it to her to drink. ^ The Czech
women of Bohemia drink an infusion of juniper to
obtain children ; and coffee enjoys a high reputation
in Franconia. In China and Japan a medicine called
Kay-tu-sing, made from the leaves of a tree belonging
to the Tei^nstromacecs, is given at full moon with
cabalistic formulae. In the Fiji Islands the woman
bathes in a stream, and then both husband and wife
take a drink made with the grated root of a kind of
bread-fruit tree and the nut of a sort of turmeric,
immediately before congress. Siberian brides before
the marriage-night eat the cooked fruit of the Iris
Sibirica. Asparagus seeds and young hop- buds pre-
pared as salad are given to women in Styria against
barrenness, They are then required to abstain from
conjugal relations for two months, and be bled,
before resumingf them. Serb women o-et a woman
already pregnant to put yeast into theit girdles ; they

^ Rep. Bitr. Ethn. xi. 11,3, -^t^., 71.

2 Ibid. 4t8. 3 J H. Weeks, F. L. xix. 419

40 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

sleep with it overnight, and eat it in the morning at
breakfast.^ The Mexican population just within the
southern boundary of Texas make a decoction of a
plant called the Verba Gonzalez, which must be pre-
pared before the rising of the moon and set to cool in
the moonlight the same night. A barren woman must
drink of this decoction and take a bath in it every
eighth day, and immediately afterwards take a purge.
This procedure lasts for forty days, during which no
conjugal relations are allowed. She then rests a day
from all labour and at night under the direct rays of
the moon she takes a final bath in the decoction, after
which she may be sure of offspring. When she feels
that her wish has been granted she must present her-
self at the first soul-mass before the altar of the Virgin
and there dedicate a milagro (literally, miracle), a
votive offering of silver in the shape of a boy or girl,
according to the sex of the child she desires.^ At
Kalotaszeg, in Hungary, the sterile woman eats every
Friday before sunrise cantharides and hemp-flowers
boiled in ass' milk, and shaking the bough of a tree
says : " Mr. Friday went to the forest, there met
Mrs. Saturday, and said to her, * Let us embrace.'
Mrs. Saturday thrust him away and said, ' Thou art
a dry twig ; when thou art green again, come to me ! '
Twig, give me strength ; I give thee mine." ^ This

^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 434, 431, 432, 445, citing various authorities.
But as usual after Dr. Bartels' editing it is not possible in all cases to
identify them. The case last cited seems to be a bridal ceremony.

2 Globus, Ixxxviii. 381.

^ Temesvary, 9. Another version is given by von Wlislocki
{Volksleb. 137), who adds a detail rendering it still clearer that the
object is to unite the woman to the fruitful tree. The Ottoman
Jews have a custom which points to the same idea. In order

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 41

ceremony is evidently an attempt to obtain by magical
means the productive virtue of the tree, and probably
was originally independent of the medicament. In
Friuli, when a bride is introduced into the nuptial
chamber her husband causes her to eat a slice of
quince.^ In ancient Greece the bride and bridegroom
used to eat of a quince together.^

It is not irrelevant here to recall that European
children who are curious to know whence their little
brothers and sisters have come are often told that
they come from a tree or a plant. Thus, in England
they are said to come out of the parsley-bed or the
cabbage-bed ; in Belgium and in France they are

not to lose her children the mother about to give birth puts an apple
on her head. According to a Midrash the Israelite mothers in
Egypt, before Moses, used to be delivered under the apple-trees to
avoid the persecutions of the infanticide King [Mel. viii. 267). This
practice is alluded to as still rife in the Song of Solomon, viii, 5.
The last sentence in the Magyar spell above makes allusion to the
reciprocal influence of the woman and the tree, when thus united.
This of course logically results from the union. In Swabia a
woman who is " in an interesting condition " for the first time
ought to eat of a tree which bears for the first time ; then both of
them will become very fruitful. To this, however, there is one
exception ; if an apple be grafted on a whitethorn, and some of the
fruit be given to a pregnant woman to eat, she cannot bear (Meier,
Sagen, 476, 474). It is a saying at Pforzheim, "To make a nut-
tree bear, let a pregnant woman pick the first nuts " (Grimm, Teut.
Myth. 1802). The idea of reciprocal influence is very conmion in
folklore, and is the foundation of many magical practices (see ii. Leg.
Pers. passim).

^ Ostermann, 348,

2 Plutarch, Solon, xx. Among the Manchus the bride and
bridegroom sit on a bed face to face. An offspring dumpling is then
brought in and handed to the bridegroom, who eats a mouthful. It
is next handed to the bride, who takes a small piece into her mouth
and afterwards spits it out, as an omen that the marriage wifl be
productive of a numerous offspring {F. L. i. 488).

42 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

found under the cabbages (under the parson's cabbages,
at Stavelot), or they are dug out of the garden by the
midwife ; ^ at Siena, the midwife is said to have found
them under a tree or a cabbage ; ^ in the Abruzzi,
the child is said to come from a tree or to be found
under a tree or in a hedge, in a bunch of grapes, in a
pumpkin, or the like ; ^ in various parts of Germany
children are said to come out of a hollow lime-tree,
beech, or oak, or out of the vegetable-garden.* It
may be thought that this is merely a convenient way
of parrying awkward questions. It would seem, how-
ever, ^to be more than this. In England, in France,
and in the Walloon Country a quasi-sacred character
is attached to parsley. A parsley-bed must not be
dug up nor the parsley transplanted, lest some one in
the family die or other ill-luck ensue. Even to plant
it is to dig the grave of the head of the family or one
of the kindred ; on the other hand, to neglect to weed
it is to incur misfortune, so closely is it associated
with the life of the family.^ In various parts of
France cabbages are given to the newly-wedded pair
as a ritual article of food on the marriage night. They
are served either in broth in the course of the evening
or cooked together with a fowl and partaken of after
the pair have retired to the nuptial couch. The
plantation or transplantation of a cabbage by the bride-
groom is sometimes part of the wedding ceremonies.®

At Bruneck, in the Tirol, a great hollow ash is
shown from which children are brought. At Aargau

F. L. ii. 112, 148 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 474.
- Archivio, xiii. 475. ^ Finamore, Trad. Pop. Abr. 56.

" Am Urquell, iv. 224; v. 162, 287.
' Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 463, 464, 473. ® Ibid. 515.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 43

such a tree is called the child-pear-tree. At Nierstein,
in Hesse, is a great lime-tree from which children for
the whole neighbourhood are fetched. At Gummers-
bach is another. A short distance from Nauders, in
the Tirol, stood a sacred tree, the last of the wood.
It was a larch. Torn and maimed by age and storms,
it was reduced to a mere trunk, and at last cut down
in the winter of 1855, though the stump remained in
the ground for several years longer. From this
sacred tree it w^as believed that children, especially
the boys, were brought. From its neighbourhood
superstitious awe prevented timber or firewood from
being gathered. Crying or screaming near it was
deemed a serious misbehaviour ; quarrelling, cursing,
or scolding was looked upon as an offence that called
to heaven for instant punishment. It was generally
believed (and the belief was supported by at least one
current story) that the tree would bleed if hacked or
cut, and that the blow would fall at the same moment
on the tree and on the body of the offender who dared
to use his axe or knife upon it ; nor would the wound
heal in his body until it healed in the tree.^ On the
road from Boiizenhagen to Knesebeck, in a district of
northern Germany remote from railways, stands an
oak called the Children's Tree. It replaces a much
older tree, which has disappeared. The people of
Boitzenhagen have to go to Knesebeck for baptisms.
They always halt on such occasions beside the tree to
partake of cakes and brandy, and are careful to give
the tree its share of both. Wedding processions also
halt and adorn its twio-s with coloured ribbons ; the

1 Zingerle, Sagen, iio; Atn Urquell, iv. 224; v. 287; Wolf,
Hessische Sagen, 13 (No. 15).

44 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

more rapidly these ribbons decay and perish, the
greater the luck of the marriage. A story is now told
to explain the name of the tree from a child who was
said to have been forgotten there and torn to pieces
by a wild boar ; but it is more probable, as Dr. Andree
remarks, that the tree was an old and sacred tree
whence children were believed to come. The ob-
servances just mentioned point at least in that direc-
tion, and seem to show that it was regarded as in
some way a fecundating power.-' This, in fact, is the
light in which the Bahoni, a Bantu people on one of
the tributaries of the Upper Congo, regard the kola-
tree which occupies the centre of each of their villages.
Under it assemblies are held; it "belongs to the
chief, and is supposed to exercise an influence upon
the fertility of his wives. When one of the latter
menstruates the chief gives it a cut to remind it of its
duty." Its fruit is considered an aphrodisiac, and is
reserved to the chief and privileged guests.^

Before passing from the eating of fruit and vege-
tables, let me point out that the duddim, for which
Rachel bargained with Leah, seem to have been
possessed of power to put an end to barrenness ; and
this, as we gather from the record in Genesis, quite
independently of sexual intercourse, for Rachel, who
was bitterly envious of Leah's fertility, gave up her
husband to her sister in exchange for them. From
the Septuagint and Josephus downwards the duddim
have been identified with the mandrake, a plant which
has been during all history credited with supernatural

1 Zeits. des Vereins, vi. 366. Other examples are cited by
Dieterich, Mutter Erde, 19 sqq.

2 Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxvi. 291. |

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 45

powers.^ In particular, it has been held potent as a
cause of pregnancy. Henry Maundrell, travelling' in
Palestine in the spring" of 1697, httle more than two
centuries ago, was informed that it was then customary
for women who wanted children to lay mandrakes
under the bed.^ It is probable that he did not learn
the whole truth. At the present day, in the extremely
modern city of Chicago, orthodox Jews are living who
import mandrakes from the East. These mandrakes
"are rarely sold for less than four dollars, and one
young man whose wife is barren recently paid ten
dollars for a specimen." The roots, from their shape,
"are still thought to be male and female; they are
used remedially, a bit being scraped into water and
taken internally ; they are valued talismans ; and they
ensure fertility to women. " ^ The root of the mandrake,
or mandragora, in common with that of several species
of plants, has a rough resemblance to human shape —
a resemblance which was and still is heightened by
art. From this resemblance, according to the doctrine
of Signatures, it probably was that the belief in its
magic, and especially its procreative, power arose.
The prescription current in the Middle Ages for
gathering mandrakes dates from classical times. Pliny
directs those who gather the plant to take care to
keep on the windward side, to circumscribe it thrice
with a sword (that is evidently, to surround it with a
magic circle drawn with iron) and then to dig it up at

^ Gen. XXX. 14 ; Joseph. Ant. i. 19. The mandrake seems to be
still used by Jewish and Moslem women in Palestine, [Folklore, xviii.
67). It is said to smell offensively. This probably applies only to
the root, since the golden-yellow fruit is aromatic [Internat. Arch.
vii. 204; Song of Solomon, vii. 13). ^ Early Trav. 434.

3 Starr, in American Antiquarian, 1901 (1902?), 267.

46 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

sunset.-^ A dog was sometimes tied to it, and then
called or enticed away. The dog's efforts to move
pulled the plant out of the ground. This proceeding,
it may be observed, is recommended by Josephus in
respect to a plant which he calls baaras, and which,
perhaps, is the mandrake, though he states its only
use is to drive out demons.^ A dog is said to be still
used near Chieti, in the Abruzzi ; and the Danubian
Gipsies, when they gather a kind of orchid called by
them boy-root, lay the root half-bare with a knife
never before used, and tie a black dog by its tail to it.
A piece of ass-flesh is then offered to the animal, and
when he springs after it he pulls out the plant. The
representation of a linga is carved out of the root in
question, wrapped in a piece of hart's leather, and
worn on the naked arm to promote conception.^ The
Shang-hih [^Phytolacca acinosa) has a similar reputation
among the Chinese to that of the mandrake, and for
the same reason — its anthropomorphous root. We
are told, on the authority of a Chinese herbal, that its
black ripe fruit is highly valued by rustic women as
favouring their fertility. Sorcerers dig it up with
magical rites, carve the root into a closer human like-
ness and endow it by means of their spells with the
capacity of telling fortunes. Finally, without enumera-
ting all the parallel beliefs, like the mandrake, it is

1 Pliny, XXV. 13. See Dr. CoUey March, in F. L. xii. 340.

2 Josephus, Wars, vii. 6. The use of the dog is reported by
^lian (Nat. Anim. xiv. 27) to obtain a herb he called cynospastos,
or aglaophotis.

^ De Gubernatis, Myth. Plantes. ii. 215 note. Prof. Starr {loc.
cit.) notes that this root does not simulate human form, but it does
suggest the male organ. His article contains an excellent sum-
mary of what is known about the mandrake.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN ^7

esteemed as a philtre, and is believed to grow upon
the ground beneath which a dead man lies, just as the
mandrake was beHeved to grow beneath the gallows/
The significance of this will appear by-and-by.

Animal substances of various kinds are taken with
intent to obtain children. An insect in India called
pillai-ptichchi, or son-insect, is swallowed in large
numbers by women in the hope of bearing sons.^
Kamtchatkan women who wish to bear eat spiders.^
To this day, in Egypt and the Eastern Soudan, the
scarab, which was sacred among the ancient Egyptians,
is "dried, pounded, and mixed with water, and then
drunk by women, who believe it," we are told, " to be an
unfailing specific for the production of large families." ^
The women of the Lkungen, one of the British
Columbian tribes, drink a decoction of wasps' nests, or
of flies — insects both of which lay many eggs.^ Among
the Southern Slavs, the wife who desires offspring
places a wooden bowl full of water beneath a beam of

^ For further details about the mandrake and other plants to
which similar beliefs attached, see Internat. Arch. vii. 8i, 199; viii.
249 ; xii. 21 ; Hertz, Die Sage voin GifUnddchen {Abhandl. k. bayer.
Acad. Wiss. 1893), 76; De Gubernatis, op. cit. \\. 213; T, W.
Davies, Magic Divination and Demonology among the Hebrews,
London [1898], 34; and Prof. Starr's article already referred to.
Certain roots are also held by the Pawnees of North America to be
transformations of a primitive race of giants destroyed by Tirawa,
the head of the tribal pantheon. These roots are in the shape of
human beings. They are possessed of curative powers, and for that
purpose are dug up with ceremonies, incantations, and an offering
of tobacco-smoke (Dorsey, Pawnee Myth. i. 296). A similar (perhaps
the same) root was known and prized among the Algonkins
(Charlevoix, vi. 24).

2 Panjab {Indian) N. and O. iv. 107 (par. 415).

2 Ploss, Weib, i. 432, citing Krashneninnikov.

* Budge, Egypt. Magic, 39.

^ Boas, Rep. N. IV. Tribes, in Rep. Brit. Ass. 1890, 577, 581.

48 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the roof where it is worm-eaten and the worm-dust
falls. Her husband strikes the beam with something
heavy, so as to shake the dust out of the worm-holes ;
and she drinks the water containing the dust that falls.
Many a woman seeks in knots of hazelwood for a
worm, and eats it when found.^ All these women
thus do voluntarily what the mothers of Conchobar
and Cuchulainn are reported to have done against
their wills. Hungarian Gipsy- w^omen gather the
floating threads of cobweb from the fields in autumn,
and in the waxing of the moon they, with their hus-
bands, eat them, murmuring an incantation to the
Keshalyi, or Fate, whose sorrow at this season for her
lost mortal husband causes her to tear out her hair.
These threads are believed to be the Keshalyi's hair ;
and the incantation attributes the hoped-for child to
them, and invites the Fate to the baptism.^ A Gipsy
tradition from Transylvania derives the origin of the
Leila tribe from a king's daughter who ate some of
the hairs of a compassionate Keshalyi, dropped for
the purpose in her way.^

The last-mentioned practice, as well as some referred
to on a previous page and some of the others which
follow, are not confined to women. They seem to
have been extended by analogy to the other sex.
The fish is a prolific symbol so well known that it is
not surprising occasionally to find its use thus extended,
English gallants at one time were said to swallow
loaches in wine to become prolific. Farquhar in

^ Krauss, Sitte und Branch, 531. Compare a Gipsy story, ron
Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 343.

* von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 13.
' von Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 183.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 49

The Constant Couple, written at the end of the
seventeenth century, puts into the mouth of one of his
characters the words : " I have toasted your ladyship
fifteen bumpers successively, and swallowed Cupids
like loaches in every glass." ^ Dr. Schultz, curator of
the Ethnographical Museum at Leyden, received not
long ago from a friend who had returned from the
Dutch East Indies a Y\\i\.^-^^ \Fistularia serratd),
given to him by a Chinese in the Segara Anakkan,
or Children's Sea, a district on the south coast of
Java, with the assurance that if the husband of a
childless woman ate it, he would obtain the desired
offspring.^

A curious tale is told by the famous French traveller
Tavernier, of events that happened at Ahmaddbdd
when he was there about the year 1642. The wife of
a rich merchant named Saintidas, being childless, was
advised by a servant in her household to eat three
or four of a certain little fish. Her religrion forbade
animal food ; but the servant overcame her scruples,
saying that he knew how to disguise it so well that s'le
would not know what she was eating. She acco d-
ingly tried the remedy, and the next night she
conceived by her husband. Before the child was
born, Saintidas died, and his relations claimed the
inheritance. They treated her assertion that she was
pregnant as a lie or a joke, seeing that she had been
married fifteen or sixteen years without bearing.
The governor, however, on being appealed to, com-
pelled them to wait until she was delivered. Vv'hen
this happened, they alleged that the child was ille-

^ Southey, Commonpl. Book, iii. 20, 75.
"^ Int. Arch. ix. 138.

5© PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

gitimate. The governor consulted the doctors, who
advised that the infant should be taken to the bath,
and that if the mother's story were true the infant
would smell of fish. The experiment was tried, and
the child's legitimacy was held to be proven. The
inheritance was considerable, and the relatives were
persons of position. Not satisfied with the result,
they went to Agra and appealed to the King, who
ordered the test to be repeated in his presence.
It was repeated, with the same success as on the
previous occasion ; and the widow and child retained
the property. *^ This train of incidents is reported to
us from a high stage of civilisation. Consequently
it would be in vain to expect to find in anything
like purity the ideas which it embodies. But in spite
of impurity, in spite of the share apparently assigned
to the husband in the procreation of the infant,
it is clear that the fish is regarded as much more than
a medicine for an abnormal condition of the wife's
body. It is a true fertiliser, a true begetter, one of
whose most distinctive characteristics is reproduced in
the offspring. The Gonds of India perform, a week
after a death, the rice of bringing back the soul of the
deceased. " They go to the riverside, call out the
name of the dead man, catch a fish, and bring it home.
In some cases they eat it in the belief that by so doing
the deceased will be born again as a child in the
family."^ Here the practice has become connected
with a belief which we shall discuss in the next
.•:hapter. On every Christmas Eve unfruitful wives
among the Transylvanian Saxons eat fish and throw

^ Tavernier, Trav. in Ind. i. 75.
^ Crooke, Things Indian, 221.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 51

the bones into flowing water, in the hope of bringing
children into the world. ^

Like some other rites for producing fertility, rites in
which fish play a part are performed on the occasion
of a marriage. '* The Brahmans of Kanara take the
married pair to a pond and make them throw rice into
the water and catch a few minnows. They let all go
save one, with whose scales they mark their brows. If
there be no pond near, the rite is done by making a
fish of wheat-flour, dropping it into a vessel of water,
taking it out and marking their foreheads with the
paste."- The so-called Spanish Jews at Constantinople
and elsewhere have a custom that the newly wedded
bride and bridegroom immediately after the religious
ceremony jump three times over a large platter filled
with fresh fish. According to other accounts they
step seven times backwards and forwards over a single
fish. The ceremony is expounded in the Jeivish
Chronicle to be the symbol of a prayer for children.*
Thus in the contemplation of the more enlightened
members of the community a magical rite has faded
into a mere symbol. In our own country a practice
analogous to that attributed to the orahants of the
seventeenth century still lingers in regard to cattle.
A clergyman on the Welsh border wrote to me five or
six years ago : " I happened to be talking the other day
with our blacksmith's wife when we passed the brook
where her husband's apprentice was groping for fish.
She remarked : ' I wish he could get me a live trout.'
I asked for what purpose. She replied : ' To put down

^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 54.

^ Crooke, Things Indian, 222.

' Lobel, 287 ; N. and Q. 6th ser. viii. 513 ; ix. 134.

52 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

our heifer's throat, to make her take the beast' " In the
light of the instances already cited, and of the stories re-
counted in the previous chapter, we need have no doubt
that the live trout was originally not a mere aphrodisiac,
but taken in this way possessed real procreative power.
Among the Australian aborigines of Tully River,
in Northern Queensland, sexual intercourse is not
recognised as a cause of conception so far as they
themselves are concerned, though it is admitted in the
case of the lower animals and is a mark of the inferiority
of the latter. They hold that a woman bears children
because she has been sitting over a fire on which
she has roasted a particular species of black bream,
which must have been given to her by the prospective
" father " ; or because she has purposely gone a-
hunting and has caught a certain kind of bull-frog.
Though we are not told what she does with the
creature we may assume that she eats it, since little
comes amiss to an Australian native in the shape of
animal food, unless there be any taboo upon it. It may
be added that a third cause assigned for a woman's
conception is that " some man may have told her to
be in an interesting condition," just as the Lucky
Fool does in the stories referred to in the previous
chapter. Twins are accounted for by her having
dreamed of being told by two different persons to
conceive. A fourth cause is that she may have
dreamed of having the child put inside her, pre-
sumably by a supernatural being.^ The Ottoman Jews

1 Roth, N. Q. Ethnog. Bull. v. 22 (par. 81); 25 (par. 92).
According to Strehlow the Arunta share the belief of the Tully River
tribe in the distinction between the mode of propagation of human
beings and that of the lower animals (Strehlow, ii. 52).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 53

prescribe for a woman who has only given birth to-
daughters, and who desires also sons, to eat after
taking a bath a whole cock, intestines, comb and all :^
a prescription which would seem to make rather an
exorbitant demand on her appetite and digestion.
The Ainu of Japan persist in regarding the flying
squirrel as a bird. It is called At kamui, a name
said to mean " the divine prolific one," for it is believed
to produce as many as thirty young at a birth, When
a woman has no children her husband is advised to
hunt for one of these "birds." Having caught it
he cuts it up, cooks it, and offers iitao (willow wands,
whittled, with the shavings still attached) to the head
and skin, and prays: "O thou very prolific one,
I have sacrificed thee for one reason only, and that
is that I may use thy flesh as a medicine for procuring
children. Henceforth, please cause my wife to bear
me a child." He is then to take the flesh and give it
to his wife to eat, telling her that it is the flesh of
some kind of bird, but carefully concealing the fact
that it is that of a flying squirrel ; for if she know^
or even guess, what it is the ceremony would be
useless, and she would bear no children."

Barren women among the Thompson Indians of
British Columbia ate a roasted mouse of a certain
species. An alternative prescription where male chil-
dren were desired was a buck's penis. ^ The ancient
Prussian bride having been struck and beaten, and so

1 Mel. viii. 270.

2 Batchelor, Ainu F. L. 339. The inao were perhaps phallic
emblems in origin, though apparently this significance is not now
attached to them by the Ainu (Aston, Shinto, 193).

Teit, in Mem. Am. Mus., Anthrop. i. 509.

54 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

put to bed, a dish of buck's, bull's, or bear's sweetbreads
was served to the wedded pair/ The corresponding-
portion of a hare was prescribed in wine by our
Anglo-Saxon forefathers to the woman who desired
a son. "In order that a woman may kindle a male
child," a hare's intestines dried and sliced and rubbed
into a drink is also recommended in the leech-book to
be taken by both husband and wife. If the wife alone
drank it, she would produce an hermaphrodite. The
hare's magical reputation is well known ; nor are the
foregoing the only remedies from its flesh directed
in the same work for the same purpose. Four
drachms of female hare's rennet to the woman, and
the like quantity of male hare's to the man were to be
given in wine ; and after directing that the wife should
be dieted on mushrooms and forego her bath we are
told : "wonderfully she will bring forth "^ — -which we
shall not be inclined to dispute. In Fezzan a woman's
fruitfulness is said to be increased by the plentiful
enjoyment of the dried intestines of a young hare
that has never been suckled. The flesh of the
kangaroo, like the hare a swift animal, is held by the
Australian aborigines to cause fertility.^ Hare's flesh,
especially the testicles, is esteemed a specific against
impotence and childlessness in Saxon Transylvania,
where also a fox's genital organs dried and rubbed to

1 Schroder, 171, citing Hartknoch ; Ploss, Weib. i. 445. Mele-
tius, arch-presbyter of the Ecclesia Liccensis in Prussia, hovvevery
writing in the sixteenth century states that the sweetbreads are those
of a goat or a bear (F. L. xii. 300). Among the Istrian Slavs an
hour after the married pair retire a roast hen is served to them in
bed (Dr. F. Tetzner, Globus, xcii. 88).

2 Sextus Placitus, Sax. Leechd. i. 347, 345.

3 Ploss, Weib. \. 431, 432, citing Nachtigall and Junk,

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 55

powder are given to women against barrenness.^
Italian women are given not merely vegetable drugs
like an infusion of valerian, cypress scrapings and
the bark of the black mulberry, but also mare's milk,
a hare's uterus and a ofoat's testicles.^ And similar
nostrums sometimes of the flesh of one animal and
sometimes of another are to be found in many of the
mediaeval works on medicine and exorcism.^

The same train of reasoning is evident in the prohibi-
tion, current among the Coast-Salish of north-western
America, to an unmarried woman to eat either breast
or tenderloin of any animal. It was believed that if
she ate the tenderloin of both sides of an animal she
would orive birth to twins.* The Perak Semanof are
said to hold a complicated belief in a soul-bird, A
child as soon as born is named from a tree standingf
near its birthplace, and the after-birth is buried at the
foot of the tree. An expectant mother visits her birth-
tree, as it is called, or a tree of the same species if too
far away to reach the identical tree, and there deposits
an offering of flowers. A young bird newly hatched
inhabiting the tree contains the soul of her expected
child, which has been committed to it by Kari the chief
god. This bird she must kill and eat, otherwise her
child will be stillborn or die shortly after its birth.
The expression used by the Semang of Kalantan to
describe a woman who is in hope of offspring is :
"she has eaten the bird." Twins arise from eatingr a

^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 169, 103.

2 Zanetti, 103. The author discredits the statement of another
prescription said to be given to couples desiring children.

3 M^l. vii. 159 sqq.

Boas, Rep. N. W. Tribes, Rep. B. A. 1889, 842.

56 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

soul-bird with an egg.^ So in the Murray Islands
women eat pigeons, females to get girls and males to
get boys.^

In England the belief in the consumption of certain
kinds of animal food as a cause of pregnancy seems to
have survived into modern times. I quote from a
letter written to me by a lady who has herself made
valuable contributions to anthropology : "Mrs. G., a
charwoman who worked for me in 1876, and who lived
with her husband in a street leading- out of Theobald's
Row, W.C., told me that she and her husband had
been married for some years, and had given up all
hope of having children, when she, at the instance of
her husband's mother (who lived in the same house
with them), determined to try other than lawful means.
She went out one evening, and, at a butcher's shop
some long distance from where she lived, contrived to
steal two sausages, which she ate raw then and there in
a side-turning off the street, her mother-in-law keeping
guard for fear of detection, in fact keeping the butcher
in talk while her daughter-in-law stole and ate the
articles. This action was kept a profound secret from
the husband until the means adopted were found to be
effectual. A boy was born at the proper period of time»
or, as Mrs. G. said, that day nine months ; and he was
fat and roily like a sausage! Unfortunately he died
3«3on afterwards. Perhaps this was not surprising, as
he was given a small piece of sausage to eat after
his birth. The reason assigned for this was that he
might not be too fond of sausages as he grew up,
refuse other food, and so 'pine away.' His mother

^ Skeat and Blagden, ii. 3, 4, 6, quoting Vav ',han-Stevens.
> Haddon, Torres Str Rep. vi. 105.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 57

and orandmother attributed his death partly to
bronchitis and partly to the fact that strict secrecy
had not been observed about the stolen food. They
had afterwards gone before the child's birth to the
butcher and paid him for the two sausages, telling him
the circumstances. He sympathised wirh them and
Mrs. G. added that he told them a similar story
about his own wife, or mother, she did not remember
which." ^

Eggs are naturally supposed to ensure pregnancy.
Probably it is for this cause that they are forbidden to
adolescent Eskimo girls in Baffin's Land.'"^ Among
the Ruthenians a domestic hen is killed, and the small
unripe eggs found in her body are put into the vagina
of a barren woman. ^ A Gipsy husband will sometimes
take an egg and blow the contents into his wife's
mouth, she swallowing them, in order that she may
bear ; * or in Transylvania she will give him at full
moon the egg of a black hen to eat by himself.^

As might be expected, eggs like other objects
believed to produce fertility are prominent objects in
various parts of the world, especially the East, at

i My correspondent adds that another woman whom she knew,
a fairly well-educated woman whose husband was in business as a
trunk-maker, had twins at her first accouchement. " They were the
colour of scarlet, just like boiled lobsters." One of these twins
died ; the other as she grew up continued to have red marks on
her skin. Their mother attributed this condition to the lobsters
whereof she and her husband had partaken on their wedding night.
This would appear to show a similar belief, but in a somewhat later
stage exemphfied in the old Prussian and other marriage-rites
already mentioned.

2 Boas, Eskimo of Baffin^ s Land, in Bull. Am. Mus. xv. i6i.

^ Kobert, 116. * Leland, Gip. Sore. loi.

^ von Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 314.

58 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

marriage ceremonies. In them too, as in other marriage
ceremonies discussed in the present chapter, the fertili-
sing power of the object itself passes into a charm or a
mere symbol of good wishes. The West Russian Jews,
particularly the strict sect of the Chasidim, have the
custom of setting a raw egg before a bride at the
wedding feast, a symbol of fruitfulness and that she
may bear as easily as a hen lays an egg.^ At
Gossensass in the Tirol, when the wedded pair come to
the inn to pay for the wedding-feast, after the business
is settled it is the custom to serve the bride with a
hard-boiled egg on a large iron fork ; and she is
expected to eat it alone.^ In the seventeenth century,
a French bride, in order to be happy in her marriage,
on entering her new home on the wedding-day trod
upon and broke an egg, and wheat was thrown over
her.^ Fertility is obviously regarded as the first con-
dition of happiness here. Among the Sundanese in
West Java a hen's egg is placed before the door of
the newly wedded pair ; which appears to imply a
similar rite of breaking it. In East Java the
Tenggerese bridegroom on the last day of the festivi-
ties breaks an egg and the bride smears her feet
with its contents mixed with turmeric.

The direct fertilising power as distinguished from
the magical effect or the symbolism of the egg tends
to fall into the background when both husband and
wife share the virtue of the egg in food or other ways.
Among the Mordvins a pot of groats, an omelet and a
baked egg are always put upon the table at the bride's
house in the elaborate ceremonies of the day before

^ Andree, Juden, 145. 2 Zei'is. des Vereins, x. 401.

3 Thiers, ap. Liebrecht's Gerv. Tilb. 259 (No. 475).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 59

the marriage. In Great Mandheling and Batang Natal
(West Sumatra) the bride and bridegroom must each
eat a piece of the white and the yolk of the eggs which
lie on the top of the rice at the wedding ceremony.
In Minahassa they erect a small altar and offer on it
some rice and a boiled egg. They afterwards consume
the offering, calling down thereby the divine blessing.
Among certain of the Dyaks a hen's egg is struck
upon the teeth of the wedded pair and then held under
their noses. Among the Orang Maanjan of Borneo
they are smeared with a mixture of the contents of an
egg and blood of a fowl or pig : this is the binding
ceremony. Among the Olon Lavangan, another tribe
of the same island, the chief takes a hen's egg, opens
it with a knife and smears the contents on the fore-
heads of the pair.^ In Armenia and Kurdistan the
Mohammedans take various measures against unfruit-
fulness in marriage. One of these consists in the
priest's writing the one hundred and twelfth chapter
of the Koran upon an egg and giving the bride
and bridegroom each one half of the egg to eat.
Or else he writes it upon a triangular spear over
which they are required to jump.^ In Sikkim a
present of eggs is an offer of marriage and the accept-
ance of the gift is an acceptance of the offer. Among
the Shan of Further India the gift of eggs among
other things to the bride and her parents is expected
from the bridegroom. In South Celebes a hen's egg
is always to be found among the wedding presents and

1 These and other customs have been brought together by
Dr. R. Lasch, Globus, Ixxxix. 104.

2 Volland, Globus, xci. 344. Compare the Jewish rite of
jumping over fish, supra, p. 5 1 .

6o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

it is expressly said to hint at offspring/ But we need
not pursue the subject of symbolism of eggs on such
an occasion.

Among the Schokaz stock in Hungary a woman
who has already several children looks for a stone
which has been thrown at an apple-tree and has
remained on the tree. She takes it down, puts it
into an egg, on which at new moon she pours water
and gives to drink of it to the barren woman. Finally,
she herself takes the latter's bridal shift and wears it
for nine weeks.^ This complex rite is evidently an
amalgam of more than one simpler ceremony, all
directed to the same end ; and it will be discussed
more fully hereafter. Meanwhile, it may be observed
that the virtue of the egg as a fertilising medium
obviously passes into the water, and is imbibed in the
draught. A magical rite in vogue on the island of
Keisar in the East Indies appears also to be formed of
originally independent elements. There an infertile
woman takes a hen's first Ggg to the expert in these
matters, commonly an old man, and asks him for help.
He lays the egg on a nunu-leaf, and with it presses
her breasts, muttering congratulations the while.
Then he boils the egg in a folded Koli-leaf, takes a
piece, lays it again on the nunu-leaf, and causes the
woman to eat it. After that he presses the leaf on
her nose and breasts and rubs it upon both her
shoulders, always from above downward, wraps another
bit of the egg in the nunu-leaf, and causes it to be
kept in the branches of one of the highest trees in the
neighbourhood of her dwelling.^ In this ceremony

1 Lasch, ubt sup.

* Temesvary, 8. See posi, p. 114. ^ Riedel, 416.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 6i

a hen's irrst egg is used. On the other hand, in
Galicia the /as^ egg laid by a hen is taken. It is
credited with having two yolks, and with being no
bigger than a pigeon's egg. A barren woman who
swallows its contents will henceforth bear ; or it is
given to a cow or other animal with a similar object.^

At the domestic sacrifices offered by the ancient
Aryans of India the celebrant's wife usually assisted.
Among those rites for which the Grihya-Sutra of
Gobhila gives minute directions is the Anvashtakya
rite, the object of which was the propitiation of the
ancestral spirits. Three Pindas, or lumps of food, con-
sisting of rice and cow-beef mixed with a certain juice,
are offered. After the offering, if the sacrificer's wife
wish for a son, she is to eat the middle Pinda,
dedicated among the manes especially to her husband's
grandfather, uttering at the same time the verse from
the M antra- Brdhmana : "Give fruit to the womb,
O Fathers !" ^ No doubt the virtue of this prescrip-

^ Am Urquell, iv. 125.

^ Sacred BookSyXxx. no. There are numerous prescriptions in the
sacred books of India for securing male children. One other may
be selected here. A fire is directed to be churned with the ficus
religiosa and the mimosa suma while a hymn from the Atharva-veda
expressive of the symbolism of the act is recited. Fire thus obtained
is thrown into ghee prepared from the milk of a cow with a male
calf ; and the ghee is put with the thumb up the right nostril of the
pregnant woman. Some of the fire is cast into a stirred drink with
honey and the drink is given to the woman. Finally the fire is
surrounded with the wool of a male animal and the wool is then
tied as an amulet upon the woman (^Sacred Books, xlii. 460, 97).
Here the woman is already pregnant and the rites (the symbolism
of which is obvious) are only employed to influence the sex. But
they are on similar lines to those intended to procure offspring. It
sliould be noted that the reading here is uncertain. Mr. Bloomfield
adopts male (animal) as yielding a better symbolism than black, the
alternative reading.

63^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

tion consists in the food's having been part of the sacri-
ficial offering. But the cow is so intimately connected
with the well-being of many of the peoples of the Old
World, and has consequently. become so well-recognised
a symbol of fecundity, that we need not be surprised
to find it employed in charms to produce offspring.
An old English recipe for a woman who miscarries
is to let her take milk of a one-coloured cow in her
hand and sup it up into her mouth, and then go to
running water and spit out the milk therein. Next,
she must ladle up with the same hand a mouthful
of the water and swallow it down, uttering certain
words. Lastly, she must, without looking about her
either |in her^going or coming, return, but not into
the same house whence she came out, and there taste
of meat-V iln'llceland, as a remedy for sterility, a
woman was given without her knowing what it was,
the evening after-milkings still warm to drink, or
testicles of the wild goose to eat." In Pomerania
the prescription is milk from a cow which has just
besfun to:<o"ive-milk, warm from the udder half an hour
before congress.^ Rye boiled in ass' or mare's milk
at the' new moon is given to barren women by the
Schokaz in Hungary.* In Belgium, women desirous
of offspring are advised to drink a mixture of the milk
of the goat, ass and sheep. ^

Of mineral substances, Russian women take salt-
petre ; and in Styria a woman will grate her wedding-
ring and /swallow the filings.* Chinese "medical
works declare jade-grease or jade-juice to operate very

^ Sax. Leechd. iii. 69. ^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxii. 60.

^ Am Urquell, v. 179. ■* Temesvary, 8.

* Bull, de F. L. it. 82. ^ Ploss, Weib, i. 434, 443.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 63

efficaciously in curing women from sterility. In fact,"
says Dr. De Groot, "as those substances may instil
life into such creatures, they cannot fail to intensify
also their life-producing power. They lengthen of
course the life of whomsoever takes them. They pass
for mystic products of mounts which contain jade.
The belief in their reality rests merely on some hazy
passages " of old authors.^ It was a classical super-
stition that mice were impregnated by tasting salt ; ^
and the reader need hardly be reminded of the salted
ball of rice in the ceremony already referred to as per-
formed by Hindu women. Not long ago, "in the
Beaujolais, women afflicted with sterility scraped a
stone placed in an isolated chapel in the middle of the
prairies. At St. Sernin des Bois (Saone-et-Loire),
they scraped the statue of St. Freluchot," and swallowed
the scrapings in water from a neighbouring well.
This was the practice in divers parts of France with
regard to the statues of a saint variously called
Foutin, Photin or Foustin. The saint in question is
not in the official calendar, though he has doubtless
received popular reverence from ancient times. To
him were attributed all the prerogatives of the heathen
deity Priapus ; and it was from those portions of his
statues which indicated his powers that his devotees
obtained the necessary powder. At Bourg-Dieu in
the diocese of Bourges a similar saint was called
Guerlichon or Greluchon. There after nine days'
devotions women stretched themselves on the hori-
zontal figure of the saint and then scraped the phallus
for mixture in water as a drink. Other saints were
worshipped elsewhere in France with equivalent rites
1 De Groot, Rel. Syst. iv. 330. « Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 85.

64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Down to the Revolution there stood at Brest a chapel
of Saint Guignolet containing a priapian statue of the
holy man. Women who were or feared to be sterile
used to go and scrape a little of the prominent
member which they put into a glass of water from the
well and drank. The same practice was followed at the
chapel of Saint Pierre-a-broquettes in Brabant until
1837, when the archaeologist Schayes called attention to
it, and thereupon the ecclesiastical authorities removed
the object of scandal. Women have however still con-
tinued to make votive offerings of pins down almost,
if not quite, to the present day. At Antwerp stood
at the gateway to the church of Saint Walburga in the
Rue des Pecheurs a statue, the sexual organ of which
had been entirely scraped away by women for the same
purpose.^

The drinking of water under certain conditions has
been held to be productive of children. In the first
instance I am about to mention however reliance is not
placed wholly on the draught. Beside the Groesbeeck
spring at Spa in the Ardennes is a foot-print of Saint
Remade. Barren women pay a nine days' devotional
visit to the shrine of the saint at Spa and drink every
morning a glass of the Groesbeeck water. While
drinking, one foot must be placed in the holy foot-print.^
Maidens in more than one of the tales of supernatural
birth have proved the efficacy of divine foot-prints. In
other cases it is unmistakably the draught which has the
virtue. A glass of water from the well of Saint Roger

^ Sebillot, Amer. Anthrop. iv. 92 ; Id. F. L. France iv. 172;
Dulaure, 204 sqq., where further details are given; Berenger-
Feraud, Superst. ii. 191, 193 ; Ploss, Weib, i. 444 quoting an author
liOt named; d'Alviella, Rev. Hist. Rel. liii. 73.

'^ \Volf, Niederl. Sag. 227; Bidl. de F. Z. ii. 8 2 .

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 65

at Elan also in the Ardennes is drunk by sterile
women who wish for children/ ''According to the
legend of Saint Armentaire written towards the year
1300 the fairy Esterelle dwelt near a spring, whither
the Proven{^als brought her offerings and she gave en-
chanted drink to barren women."" One of the seven
lastral springs around the church of Saint Nicodemus
near Locmin6 (Morbihan) is visited by young wives
who having drunk a little of the water climb without
looking behind them into the belfry and there in order
to ensure the success of their wishes sit for a few
moments in an old armchair. The fountain of Sainte
Eustelle adjoining the Roman amphitheatre at Saintes
in the department of Charente Inferieure is resorted to
by wives whose hopes of offspring have been delayed
and who drink of it nine morninors in succession.
That of Saint Rigaud at Monsole, which it is said flows
over the saint's body, also possesses the privilege of
rendering women fruitful ; but it does not appear what is
the actual ceremony performed there The sacred wells
of France having fecundating powers a.re in fact very
numerous.^ Without specifying any more of them we
may turn to our own country. Probably at one time our
springs were not less potent or numerous. Some of them
still retain their reputation. There is a well called
Dewric Well at Bretton, near Eyam in Derbyshire, the
water of which is said to make any woman who drinks
of it fruitful.* A spring at Burnham near Barton-upon
Humber was, until the last half-century at any rate,
believed to remove the curse of sterility.^ At Saint

^ Meyrac, 45, - Scbiilot, F. L. France^ ii. 197.

^ Ibid. 232, 233, 376 ; Cuzacq, no.

* Addy, 59. '^ Ant. xxxi. 373.

I E

66 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Maughold's Well in the Isle of Man women sat in the
saint's chair and drank a glass of water from the well.
Here, as at Locmine, contact with the chair seems to
have been necessary in addition to the draught.^ In
Germany the same belief in the power of certain wells
is equally found. The Amorsbrunnen near Amor-
bach in Bavaria is one of these ; the Gezelinquelle
near Schebusch, not far from Cologne, is another.^
A Sicilian priest named Maggio, director of the Con-
gregazione della Sciabica, writing in the year 1668,
mentions that water derived from a spring beneath
the altar of the Madonna della Providenza at Palermo,
and consecrated yearly on the fourteenth of January,
possessed remarkable powers of curing disease. It
was given with much faith and devotion to persons
who were possessed or bewitched. It was also given
to sterile women and to women who were about to
bring forth. '^ But in Italy itself at the present day
the most valued specific against barrenness is the
water of the well of Our Lady of Lourdes. At Perugia
in particular the church of Santa Maria Nuova does a
profitable trade in Lourdes water, which is said to be
sent direct from Lourdes to Rome and there authenti-
cated by the pontifical seal. It is drunk in faith by
wives desirous of children and also by fathers whose
longings for offspring have not been fully satisfied. And
it is all the more prized because in Italy there are no
fountains having the virtue in question.^ In this
respect the Italians are less fortunate than even the
Tusayan of North America. The latter have a legend

^ F. L. v. 221, citing Sacheverell.

^ Ant. xxxviii. 300 ; Am Urqitell, v. 287.

^ Archivio, xv. 56. * Zanetti, 103.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 67

of one of their women who being pregnant was left
behind on the Little Colorado during their wander-
ings. Under the house where she dwelt is a spring,
and any sterile woman who drinks of it will bear
children.^

Other water than that of sacred springs is also
capable of fecundating women. In Thuringia and
Transylvania women who wished to be healed of
unfruitfulness drank consecrated water from the bap-
tismal font." But woe to the husband at Stettin who
dared to do so ! At her next delivery his wife would
present him v/ith twins. The water of baptism poured
before the door of a childless couple in the island
of Ruoen would brino;' them children.^ In a certain
district of Hungary a barren woman seeks a spring
which she has never before seen and drinks of it.*
Among the Palestinian Jews childless women drink
water wherein moss plucked from the ruins of the
temple-wall has been boiled, in order to get children.^
On the other hand unmarried girls in Brunswick
refrain from drink after eating sour kraut, lest they
become pregnant.*^ At Nuoro in Sardinia the wise
women advise poultices on the spine ; they also advise
drinking, and especially bathing, in the sea.' A
Malagasy woman whose marriage has not been blessed
with issue is made to drink litres and litres of water

^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. viii. 32. The Crow Indians have also a
sacred spring whither barren women go to pray \ but it does not
appear whether or not they drink or bathe (Field Columb. Miis.
Anthrop. ii. 316).

2 Witzschel, ii. 244; von WUslocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 152
HiUner, 38. ^ Am Urquell, vi. 146.

* Temesvary, 8. ^ Am Urquell, v. 225.

* Andree, Braunsch. 291. ' Rivisla, ii. 423.

68 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

until her stomach is so full that it will not hold
another drop/

Masur women in the province of West Prussia make
use of the water which drips from a stallion's mouth after
he has drunk. Worse is said to be done in Algiers.
There when a woman has already had a child, but has
ceased for a long period to conceive, she must drink
sheep's urine, or water wherein wax from a donkey's
ear has been macerated.^ Mr. Thomson, the traveller
among the Masai of Eastern Africa, had the reputation
of being a great lybon or medicine-man. He was
applied to by a wealthy old Masai and his wife for a
medicine to obtain children. He was requested to
spit on them, which, he says, " I did most vigorously
and liberally, my saliva being supposed to have
sovereign virtues."^

A Transylvanian Gipsy woman is said to drink
water wherein her husband has cast hot coals, or,
better still, has spit, saying as she does so : "Where
I am flame, be thou the coals ! Where I am rain be
thou the water! "* A South Slavonic woman holds a
wooden bowl of water near the fire on the hearth.
Her husband then strikes two firebrands together until
the sparks fly. Some of them fall into the bowl, and
she then drinks the water.^ For Arab women the
third chapter of the Koran (which, among other things

1 Mondain, 44. In South-eastern Africa a potion is given
instead of water to a childless Ronga woman. It is drunk mixed
with native beer, and she is required to take it for months. In
this case, however, the husband shares it (Junod, Baronga, 63).

^ Ploss, Weib. i. 443, 431.

3 Thomson, Masai Land^ 287.

* Ploss, Weib, i, 443, citing von Wlislocki in general terms.

* Krauss, Sitte ttvd Brattch, 531.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 69

relates the birth of the Virgin Mary) is written out in
its whole interminable length with saffron in a copper
basin ; boiling water is poured upon the writing ; and
the woman in need drinks a part of the water thus
consecrated, and washes her face, breast and womb
with the remainder,^ At Bombay a barren woman
would cut off the end of the robe of a woman who has
borne at least one child, when it is hung up to dry ; or
would steal a newborn infant's shirt, steep one end of it
in water, drink the water and destroy the shirt. The
child to whom the clothing belonged would then die
and be born again from the womb of the woman
performing the ceremony." Other women in India
drink the water squeezed from the loincloth of a
sanydst, or devotee, after washing it for him.^ We can
only surmise that this practice is followed in the hope of
obtaining the benefit experienced by the Princess
Chand Rdwati and other heroines of Indian literature
and folklore.*

Be this how it may, there is a group of practices to
which reference must be made, and which fully match
the foregoing in nastiness. Unfortunately the dislike

^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 435, citing Sandreczki.

" Mel. vi. 109, quoting Rehatsek mjourn. Anthrop. Soc. Bombay,.

2 Punjab (^Indian) N. and O. iv. 107 (par. 415). Even more
disgusting is the rite described by the Abbe Dubois as practised at
a temple famous all over Mysore (Dubois, 601). In Egypt in the
seventeenth century childless women resorted to certain naked
ascetics to kiss their sexual organs (StoU, 653, quoting Thevenot).
The same is said to be still done in India.

* See Sir R. C. Temple, F. L. Journ. iv. 304 ; De Gubernatis,
ZooL Myth. n. 331; Panjab N. and O. ii. 19 (par. 122); Hardy,
Manual of Buddhism, 251. The incident of conception by semen
imbibed through the mouth or nose may in fact be said to be some-
what of a favourite in Indian stories.

70 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

of nastiness is an extremely civilised feeling ; and
when we read of these things we must remember that
we ourselves are not very far removed from a date
when powder of mummy was one of the least objection-
able of the grosser remedies in our forefathers' pharma-
copoeia. We have already found that a Gipsy womsn
will drink the water wherein her husband has spit.
What is the meaning of the expression " He is the
very spit of his father ! " current not only in England,
but also, according to the learned Liebrecht, in France,
Italy and Portugal, and alluded to by Voltaire and La
Fontaine, if it point not back to a similar, perhaps a
more repulsive ceremony formerly practised by the folk
all over Western Europe ? In Pomerania when a
women is barren it is recommended to give her
-another woman's milk to drink.^ In Olchowiec
(Russia), water containing three drops of blood from
the navel of a new-born child is given. Other women,
especially Jewesses, are said to suck blood from the
•child's navel, and in doing so they should swallow
three times.^ Ukrainian women drink water in which
a portion of an umbilical cord has been soaked.^ An
immigrant Russian Jewess having given birth to a
child in the hospital at Boston, one of her neighbours,
a woman, asked to see the after-birth. In answer to
inquiries why she wished to see it, she said that she
had heard that to eat a placenta is a certain means of
curing sterility, and she wanted to try.* A Polish
woman, to get children, procures a small jar of the
blood of another woman at her first child-bearing, and
drinks it mixed with brandy.^ Among some of the

1 Am Urquell, v. 252. 2 Kobert, 92, ^ Mel. viii. 38.

* UAnthrop. ix. 240. ^ Am, Urquell, iii. 147.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 71

Roumanians in Hungary it is the custom that a barren
woman eat the dried remains of the navel-string and
drink some of the blood. Elsewhere in Hungary a
barren woman is oiven some of the lochial discharo-e
of a woman at her first child-bed. Serb women are
advised to bathe in water in which is the placenta of
a woman who has just been delivered. Ruthenian
women sit on a ctill warm placenta. Elsewhere in
Hungary women follow the Polish practice just
mentioned.^ In Sicily they are prescribed powder
of dried after-birth in pills.^ A Kamtchadal woman
who, on bearing, desires to become pregnant soon
again, eats her infant's navel-string.^ Among the
Ottoman Jews a woman who has only had one child,
and has afterwards ceased to bear, may recover her
fertility by eating the foreskin removed from a child
by circumcision,'^ In Bombay a childless woman
secures a few drops of the water from the first bath
or washings of a woman who has been recently
delivered, and drinks them. The object seems to be to
transfer the fecundity of the one woman to the other :
hence precautions are jealously taken against the
practice.^

Among the Gipsies of Roumania and southern
Hungary a sterile v.oman scratches her husband's left
hand between fingfer and thumb ; and he returns the

^ Temesvary, 8. It is also believed among the Magyars that the
after-birth of a boy or girl placed under the bed will ensure the
procreation of a child of the same sex ; but the husband must be
careful which side he gets into bed — on the right side for a boy, on
the left for a girl (von Wlislocki, Volkskb. Mag. 80).

2 Pitre, Bibl:oteca, xix. 448.

2 Ploss, Wcib, i. 432, citing Kraschneninnikov.

* Mel. viii. 270.

" Paiijab N. and O. i. 100 (par. 772).

72 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

compliment. The blood of both is received in a new
vessel, and buried under a tree for nine days. It is
then taken up and ass' milk poured into it. Husband
and wife drink the mixture before going to bed, with
an incantation which reminds us of the Zulu story of
the blood in the pot ; for its earlier lines run thus :
" In the dawn three Fates will come. The first seeks
our blood ; the second finds our blood ; the third
makes a child thereout."^ The powers of both
husband and wife appear to be thus increased. It is
rather the women who are directly acted on in the
Malagasy rite of "scrambling." This rite is per-
formed on a lucky day at the end of the second or
third month from the birth of a first-born child. The
friends and relatives of the child assemble. Some
fat from an ox's hump is minced in a rice-pan, cooked
and mixed with a quantity of rice, milk, honey and a
sort of grass called voampamoa. A lock of the infant's
hair ceremonially cut from the right side, and known
as " the fortunate lock " is cast into the rice-pan and
thoroughly well mixed with the other ingredients.
The youngest female of the family holds the pan, and
a general rush and scramble for its contents ensues.
In the scramble the women take a prominent part,
"as it is supposed that those who are fortunate enough
to obtain a portion may confidently cherish the hope
of becoming mothers." The rice-pan used becomes
taboo for three days.' Presumably the contents are

1 Am Urquell, iii. 7. In the Zulu story referred to, a pigeon cups
the heroine and causes the blood to be put into a pot which is kept
covered for two moons when the heroine finds two children in the
pot (Callaway, Tales^ 205)- The story is a favourite among the
Zulus, Kaffirs and Basiito, and several variants are known.

2 Ellis, Hist. Mad,/i. isz-

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 73

devoured after the scramble, though the account I
cite does not say so. Transylvanian Gipsy women
make a cut in the little finger of an unbaptized child,
and suck the blood to promote their conception.^

A woman of the Hungarian population of Tran-
sylvania hangs for nine consecutive months at the
time of full moon on a tree, a cloth on which are some
drops of blood of her last previous period and says :
"Tree, I give thee my blood, give me thy strength,
that thereby I may with my blood breed children." ^
This perhaps may be explained by the doctrine of
Transference, by which a disease is believed by the
ceremonial acts and words to be transferred to some
other object and the patient freed. I am by no means
sure, however, that the underlying idea is that of
simple Transference, since a prayer for the tree's
strength in exchange is included in the rite. It may
be that the intention is no more than that of the pre-
scription for a barren Gipsy woman. If such a
woman succeed in touching a snake caught in Easter-
or Whitsun-week, she will become fertile by spitting
on it thrice and sprinkling it with her menstruation-
blood, repeating the following incantation ; " Grow
quick, thou snake ! that I thereby may get a child.
I am lean now as thou art, therefore I have no rest.
Snake, snake, glide hence ; and when I am pregnant
I will give thee a crest (I/aude), that thy tooth
may by that means have much poison!"^ Here the
woman conjures the snake to grow fat, in order that

^ Am Urquell, iii. 8. ^ Temesvary, 9.

3 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 66. This work, when cited, must
be understood, unless otherwise expressed, to deal with the Gipsies
of the Danubian countries, where alone, the author says, they are
unsophisticated.

74 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

she may do so too. The object of bestowing her
secretions upon it is to unite herself with it, because
the secretions which are in contact with the snake will
still be in mystical union with the body from which
they have emanated. They will thus form a bond
between the snake and the woman ; and her body will
share the improved condition of the snake's body. In
the same way I incline to think that the intention of
the Transylvanian rite is to unite the woman with the
tree that she may share its strength, and not to
transfer her barrenness to it, of which there is no hint
in the incantation. Upon this notion is founded a
practice in German Togoland where on the occasion
of a birth one of the women in attendance buries the
placenta. If she has not yet borne she micturates over
it before covering it up, hoping then soon to have a
child herself.^ A Magyar believes that he promotes
conception by his wife if he mix with his blood white
of egg and the white spots in the yolk of a hen's egg,
fill a dead man's bone with the mixture, and bury it
where he is accustomed to make water.^ Apparently
his potency is held to be thereby increased. In some
parts of Hungary an unfruitful woman spits on
Christmas night in a spring,^ thus uniting herself with
its fertilising power. The principle is of endless
application.

I have just mentioned a dead man's bone as the
receptacle of a magical mixture of blood and other
ingredients. According to a Mexican saga a dead
man's bone, when sprinkled with blood, produced the

■*■ Globus, Ixxxvii. 75.

^ Am Urquell, iii. 269. For other cases see Ibid. 8.

" Temesvary, 10.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 75

father and mother of the present race of mankind/
Portions of corpses are, in the opinion of many people,
as valuable for unfruitful women as the blood and
secretions of living persons. The Magyars not merely
use a dead man's bone as a magical phial : they also
hold that such a bone shaved into drink and given to a
woman will promote conception ; or if given to a man
they will enhance his potency..^ Danubian Gipsies
are said to make, for protection from witchcraft, little
figures of men and brutes out of a sort of dough of
grafting wax taken from the trees in a graveyard,
mixed with the powdered hair and nails of a dead
child or maiden, and with ashes left after burning the
clothes of one who has died. The figures are dried in
the sun, and when required for use are ground Into
powder. Taken in millet-pap in the increase of the
moon this powder accelerates conception.^ Mr. Lane
records disgusting practices on the part of barren women
at Cairo. Near the place of execution there was a
table of stone where the body of every person who
was, in accordance with the usual mode of punishment,
beheaded Is washed before burial. By the table was a
trough to receive the water. This trough was never
emptied ; and its contents were tainted with blood and
fetid. A woman who desired Issue silently passed
under the stone table with the left foot foremost, and
then over It. After repeating this process seven
times she washed her face in the trough, and giving a
trifling sum of money to the old man and his wife who
kept the place, went silently away. Others, with like

1 Southey, Counnonpl. Bk. iv. 142 ; Featherman, Chiapo-Mar.
136. 2 von Wlislocki, Volksleb. Mag. 77.

von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 103.

76 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

intent, stepped over the decapitated body seven times,
also without speaking ; and others again dipped in
the blood a piece of cotton wool, which they after-
wards made use of in a manner which Mr. Lane
declines to mention.^

In the Panjab also indescribable cures for barrenness
are often adopted. One of the more respectable
remedies is said to be that of bathing over a dead
body. For this purpose murder is even committed.
Another is that of eating a loaf cooked on the still
burning pyre of a man who was never married and
therefore never transmitted life, and who was the only
or eldest son in his family and so received the fullest
possible measure of vitality.^ Low caste women
believe that bathing underneath a person who has
been hanged is efficacious. Women of the middle-
classes with the same object try to obtain a piece of
the wood of the gallows.^ In Gujarat, when a Jain
ascetic of the Dundiya sect dies in pursuance of a
vow to starve himself, women who seek the blessing
of a son try to secure it by creeping under the litter
on which his corpse is removed, or by joining in
the scramble for fragments of his clothes.* Some
at least of these practices (and the list might be

1 Lane, i. 393, 394. There is an analogous way of treating
barren cows in German East Africa [Globus, Ixxxvii. 308).

2 Census of Ind. 1901, xvii. 164. Sir R. C. Temple records a
case of conviction of two women, a mother and daughter, of Daboli
in the Panjab. The mother desired a male child and being told by
the faqir that if she killed the eldest son or daughter of some one
and bathed over the body she would have her wish gratified, she
with her daughter's help seized and murdered a child answering the

equirements and performed the ceremony (/. A. I. xxxii. 237).

3 N. Jnd. N. and O. i. 86. Cf.J. A. I. xxxv. 278.
* Forbes, Ras Mala, 611; Daya, 82.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN ^^

lengthened) are more revolting than the incidents in
the numerous stories wherein portions of dead bodies,
criven to maidens and other women, render them
pregnant. Special power is, as we might expect,
ascribed to saints, ascetics and persons put to a violent
death. The latter are often apotheosised, quite inde-
pendently of their character, or the reason for their
untimely decease. Executed criminals share the
honour with the most harmless martyrs ; and ruffianism
is no bar to divinity. Triat corporal relics of such
personages should have the power of kindling new life
in a barren woman may perhaps be regarded as only one
of their wonder-working powers. But there would seem
to be a further reason. Ascetics do not transmit life in
the ordinary way. Those who suffer violent death are
cut off before they have exhausted their power of trans-
mission. In either case, therefore, there remains a
fund which may be drawn upon by contact, or the
performance of the proper ceremonies. Both stories
and practices, however, point beyond an unexhausted
power of transmission to the possibility of securing the
life itself. It will be more convenient to pursue this
subject in the next chapter.

The water wherein the Cairene women washed
would owe its power to the putrefying blood. Wash-
ing in water endowed with supernatural power is not
uncommon elsewhere. Incidental allusion has already
been made to the practice, v/hich we may now further
illustrate. Transylvanian Saxon women not only drink
of baptismal water : they also wash in it, preferably
on Midsummer Day.' Among the Galician Jews
unfruitful women when they bathe according to their
^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 75, 152.

7^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

ritual dip themselves nine times under water.^ An
Ottoman Jewess who desires children takes her bath
holding in her arms a young girl whose future fecundity
thus passes directly to her." Saint Verena, one of the
illustrious obscure of mediaeval mythology, bathed
in the Verenenbad at Baden in the Aargau, and thereby
conferred on it such virtue that pregnant women or
such as wish for children, if they bathe there, soon
attain their desire.^ The reference to pregnant women
must no doubt be understood of those who wish to
avoid miscarriage and to be safely delivered. German
tales and popular saws used to speak — perchance
they still do — of a Kinderbrunnen, or Children's Well,
whence babies were fetched. I have alreadv mentioned
some of which the water w-as drunk for the purpose
of procuring issue ; and we may perhaps infer that
similar rites were practised at the rest. The Bride's
Well, in Aberdeenshire, was at one time the resort
of every bride in the neighbourhood on the evening
of her marriage. Her maidens bathed her feet and
the upper part of her body with water drawn from it ;
and this bathing, we are told, " ensured a family."'*

Of the Cupped Stones of Scotland tw^o may be
mentioned as having the same property. The first is
a stone basin called Saint Columba's Font, said to
have been used by Saint Columba himself for baptism
when he visited King Brude in his castle near
Inverness. It lies in the old graveyard of Killianan
at the mouth of the burn of Abriachan. on the shores
of Loch Ness. Rain-water collects in the hollow, and
generally remains even in the hottest weather.

^ Am UrqacH, iv. 1S7. " Mel. viii. 270.

2 Kohlrusch, 324. ^ Rev. W. Gre^or, F. L. iii. 6S.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 79

Among the virtues of this water are said to be
"salutary effects in connection with child-bearing,"
and women, if report be correct, " frequented it in this
belief till recently ; *' but whether it was of inward or
outward application is not stated. The other stone is
at Arpafeelie, near Inverness. Of this we are told
that it possesses similar virtues to those of the former,
'* when childless women bathe in its cloud-drawn
waters immediately before sun-rise."^ An egg-shaped
pebble of quartz two incht^.s long by an inch and a half
in greatest diameter was formerly used in the western
division of Sandsting parish, Shetland, as a cure
for sterility. The would-be mother washed her feet
in burn -water (that is, water drawn from a running
stream) in which the stone was laid. As in the cases
just mentioned, however, none of the details of the rite
have come down to us. The stone was said to have
been brought originally from Italy. " Unlike most
charms, it was not preserved in one family, but passed
from the hands of one wise woman to another, the
trust being only relinquished when the holder was on
her death-bed." ^

Among the springs on the continent of Europe,
which we know were frequented by women for the
purpose of obtaining children, the rites practised at
very few are recorded. The Hermitage of Nuria, in
Catalonia, is celebrated for its olla, or basin, into
which barren women have only to dip their heads,
after reciting some Paternosters, to recover their
fecundity. There is al-^o a fountain near Bizanos, in

^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scotl. xvi. 377, 387 (1882).
2 Id. xviii. 452, quoting letter from Mr. James Shand of the
Union Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, the then owner.

8o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Beam, to which women who desire to become mothers
go to bathe. ^ At Lanty near Luzy, and at the spring
of the Good Lady at Onlay (Nievre), they wash their
breasts and then go and pray in tiie church. Some
of the French, and especially Breton fountains, as
well as a brook near Morlaix, have the reputation of
assuring fecundity to mares and other domestic animals
by outward application.^

In Sardinia, as we have seen, women are recom-
mended to bathe in the sea. In Aglu, Morocco, a
Schluh woman "desirous of knowing whether she will
be blessed with a child or not," goes to the sea-shore
on Midsummer Day and the two following days, and
*' lets seven waves go over her body each time ; then
she knows that, if she is going to have a child at all,
she will have it very soon." In this case, as Dr.
Westermarck observes, " magic has dwindled into
divination."^ In Southern Mexico "there are special
streams in which [Tlaxcalan] women bathe to ensure
fecundity. Such a stream is the Sawapa. ... It is
also believed that bathing in the tei7zascal,'' or sweat-
bath, generally found in the enclosure of a dwelling-
house " aids to fecundity,"*

In India the practice of bathing for this purpose is
well known. The well into which Puran, that Panjabi

1 Chauvet, 57 note. For other cases in which the rite is not
specified see Sebillot, Petite Leg. Doree, 213 ; Cuzacq, iro.

2 Sebillot, F. L. France, ii. 233, 381; iii. 79; Id. Paganisme,
228. In the Frick valley (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland), at
certain times a jocular tribunal is held upon unmarried women over
twenty-four years of age, and wine is poured into their laps.
Probably this is to be explained in the same way (Hoffmann-Krayer,
Schweis. Arch.f. Volkskunde, xi. 265).

^ F. L. xvi. 32. * Starr, Ethnog. S. Mexico, i. 22.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 81

Joseph, was thrown, is situate in the high road
between Sialkot and Kalowal. His residence in it
sanctified it to such an extent that the women of those
parts beheve that if they bathe in it they will become
fruitful.^ " In a well in Orissa the priests throw betel-
nuts into the mud, and barren women scramble for
them. Those who find them will have their desire for
children gratified before long. " ' Here again magic
is dwindling into divination. Indian women some-
times, as we have seen, adopt more questionable
means : the following examples may be added to those
already mentioned. They wash naked in a boat in a
field of sugar-canes, or under a fruiting mango-tree.^
Mangoes, it will be remembered, are favourite fruits
for obtaining issue in Indian tales. According to
another prescription the patient should begin by
burning" down seven houses. But English law is
unsympathetic to this procedure ; and women have to
content themselves with burning secretly at midnight
on Sunday under a cloudless sky, and if possible at a
cross-road, a little grass from the thatch of seven
dwellings. At this fire they heat the water wherein to
bathe.* Or on a Sunday or Tuesday night or during
the Diwali festival the woman sits on a stool, which is
then lowered down a well. She there strips and
bathes, and being drawn up again performs the chauk-
P'ltrna ceremony with incantations taught by a wizard.
If there be any difficulty about descending a well, it
seems she may perform the ceremony beneath a pipal-

^ Leg. Panj. i. 2.

^ Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 50, citing Ball,///;/^/^ Life in Lndia.
3 Panj, (^Indian) N. and Q. iv. no (par. 425).
* Ibid. i. 15 (par. 125); 63 (par. 527); 100 (par. 770) ; li. 185
(par. 985) ; iii. 98 (par. 447) , N. Jnd. N. and Q. i. 50 (par. 372).

82 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

tree. It is believed that after such a ceremony the
well runs dry and the tree withers/ In other words,
the woman has succeeded in obtaining a transfer of
their life. In the Panjab there is still another way of
obtaining issue. On the night of the feast of Diwali —
always a night in the moonless half of the month — the
husband draws water at seven different wells in an
earthen pot, and places in the water leaves plucked
from seven trees. He brings the pot to his wife at a
spot where four cross-roads meet. She must bathe
herself with the water unseen by anybody, and then
put on new clothes, discarding her old ones.^ Or else
the woman perfectly nude covers a space in the middle
of the crossway, and there lays leaves from the five
royal trees, the Ficus religiosa, Ficus ifidica^ Acacia
speciosa, mango and Butea frondosa. On these she
places a black head representing the god Rama,
and sitting on it she washes her entire body with
water drawn in five pitchers from five wells, one situate
in each quarter of the town or village and one outside it
to the north-east. She pours the water from the
pitchers into a vessel whose bottom is pierced by a
hole whence the contents may flow over her body.
The ceremony must be accomplished in absolute
solitude, and all the utensils must be left on the spot.'*
Amono- the ancient Greeks and Latins various

o

1 Ind. Cens. 1901, xvii. 164.

2 Panj. N. and Q. ii. 166 (par. 886).

3 Ibid. iv. 88 (par. 346). " For the same reason," says
Mr. Crooke, "after childbirth the mother is taken to worship the
village well." He describes the ceremony, and adds others [F. L. N.
Ind. i. 51). "Bathing when standing or sitting on a dead male
buffalo's head " is also stated to be a method of obtaining children
[Panj. N. and Q. i. 100, par. 770). Does this explain the " black
head " mentioned above ?

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 83

streams and springs were deemed of virtue against
barrenness. Dr. Ploss cites divers classical writers
as recording the claims of the river Elatus in Arcadia,
the Thespian spring on the Island of Helicon, the
spring near the temple of Aphrodite on Hymettos,
and the warm springs of Sinuessa in Campania.
Others might easily be found, if necessary, both ancient
and modern. A curious rite is repeated among the
Serbs. A young, sterile married woman cuts a reed,
fills it with wine, and sews It, together with an old
knife and a wheaten cake, in a linen bag. Holding
this bag under her left arm she wades in flowing water,
while some one on the brink prays for her : " Fulfil
my prayer, O God ; O mother of God;" and so on
through the whole cramut of sanctities. Durlno- this
prayer the wader drops the bag in the stream, and
coming out sets her feet in two caldrons, out of
which her husband must lift her and carry her home.
Here we have unmistakably a prayer and offerings
of food and drink to the water, the latter remaining
but little changed from ancient times, while the former
has put on a Christian guise. ^ Among the Mordwins
in the Russian Government of Tambov the barren
woman goes at midnight to a river holding in her
hands a live cock which she has previously loaded
with silken threads hung with tiny bells. She pros-
trates herself a certain number of times ; then, praying
the ved-ava, or water-spirit, to render her fertile, she
flings the bird Into the water. In the adjoining
Government of Penza, she takes some oatmeal, millet
and hops and one kopeck in a basket, and placing
the whole on the river-bank, she prays the ved-ava
^ P/oss, IVeib, i. 437, citing Petrowitsch

84 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

to forgive her, and '' de se /aire une place dans son
vi^ntrey On her return home she knocks at the door,
saying : " The wood to be dried up, I to be swollen up ! "
The ved-ava, it should be noted, are not merely river-
spirits ; they dispense rain and fertility. Imagined
themselves as females in human form, they are pro-
tectresses of love and of the fecundity of women. Young
couples pray to them for children and it is to their
anger that sterility is ascribed : hence probably the
prayer for forgiveness just mentioned.-^ There is no
bathing mentioned in these rites. We find it, how-
ever, practised in the parallel case of the Burmal
er Rabba spring near Constantine, in Algeria, fre-
quented both by Jewesses and Moors for the re-
moval of infecundity. Each of these women slays
a black hen before the door of the grotto, offers inside
a wax-taper and a honey- cake, takes a bath and goes
away assured of the speedy accomplishment of her
wishes.^ Childless couples in Palestine "go long dis-
tances to bathe in certain pools ; and barren women
visit the hot springs in various districts, not as might
be supposed for any medicinal properties, but because
the jinn who causes the vapour is regarded as being
capable in a definite and physical sense of giving
them offspring." ^ The Oromo of East Africa believe
in a multiplicity of supernatural beings called by the
generic name of Ajana. Some of these have their
seat in the depths of streams and springs. Their
presence lends the water supernatural power. The

^ Srnirnov, i. 432, 397, 398. Kara Kirghiz women spend a
night beside a holy well ; but the ceremonies practised are not given,
unless they include that mentioned infra, p. 113 {Radloff, v. 2).

2 PIoss, Weib^ i. 437.

2 Mrs. H. H. Spoer, F. L. xviii. 55.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 85

wells and rivers they haunt are therefore much
resorted to. Unfruitful women especially believe that
by bathing in rivers thus consecrated the desired
fertility may be obtained/

In the same way it is precisely while bathing that
the women of a certain tribe in Northern Queensland
are believed to be impregnated. This is done by a
nature-spirit, called Kunya, who makes babies out of
pandanus-root and inserts them into women in the
water.^ The population of the Seranglao and Gorong
Archipelago between Celebes and New Guinea is
Mohammedan, at least in name. Among the cere-
monies for the production of children we are vaguely
told that infertile men and women are made to bathe
in a particular manner.^ In the partially Christianised
Ambon and Uliase Islands persons who have no
children take drugs or "bathe in a certain prescribed
manner ; " but what that manner is our authority leaves
undescribed.'* In the Archipelagoes of Watubela,
Aaru and Sula barren women and their husbands go
to the ancestral graves, or if Moslems on Friday to
the so-called Kub Karana, or sacred tomb, to pray
together with some old women. They bring offerings,
which include water, and a live goat, or if heathen a
young pig. The husband prays for a medicine, and
promises, if a child be given him, to offer the goat (or
pig, if a heathen), or to give it to the people to eat.
It is expected that after this the medicine will be
prescribed to both husband and wife in dreams.
They both wash in the water they have brought,

^ Paulitschke, ii. 36,

^ Roth, A^. Queensland Etfwog. Bull. v. 23, § 83.

» Riedel, 176. * /^. 75-

$^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

which is consecrated by thus standing for a while on
the grave and eat sirih-pinang together, putting some
also on the grave in a dish. They take the goat or
pig back home, to be sacrificed in accordance with the
husband's vow, only if the wife become pregnant.-^
The heathen Dyaks of Borneo offer domestic fowls
and other birds to water-gods against unfruitfulness,
which these divinities inflict upon women, or remit, at
their own uncontrolled pleasure ; but it does not
appear that the votaries bathe. The barren woman
(or sometimes a man) gives a big feast called Cara-
ramin and goes to the haunt of the Jata, or divinity,
in question in a boat beautifully decorated, taking
the birds v/ith o'ilded beaks as offerino-s. These birds
are either thrown alive into the water, or their heads
are merely cut off and offered, while the bodies are
consumed by the votaries. In many instances, we are
told, carved wooden figures of birds are made use of,
instead of the real article.^ The nature-goddess of the
Yorubas on the West Coast of Africa is represented
as a pregnant female ; and the water that is consecrated
by being kept in her temple is highly esteemed for
infertility and difficult labours.^ Probably it is for
external application as in the case of the correspond-
ing goddess of the neighbouring Ewhe.^ The Wan-
dorobbo of German East Africa celebrate a feast

^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 438, citing an article by Riedel in Bijdragen.

2 Ibid. 436, citing Hein,

3 Ibid. 439, citing Bastian. I suspect the goddess referred to is
Odudua, who is strictly speaking the Earth-goddess (see Ellis,
Yoruba, 41). But there is nothing to identify the passage of Bastian
referred to ; and if there were, we should probably be no better off.
The blessings invoked by students on both Bastian and Bartels will
always be of a limited character.

* Spieth, 716.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 87

from time to time to pray Ued, their god, for children.
At this feast the married women sit in a circle
round a small fire, in which are sprinkled by way of
incense the waxen dregs of honey-beer. They sing,
calling on Ued, while an old man of distinction
sprinkles them with honey-beer. After a quarter of
an hour or so of this they get up and dance, still sing-
ing. The ceremony closes with a meal of flesh-meat
and honey-beer/

Most of these observances include bathing or
washing or at least sprinkling with water or some
other liquid as an integral part of the rite. Where
this is not the case the water-orod is invoked. The
fertilising power of liquids, especially water, is thus
recognised in them all. This would seem to be the
chief idea underlying the rites in connection with water
performed by a bride on being brought to her new
home. It would be wandering too far from our
present subject to discuss these rites, which are often
very complex. But one at least of the objects they
have in view is the production of offspring. I add a
few references below for readers who wish to pursue
the inquiry." Meanwhile it will be seen that the
practices whether of drinking or bathing reviewed in

^ Merker, 250.

2 Jevons, Plutarch's R. Q. ci. ; V Anthrop&logie, iii, 548, 558 ;
Congress (1891) Rep. 345; Kolbe, 163; Rodd, 94; Dalton,
passim; Ploss, Weib, i. 445 ; Winternitz, Altind. Hocbz. 47, loi ;
Lobel, 149, 175, 203; Hoffmann-Krayer, Sclnveis. Arch. f. Volksk.
xi. 265. I may add as evidence at once of a belief in the value of
washing for the production of children and of a different view of the
operation of water, that about Adael, west of the White Nile, in
Equatorial Africa, the Kich negresses do not wash in water, but
" in liquids much less innocent," unless they want to be sterile
(Ploss, Wtib., i. 439, apparently citing Brehm).

88 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the preceding pages bear, in their simpler forms at
any rate, a remarkable analogy to the incidents in the
stories wherein we are presented with birth as caused
by these means. As far as the more complex practices
differ, their difference arises by development of ritual
or the necessity to screen the real substance of the rite
from the jealousy of a predominant religion.

Having regard to the legends of Danae and the
Mexican goddess who was fructified by the rain we
may note that Hottentot maidens must run about
naked in the first thunderstorm after the festival when
their maturity is celebrated. The rain, pouring down
over the whole body, has the virtue of making fruitful
the girl who receives it and rendering her capable of
having a large offspring.^ On the other hand, young
unmarried Bushmen w^omen and girls must hide them-
selves from the rain,^ probably because they may be
rendered pregnant thereby. Among the Bamonaheng,
one of the sub-clans of the Bakwena, the principal
clan of the Basuto, a cripple named Ntidi used to have
a great reputation for assisting barren women by his
prayers. Such women used to go to pray in a cavern,
and if water fell on their heads it was ascribed to him,
and they firmly believed that their prayers were heard. ^
The Ts'etsaut, a Tinneh tribe of Portland Inlet,
British Columbia, forbid a girl who is undergoing her
seclusion at puberty to expose her face to the sun
or to the sky, else it will rain.* It may be suspected
that here, as among the Bushmen, we have a taboo

1 Hahn, Tsuni-\\goatrt, 87. ^ Lloyd, Rep. 21.

* Jacottet, in Bufl. Soc. Neiichat. Ge'og. ix. 136. Sometimes it
was small stones which fell on the women, without their knowing
whence.

* Boas, Brit. Ass. Rep. 1895, 5^^ i ^^- Chinook Texts, 246.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 89

against premature exposure to rain. It is even
possible that a similar belief in the power of rain to
fructify women was once common in Europe. In
Iceland a light rain at a wedding is still a sign of a
fruitful marriage/ It is accounted lucky in this
country ; and luck in marriage we know means above
all things children. On the Riviera a rhyme declares
that "if the bride and bridegroom wet their feet they
will be three within the year " — that is, they will have
a child. ^ A saying current in many parts of Germany
points in the same direction, namely, that when it rains
on St. John's Day the nuts v/ill be wormy and many
girls pregnant^ — unless as a Slav practice already cited
may suggest the pregnancy be the result of their eating
the wormy nuts.

The legend of Danae, however, suggests, and several
of the other stories I have cited assert, that supernatural
pregnancy was due to the rays of the sun. The
ancient Parsees, as we might have expected, believed
that the beams of the rising sun were the most effective
means for giving fruitfulness to the newly wedded ;
and even to-day, in Iran and among the Tartars in
Central Asia, the morning after the marriage has been
consummated the pair are brought out to be greeted
by the rising sun.* The same custom was formerly
practised by the Turks of Siberia'' At old Hindu

^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxii. 60.

2 J, B, Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. ri:6.

* Wuttke, 81. In Hainault a profusion of fruit on tlie nut-trees
prognosticates many bastards during the year (Harou, 28).

* PIoss, Weib, i. 446, without acknowledgment, but apparently
on the authority of Vambery {Das Titrkenwolk, p. 112), who is cited
by Frazer {G. B. iii. 222 note) for the custom.

* Frazer, loc. cit.

90 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

marriages, the bride was made to look towards the
sun, or in some other way exposed to its rays. This
was performed the day before the consummation of the
marriage, and was expressly called the Impregnation
rite.-^ At the present time among Hindus in the old
North-Western Provinces, a woman who is childless
and desirous of being blessed with a child, stands,
after bathing, naked facing the sun, and invokes his
aid to remove her barrenness." Among the Chaco
Indians of South America, the bride and bridegroom
sleep the first night on a skin with their heads towards
the west ; for, we are told, the marriage is not con-
sidered as ratified until the rising sun shines on their
feet the succeeding morning.^ Whether or not it is
really their feet on which the sun is expected to shine,
the ratification of the marriage by the sun must be
intended to obtain the blessing of fertility.

Allusion has been made to the puberty customs of
the Bushmen and the Ts'ets'aut. In the lower culture
it is usual that girls on attaining maturity are placed
in retreat ; but in consequence of the vagueness with
which the rites are described we are often left uncertain
whether they are simply banished from society for a
time as " unclean," or are immured with special precau-
tions against sunshine. Moreover, it is no uncommon
phenomenon that in course of time and cultural
changes the real object of a ceremony is forgotten,
and the ceremony itself modified — perhaps in conse-
quence of this forgetfulness, perhaps for other reasons
— or at least the account given of it by the people who

^ Crooke, Tribes and Castes, ii. 149, citing Biihler.
2 N. hid. N. and O. iii. 35 (par. 71).
^ Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N.S, iii. 327.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 91

practise it is not to be relied upon. The general
subject of puberty customs is too wide to be fully
discussed here. I shall therefore adduce only a few
cases in which the intention to screen from the sun is
either expressed, or a matter of obvious inference.

Dr. Frazer has made a large collection of such cases
of which it is necessary to do little more than remind
the reader.^ They include examples from various
tribes of South America in which the pubescent girl is
confined, usually in her hammock, but at all events
closely covered up, for a longer or shorter period, and
corresponding examples from the East Indies, both
continental and insular, in which the unfortunate
victim is immured in the dark, sometimes even for
years. The requirement is often express that the sun
must not shine on her, and where it is not so stated it
is obvious from the description of the rites. The case
of the Cambodian maiden is particularly significant.
She is said at puberty ** to enter into the shade."
She is kept in the house and is only allowed to bathe
after nightfall when people are no longer recognisable,
and has to submit to other rules. This seclusion lasts
from months to years, according to the social position
of ihe family ; but it is interrupted during eclipses,
when she is allowed to go out to worship the monster
that produces eclipses by seizing the heavenly bodies
between his teeth, praying him to listen to her prayers
for good fortune.

Among the Indians of the various tribes of British

Columbia and Alaska the seclusion from the sun was

very stringent, although it varied In time from a few

days to two years, and the details differed from tribe

^ Frazer, G. B. iii. 204 sqq.

92 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

to tribe. To the tribes mentioned by Dr. Frazer may
be added the Chinook, the Squamish, the Lillooet
and the Haida. Among the Chinook a girl must
remain hidden for five days. A potlatch is then
made ; she is brought out to dance and afterwards
hidden again. For fifty days she must not eat fresh
food. For a hundred days she must not warm herself
by the fire, nor look at the people, nor at the sky, nor
pick berries. When she looks at the sky bad weather
is the result ; when she picks berries it rains ! ^ A
Squamish girl does not seem to have been secluded ;
but she was kept indoors at work all day long after
puberty, and during her catamenia she was not allowed
to go near the fire." Among the Lillooet a girl was
isolated in a small lodge made of fir-branches or bark.
She painted her face red. Each evening at dusk she
left her lodge and wandered about all night, returning
before sunrise. Even then she wore a mask of fir-
branches. Among the Lower Lillooet many girls wore
masks of goat-skin which covered head, neck,
shoulders and breast, leaving only a small opening
from the brow to the chin ; and before going out every
one had to paint the exposed part of her face. Girls
remained isolated for not less than one year nor more
than four years ; but two years was the usual time. They
performed at night ceremonies intended to influence
their future course of life and obtain easy delivery.^ Of
the Haida ceremonies it is only necessary here to
refer to two. Among the Masset the girl remained
behind a screen in the house. She was subject to

^ Boas, Chinook Texts, 246.

- Hill-Tout, B. A. Rep. 1900, 484.

* Teit, Jestip Exped. ii. 263.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 93

certain dietary regulations for two years. She was
not allowed to look at the sky or go down to the
beach like other people, or it would become bad
weather. Among the Stasias the maturing girl had to
wear a large hat covered with green paint which
protected her face from the sun and fire.-^ The Malemut
and other Eskimo about Bering Strait compel a girl
to live for forty days in a corner of the hut with her
face to the wall or in summer in a rough separate hut,
her hood over her head and her hair hano-incf
dishevelled over her eyes. She is not allowed to go
out at all by day and only once during the night when
every one is asleep.^ In south-western Oregon the
Takelma girl is subjected to a number of ceremonies
and taboos. " She was not permitted for instance to
look at the sky or to gaze too freely about her ; and to
ensure this a string of the blue jay's tail-feathers tied
on close together was put about " her forehead and
tied to her back hair, "an arrangement that effectually
screened from her view everything about her." She
sleeps with her head in a funnel-shaped basket, the
declared purpose (which may be very different from
the real purpose) being to prevent her from dreaming
of the dead — a bad omen.^

The Paliyans of the Palni Hills in the south of
India celebrate a feast when a girl attains maturity.
Two weeks previously a grass-hut is built for her.
There she remains shut up for twelve days, food being
brought to her once or twice a day. On the morning
of the thirteenth day the matrons of the settlement

^ ^\ia.r\ior\, Jesiip Exped. v. 49, 50.

^ Nelson, JRep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 291.

^ E. Sapir^ Amer. Anihrop. N.S. ix. 274.

94 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

forcibly drag her to some neighbouring pond or stream
and plunge her seven times into the water. She is
then brougrht back to her hut and there confined for
two days more, during which time no food at all is
given her. On the fifteenth day she is at last set free,
the hut where she was immured is burnt down, and a
grand feast takes place in which all the families of the
settlement join, the headman of the tribe or his repre-
sentative sometimes presiding and receiving a gift,
such as a skin or valuable roots. The whole day is
given up to mirth and gaiety, to eating, drinking and
dancino-. In the Madura district two of the castes of
the plains observe a similar custom of shutting up girls
at the time of puberty, the Valayans for fourteen and
the Parivarams for sixteen days ; but the accompany-
ing rites differ in some particulars from those of the
Paliyans.^ Mr. Macdonald, a missionary, speaking
generally of the Bantu tribes of South Africa, espe-
cially of those of the south-east, tells us that if
menstruation *' commence for the first time while a
girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field,
she runs to the river and hides herself amono- the reeds
for the day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers
her head carefully that the sun may not shine on it
and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, as would
result from exposure to the sun's beams. After dark
she returns to her home and is secluded " in a separate
hut, where a small portion is partitioned off for her at
the farther end. There the sunshine, it may be ob-
served, can by no possibility reach her ; and there she
remains under taboo, with some other girls to attend
her, for about three weeks. She then leaves the hut,
1 Father Dahmen, Anthropos, iii. 27.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 95

washes, and after certain ceremonies is received as a
woman. ^ Ordinary girls among the Barotse pass
through comparatively simple ceremonies of purifica-
tion, and are initiated into the mysteries of adult life
by certain old women. But the case of a daughter of
the royal house is by no means so simple. She is
required to spend three months not merely in retire-
ment but in the darkness of a hut alone. She is
forbidden to speak to the slave-girls who attend her.
From her seclusion she issues so transformed with the
fat which is the result of good feeding and complete
inaction that she is hardly recognised. She is taken
by night to the river and bathed in the presence of all
the women of the village. The next day she appears
in public decked with ornaments and paint and
tattooed around the eyes, a woman and ready for
marriao-e.^ Amono- the Bavili in French Cong-o the
girl on attaining maturity is caught and forced into
what is called "the paint-house." There she is kept,
painted red and carefully fed and treated until she is
considered ready for marriage, when she is washed
and led to her husband.^ Among the Bashilange on
the rivers Lulua and Kassai in south-west Africa a
girl is shut up for from four to six days in a hut.
When she is let out again her whole body is rubbed
with powdered tukula wood and castor oil and her
face is painted red. The occasion is one of great
rejoicing ; and she is carried on a man's shoulders
through the village.* Among the natives of Loango
girls at puberty are confined in separate huts. The

^ /. A. I. XX. 116. 2 Beguin, ri2.

^ Dennett, 20.

* Mittheil. der Afrik. Gesellsch. in Dentschlancl^ iv. 259.

96 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Awankonde of Lake Nyassa and the Wafiomi of
Eastern Africa also seclude girls for a considerable
period, apparently in the dark. On New Pomerania,
the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, the
Sulka bride is taken to her future husband's parents
some time before the wedding. They keep her
secluded in a cell of their house, where she is tattooed
and where she is required to observe abstinence from
certain foods and can make no fire. On going out for
any purpose she must be covered up from head to
foot, and must whistle that men may get out of her
way. Thus she passes the time until the wedding-
day.^

On the island of Mabuiag, in Torres Straits, the
girl is put into a dark corner of her parents' house
surrounded with bushes, which are piled up so high
around her that only her head is visible. Here she
remains for three months. The sun may not shine on
her; or as one of the natives expressed it, "he can't
see daytime, he stop inside dark." On the adjacent
island of Muralug, a rough bower-like hut is built for
the girl on the beach, and she lies inside, in a shallow
excavation in the sand. She is not liberated for two
months. On the Cape York Peninsula of Australia,
a girl at puberty has to lie in a humpy, or shelter, for
from four to six weeks. She may not see the sun,
and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until
the sun has disappeared, "so sun don't strike him."
Similar but less lengthy is the seclusion among the
Otati of the neighbourhood of Gape Granville, on the
east of the same peninsula and the Uiyumkwi of Red
Island, the former only lasting during the flow of the
^ Arc/i. Anthrop. N.S. i. 210.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 97

catamenia, while the latter is reduced to a few
hours/

The foregoing examples are drawn from the Eskimo
and the tribes of British Columbia, from the aboriginal
inhabitants of various parts of South America, from
the Bantu of Africa, from the Hindus and the Cam-
bodians, from more than one of the East Indian islands,
from Melanesians, Papuans, the islanders of Torres
Straits, and tribes of the extreme north of Australia.
Most of the cases from so wide an area were dis-
covered by the almost limitless research of Dr. Frazer.
They raise, as he has pointed out, the suspicion that
the stories of impregnation and capture by the sun
are echoes of puberty rites in which exposure to the
rays of the sun is forbidden. It would not necessarily
follow that the original reason for concealment from
the sun was fear of impregnation by that luminary ;
though having regard to the stories and to the beliefs
respecting impregnation disclosed in the present chap-
ter, it is probable. Puberty is a crisis of extreme im-
portance in life. The precautions taken with regard
to girls indicate that they are held, not merely to be
charged with malign influence, but to be specially
sensitive to the onset of powers other than human.
They may very well be supposed liable at that
moment to impregnation by the unusual means of sun
or rain. We have seen that Hottentot maidens are
rendered fruitful by a thunderstorm, and that other
tribes very low down in culture have customs and
beliefs pointing in the same direction ; and we seem to
find traces of such beliefs even in Europe. A pre-
sumption is thus raised in favour of the parallel belief

^ Torres Straits Rep. v. 203 sqq.
I G

98 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in impregnation by the sun ; and though we cannot
be said at present to have actual proof of it, the
wedding ceremonies I have cited greatly strengthen
the presumption.-^

The belief in conception by the moon is rare. It
was perhaps the belief, as we have seen, in ancient
Egypt with regard to the bull-god Apis. It is still
found in Brittany.^ The Ja-Luo of Eastern Uganda
hold that " a woman can only become pregnant at the
time of the new moon, and generally that the moon
has a great deal to do v/ith the occurrence." ^ In some
of the East Indian islands a star is credited, as in
several stories, vv^ith it. In Ambon and Uliase albinos
are attributed to conception by a falling star ; by the
people of Seranglao and Gorong the morning star
is accused as the cause.*

Fire, in various parts of Europe, is believed to
cause conception. About Ranggen in the Tirol a barren
woman is advised to creep into a baking oven while
it is still warm.^ Dr. Frazer has pointed out that the
custom of leaping over bonfires has this among other
things for its object. At Cobern, in the Eifel, an

1 One difficulty in the way of identifying the immurement in the
stories as an echo of the puberty rites is the fact that in many, if
not most, of the tales the child is immured from infancy. This is
probably a mere exaggeration. On the other hand, such cases are
not unknown in savage life, as among certain branches of the
Iroquois, when a child (boy or girl) is closely secluded from every
one except the appointed guardian, and only allowed out of his place
of concealment at night. This seclusion lasts until puberty. It is
generally occasioned, as in the stories, by some omen or prodigy
accompanying birth ; and the child is regarded as possessed of
magical power {Rep. Bur. Ethn. xxi. 142, 255).

2 Luzel, Rev. Celt. iii. 452 ; Rev. Trad. Pop. xv. 471.

3 J. A. I. xxxiii, 358. ^ Riedel, 75, 176.
^ Zmgerle, Sitten, 26 (No. 152).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 99

effigy is burnt on Shrove Tuesday ; the people dance
round the pyre and the last bride must leap over it.
In Lechrain a young man and a young woman leap
together over the bonfire on Midsummer Day. If
they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from
fever, and the girl will not become a mother within
the year — the flames will not have touched and
fertilised her. In Ireland barren cattle are driven
through the midsummer fires ; and a girl who jumps
thrice over it will soon marry and become the mother of
many children. In various parts of France a girl who
dances round nine fires will be sure to marry within
the year. While in some parts of France and Belgium
it is the rule that the bonfires usual on the first Sunday
of Lent should be kindled by the person who was last
married.^ The relation of these beliefs and practices
to those which exhibit bonfires as quickening and
fertilising influences over the vegetable world is clear.
For details reference must be made to the pages of
The Golden Botigh.

The specific manner, however, in which the fires
were supposed to work their beneficent purpose is a
subject of conjecture rather than of absolute proof.
It has been suggested that it was by purification.
The fumigation which human beings and cattle would
undergo in passing through or over the fire, and which
would be conveyed to the fields and fruit-trees by the
flames and smoke of the fire and of the torches lighted
at its glowing embers, would drive away evil influences.
That this idea in fact enters into some of the celebra-
tions is clear, if not expressly affirmed by those who
indulge in them. But it by no means accounts for all
^ Frazer, G. B. iii. 244^ 270, 305, 314.

lOO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the rites. It seems that on the whole the explanation
of the fires given by Mannhardt and Frazer is the
true one, namely, "that they are sun-charms or
magical ceremonies intended to secure a proper supply
of sunshine for men, animals and plants." Such fires
are mimetic rites. The power ascribed to them of
bringing about the occurrence which they mimic,
namely, the supply of sunshine, would, by a confusion
of thought common to magic, be extended and identified
with the power of the sun itself. Contact with them,
therefore, or with the smoke or embers, or with torches
kindled at them, would produce the same effect as
exposure to the rays of the sun. We have seen that
the sun is believed to fertilise not merely the fields
but human beings also, and that marriage rites and
not improbably puberty ceremonies have reference
to this belief — a belief, moreover, of which expression
is found in many of the stories. We accordingly
conclude that these fires are believed to have a direct
and immediate influence on fecundity, whether of the
fields and fruit-trees or of women, similar to that
ascribed to the sun,

A corresponding question arises as to the exact
operation of a famous Roman rite. The festival of the
Lupercal has been elaborately discussed by Mannhardt
and more recently with great care by Mr. Warde
Fowler. "On February 15," says the latter, "the
celebrants of this ancient rite met at the cave called the
Lupercal, at the foot of the steep south-western corner
of the Palatine Hill — the spot where, according to the
tradition, the flooded Tiber had deposited the twin
children at the foot of the sacred fig-tree, and where
they were nourished by the she-wolf." There, after a

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN loi

sacrifice of goats and a dog, and the offering of sacred
cakes made by the Vestals from the first ears of the
last harvest, " two youths of high rank, belonging, we
may suppose one to each of the two collegia of Luperci,
. . . were brought forward ; these had their foreheads
smeared with the knife bloody from the slaughter of
the victims, and then wiped with wool dipped in milk.
As soon as this was done they were obliged to laugh."
The Luperci then " girt themselves with the skins of the
slaughtered goats, and feasted luxuriously ; after which
they ran round the base of the Palatine Hill, or at
least a large part of its circuit, apparently in two
companies one led by each of the two youths. As they
ran they struck at all the women who came near them
or offered themselves to their blows, with strips of skin
cut from the hides of the same victims " with which
they were girt. The course taken up by the runners,
has not been completely described; but their object
was apparently a /2/;5'/?^^/z'^ of the Palatine city. It is
aptly compared by Mr. Fowler with the old English
custom of beating the bounds of the parish, "when
the minister," says Bourne as quoted by Brand,
" accompanied by his churchwardens and parishioners,
[was] wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a
blessing on the fruits of the earth and preserve the rights
and properties of the parish." ^ The women were struck
according to Juvenal on the open hand, according to
Ovid on the back. The object was beyond doubt to
fertilise them. The only dispute is whether that
fertilisation was accomplished by purification, by
driving out the demon of sterility, or directly by the
touch of the sacred thongs.

^ Fowler, 310 sqq Brand, i. 168,

I02 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Mannhardt has collected a long series of examples,
chiefly from ancient and modern Europe, of the ritual
use of blows/ Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough has
added a considerable number from various other parts
of the world.^ The conclusion at which the former
arrived was that they all belong to a cycle of related
customs, of which some have preserved one morsel of
old tradition and others have preserved others, and
that the object of ail alike was the expulsion of the
demons of sickness and sterility from mankind and
from plants. This conclusion has been strengthened
by Dr. Frazer's collection. Yet I am by no means
persuaded that it is entirely accurate for all the cases
cited. There is a great temptation to interpret in the
same way customs which assume a similar, even if not
quite the same, form. The possibility, however, of the
conflation of two or more rites originally distinct, and
the alternative possibility of one rite's being influenced
in its form by a rite perfectly distinct in purpose
though similar in expression, must never be omitted
from our calculations. The practice of throwing a
stone or a stick upon a cairn of stones, or of tying a
piece of rag from one's clothing on a bush above a
sacred well, or throwing a pin into the well itself is
very widespread. When in Sweden a piece of money
is thrown upon a cairn, instead of a stick or a stone ;
or when the Scottish peasant hammers a bawbee,
instead of a nail, into the withered trunk of the Wish-
ing Tree of Loch Maree ; the ceremony has obviously

1 Mannhardt, BK. 251 sqq. ; Id., Myth. Forsch. 113 sqq.

2 Frazer, G. B. iii. 129, 215, 217. Probably the worshippers of
Demeter at the Greek festival of the Thesmophoria were beaten for
the purpose of increasing their productiveness ; but we do not know
of what wood the rods were made (Farnell, iii. 104).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN lo^;

o

undergone some change of this kind. Whatever may
have been the Intention in adding a stone to a cairn,
or hammering a nail into a sacred tree, we cannot
doubt the analogy in form between this act and the
much less archaic gift of money at a shrine has struck
the peasant's mind and caused a substitution of the
more valuable for the less valuable object bestowed.
So it seems to me that the rite of beating a patient in
order to drive the demon of sickness or some other
evil being out of him has been confounded with the
similar rite of striking to cause some good to enter
him. These two distinct rites have in fact undergone
conflation, the same act which drives out the demon
being held to induce the desired good.

M. Salomon Reinach has objected to Mannhardt's
interpretation that the latter has overlooked the
importance of striking with the branches of certain
definite trees or plants, or with thongs made from
the hides of certain animals.^ It may be replied that
certain plants are endowed in the popular belief with
the property of drawing away or keeping at a distance,
witches and devils. This must be admitted. But
here again arises the difficulty, of disentangling notions
which have grown together for ages. The difficulty,
however, does not attach with the same persistence to
all. At Hildesheim the women and girls are struck at
Shrovetide with a small fir-tree or a stalk of rosemary.^
In Altmark at the same period a band of men-servants
ofoes from farm to farm with music and beats with
birch-twigs first the mistress, then her daughters, and
lastly the servant-maids.^ These are only samples of

^ VAnthrop. xv. 52.

'^ Mannhardt, BK. 254. ^ Ibid. 256.

I04 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the use of three different plants, of which more are
recorded in Mannhardt's pages. We have already
seen that rosemary is prescribed for barrenness. The
fir is a symbol of fertility. In North Germany brides
and bridegrooms often carry fir-branches with lighted
tapers. At Weimar and in Courland firs are planted
before the house where the wedding takes place.^
The ceremonies concerning the fir practised at a
wedding by the Little Russians at Volhynia are
specially instructive. When the wedding procession
returning from the church draws nigh to the bride-
groom's house, a loaf of bread and a branch of fir or
pine are adorned with mountain-elder, white blossoms
and ears of corn and oats, and carried thence by the
boyarin or master of the ceremonies into the bride's
house. At the appearance of the fir the bride must
modestly lay her face upon the table and carefully hide
it. The bridegroom goes thrice round the table,
takes a cloth, lifts up the bride's head, kisses her and
places himself again at her side. The fir and the loaf
are set on the middle of the table opposite the bridal
pair. The bride's mother showers nuts and oats over
her new son-in-law, and sprinkles him with holy water.
Ears of corn are then fastened by the bridesmaids on
all present, beginning with the bridegroom.^ Save for
the use of holy water, which is an intrusive element,
the whole object here is directly to produce fertility.
In particular, that this is the purpose of the introduc-
tion of the fir is strikingly shown by the ritual modesty
of the bride. The same interpretation is to be put
upon the use of the birch-twigs in the custom, practised

^ De Gubernatis, Myth. Plant, ii. ZZZ-
^ Mannhardt, BK. 222.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 105

about Roding in the Upper Palatinate, of beating the
bride as she walks up from the church-door to her seat
opposite the bridegroom/ There would be no sense
in expelling demons at that moment and in that place.
Moreover, the various uses of the birch exhibited by
Mannhardt, and especially its connection with the
Mayday or Whitsuntide festival, seem unmistakably to
prove that, like the rosemary and the fir, its virtue is
not really that of exorcism but of fertilisation.

From these examples it is clear that M. Reinach is
right in insisting upon the need of paying attention to
the material with which the blows are struck, in order
correctly to interpret their meaning. At the Lupercal
the blows were struck with thono-s made of the hides
of the sacrificed goats. The Luperci, clothing them-
selves with the hides, cut strips from them for the
purpose. The custom by which the officiant at a
sacrifice, or the person on whose behalf the sacrifice is
offered, puts on the skin of the victim, is widely
spread. Its object is to identify the worshipper with
the victim, to obtain for him its sacred character, to
impart to him, as Robertson Smith says, "the sacred
virtue of its life." Thus the Luperci by clothing them-
selves in the skins were identified with the victims,
were indued with their qualities, furnished with
their sacred virtue. Striking others with those skins,
they were able to impart to them something of the
same qualities. Here is no element of purgation or of
exorcism : the object is direct and immediate fertilis-
ation. The story told by Ovid to explain the rite
confirms this interpretation. It is to the effect that
after the Rape of the Sabines the wives acquired by
^ Mannhardt, BK. 299.

ro6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the Romans remained barren. Juno, having been
consulted in her sacred grove on the Esquiline,
replied : "■ Italidas matres sacer hircus inito !'' An augur
recently banished from Etruria (the Etruscans were
famous for augury) interpreted the oracle. He offered a
goat in sacrifice, and by his command the women exposed
their backs to blows from thong's cut from the hide.
The happiest results followed ; the women became
mothers, and Rome was saved from extinction.^ It is
perfectly true that this is an setiological tale, invented
long afterwards to account for a rite the origin of
which was unknown. It is only cited here to show
that the ancients attached no purgative quality to the
blows : they understood their purpose to be no less
and no more than that of fecundating the childless
women who submitted to them.

The same direct action is to be attributed to the
blows bestowed in the county of Bekes, in Hungary,
on sterile women. They are struck with a stick
which has been first used to separate pairing dogs. In
the county of Bacs a barren woman is fumigated with
the hairs of pairing dogs, or with Christmas crumbs.
In the same county a Serb woman, who has already
borne and is therefore endowed with fecundity, will
communicate it to a barren friend by spanning her
v/aist at Christmas with a doughy hand. Among the
Schokaz the unfruitful woman sleeps on a cloth where-
with she has touched two pairing dogs. The Slovaks
in county Gomor beat her with the material in which
the midwife has wrapped a child at birth ; and we
are expressly told that they believe that by this means
she becomes pregnant.^

^ Ovid, FasH^ ii. 429. - Temesvary, 8.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 107

Mannhardt has noted that in many of the periodical
ceremonies he has recorded the blov/s are specially
aimed at women and girls. Thus, in addition to the
instances already mentioned, in Shaumburg the men-
servants at Shrovetide strike the maids and married
women on the calves so vigorously that the blood often
flows. The next night, however, the maids have their
turn, and doubtless repay with Interest what they have
received/ In Ukrainia on Palm Sunday, scarcely
have the people left the church when the boys
brandish the willow-rods recently borne in the pro-
cession and lay them about the backs of all who are
near them, but preferably on the women and girls.^
The " Easter-smack" which Is given in many parts of
Germany and Austria Is often bestowed only on the
women.^ In some parts of Voigtland the girls are
whipped by the lads with nosegays.* In Voigtland
and the whole of the Saxon Erzoreblrore the lads on
Boxing Day beat the women and girls, if possible while
they are still abed, with birchen twigs which have
already sprouted, bound together with red ribbons, or
with something else that is green, such as rosemary-
stalks or juniper-twigs.^ From a police regulation in
the archives of Plassenburg dated In the year 1599 we
learn that it was then the custom at Christmas for
strong men-servants to penetrate into the houses, strip

1 Mannhardt, BK. 254.

2 Ibid. 256. So in some parts of Greece people beat one
another with pahii-branches on coming out of Church on Palm
Sunday [Revue Arcbeologique, 1907, 55), Surely no devils can with-
stand the Palm Sunday service in the Greek church, and need to be
exorcised in this way !

3 Mannhardt, op. cit. 261.

* Ibid. 264. 5 Ibid. 265.

io8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the girls and women and beat them with switches or
rods.'

Other examples might be added ; but without
lengthening the European list, let us compare these
with one from the utmost East. The Makura no
Soshi, a Japanese work written about the year looo a.d.,
tells us that it was the custom, at the festival held
in honour of the Sahe no Kami, or phallic deities, on
the first full moon in every year, for the boys in the
Imperial Palace to go about striking the younger
women with the potsticks used for making gruel on the
occasion. This was supposed to ensure fertility.
Probably the practice was by no means confined to
the boys in the palace, for "the Japanese novelist and
antiquary Kioden, writing about a century ago, informs
us that a similar custom was at that time still practised
in the province of Echigo. He gives a drawing of the
sticks used for the purpose, of the phallic character of
which" in Mr. Aston's opinion "there can be no
doubt." The figure reproduced by Mr. Aston would
certainly seem to bear out his opinion.^ Here the occa-
sion, the form of the instrument and the effect attributed
to the blows are strikingly similar to those we have been
examining, and confirm the interpretation I have
ventured to place upon the European customs.

Certain marriage ceremonies have the same object.
At Athens the a;gis of Athene was taken by the
priestess to the houses of newly married women. ^

1 Mannhardt, op. cit. 267. Compare with the above the custom
in the Bohemian Riesengebirge and the rhymes uttered as the
various limbs and organs are struck {Zeits. des Vet-etns, x. 332).

2 Aston, Shinto, 190. Compare the use of similar instruments
in Bulgaria at Carnival {Arch. Religionsw. xi. 408).

3 Farnell, i. 100.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 109

The aegis was a goat-skin, and we can hardly doubt
that it was brought into contact with the bride for
the purpose of rendering her fruitful. The ceremony,
it would seem, was not performed actually on the
wedding-day ; but many such ceremonies are. The
custom observed from India to the Atlantic Ocean
of throwing grain and seeds of one sort or another,
over a bride, and apparently that of flinging old shoes,
are intended to secure fecundity. The wandering
Gipsies of Transylvania are said to throw old shoes
and boots on a newly married pair when they enter
their tent, expressly to enhance the fertility of the
union. In Germany, pieces of cake are thrust against
the bride's body.^ At a certain stage in the wedding
ceremony of the German Jews, the friends who stand
round throw wheat on the couple and say, " Be fruit-
ful and multiply.'"^ The same object is visible in the
custom of the Berads in Bombay, by which the bride
is made to stand in a basket of millet.^ The Oraons
require the bridegroom to perform the essential cere-
mony of marking the bride with red lead, while both
are standing on a curry-stone, under which a sheaf of
corn lies upon a plough-yoke.* An equivalent rite is
found very generally in Northern India, and its
meaning cannot be doubtful. So, among the people
of Great Russia the nuptial couch is made with great

1 Ploss, JVeib, i. 445; Grimm, Teuf. Myth. 1794. In Zennor
and adjacent parishes in Cornwall, it was the custom to flog a newly
married couple to bed with " cords, sheep-spans, or anything handy
for the purpose," as a fecundity-charm. But it is obvious that the
custom described was in the last stage of decay ; and it has now
come to an end. No certain conclusion can therefore be drawn
from the miscellaneous character of the implements made use of
(F. L.Journ. v. 216). ^ Andree, Volksk. Jud. 144.

3 F. L. xiii. 235. * Dalton, 252.

no PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

ceremony of forty sheaves of rye, over which the
sheets are spread. Barrels full of wheat and barley
are set round it, and at night the wedding torches are
stuck in them.-^

Among the Masai of German East Africa many
women, especially women hitherto barren, take part
in the festival at the circumcision of the youths. The
barren women come in order to be pelted by the
youths with fresh cow-dung, for by the universal belief
of the Masai they will thereby be rendered fruitful.^
Possibly the same may be the meaning of a curious
rite performed by the Australian blackfellows in
Victoria when a girl attains the age of puberty. She
is rubbed all over with charcoal and spotted with
white clay. " As soon as the painting is finished she
is made to stand on a log, and a small branch, stripped
of every leaf and bud, is placed in her right hand,
having on the tip of each bare twig a very small piece
of some farinaceous food. Young men, perhaps to
the number of twenty, slowly approach her one by
one ; each throws a small bare stick at her, and bites
off the food from the tip of one of the twigs, and spits
it into the fire, and, returning from the fire, stamps,
leaps and raves, as in a corrobboree." The sticks are
afterwards buried to prevent sorcerers from taking

1 Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 355. The same chapter is rich in
illustrations of the custom of throwing grain and seeds of various
kinds over a bride, and of decking her with ears of corn and so
forth, and abundantly justifies Mannhardt's observation that " the
custom undeniably takes its rise from the feeling of a sympathetic
connection between mankind and seed-bearing grasses and the
comparison between the fruit of the body and of corn."

2 Merker,6i. Their neighbours the Nandi apparently consider the
mere presence of a barren woman at a certain part of the boys' circum-
cision ceremonies enough to cause pregnancy (Hollis, ?hindi, 55, 68).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN iii

away the girls' kidney-fat, and the branch is burnt.
" The young men who threw the twigs and bit off the
food are understood to have covenanted with her not
to assault her, and further to protect her until she shall
be given away to her betrothed ; but the agreement
extends no further ; she may entertain any of them of
her own free Vv'ill as a lover." ^ The agreement may
extend no further. A youth who has taken part in a
solemn ceremony performed for the benefit of the girl
may by tribal law be under a special obligation not
to offer her violence. But that this is the purport of
the ceremony we must take leave to doubt. It does
not explain the details. The connection with the
puberty rites, the ritual spitting out of the food into
the fire by the youths, the intimate relation created
between the sticks and the girl's body and the conse-
quent fear of magical influence through them, and the
right of the girl afterwards to entertain any of the
youths as a lover, all alike negative the establishment
of any fraternal bond between her and the youths,
such as would be implied by a covenant of the kind
indicated ; all alike point to some effect to be wrought
upon her ; and that effect can only be a strengthening
for the duties of adult life, among which the bearing
of children occupies by far the most prominent place.
But we require to know a little more about the circum-
stances, and in particular how the youths are selected,
and what if any preparation they undergo, to pro-
nounce definitely on the question.

^ Brough Smyth, i. 6i. It is said that in New Caledonia the
ground is thrashed by boys with sticks, with the idea of making it
fruitful; but the fact does not rest on direct evidence (J. J.
Atkinson, in F. L. xiv. 256).

112 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

We have seen that in the stories a woman is some-
times said to conceive by the foot. An Asturian
ballad ascribes to the borage the power to affect any
woman treading on it as it affected the unfortunate
Princess Alexandra.^ In Brunswick a maiden who
treads on an egg-shell will become pregnant in
the same year.^ This is a case in which magic has
weathered down to augury : originally we may presume
the maiden was believed to become pregnant at once
by the act of treading on an egg-shell. In Auvergne
a woman or girl becomes pregnant by setting foot on
a hedgehog in the fields, and at the end of nine months
gives birth to a large litter of hedgehogs. The village
gossips even yet speak of girls who have suffered from
this misfortune. In the Haute-Loire it is enough for
a woman at her monthly period to pass over a hedge-
hog hidden under the leaves to cause her to litter six
weeks later a whole basketful of young hedgehogs.
Probably, as M. Sebillot observes, to this superstition
must be traced the term of abuse Jane d'eurson
(hedgehog brat) applied to children in the neighbour-
hood of Metz.'' The mode of revenge adopted by a
rejected lover among the Sulka of new Pomerania is
to take a certain fruit and cut it open or bore a hole in
it and insert some lime over which an incantation has
been pronounced. Then he throws the fruit on a path
over which the woman will pass, generally dashing it
upon a hard object so that it will fall to pieces. If the
woman thereafter walking along the path happen to

1 De Charencey, 230.

2 Andree, Braunschw. Volksk. 291. On the other hand in Japan
women must not tread on egg-shells, otherwise child-birth will be
difficult, or they will get leucorrhoea (H. ten Kate, Globus, xc. 129).

3 Rev. Trad. Pop. xii. 547 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 15.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 113

tread on a piece of the fruit she will become pregnant,
and the pregnancy will be repeated so frequently that
she will die of it/

Among the Kara Kirghiz a solitary apple-tree is
often regarded as sacred. Rolling or wallowing
beneath it in prayer seems a method approved among
the women for obtaining pregnancy.^ In Japan it is
enough to squat down on the spot where a birth has
just taken place, ^ A Kwakiutl woman in British
Columbia is delivered sitting on the lap of a friend
over a pit or hole in the ground, into which the child
falls. When twins are thus born all the young women
go to the pit "and squat over it leaning on their
knuckles, because it is believed that after doing so
they will be sure to bear children."^ In Saxony
about Chemnitz a table-cloth acquires prolific virtue by
serving at a first-christening-dinner ; and it is some-
times cast over a barren wife.^ In the same way in
Italy a childless woman will borrow from a friend her
shift and wear it at the moment of coition. Dr.

1 Father Rascher, Arch. Anthrop. N.S. i. 219. In a variant
ceremony when a girl who is undergoing her seclusion previous to
marriage is concerned, the man waits by the house in the first
quarter of the moon until she comes out of doors for recreation in
the moonlight. He then takes some lime, steps up to her and
blows it against her mouth. The result will be that after her
marriage she will bring forth monstrous births or become so often
pregnant that at last she will die.

2 Radloif, V. 2. The apple-tree is a well-known symbol and
therefore cause of fecundity. Among the Southern Slavs the bride
is unveiled beneath an apple-tree and the veil is sometimes hung on
the tree (Krauss, Sitte und Branch., 450). In some parts of
England a fretful child is said to have come from under a crab-tree
(Addy, 144). 2 H. ten Kate, Globus, xv. 129.

4 Boas, B. A. Rep. 1896, 575,
^ Grimm, Tetit. Myth. 1795.

I H

114 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Zanetti who reports this superstition also states that
some persons wear sacred vestments on such an
occasion ; but whether those persons are men or
women does not appear. Near Gubbio a barren
woman is frequently advised to draw off the first milk
of a goat, before the newborn kid is allowed to suck,
to make a cheese of it, and to wear the cheese tied up
in a rag continually under her clothes/ In all these
.cases prolific virtue is communicated by contact.

It is sometimes enough if not the woman herself but

some article of her clothing be placed in contact with

the fruitful object, as in a Bosnian custom by which a

childless woman seeks for a plant called apijun, cuts

its roots small, and steeps them in foam she has caught

from a millwheel, afterwards drinking of the liquid.

She then winds her wedding-girdle round a newly

grafted fruit-tree, when, if the graft prosper, she also

will bear. A still more complex rite is recommended

when a woman has been married for upwards of

eleven years without having had issue. A lady friend

who is so fortunate as to be in that state in which

^' women wish to be who love their lords " must

endeavour to find a stone lying in a pear-tree, as

sometimes happens when it is thrown at the ripening

fruit and caught by one of the branches. She must

then shake the tree until the stone fall. This she

must catch in her hands ere it reach the ground, carry

it in the left skirt of her dress to the brook, put it

into a pitcher, fill the pitcher from the brook so far as

to cover the stone, and carry it home. Next, she

gathers dewy grass (it is not stated what she does with

it), and speaks into the pitcher and into the water the

1 Zanetti, 104, 103.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CFIILDREN 115

conjuring formula : " So-and-so shall conceive." After
that, she brings the pitcher with the water to the barren
woman to drink, and windinof the weddinsf-Sfarment
(it does not appear what portion of the dress is meant)
of the latter about her own body, wears it for three
months or longer, until the woman for whom the
ceremony is performed shall feel that her desire has
been accomplished. The friend, however, must not
eat even a morsel of bread in the patient's house/

In this performance as in the former two distinct
rites are employed, in the hope that one will be
successful if the other fail. The potion carries us back
to the fertilising means discussed earlier in the chapter.
The stone shaken down from the tree can hardly be
understood to represent anything but a pear ; and
inasmuch as the patient cannot eat the stone, its
virtues as fruit (enhanced by its being plucked by a
woman already pregnant) are transmitted to the water
which is oiven her to drink, the intention beinof made
effectual by the utterance of the command, " So-and-so
shall conceive." In the second rite, included alike in
both customs, the quasi-permanent contact of the fruitful
tree or the pregnant woman with the barren woman's
clothing though detached from her body is sufficient,
by a magical doctrine which I have considered else-
where, to secure the transmission of prolific virtue to
her. Arab women attempt the more direct method of
transmission by borrowing the robe of a friend who
has already proved her fecundity.'-^ So Egede, the
Danish missionary to Greenland, tells us of the
Eskimo that " to render barren women fertile or

1 Dr. Krauss, in Am Urquell, iii. 276. Cf. the variant rites
practised by the Schokaz, supra, p. 60. 2 Jaussen, 35.

ii6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

teeming they take old pieces of our shoes to hang about
them ; for, as they take our nation to be more fertile
and of a stronger disposition of body than theirs, they
fancy the virtue of our body communicates itself to our
clothing."^ This virtue, however, is often looked
upon as transferred by the same means from one body
to another, to the detriment of the former. Such
appears to be the danger contemplated by the supersti-
tion in the Erzgebirge that a bride must not give away
the first shoes she casts off, lest she become unlucky.^
That is to say, her luck (by which fertility was doubt-
less originally meant, and in which it is still the chief
element) would be given away with the shoes. We
shall meet with further examples of transfer in the
next chapter.

The virtue of sacred vestments is derived from
contact with persons either personally or ritually holy.
One in that condition, as the tales abundantly witness,
has the power of fecundating barren women. The
relics of Lha-tsiin, the patron saint of Sikhim, are
celebrated as a certain cure for barrenness. They
consist of his full-dress robes, including hat and boots,
his hand-drum, bell and dorje, or Buddhist sceptre
typical of the thunderbolt, and a miraculous dagger

1 Egede, A Description of Greenland (London, 1818), 198. The
first edition of the Danish original was published in 1 741. Compare
the custom of flinging old shoes at a bride [supra, p. 109). The
wearing of a garment belonging to a prolific friend may be com-
pared with a custom among the Besisi of Selangor in the Malay
Peninsula. In the course of a ceremony for the purpose of
promoting the fertility of a mangostin, the fruit-tree is decorated with
festoons of palm-leaves and they are allowed to remain upon it
(Skeat and Blagden, ii. 302). The analogy is perhaps ev^n closer
with the practices of simulation by means of a living child Dr a doll
described on a later page. ^ Wuttke, 376.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 117

for stabbing- the demons, and are kept at Pemiongchi
monastery. Couples who desire children and can
afford the necessary expense, have a preliminary
worship conducted in the chapel of the monastery
lasting one or two days. " Then the box containing
the holy relics is brought forth and ceremoniously
opened, and each article is placed on the heads of the
suppliant pair, the officiating priest repeating mean-
while the charm of his own tutelary deity. Of the
marvellous efficacy of this procedure, numerous stories
are told." And should two sons result, one of them
would certainly be dedicated to the Church.^ Here
the husband shares the rite. The Blackfeet, in
common with other North American tribes, attribute a
mystic power to the small whirlwinds which frequently
arise on the plains ; and with this belief the moth is
associated as the depositary or as the origin of the
power. " The medicine-men claim to use the power
of the moth in making childbirth easy, producing
abortion, preventing conception, &c. Sometimes if a
medicine-man wishes a woman to have children, he
prays to the power of the moth and slyly sits upon the
woman's blanket." Thus by his powerful touch he
evidently communicates impregnating virtue to her
clothing. While I am mentioning the Blackfeet, I
may add an example of their practices recalling
another mode of causing conception familiar in the
stories. "The image of a moth," we are told, "is
sometimes worn on the head of a man in the belief

1 Waddell, 51. A slipper of one of the goddesses worshipped
by Chinese women in the province of Kan-su to obtain children is
borrowed by the suppliant from her shrine and returned after
delivery. Presumably it is worn as an amulet, but the account I
cite is not explicit on this point (^Anihwpos, iii. 763).

ii8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

that the power [of the moth] will pass into any woman
the wearer may fix his mind upon, and cause her to
become pregnant." ^ So the Lucky Fool wished the
princess to become pregnant, and it was done.

I have mentioned some articles of clothing which
are obviously worn as amulets. Amulets, in fact, are
believed to play a great part in procuring offspring.
A few examples will suffice to illustrate a superstition
of very wide extent. In the Gironde women carried
away "in order to facilitate childbirth" pieces of a
stone which formerly existed at Avensan." Among
Bavarian women, to carry about under the left arm a
certain small bone of a stag was a prophylactic against
sterility.^ Hungarian Gipsy women carry a little snail-
shaped object ; and if within three years this is not
effectual they give up hope.^ The ancient Hindu
-women wore a bracelet to ensure conception. The
spell preserved in the Atharva- Veda for use in
connection with this bracelet addresses it, praying it
not merely to open up the womb that the embryo be
put into it, but also to furnish a son and it would seem
bring him into the womb. In the commentary on
another spell of the same collection we learn that
while reciting it an arrow is broken to pieces over the
woman's head and a fragment is fastened upon her as
an amulet. Milk of a cow which has a calf of the same
colour as herself is then poured into a cup made from a
plough ; rice, barley, and leaves from certain other
plants are mashed up in it, and it is put up the woman's

^ Journ. Am. F. L. xviii. 260.

^ Sebillot, Am. Anthrop. N.S. iv. 92, citing Daleau.

^ Lammert, 157.

^ Temesvnry, 7. The object in question is perhaps phallic.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 119

right nostril with the officiant's right thumb. This rite
is an amalgam. The recited spell, the amulet and
the mixture conveyed into the woman's nose are
doubtless all separately potent : their combined effect
ought to be decisive.^ In Persia the mandrake is
said to be worn as an amulet. The women of Mecca
commonly wear a magical girdle to yield them fertility.^
A Chukchi female shaman showed a recent scientific
traveller a stone of peculiar shape, which she called
her husband. She said she loved it more than her
living mate, and averred that most of her children were
conceived from it.^ Similarly on the Banks' Islands
women take certain stones to bed with them to become
fruitful.* By the Australian women of Tully River in
Northern Queensland twins or triplets are often ac-
counted for as a punishment inflicted by a mother-in-
law for neglect. The process is simple. The old lady
plants two or three pebbles underneath her daughter-
in-law's sleeping-place and the result is assured.^

From north to south of the African continent
amulets are prominent among the means of obtaining
offspring. A porcupine's foot is a favourite talisman

^ Sacred Books, xlii. 96, 356. In a note on a previous page I
have mentioned a third spell (p. 61) to ensure male issue from a
women already pregnant. Strabo (xv. i, 60) mentions on the
authority of Megasthenes that among the Garmanes the physicians
can cause people to produce numerous offspring and to have either
male or female cliildren by means of charms. Among the bunches
of charms worn by Korean women are " curious little twin Josses
which are supposed to insure the wearer becoming a mother of sons "
{J. A. I. xxiv. 311). Here it may be the sex rather than the mere
production of the offspring which is intended to be insured.

2 Ploss, Wcib, i. 437, 439.

^ Bogoras, Jcsiip Exped. vii. 344.

^ Codrington, 184. \ •

6 Roth, N. O. Eihnog. Bull. v. 25 (par. 92).

I20 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

among the Moorish women of Morocco/ On the
Upper Niger the women of certain tribes wear about
their loins a score or so of leathern strings, whence are
suspended small figures, cast in copper and represent-
ing tortoises, lizards or horses. These are amulets
which, it is said, have the virtue of giving many
children.^ In German territory on the other side of
the continent the Masai women hold a solemn festival
of prayer for children. They assemble with a wizard
or medicine-man, and each receives from him an
amulet to hang from the girdle of her skin-apron.
Then he sprinkles them on head and shoulders with a
medicine composed of milk, honey-beer, and another
secret ingredient, in return for which he is rewarded
with a payment in sheep. The rest of the day is
spent in dancing and singing, the burden of the songs
being a prayer for children. Another amulet believed
'lo promote conception is also worn by Masai women
round the neck.^ The Warundi, who, like the Masai,
inhabit German territory, are prolific and anxious to
have children. They too make use of amulets ; these
are of various kinds of native wood, but how prepared
we are not told.'* Among the Baganda every woman
who wishes for a large family wears a musisi, or
multiplier. It consists of a ball of white clay with a
piece of tanned hide sewed round it.^ The Awemba
jvomen between Lakes Tanganyika and Bangweolo

^ Ploss, Weiby i, 437.

^ Binger, i. 250. ^ Merker, 201, 202.

* van der Burgt, 85 (art. Mariage).

^ Cunningham, 253. Men soro.etimes wear this amulet because
it gives courage. Another amulet called magalo " facilitated the
begetting of children." It seems also to have been used for
divination (^Ibid. 255).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 121

wear an amulet called the mapingo composed of two
tiny horns of duiker, in the hope that they may bear
children.^ Among the Kaffirs of South Africa an
amulet to remove the reproach of a childless woman is
made by the medicine-man of the clan from the tail-
hairs of a heifer. The heifer must be oriven to the
husband by one of the wife's kinsmen for the purpose ;
and the charm when made Is hung- round the wife's
neck." The intention here seems to be to transfer the
fertility of the animal to the woman. On the other
hand the Northern Basuto of the Transvaal lay the
fault of childlessness on the husband. He has done
to death by witchcraft one of his kin, or committed
some other wrong towards the dead man, who is there-
fore angry. After consulting a wizard and ascertain-
ing to whom the evil is to be ascribed, he goes to the
grave, acknowledges his fault, prays to the dead for
forgiveness, and takes back from the tomb a stone, a
twig, or some other object, which he carries about, or
deposits in his courtyard, as a fetish or an amulet. If
he duly honour it, it will restore the good understand-
ing between the deceased and himself, and give him
the benefit he desires.'*

Phallic images have special importance as amulets.
In the interior of Western Africa, over the border
of Angola, on the way from Malange, barren women
have been found wearing on a string round the body
two little carved ivory figures representing the two
sexes.* The phalli worn by Italian women are

^ /. A. I. xxxvi. 154.

2 Theal, 201. The Barotse have also amulets to obtain children
(Beguin, 124). In fact the custom is universal in Africa.
' PIoss, JVeib. i. 439. * Floss, loc. cit.

122 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

familiar to every student of folklore ; and the images
made of boy-root and worn by Danubian Gipsies, have
already been mentioned/ Similar figures in wood are
worn in some districts of Bavaria by newly married
women among their beads, or depending from the
strings of their bodices. They are amulets against
barrenness."

The practices of what is called phallic worship have
been described at sufficient, if not more than sufficient,
length in the pages of Dulaure and other writers,
many of whom have been inclined to see in what is
often no more than a magical rite something like the
foundation of all religions. The truth is that phallic
worship strictly speaking — the worship of a deity of
fertility under sexual emblems — is by no means an
early or a universal cult. It can only become promi-
nent in a population having a settled abode and
cultivating the soil ; its orgiastic developments are
sporadic. So Intimately however is sexual emotion
mingled with the emotions we group together under
the name of religion, that it is anything but surprising
to find linked with religious worship both sexual ideas
and practices and attempts to secure in other than the
normal manner the blessing of offspring. We have
already discussed some phallic practices connected
more or less remotely with religion ; and it will be
needless to pursue the subject into much detail here.
But any treatment of the superstitious beliefs and
practices under consideration, would be incomplete
and misleading without some reference to it.

The worship of the linga is a favourite with Hindu
women. The representation is sometimes carved and
■^ Supra, p. 46. ^ Lammert, 156.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 123

painted red, at other times a mere rough upright stone.
Such idols are to be seen everywhere in India; and
their pious worshippers may often be observed decking
them with flowers, red cloth or gilt paper, like the
Madonna in Roman Catholic churches. Siva himself,
the third in the modern Hindu Trimurti, is represented
under this form ; and under this form — softened down
by Southey in his finest poem from the grotesque
obscenity of the original story — he appeared when

Brahma and Vishnu wild with rage contended,
And Siva in his might their dread contention ended.

Many of the incidents of the cult of Siva and similar
gods have been described from travellers' reports
by Dulaure, to whose sixth chapter I refer the reader.
A cannon, old and useless and neglected, belonging
to the Dutch Government, lay in a field at Batavia,
on the island of Java. It was taken by the native
women for a linga. Dressed in their best, and adorned
with flowers, they used to worship this piece of sense-
less iron, presented it with offerings of rice and fruits,
miniature sunshades, and coppers, and completed the
performance by sitting astride upon it as a certain
method of winning children. At length an order
arrived from the Government to remove it as lumber ;
and removed it was, to the great dismay of the priests,
who had pocketed the coppers and had manufactured
and sold the sunshades — probably also to the dismay
of the ladies who depended upon its miraculous
power — but at all events, it is satisfactory to know,
without injuriously affecting the increase of the
population.^

1 J. A. I. vi. 359.

124 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

At Roman weddings one of the ceremonies was the
culminating rite so dear to these Batavian women.
The idol of Priapus or Tutunus, used on this and other
occasions by women desirous of offspring was more or
less in human form ; and there can be no question as
to the object of the rite.^ Among the gods to whom
similar powers are ascribed in India, and with whose
statues similar ceremonies are practised, is Hanuman-
"In Bombay women sometimes go to his temple in
the early morning, strip themselves naked and embrace
the god." ^ Nor is it merely stones shaped by art
that have been taken for this purpose. Rude stone
monuments, monoliths natural or bearing traces of no
more than the most rudimentary chippings by the
hand of man, have by virtue of their form been re-
garded as phalli and subjected to contact by women
who desire offspring. We are not informed whether
this is the case with the Greased Stones of Madagascar,
to which women seeking children certainly resort.^
But among some of the Northern Maidu of California
contact is practised by barren women with a certain
rock which bears some resemblance to a woman with
child. By touching it they are thought sure to
conceive.*

^ Augustine, Civ. Dei, vi. 9 ; Arnob. Adv. Gen. iv. 7 ; Tertul.
Ad Nat. ii. 11 ; Ploss, Weib, i. 435, quoting Thomas Bartholinus.

^ Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 87 ; See also Dulaure, loc. cit. The
rite in India when performed by brides involves a sacrifice of
virginity.

^ Mondain, 12, 44 [cf. the Male Stones mentioned p. 13, the
cult of which has perhaps, though not very probably, been
abandoned). Arab women in the land of Moab made resort to a
rock called 'Umm Gedei'ah, to rub themselves against it and to sleep
in its shadow, in order to procure children (Jaussen, 303).

* Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 230. Cf. the stone on

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 125

In various parts of France contact is practised both
with statues and with unshapen stones. A few cases
may be mentioned out of a large number. I have
already referred to the rites of Saint Guerlichon.^
Formerly in a chapel near Pleubian, on the day of the
annual celebration commonly called in Brittany the
Pardon, a worm-eaten figure of Saint Nicholas hung
at the end of a cord from a beam. The peasant
women in turn used to take up their skirts and rub
their bare abdomens ao-ainst the fertilisine fetish.^ In
the Pyrenees near Bourg d'Oueil is a rough stone
figure of a man about five feet high on which barren
women rub themselves, embracing and kissing it.^
At Brignolles in Provence is a sacred well on the
northern wall of which is a stele with a coarsely carven
figure of a man, now half-effaced by time and wear.
This figure is known by the name of Saint Sumian ;
and a small circular cup-marking two centimetres in
diameter near the appropriate position is called the
saint's navel. Sterile women who desire children and
young people who want to be married embrace the
saint's navel, and thereby attain their wishes.* In
order to become mothers women ceremonially go three
times round a pillar in the chapel of Orcival in Puy de
Dome and then rub themselves against it,^ At the
Cathedral of Mende is the clapper of a bell 2.30 metres
in height and i.io in circumference. It was formerly

which if a Hupa woman sits she will be cured of barrenness
(Goddard, Hupa Texts, 280). Here nothing is said of the shape of
the stone.

^ Supra, p. 63, ^ Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 169.

3 Ploss, Weib, i. 444 ; Cuzacq, in.

* Berenger-Feraud, Superst. i. 413.

5 Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 158.

126 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in the big bell. When the Protestant chief Mathieu
de Merle seized the town in 1580 it is said he melted
the bell to cast cannon, but the clapper could not be
melted, and it was set up near the left door of the
cathedral. Down to the present day women desiring
children come and rub their abdomens against it
praying to the Virgin the while.^ In the early years
of the last century sterile women used to go to the
abbey of Brantome in Perigord, or to the chapel of
Saint Robert or to that of Saint Leonard near the
villasre of Touvens and there attend mass. After the
ceremony they went and worked the bolt of the door
to and fro, until their husbands came and led them
home by the hand with the customary formality.^
Elsewhere there is not even a pretence of human
workmanship on the object of the cult. At the
entrance of the valley of Aspe (Hautes Pyrenees) there
is a natural rock of conical form on which barren
women rub their abdomens.^ This is but one of
several examples of the use of rocks and stones in the
Pyrenees ; and there are as many in Brittany, besides
others in various parts of France.

It may be thought that the rites at these places are
purely magical. There is however a considerable
body of evidence showing that the rocks and stones in
question are regarded with religious veneration. The
clergy of the Roman Catholic Church up to the
Revolution at least countenanced the sacred character
of many of the menhirs and dolmens by solemn
processions and the performance of religious rites.

'^ van Gennep, ap. Dulaure, 326 note.

^ Sebillot, op, cit. 139 ; Rev. Trad. Pop. xii. 665.

^ Cuzacq, 112.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 127

Singing and dancing are, or have within quite recent
times been, periodically performed and prayers offered
by the peasants around both prehistoric stone monu-
ments and natural rocks. These facts are only
explicable on the supposition that they were the object
of a very ancient cult, too deeply rooted in the
popular affections to be wholly supplanted by the
Church. Newly wedded pairs went afoot to the
menhir of Plouarzel, the largest in the department,
which has on two opposite sides a round knob about
a metre's height above the ground. Partly undressed,
the woman on one side and the man on the other
rubbed their abdomens against the knob. By this
the husband hoped to get sons rather than daughters,
and the wife not merely to get fecundity but the
whip-hand of her husband. Near Rennes the newly
married go, the first Sunday of Lent, to jump on a
stone called the Bride-stone [Pier7''e des Epousdes),
singing the while a special song. In Eure-et-
Loire young women desiring children rubbed their
abdomens against a rough place on the Pierre de
Chantecoq. Less than thirty years ago a menhir not
far from Carnac was the scene of a ceremony performed
by married pairs who after a union of several years
were still without children. While their relatives kept
watch at a distance lest they should be disturbed by
intruders they stripped and the wife ran round the
stone, striving to escape her husband's pursuit, but
ending of course by letting him catch her.^ Young
couples who desire children go on pilgrimage to Sainte
Baume in Provence. On entering the adjacent forest

1 Sebillot, Amer. Anfhrop. N.S. iv. 83 ; Id. F. L. France^ iv. 56,
61 ; Berenger-Feraud, Traditions, 200.

128 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

husband and wife, mentally praying to Saint Magdalen,
embrace the first big oak-tree they find. It is said
there is only one tree in the forest capable of receiving
their prayers efficaciously : hence if their desires are
not granted it is easy to explain why — they have
mistaken the tree. At Poligny in the Jura there is a
standing stone significantly said to be the petrified form
of a giant who attempted to ravish a girl. Young
women go and embrace it in order to obtain children.^
These are a few only of many examples of the super-
stition recorded in France. If we might add to them
the cases in which girls perform similar rites to obtain
husbands (as to which we may suspect the original
object of the rite to have been the same) the list might
be greatly lengthened. Often both reasons are alleged
for the practice, married women following it for the
one and unmarried women for the other.^ A striking
analogy to the rite at Sainte Baume is performed by
the Maori women of the Tuho tribe. Certain trees
are associated in the popular mind with the navel-
strings of mythical ancestors. The power of making
women fruitful is ascribed to them and until lately the
navel-strings of all newborn children were hung on
their branches. Barren women embrace them and
according to whether they clasp them from the east
or the west side they conceive boys or girls. ^

A variant ceremony of sliding down the stone

^ Berenger-Feraudj Superst. ii. 182, 190.

2 See Sebillot, F. L. France, iv., the chapters entitled Cultes et
Observances Megaliihiques and Les £gHses. It should be added that
similar rites are performed for the cure of various diseases.

^ W. Foy, Arch. Religionsw. x. 557, citing an article by W. H.
Goldie, on Maori Medical Lore in the Transactions of the New
Zealand Institute, 1904, 95.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 129

obviously depends on the position of the stone and its
angle of inclination. At Bauduen, near Draguignan,
on the day of the feast of the patron saint, girls who
want to marry, or women who desire children, go and
slide in a sitting posture down a rock, situated behind
the church, and one part of which forms an inclined
plane. The surface of the rock has been polished by
this exercise. A similar practice obtains near the
village of Saint Ours, in the Basses Alpes, on the
corresponding day. The stone there is called the
Millstone.^ In the neio"hbourhood of Collobrieres, also
in Provence, an ancient chestnut-tree stands on the
side of the road called the Lovers' Walk. Just below
one of the principal branches, which has been broken
off, two round excrescences give it a phallic appearance.
Girls who desire husbands and young married women
who want children go and slide at certain times down
certain of the roots which rise above the soil.^

It will be remembered that women who wanted to
drink of Saint Maughold's well in the Isle of Man were
required to sit in the saint's chair. Beneath a chair in
Finchale priory church in the county of Durham "is
shown a seat said to have the virtue of removing steri-
lity and procuring issue for any woman who, having
performed certain ceremonies, sat down therein and
devoutly wished for a child." The seat, which is of
stone, appears much worn. At Jarrow church brides on
the completion of the marriage service seat themselves

1 Berenger-Feraud, Superst. ii. 342 ; Amer. Anthrop. iv. N.S. 79.

2 Berenger-Feraud, Ibid. 177. For further illustrations of
these and other even more suggestive practices in France, the reader
is referred to the works already cited, and to Rev. Trad. Pop. xii.
665 ; xiii. 267 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, i. 334 sqq. ; iii. 425 ; Id,
Trad, et Sup. i. 48 aqq.

I I

I30 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in Bede's chair, still preserved in the church.^ Near
Verdun in Luxemburg Saint Lucia's armchair is to be
seen in the living rock. There also childless women
sit and pray, afterwards awaitmg with confidence the
fulfilment of their petitions. At Athens there is a rock
near the Callirrhoe whereon women who wish to be
made fruitful rub themselves, calling on the Moirai to
be gracious to them. And Bernhardt Schmidt writing
on the subject recalls that not far from that very spot the
heaven'y Aphrodite was honoured in ancient times as
the Eldest of the Fates.^ At the foot of another hill
is a seat cut in the rock on the banks of a stream.
There the Athenian women were wont to sit and let
themselves slip on the back into the brook, calling on
Apollo for an easy delivery. The stone is black and
polished with the constant repetition of these invoca-
tions ; for still on a clear moonlight night young
women steal silently to the spot to indulge in the same
exercise, though we may presume their invocations
are nominally addressed to some other divinity.^

At Tunis the Marabout of Sidi Fathallah is the scene
of similar or even more complex performances. For
it is necessary for a woman who desires children to
slide no fewer than twenty-five times down a stone five
or six metres long which is held to be the saint's grave,
namely, five times on her face, five times on her back,

1 Denham Tracts, i. 109, no. Cf. the chair of Saint Fiacre and
the stone of Saint Nicholas mentioned by M. Sebillot, F. L. France,
iv. 159. " Ploss, Weib, i. 436,

3 Berenger-Feraud, Trad. 201, quoting Yemenier in the Revue du
Lyonnais, 1842. Some of the exercises at stones and other sacred
objects in France are said to have for object an easy dehvery. The
connection between this and the prayer for children is too obvious
to be insisted on. As to the rites practised on the island of Cyprus,
secHogarih,^ Wandering Scholar in the Levant {l^ondon, 1896), 179.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 131

five times on each side and five times head foremost.
To ensure success, it seems, that a barren woman
must repeat her devotions in this way from time to
time for two years : only in the third will her wish be
gratified. Kabyle women frequent many mosques
to be delivered from sterility, particularly the tomb of
another saint, Sidi Abi Thaleb. There they flourish
the saint's stick vigorously in all directions in a hole
contrived in the centre of the mosque.^ These two
are of course by no means the only Moslem saints
famous for the gift of fecundity. In Egypt the soul of
the holy man Sheikh Haridy has passed into a serpent
that is to be seen in the little mosque of the mountain
called after his name. Under that form he shows
himself to his worshippers and allows them to touch
him for the cure of their ailments. Among the powers
with which he is still thought to be endowed is that of
conferring fertility on women. ^ I have already
mentioned the hot springs frequented by women in
Palestine for this purpose. It may be added that
some of these springs are believed to owe their virtue
not to the jinn but to a dead saint. When the hot air
steams up over the bodies of childless women they
really believe they are visited and impregnated by the
saint himself^

A curious rite used until the Reformation to be
performed at the shrine of Saint Edmund at Bury St.
Edmund's. A white bull was kept in the fields of the

^ Berenger-Feraud, Siiperst. ii. 198.

^ E. Amelineau, Rev. Hist. Rel. li. 341.

3 Curtiss, 116. One example only is here mentioned — the
spring of Abu Rabah at the Baths of Solomon. The shrines of
St. George all over the country enjoy the same reputation among
Moslems as well as Christians. Cf. Jaussen, 360.

132 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

manor of Habyrdon, and never yoked to the plough
nor baited at the stake. When a married woman
wished for offspring he was "led in procession through
the principal streets of the town to the principal gate
of the monastery, attended by all the monks singing,
and a shouting crowd ; the woman walking by him and
stroking his milk-white sides and pendant dewlaps-
The bull being then dismissed, the woman entered the
church and paid her vows at the altar of Saint
Edmund, kissing the stone and entreating with tears
the blessing of a child." The rite is obviously one of
that large class taken over by the Church from local
paganism, often as in this instance for very material
reasons. The bull was kept and provided for the
purpose under covenants with the monastery by the
tenant of the manor. More than one of the leases
were extant in the seventeenth century. One of them,
perhaps the last that was granted, is dated in 1533.
They contemplate a 7nulier generosa as the most likely
suppliant. Few others could afford such a ceremony
as is described above, or " make the oblations of the
said white bull." ^ Contact here takes place both with
the sacred stone and the sacred animal. In the pre-
ceding pages we have found animal substances eaten for
the purpose of obtaining offspring ; we have found amu-
lets made of animal substances and ritual contact with
portions of sacred animals employed for the same intent.
An ancient Aryan marriage custom still practised by the
Hindus is to make the bride sit down on a bull's hide.
This is also found among the Esthonians and the

1 Cowity F. L. Suffolk, 124; Gent. Mag. Lib. Topography, xi.
208, both quoting Corolla Varia, by the Rev. W. Hawkins (1634),
and leases by the monastery of the manor referred to.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 133

Russians/ It is probably traceable to the same reason.
The probability is favoured by the substitution in
Nurmekond (Estlionia) of a man's coat, which having
been worn by a man would, on the principles of
reasoning in the lower culture, have absorbed his
qualities and thus be eminently calculated to promote
the bride's fertility. The Roman bride was made to
sit on a sheepskin. These customs strengthen the
prttsumption already mentioned that the jegis taken at
Athens to the bride's house was brougrht into contact
with her.

I referred just now to the Pierre des Epous^es near
Rennes. The bridal custom of jumping on or over a
stoae has been so fully examined by Mr. William
Crooke,^ that it need not be further discussed here.
In a note to his paper he alludes to the story of
Arianrod the daughter of Don in the Mabinogion.^
In that story the maiden was made to step over a
magical wand, with the result that two boys were
born. The wand possessed fertilising power, though
the incident seems to be regarded as a test of chastity
Whether or no the story-teller misunderstood it is not
clear ; but a similar power is found ascribed in some-
what more than a jocular fashion to a broomstick in
some parts of England. Mr. Addy, speaking ap
parently of Yorkshire and the adjacent country, says
" If a girl strides over a besom-handle, she will be
mother before she is a wife. If an unmarried woman
has a child people say ' She's jumped o'er t'besom,

^ Schroeder, 89. In a Finnish story bride and bridegroom
placed on a whale's hide (Castren, Vorles. 323).
^ F. L. xiii. 226.
3 Y Llyvyr Coch, 68 ; Mabinogion, 421 : Nutt's Ed 66

134 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

or ' She jumped o'er t'besom before she went to
t'church.' Mothers used to be particularly anxious
that their daughters should not stride over a broom,
and mischievous boys have been known to leave
brooms on doorsteps and such-like places, so that
girls might accidentally stride over them." He adds
that at Sheffield a woman of loose habits is called a
besom.^ The broomstick is an obvious symbol, such
as would exactly fit the purposes of mimetic magic.
A Manchu bride on reaching the bridegroom's house
is required to step over a miniature saddle and fre-
quently also an apple, placed on the threshold. Step-
ping over the former is said to be a sign that she will
never marry a second husband, for the Manchus have
a saying, "Just as a good horse will not carry two
saddles, a chaste maiden will not marry two husbands."^
But though that may be the meaning now assigned to
the custom, it is too artificial to be primitive. More-
over, comparison of other customs shows that it cannot
have been the original intention, and the addition of
the apple makes this clear.

In Westward parish, Cumberland, it used to be the
custom on the day after a christening for the new
mother to entertain her married friends of her own sex.
When the husbands came to fetch their wives home, a
milk- or other pail was placed on the door-sill, and over
it each wife had to jump. From the manner in
which they severally passed the obstacle their own
condition was divined, for it was considered that a
pregnant woman would stumble or put her foot in the
pail.^ Here as elsewhere, we may suspect at an

i Addy, I02. 2 F. L. i. 487, 491.

^ AK and Q.^th ser. vi 24.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 135

earlier stage the rite was held to cause what it is
taken at last only to discover : another example of
mag-ic dwindlinor into divination. Mr. Crooke also
refers to the Ahir legend of Lorik, localised in
the Mirzapur District, and related in his Folklore
of Northern India. In that legend, the hero tests
his still maiden-wife's chastity by stretching a loin-
cloth across the entrance to his camp. Other women
stepped over it, but her delicacy was so excessive that
she refused — to her husband's satisfaction.^ We have
already learned something of the virtue of loin-cloths
in putting an end to barrenness.

To recur for a moment to the ceremonies at sacred
stones : on the islands of Ambon and Uliase, in the
East Indies, barren women often place offerings on the
sacred stone of the commune and afterwards, for they
are supposed to be Christians, go to the church to
pray.^ There is a miraculous stone on the sacred hill
of Nikko in Japan at which women who want to
become mothers throw stones, sure of having their
ambition gratified if they succeed in striking it. A
traveller recording the custom says maliciously they
seem very clever at the game. In the Uyeno Park at
Tokio is a seated statue of Buddha. Whoso succeeds
in flinging a stone upon the sacred knees attains the
same result. At Whitchurch, near Cardiff, in the
eighteenth century, a woman animated by the wish for
children would go on Easter Monday to the parish
churchyard, armed with two dozen tennis-balls, half of
them covered with white leather and the other half
with black, and would throw them over the church.
As they fell on the other side the villagers — no doubt
^ Crooke, F. L. N. hid. ii. i6i. 2 Riedel, 75.

136 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

children — would struggle for them. The operation was
to be repeated every year until the woman's wish was
accomplished/ This might perhaps depend on the
children's success in picking up the balls, which in
passing over the church would have probably acquired
magical power. Closely allied with this are some
forms of divination and rites to assure marriage. In
France young girls, to learn whether they will be
married during the year, throw a sou through the
doorway of a little chapel at Echemire dedicated to
the Virgin. If the coin rest on the altar the girl who
has thrown it obtains a favourable omen ; if it fall
back she will have to wait as many years as there are
paving-stones between the piece of money and the
altar. Similar divination is practised at the chapel of
Saint Goustan at Croisic by throwing a pin through
the hole in a window-shutter. At Jodoigne a very
old statue now in a chapel was formerly in a niche
fastened on an ancient tree. About five metres from
the ground the principal branches of this tree formed
another niche into which girls tried to toss stones. If
the stone remained in the niche the thrower's hopes
were gratified ; but if it fell back she would have to
wait awhile for a lover.^ At the top of Mount Rustup
in Russian Armenia is the tomb of a holy hermit visited
by numerous pilgrims every year on the eighth of July.
The women seek fecundity at the spring which rises
near the tomb. One of the stones of the mausoleum
is pierced with a number of cup-markings in which
the youths and maidens play at a game of divination
with small stones. If a stone thrown by any one

^ Mel. vi. 154, 258, quoting Byegones.
^ Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 139.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 137

remains in the cup, it prognosticates marriage in the
course of the year.^ All these, it may be suspected,
were first of all fertilising rites.

Among the votive offerings in Roman Catholic
Churches on the continent of Europe, the waxen
baby is a constant spectacle. In the Tirol there are
miraculous imagres beside which little waxen figures in
the shape of toads are hung. These figures are called
Miiettern. It is believed that every woman has
inside her a creature in this form — a belief due to
symptoms of hysteria common among women. Many
a mother has gone to sleep with her mouth open
and the ?nuetter has crept out and gone to bathe in
the nearest water. If she dots not close her mouth,
tht; muetter by-and-by gets back safely, and the woman,
previously sick, is restored to health. But if she close
her mouth, she dies. Unfruitful women offer these
waxen figures to images of the Madonna, or of the
Pieta.^ On the Gold Coast, Bassamese women who
are possessed by a demon of barrenness meet at the
fetish hut and deposit consecrated vases and figures
of clay representing mothers nursing, while they
present to the fetish offerings of tobacco and hand-
kerchiefs. The demons are frightened away by the
noise of fire-arms, drums, and the blowing of horns.
The officiatinor chief makes an offering: of orold-dust,
and then spirts a mouthful of rum over the belly of
every woman who desires issue. An improvised

^ VAnthrop. viii. 482.

2 Zingerle, Sitten, 26. Ploss {Weib, i. 444) reproduces a photo-
graph of one of these votive figures bought by the author in a wax-
chandler's shop at Salzburg as recently as 1890. Another form of
the muetter is that of a ball stuck with spikes, of which an account
is given by Dr. Wilhelm Hein, Zeits. dcs Vereins, x. 420.

138 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

banquet brings the solemnity to a close/ Votive
figures of the kind mentioned, as well as the ruder
offerings of pins, rags and stones found over the
greater part of the world, are not merely intended to
keep the divinity in mind of the suppliant and of her
desire. They also act (as I have argued elsewhere) in
the capacity of conductor between the divinity and
the suppliant, so that the influence of the immediate
presence of the former, surrounding and enfolding
the votive figure or other offering, surrounds and
enfolds likewise the person represented or on whose
behalf the offering is dedicated. Moreover the figures
may also officiate as symbolic dedications of mother
or child to the supernatural being whose aid is
invoked.

Nor is the deposit of a votive offering indispensable.
Religious faith often imputes to its object the power to
work the miracle desired, if only that power be suffi-
ciently excited by the votary's prayers or promises.
The dedication of oneself, or as in the case of Hannah
the vow to dedicate the child, achieves the result.
Stories of this kind are too familiar to need mention ;
and doubtless the belief still exists in Europe and
other civilised lands. On the Slave Coast of Guinea
an Otchi Negress will devote herself in the same way
to a fetish (that is, to a particular god in the pantheon)
conditionally on its giving her children. If a child be
born, it is a fetish-child and is considered to belong to
the fetish, just as Samuel belonged to Yahve, or as in
many of the tales the child is given by an ogre upon
the stipulation that it shall belong to him and be
fetched away, either when he pleases or at a fixed
^ Featherman, Nigrifians, 139, quoting Hecquard.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 139

period.^ In this case there does not seem to be a
deposit of any votive figure. Further, when recourse
is had to a sorcerer instead of a divinity such deposit
is indeed inappropriate. On the Equatorial Nile
Ledju, the hereditary Chief Rainmaker of the Bari
tribe, includes in his professional duties that of " in-
ducing- women to bringf forth laro-e families." His
manner of procedure is original. He has an iron rod
about three feet long and about an inch in diameter,
armed at either end with a hollow iron bulb enclosing
bits of stone. When the husband brings a would-be
mother to him the sorcerer grasps the instrument in
the centre with the right hand and shakes it over and
around her, at the same time mutterino- an incantation.
It is possible that this is an exorcism. The offerings
are of course of that substantial character which the
sorcerer's rank and reputation demand.^

A very common magical process takes the form
of simulating the result intended. As applied to the
purpose of procuring children religious worship is
often combined with the magical proceeding. When
a woman on the Babar islands in the Malay Archi-
pelago desires a child a man who has many children
is first called In to pray to Upulero. To that end her
husband collects fifty or sixty old and young kalapa-
fruits, while bhe prepares a doll about twenty inches
long of red cotton. On the appointed day the man
goes to the wife's hut, puts the husband and wife

1 Ploss, Weib, i. 439.

2 Jotirn. Afr. Soc. v. 2 1. The Lillooet Indians of British Columbia
have shamans who can make barren women bear children or make
women have male or female children as they may desire. But what
the process is we are not informed (Teit, Jesup Expcd. ii. 287).
The pretension is, it need hardly be said, very widespread.

I40 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

to sit together, and sets before them a platter con-
taining sirih-pinang and a young kalapa-fruit. The
woman holds the doll in her hands as if she were
suckling it. The kalapa-fruit is opened, and both
husband and wife are sprinkled with the juice. The
assistant then takes a fowl, holds its feet against the
woman's head and prays, apparently in her name :
" O Upulero ! make use of this fowl, let fall a man,
let him descend, I pray thee, I implore thee, let fall a
man, let him descend into my hands and on my lap.''
He asks the woman: "Is the child come?" She
answers : " Yes, it is already sucking." Then he
touches the husband's head with the fowl's feet and
mutters certain formulae. Thereupon the fowl is put
to death by a blow against the posts of the hut,
opened, and the veins about the heart are examined
for the purpose of augury. Whatever augury may be
drawn from them, the fowl is laid on the platter with
the sirih-pinang and put on the domestic altar. The
news is spread in the village that the woman is preg-
nant, and every one comes to wish her joy and receives
in return one of the dried kalapa- fruits. The husband
borrows a cradle, in which the doll is placed, and for
seven days it is treated as a new-born child.^ Here
in addition to the prayer and sacrifice, which might
be found anywhere, the Babar islander pretends that
the prayer has been granted, and acts accordingly.
It might be a question whether some of the methods

^ Riedel, 353. Note that the man who performs the rite is
already rich in children, and therefore in that very quality which is
sought. This must be a powerful magical influence tending to the
success of the rite. Since the above was written an account has
been published of a similar ceremony in Ceylon (VV. L. Hildburgh,
7. A. I. xxxviii. 184).

ICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 141

of procuring children recounted in the foregoing paj^es
had not sprung from the elementary therapeutics of
the lower culture, and were not intended to act
mechanically or as a drug upon the body of wife
or husband, so as to remove a physical incapacity
or ailment which prevented the bearing or begetting
of children. Simulation does not admit of any such
explanation : it is simply magic. Although therefore
it is not one of the causes prominent in the stories of
supernatural birth it deserves notice as strengthening
the general argument that conception in early stages
of culture is held to be procured by other than natural
means.

A frequent form of simulation for the purpose of
obtaining children is found in the custom of putting
a boy to sit on the bride's lap at a wedding. The
ceremony was usual among the ancient Aryans]and is
prescribed in the Apastamba} It is still followed in'the
east of Europe and elsewhere.'^ In Sweden on the
night preceding her nuptials the bride should have a
boy-baby to sleep with her, in which case her first-born
will be a son.^ Among the Hindus of the Panjab at
the first menstruation of a woman after the marriage
has been consummated, she is shut up in a dark room
under a strict taboo. She must not use milk, oil or
meat. On a day chosen as auspicious by a Brahman,
and while she is still impure, all her female relatives
assemble and wash her head with gondkana. Then
after she has bathed five cakes of flour, walnuts and
pomegranates are put in her lap with a pretty child,
that she too may bear a child. Looking into its face

^ Winternitz, 23, 75; Schroeder, 123.

^ Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 357. * Lloyd, 85.

142 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

she gives It money and cakes, and then the family
priest makes her worship Ganpati. The women
spend the night in singing ; and the priest receives a
fee in money as well as the things offered to the
aoddess.^ At Salem in Massachusetts it is said that

o

if a baby, the first time it is taken visiting, be laid on
a married couple's bed there will be a baby for that
couple.^ In England to rock an empty cradle is to
rock a new baby into it ; and the superstition has been
carried by settlers to New England, where people
say : " Rock a cradle empty, Babies will be plenty," ^
Barren women very generally among the Negroes
and Bantu carry dolls which they treat as children.
Thus, an Agni or Gau-ne of the Ivory Coast will
carry a wooden doll on her back as she would carry a
real babe.* A woman of the Wapogoro makes a doll
out of a calabash with a bunch of short string's at its
upper end fastened to a dried wild-banana core ; and
the more tenderly she cuddles and caresses the doll
the sooner she will have a child.^ Dolls carried and
hugged by Kaffir women in South Africa are to be
seen in many museums : they are not to be mistaken
for idols. The museum of the London Missionary
Society used to possess a Bechuana doll used for this
purpose. It consisted " of a long calabash like a

1 H. A. Rose. /. A. I. xxxv. 271. A similar ceremony is
practised by brides in South Roumania (Globus, xciv. 318).

2 Bergen, Curr. Super st. 25.

3 Ibid. 24, 25. In some parts of England it is said to be un-
lucky to rock an empty cradle (Addy, 98). This perhaps refers to
the convers-e superstition current in New York that to rock a cradle
when the baby is not in it will kill the baby (Bergen, loc. cit.).

* Binger, ii. 230 ; Delafosse, UAnthrop. iv. 444.
^ Dr. H. Fabry, Globus, xci. 219.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 143

bottle, wound round with strings of beads." ^ The
Museum at Bloemfontein contains a doll of a most
elaborate character, made of seeds and beads, and
stated to be carried by a childless woman in some
tribe unspecified in the Transvaal, The Museum at
Pretoria contains wooden figures said to be used by
barren Magwamba women, who nurse and play with
them as a means of obtaining children.^ Among the
sacred legends of the Batutsi of Ruanda is one which
appears to ascribe this practice to the direct institution
of the "Creator." In the early days mankind dwelt
in the sky with him. There was a married woman
who was sterile. So she went with a gift of honey
pombe milk butter and skins into the "Creator's"
presence and prayed him for a child. On condition of
secrecy he granted her prayer. Taking some clay he
moistened it with his saliva, kneaded and fashioned
it into a small human figure. Giving it to the woman
he directed her to place it in a jar and to fill the jar
during nine months night and morning with milk ;
when its limbs were developed she might take it out,
and it would be her child. She followed the directions
implicitly until she heard it crying within the jar, when
she took it out and presented it to her husband as her
newborn child. The application to the "Creator"
was repeated until she had in this way two sons and a
daughter. Her sister also was barren and determined
to extort the secret from her. Over some pombe she

1 J. A. I. xvi. 179 ; Tylor, E. Hist. 109.

2 These dolls are in human form elaborately carved. One re-
presents a full-grown man wearing the chaplet only accorded to
warriors and distinguished men iifter attaining a ripe age. Mr.
Gottschling, missionary to the Bavenda, who visited the museum
with me, suggested that their real use was in the puberty ceremonies.

144 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

unfortunately succeeded only too well. The enraged
" Creator " cast the three children down to the earth,
where they became the progenitors of the Batutsi.^

At Butha-Buthe in the north of Basutoland there is
a piece of swampy ground called the Khapong, which
we are told is regarded as " sacred to the spirit of
maternity." A woman who has no children makes a
wooden or clay doll, straps it on her back and bears it
about like a living child for six months, after which it
is laid in the Khapong as an offering to the spirit,
together with bangles, beads or even money. If no
child be born the woman has not yet found favour
with the spirit ; so she removes the doll from the
Khapong and straps it on her back again, until the
spirit is satisfied and the child is born. The lady to
whose report we owe the mention of this practice knew
of one woman who carried the doll for five years before
her wish was granted.'^ Casalis, writing about fifty
years ago, speaks of these dolls as rude effigies of clay,
and says that " the name of some tutelary deity "
(apparently some deceased ancestor) is given to them.
The women " entreat the divinity to whom they have
consecrated them, to give them the power of concep-
tion. They may often be seen all out of breath running
from one village to another, to have dances performed
in honour of their patron." ^ Here also simulation is

1 Fath. Loupias, Anthropos, iii. 2.

2 Martin, Basutoland, 18, 93. Some further inquiries should be
made about this "spirit of maternity": the Basuto are ancestor-
worshippers. Compare, however, the Zulu belief (doubtless
common to other tribes) that mankind came out of a bed of reeds
(Callaway, Rel. Syst. passim).

3 Casalis, 265 (Eng. Ed. 251). A figure of the doll is given.
These dolls are worn from the time the bride-price is settled until
pregnancy (Endemann, Zeits. f. Ethtiol, vi. 39).

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 145

combined with worship. Another account describes the
doll as made either with a gourd or with clay and
adorned with beads. A name is given to it, and it is
carried and cared for as if it were a real child. Barren
women perform a ceremony in connection with it,
lasting two or three days. First a band of women go
to a neiofhbourinCT villaofe to steal a lesokwana, or
wooden spatula with which the Basuto women stir
their porridge. When this is accomplished they
return orarlanded with green herbs, sinojingr and invoking-
Ntidi, the famous cripple mentioned on an earlier page,
to succour the barren women. The latter are then
scarified and scarred behind the shoulders, as in a Zulu
tale the pigeons scarified the heroine on the loins
to render her pregnant.^ Native beer is prepared to
be ready against the appointed day. When the day
arrives all the women of the village go to the mountain ;
and when Ntidi was living the barren women borehitn
on their backs and were assisted from time to time by
their companions. They enter a cave, where they
remain all night singing the same song as after stealing
the lesokwaiia, but they remain without food until the
men find them. The next mornino- the men set out in
search of them. Sometimes they do not find them
that day ; search is then renewed on a second. When
the women are found, they are brought back crowned
with herbs as when they went to steal the lesokwana ;
but they refuse to enter the village until they are
conciliated with the present of an ox. The young
girls, who alone have remained at home, then bring
them food. The husbands of the barren women kill
cattle in their honour and a grand feast is held. The
^ Callaway, Taks^ 67

1 K

146 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

barren women are smeared with red ochre antimony
and white clay ; and they wear the apron of women
who have just given birth. They are presented to the
assembly with their doll-babes. Men and women all
sing and weep together, in a song lamenting the
misfortune of those who have no children. During
Ntidi's life he was passed from one to another of the
women. Perched on their shoulders he too sang a
song of lamentation. When the singing is ended the
two fore-quarters of each of the animals slain is taken
to the home of the maternal uncle of the woman for
whom it was killed, as a formal announcement to him
of what has taken place. The "mother" sleeps with
the doll as if it were a real child ; and she ceases not
to carry it about until her real child is born. The
latter then receives the name given to the doll, if of
the same sex as the doll is supposed to be ; otherwise
another name is chosen. Since Ntidi's death a young
unmarried man is chosen to accompany the women on
their excursion to the mountain. Although, however,
he supplies to some extent the place of Ntidi he does
not ride on their shoulders as the cripple did. The
cult of Ntidi is said to be disappearing : the medicine-
men now cure sterility by their "medicines." ^

A similar fusion of magic and religion has been
found among the Huichol of Mexico. A woman
desirous of children deposits in a cave near Santa
Catarina sacred to a female divinity " a doll made of
cotton-cloth, representing the baby wanted. After

^ K. Jacottet, Bull, Soc. Nenchat. ix. 137. As to Ntidi, see
supra, p. 88 Kc seems to have died in a great famine consequent
upon an invasion by Fingoes in the year 182 1. As to the doll, see
also/oMr;f. Afr. Soc. v. 366.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 147

awhile she goes back to the cave, puts the doll under
her girdle, and shortly afterwards is supposed to be
pregnant."^ About Behring Strait a barren Eskimo
woman consults a shaman who makes or gets the
husband to make a small doll, over which he performs
certain secret rites, and the woman is directed to sleep
with it under her pillow.-^ On the other side of the
strait Chukchi girls play with dolls. Some of these
dolls are charms to procure fertility for their owners.
They " pass from mother to daughter, and are kept
carefully patched and mended so as to last for an
indefinite time. The bride brinos this doll to her new
house and keeps it in her bag. In due time she gives
it to her oldest daughter to play with and to keep.
When other daughters are born a little stuffing is
taken out of the hereditary doll and put into a new one,
which is then supposed to possess all the qualities of
the first doll. Dolls of this kind are usually shaped
like new-born babies. Incantations are recited over
them by each generation, so that their force is supposed
to increase continually."^ In Japan when a marriage
is unfruitful a ceremony called kasedori is performed.
The old women of the neighbourhood come to the
house on the festival of Sahe no Kami, the phallic
god, which is held on the first full moon of the year,
and there gfo through the form of deliverinw- the wife
of a child. The infant is represented by a doll,*
A Chinese woman goes further : she adopts a little
girl to produce conception — a practice for which an

1 Lumholtz, Mem. Am. Mtts. N. H. Anthrop. ii. 52.

2 Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 435. There is said to be a similar
practice in New Caledonia (Saintyves, Les Vierges Meres, 61).

^ Bogoras, Jesitp Exped. vii. 367. * Aston, Shinto, 331.

148 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

elaborate reason is assigned. In the invisible world,
it is said, every woman is represented by a tree which
bears as many flowers as she is fated to bear children.
If the tree bear no flowers she will be naturally sterile ;
and then just as a fruit-tree is grafted with the shoot
of another tree to make it bring forth fruit, so by
adopting a child the childless woman hopes to produce
on her tree in the spiritland the germination of flowers,
and thus to become herself fruitful/ Among the Thai
of Tonkin it is customary when a man has no children
to adopt a son from another family, though no father
can be found to part with a son save in the direst
misery. A child thus adopted is regarded as a bringer
of luck ; and he is believed often as among the Chinese
to procure fertility for his adoptive mother.^

Fertilisation may also take place by the eye, as in
some of the stories. Dulaure cites a certain Saint
Arnaud whose phallic statue, more decent than those
of some other saints, was clothed with an apron-
Only in favour of sterile women who came to pray for
offspring was the apron lifted ; and the sight disclosed
was enough, with faith, to work miracles.^ The belief
in the Evil Eye has not wholly disappeared in this
country. The power of causing conception by a fixed
gaze or glare of the eyes seems to be credited to
foreigners. At least one instance of this kind has been

^ Doolittle, i. 113. The practices discussed above raise the
suspicion that our own children's dolls may have originated in the
same kind of magic. Another European practice appears referable
to it. In the Prattigau valley of Eastern Switzerland at the time of
vintage women make little dolls of rags and stealthily seek to attach
them to one another's clothing (Hoffmann-Krayer, Schweizerisches
ArcMv fur Vo!kskunde, xi. Basel, 1907, 268).

^ Antoine Bourlet, Anthropos, ii. 364, 365.

^ Dulaure, 210.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 149

related in recent years by a woman, who believed her
sister to have been thus acted on. When the gaze
"has caused the girl to feel helpless and motionless,
the man sends his hot breath over her face, and if she
possesses no power of resistance the harm is done."
The man in the case referred to was a foreigner, " an
Italian, or something like that," very dark, with black
eyes and hair. The victim was said to have seen him
only on that one occasion ; and the story was told as a
warning against letting girls, especially fair girls, have
any acquaintance with foreigners.'^

Reviewing the rites and beliefs here brought together,
it will be seen that no mention has been made, as in some
of the tales, of the power of the wind as the source of
fecundity in women, or of the sense of smell or hearing
as the channel of that fecundity. It was, however, held
in classic times that partridges were impregnated in
some such way ; for Pliny tells us that if the female only
stood opposite to the male, and the wind blew from
him towards her, or if he simply flew over her head,
or very often if she merely heard his voice, it would
be enough.^ The belief was equally common, and not
merely used for a poetical ornament by Vergil, but re-
peated without question as a literal fact by men of
lofty intellect and wide attainments like Pliny and
Augustine, that mares were, in Lusitania, as the
former asserts, or in Cappadocia, according to the
latter, fertilised by wind.^ Mohammedan tradition

1 F. L. ix. 83.

* Pliny, X.51. He is only echoing Aristotle, ///s/. Aniir,. v. 4.
Athenaeus {Deipnos. ix. 42) improves upon the statement by saying
that sight of the cock is enough. It appears that in France the belief
lasted into the sixteenth century (Sebillot, F. L. France^ iii. 169).

' Pliny, viii. 67 ; Aug. Civ. Dei. xxi. 5.

150 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

spoke of a preadamite race consisting entire ly of
women who conceived (daughters only) by the v ind,
and as I have already said of an Isle of Women thus
peopled.^ If the inhabitants of the district of Lampong,
in the island of Sumatra, be not maligned, they at the
beginning of the present century believed all the popu-
lation on the neio-hbourinor island of Eng-ano to be
females who were impregnated in the same manner.^
The Arunta of Central Australia still hold that a storm
from the west sometimes brings evil ratapa, or child-
germs, that seek to enter women. As the storm
approaches, the women with a loud cry hasten to
huddle themselves up in the shelter of their rudi-
mentary huts ; for if they become thus impregnated
twins will be the result, and they will die shortly after
delivery. The first-born twin is the evil ratapa.
This belief is adduced to justify the murder of twins. ^
The ancient nations of the Mediterranean basin,
accomplished as they were in the arts of life, had
imbibed very little of the true scientific spirit that
searches out the facts of nature, whether in immediate
relati' n to themselves or not. They were (individual
exceptions apart) content to accept a wonder upon
authority without inquiring into the evidence, the
antecedent improbability awakening hardly more
doubts in their minds than in those of savages or
medic-eval monks. The statements just cited of the
sexual intercourse of partridges and the fertilisation of
Lusitanian mares are of a piece with other beliefs
which they took no pains to verify. They would not

1 UAbrege des Merveilles, 17, 71.

2' Marsden, 297. Yule, Marco Polo, ii. 340, cites other cases.

^ Strehlow, 14.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 151

have questioned the tale repeated in the previous
chapter of the impregnation of a fish by the mouth,
for they held that that was the normal method among
fishes.^ Moreover, yElian reports Egyptian gossip as
declaring that the ibis effected coition and laid its eggs
by the same channel ; nor on this particular statement
has the rhetorician any qualms, though he boggles
at the exaggerations of the embalmers concerning the
enormous length of the sacred bird's intestines.^ The
lizard or crocodile which appears upon Minerva's
breast on certain gems is said to be explained by the
belief that this animal, like the Virgin Mary in the
hymn already cited, conceived by the ear, though
unlike her it brought forth by the mouth. ^ Pliny
indeed ventured to question the existence of the
phoenix ; but it seems to have been commonly accepted
that the female vulture had no intercourse with the
male — a belief to which Origen appeals in the support
of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.*

Such credulity still lingers among semi-civilised
peoples, as well as among the uneducated classes
of Europe. The Annamites declare that the rabbit
breeds by the mouth, ^ In Cambodia it is said that
peacocks do not couple like other birds : when they
erect their tails they drop the semen on the ground,
and the peahens are fecundated by picking it up."
I have found a similar belief among the peasantry
of Gloucestershire, where I am writino^. It is known
in Anglesey, and is probably general throughout the

1 Herod, ii. 93 ; ^lian, Nat. Anim. ix. 63.

2 yElian, Nat. Anim. x. 29. 3 King, Gnostics, 107.

* Origen, Contra Ccls. i, 37. ^ Rev. Trad, Pop. xii. 419.

* Ayraonier, Excursions, xvi. 150.

152 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

country. In Yorkshire and Norfolk the same thing
is said of turkeys ; and it is reported from somewhere
in Siberia of the capercailzie/ No doubt it is a
widespread belief, founded upon a superficial observa-
tion of some of the habits of different species of
animals.

As I have already pointed out, it cannot be asserted
that in every instance of the practices collected in the
present chapter pregnancy is believed to be caused, as
in the tales, by the means prescribed apart from sexual
intercourse. It is obvious however that even where
we cannot make this assertion the practices are in-
tended to have some effect. They must have origi-
nated at an early stage of culture when no clear notion
of cause and effect was possible, and when the distinc-
tion between naturdl and supernatural was hardly
drawn. At that stage man attributed to every object
in his environment, v/hether human or non-human, a
mystic potentiality, an atmosphere, which was greater
or less not always according to the actual qualities of
the object but according to his ignorance of it and his
hopes his fears his fancies concerning it. Hence his
relations with many of the non-human objects and
probably in some degree with all or nearly all of them
would be best described as religious or magical : they
would depend upon the performance of ceremonies and
the observance of ritual prohibitions and regulations.
We must not wonder therefore if we find ascribed to
many objects thaumaturgic powers and qualities we
now know to be impossible, and if to obtain the benefit
of those qualities and powers rites and observances
meaningless to us are deemed necessary. Among the
^ F. L. viii. 375 ; ix. 82.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 153

purposes for which these objects would be employed
that of acting on the human organism would often
hold a prominent place. Until magic and religion are
differentiated from medicine the rites and observances
connected with their employment are vague and
indeterminate in their aspect, and the exact operation
of the objects employed is not even questioned. We
need not here discuss the relation between mag-ic and
religion : it is at all events beyond doubt that they
have been intim.ately connected from the earliest times.
A very superficial examination of the history of
medicine suffices to show how tardy was the process of
its differentiation from both. To refer here only to
magic, medical treatises right down to the close of the
Middle Ages teem with prescriptions not merely value-
less in themselves for therapeutic action, but obviously
of magical origin. Nor are such prescriptions by any
means absent from medical treatises composed long
since the Revival of Learning ; while the repertory
of the peasant-doctor abounds with them even yet.
Many of the practices recorded in the foregoing pages
belong to this class, and we must not be surprised if
they wear more or less of a medicinal aspect. Theymust
not however, be considered alone. Their medicinal
aspect is delusive. Their true connections are with a
much larger number of practices directed to the same
end and bearing no therapeutic interpretation. They
must be correlated with these, and not with these only
but with the stories of supernatural birth in which the
same or analogous means are employed for the same
purpose and are spoken of as the direct cause of birth
independent of the union of the sexes. Nor is this all.
These practices and stories must also be compared

154 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

with puberty and marriage rites having fecundation for
their object, avowed or inferential, with the prohibitions
at puberty and on other occasions for the purpose of
avoiding irregular fecundation, and lastly with the
positive beliefs current among various peoples as to the
fecundation of certain of the lower animals and even of
women by other than the natural means/ All are of
the same origin : stories practices and beliefs are all
inexplicably interwoven into one pattern. From their
consideration we are justified in concluding that it
was a widespread belief in early times that pregnancy
was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse.

Such a conclusion would be startling if the belief
we suppose had arisen in the midst of a civilised
society. It originated in an intellectual atmosphere
very different from that of modern civilisation. But the
difference of the intellectual atmosphere is not alone
sufficient to account for it: a difference of social
environment is also required. The general result of
anthropological evidence is to lead to the conviction
that mankind has evolved from a state socially as well
as mentally more backward than that of the lowest
savages now extant. To form an opinion on the
social conditions in which the belief in conception, and
consequently birth, by other than the natural cause
originated, it is necessary to undertake an inquiry
into certain social regulations and practices in the
lower culture.

1 Of all these we have given examples. The argument would
have been strengthened if space had permitted a consideration of
agricultural rites. Fields and fruit-trees are often treated in a
manner analogous to the treatment of barren women. The treat-
ment of many of the lower animals by similar methods has been
noticed incidentally.

PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 155

But as a preliminary to this inquiry we must com-
plete our study of the stories, beliefs and practices in
reference to birth by an examination of those in which
birth is represented as a return of creatures, human or
non-human, who have previously lived and died.

CHAPTER III

TRANSFORMATION AND METEMPSYCHOSIS

Birth is often a new manifestation of a previously
existing personage. Ballads and stories in which the
dead manifest themselves as trees. Corresponding be-
liefs and practices. Transformation after death into
brute-form. The converse. Transformation of brutes
and vegetables into human beings by birth. Buddhist
doctrine of Transmigration. Celtic doctrine. New birth
of human beings. Belief in multiple souls. Rites to
ascertain which of the ancestors has returned. Naming
a child after a deceased member of the family. Rites to
secure a transfer of life. Australian beliefs in re-birth.
Warehouse of children. Relation between Transforma-
tion and Transmigration.

The hero of many tales of Supernatural Birth is not a
new personage ; he is simply a new manifestation.
He had previously existed in other shapes, and by
undergoing birth (preceded sometimes, but not always,
by death) he was entering on a new career, he was
ascending a new stage of being. In the Egyptian tale
the persea-trees are expressly identified with the
murdered Bata ; and when they are cut down a
splinter flies into the heroine's mouth rendering her
pregnant — of Bata once more. Yehl, the Thlinkit hero,
repeatedly became the son of ladies who were beguiled
into swallowing a pebble, a blade of grass or even a
drop of water, which was no other than the demi-god

156

TRANSFORMATION 157

in disguise. What is expressly asserted in stories like
these may be inferred from others. In the most widely
diffused modern type of mdrchen belonging to the cycle
of Perseus, a fish being caught directs that its flesh
shall be given to the fisherman's wife, while the bones
and the scales and other offal are to be oiven to the
mare and the bitch or otherwise disposed of. The
woman becomes pregnant of the flesh, the mare and
bitch of the bones scales, and so forth. We can only
interpret the careful directions given by the fish as to
how it was to be cooked and eaten and how its re-
mains were to be disposed of, the exact correspondence
of the twins or triplets who are born of the woman
and their horses dogs and other property with these
directions when they are duly followed, and the mystic
connection between the offspring, as evidence that
they are a new birth of the fish. Nor are these
inferences to be confined to the stories. The belief
in birth as a new manifestation of a previously existent
personage appears from the practices, detailed in the
last chapter, in which portions of corpses are utilised to
promote conception. The subject is so important not
merely in the general study of savage ideas, but in
relation to the belief that conception is due to other
than the natural cause that it is necessary to discuss it
further.

In so doing I do not propose to consider mdrchen.
Interesting as these are we must for reasons of space
pass them by. The reader will doubtless be willing to
assume their existence and wide difiusion. I shall
confine myself as far as possible to evidence of belief,
using even sagas as sparingly as possible.

But we must begin with sagas and ballads. A

158 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

favourite theme in Western folksong is that of the
lovers brought, like Tristram and I soke, to a tragic end,
from whose graves two trees grow and intertwine their
branches as if they were joined in a lasting embrace.
In this country the incident is perhaps most frequently
associated with the name of the ballad of Fair
Margaret and Siveet William ; but it is also found
in several others/ There is hardly a country on the 1
continent of Europe in which it does not occur. It
has even been recorded among the traditions of the
Schluh in the south of Morocco ; the Kurds and
Afghans repeat it ; and it is familiar as far away as
China. It is obvious that the trees are merely the lovers
transformed. A Lesbian ballad says in so many
words that the bride poisoned by her mother-in-law
became a lemon-tree and her bridegroom who died
for love a cypress, and that every Easter, every Sunday
and feast-day the two lovers embraced. Another also
expressly identifies a reed growing from the bride-
groom's grave and a cypress growing from the bride's
with the unhappy lovers themselves. They wished to
embrace while living ; they do so now that they are
dead.^

Moreover the kind of tree thus growing from a
grave is often held to be an index of the character
of the deceased. Indeed among the Kirghiz every one
on whose grave a tree grows spontaneously is deemed
a saint.^ In Iceland the mountain-ash is regarded
as sacred. A story localised in two places is told of a

1 Child, Ballads, i. 96, and under the headings of the various
ballads there mentioned.

2 Georgeakis et Pineau, 208, 220.
^ Featherman, Tur. 269.

TRANSFORMATION 159

tenderly attached brother and sister accused of incest
and in spite of their denials condemned to capital punish-
ment and executed. Before death they earnestly with
tears prayed, beseeching the almighty and all-knowing
God to make their innocence manifest and desiring
their friends and kindred to procure them to be buried
in the same grave. They were buried one on either
side of the church ; and a mountain-ash grew out of
each of their graves, meeting above the roof of the
church and uniting their branches so closely that they
could hardly be separated. This was regarded as
a siofn of their innocence and their desire to rest
together in the same grave. ^ Among the peasantry
of the Riviera thorns or nettles growing on the grave
are a sign of the damnation of the dead ; if other
plants grow he is happy ; if a mixture he is in purga-
tory.^ Similar superstitions and stories illustrative of
them are found throughout Europe. In the game
of " Old Roger is dead," a favourite among children
in England, we probably have a last echo of them.
The story chanted in the game runs substantially
as follows :

Old Roger is dead and lies in his grave ;
There grew a fine apple-tree over his head ;
The apples are ripe and ready to drop ;
There came an old woman apicking them up ;
Old Roger jumped up and he gave her a knock ;
He made the old woman go hippity-hop.

Some of the versions speak of the tree as being
planted; and Mrs. Gomme in commenting on the
game aptly refers to Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme,

1 V. Ain Urquell, 120.

2 J. B. Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. 117.

i6o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

where the old antiquary reports concerning the parish
of Ockley, in Surrey, a custom of planting roses at the
grave of a deceased lover, adding as a conclusion of
his own " they planted a tree or a flower on the grave
of their friend, and they thought the soul of the party
deceased went into the tree or plant> " ^ Aubrey's
conclusion is doubtless correct, if not for his own
time, for one not many generations off; but it presents
a development of the original conception, his friend
Mrs. Smyth's " notion of men being metamorphosed
into trees and flowers," which he damns as " ingeniose,"
being much nearer the truth than he seems to
imagine.

In India the legend of Krishna relates that his wife
Rukmini died in his absence. Her body was burnt
and the ashes buried in a new earthenware jar ac-
cording to the prescribed ritual. When Krishna
returned and was shown the burial-place a tulsi-plant
had grown upon it. This plant was Rukmini in a new
form ; and hence the tulsi is regarded as sacred.^ In
the Molucca Islands there is a tree which bears during-
the night from sunset to sunrise a rapid succession of
fragrant white flowers. To account for this pheno-
menon the inhabitants of Ternate have a tradition
that there was once a beautiful woman who was
beloved by the Sun, and who, being deserted by her
fickle lover, slew herself Her body was, in accordance
with the custom of the country, burnt ; and from her
ashes arose the tree, called by the early Portuguese

1 Mrs. Gomme, ii. i6 ; Aubrey, Remaines, 155. According to
the Book of Ballymote an apple-tree grew up through the grave of
Aiilem, daughter of Lughaid, King of Leinster, who died of shame
on being ravished away by Cremh [Silva Gad. ii. 531).

2 Anthropos, ii. 276.

TRANSFORMATION i6r

voyagers the Tree of Sorrow/ East and west,
literally " from China to Peru " as well as in the
Pacific islands, a similar origin has been attributed to
a large number of trees, particularly to those like the
cocoa-tree, the areca-palm, and the coca-tree, which
are useful to mankind. In Borneo Sir Hugh Low
was once walking in the jungle with a Land Dyak from
a neighbouring village when a large snake crossed
their path. The Dyak drew his parang and raised
his arm to strike, but suddenly stopped. Sir Hugh
asked him the reason, and he said that the bamboo-
bush opposite to which they were standing had been
a man and one of his relations who, dying about ten
years previously, had appeared in a dream to his
widow and informed her that he had become that
bamboo-tree, and the ground about it and everything
on it were sacred on that account. He went on to
say that in spite of that warning a man had once had
the hardihood to cut a branch from the tree, in conse-
quence of which he soon after died— a punishment for
his sacrilegious act. A small bamboo altar was erected
before the bush, and Sir Hugh Low noted that upon
it were the remnants of offerings presented, though
not recently, to the spirit of the tree.^

The belief that a tree growing on a grave Is thus a
transformation of the dead man within has led to the
planting of trees for the purpose of providing a new
body for the deceased. Aubrey in a passage already
quoted referred to the planting of roses in England.

^ Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. 75, quoting Argensola, Histoire de hf.
Conquete des Isles Mohiqiies (Amsterdam, 1706). A Creole story
from Louisiana attributes a similar origin to the ash-tree ; hence its
name (Alcee Fortier, /o?/r;7. Aw. F. L. xix. 126).

2 Roth, Sarawak, i. 265, quoting Low.

I L

i62 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

A Chinese anecdote gives expression in very pointed
form to the belief which prompts the practice. " On
Mount Poh-mang there is the grave of the chaste
woman Li. Her husband having departed this life
she buried him and planted a couple of cypresses in
front of the tomb. After a while a cow bit off five inches
from the top of the left tree ; and when the woman
was informed of this she exclaimed : * The left one
[i.e., that on the principal side] is my husband,' and'
she ran to the grave. Wailing so bitterly that it was
painful to behold, she caressed the cypress, and ere
the night was gone it had grown up again as high as
the tree on the right hand side. After her death she
was buried in the same grave." In another story two
chestnut-trees planted on the grave of husband and
wife intertwine their branches, " a proof in the eyes of
the people that the souls of husband and wife . . .
had assimilated themselves each with one of those
trees." -^ In Fiji, if a family lose three young children
successively a banana is planted on the tomb of the
last buried.^ The missionary who reports this custom
suggests that the banana is a sacrifice to the ancestral
manes who came to eat the children. It is more
likely to be attributable to the belief we are dis-
cussing. On the island of Ceram the wives of the
deceased plant a tree (usually the Pavetta Indicd)
on the grave, probably for the same reason.^ Among
the Gallas of Abyssinia aloe is planted upon the
grave ; and if it grow it is taken as a sign that
the dead man is happy.^ A German practice is

^ De Groot, op. cit. ii. 469, 467. ^ Anthropos, ii. 74.

^ Bastian, Indonesien, i, 149.

* Krapf, Reisen in Osi-Afrika {^ivXig2LXt, 1858), i. 102.

TRANSFORMATION 163

manifestly a relic of a belief similar to that re-
corded in the foregoing tales and superstitions. If
a farmer have several times a foal or calf diej.
he buries one of them in the garden, planting a
young willow in its mouth. When the tree grows
up it is never polled or lopped, but is allowed
to grow its own way, and is believed to guard
the farm from future casualties of the same kind.^
The meaning of this practice can hardly be better
illustrated than by a Kaffir custom. Among some
tribes of Kaffirs when twins are born they are examined,
and the one appearing the more delicate is suffocated
by placing a clod of earth in its mouth. When dead
it is buried near the doorway of the hut, and a dwarf
aloe is planted over the grave. " The aloe is regarded
in some way as the living representative of the dead
infant ; its spirit or shade is supposed to be in it, or to
be hovering about it. When it is planted its spines
are carefully cut away, that the survivor may play
about it and drag himself up by it and make himself

^ Grimm, Tent. Myth. 1811. The following are perhaps trace-
able to the same idea ; but they are too doubtful to record in the
text : "In Derbyshire, when cattle, such as horses and cows, die,
it is usual to bury them under fruit-bearing trees in the orchard "
(Addy, 132). In the sixteenth century it was believed in France
that a dead dog or other carrion buried at the foot of a tree which
had lost its vigour would restore it; and the same property is
attributed to a dead cat (Se billot, F. L. France^ iii. 377). A
Sicilian mdrchen speaks with a less uncertain voice. The hero
having won the king's daughter by the performance of a ploughing
task with the help of a magical ox, the ox is killed by his own
directions for the marriage-feast, and its bones are buried in the
newly prepared land, except one leg which is put under the pillows
of the bridal bed. The bride dreams of fruit, awakes and plucks it.
The field where the bones are buried is found full of all sorts of
fruit-trees, laden with fruit (Pitre, B'lbl. iv. 243). Here the fruit is
clearly the magical ox in a new manifestation.

i64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

strong, as he would have done with his fellow-twin
had he been permitted to live." ^

Concerninof the belief of the Dieri tribe of South
Australia we are told : " There are places covered by
trees which are held very sacred, the larger ones being
supposed to be the remains of their fathers meta-
morphosed. The natives never hew them, and should
the settlers require to cut them down, they earnestly
protest against it, asserting they would have no luck
and themselves might be punished for not protecting
their ancestors."^ Further to the north in Central
Australia it is a common belief that where their
mythical ancestors " went into the ground " a stone or
a tree arose to mark the spot. "In the Arunta tribe
every individual has his or her Nanja tree or rock at
the spot where the old ancestor left his spirit-part
when he went down into the around, . . . This rock
or tree and its immediate surroundings are sacred, and
no plant or animal found there may be killed or eaten
by the individual who is thus associated with the spot.
In all essential features, but with variation in details,
the same idea is found in the beliefs of the Kaitish
and Unmatjera tribes." * Such a tree or rock is be-
yond all doubt a transformation of the totem-ancestor.
The sagas identify it over and over again ; and the
only dispute among modern observers who record the
facts is whether the tree, the rock, the churinga, or
whatever the object may be, is a transformation of the
totem-ancestor himself or merely of his " spirit-part." *

^ CaXhyf a.y, Journ. Anthr. Soc. iv. cxxxviii.

* Gason, The Dieyerie Tribe, quoted Brough Smyth, i, 426 note.
' S. and G. North. Tribes, 448.

* Strehlow, i. Preface, and passim; Globus, xci. 288. See post,
p. 241 note.

TRANSFORMATION 165

The distinction for our present purpose is not vital.
The Warramunga have a tradition of a man named
Murtu-Murtu, or Bullroarer, who lived in mythical
times and was torn to pieces by two wild dogs.
These had been excited by the continual noise he
made, like that of a bullroarer. They threv/ the
pieces of his flesh about in all directions. As these
pieces flew through the air they made the sound of
the bullroarer, and trees called nanantha sprang up
where they fell on the earth. Out of such trees
the natives now make their bullroarers. The dogs
ran about biting the trees, in the hope that they would
thus be able to kill the spirit of the man which had
gone into them.^ The trees were thus a transforma-
tion of the unfortunate Murtu-murtu. Dowed and,
Abmddam,the forefather and foremother of theLarrakia
tribe near Port Darwin, when they died turned into
trees, which a few years ago were said to be stilL
in existence and much reverenced.'^

The Wanyamwezi of East Africa *' declare that their
patriarchal ancestor became after death the first tree
and afforded shade to his children and descendants." ^
The Bushmen say that "girls who have been taken
away by the water [that is, drowned] become like a
beautiful water-flower which will not allow itself to be
plucked and disappears when approached. Such
flowers," we are wisely told, " must be let alone." ^ The

1 S. and G. North. Tribes, 434.

2 Curr, i. 253 ; /. A. I. xxiv. 391.

3 Burton, Lake Regions, ii. 4. Burton goes on to say that
" according to the Arabs the people still perform pilgrimage to a
holy tree, and believe that the penalty of sacrilege in cutting off a
twig would be visited by sudden and mysterious death." But it
does not appear that this is the tree in question.

* Lloyd, Rep. 25.

i66 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Maidu inhabiting the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada
in California hold that " bad people " are changed into
rocks and bushes/ A similar belief is obvious in the
Bavarian sagfa concerninsf three women who led an
abandoned life in a castle in the forest near Nuremberg,
to which they enticed strangers and then plundered
and put them to death. Their dwelling was even-
tually struck by lightning ; they perished wiih it ; but
their souls entered three great trees. I f one of the trees
be cut down the soul passes over into another. After
the bell for evening prayer has sounded a passer-by
may hear from the tree-tops in the gloom soft voices
calling him, or a mischievous titter ; and he will think
he catches sight of a beckoning form not obscurely
between the branches.^

As in the case of trees so also plants of smaller
growth have been referred to transformations of sacred
or mysterious personages. The various American
legends of the origin of maize are too well known to
need repetition. The Brazilian legend of the manioc
is similar. It was a maiden born to a chiefs daughter
who had never known man. She grew to maturity in.
a year, died without any disease and was buried in her
mother's house. The grave was watered every day
according to the ancient custom of the tribe, and in due
course a plant grew up from it, flourished and bore
fruit. It is called manioc, Mani's house or trans-
formation.'^ The calabash- tree and the tobacco-plant

1 R, Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 261.

2 Mannhardt, BK. 41, citing Panzer. Frazer, G. B. i. 178, cites
other cases of souls passing into trees which it is unnecessary to
reproduce here.

^ Granada, 216, citing Magalhaes. See also Dorman, 293, citing
m th's Brasil; von den Steinen, 369 ; Jonrn. Am. F. L. xx. 147.

TRANSFORMATION 167

are the subject of a similar legend among the Aztecs
or Pipiles of Central America/ A scene portrayed on
the walls of a chamber in the great temple of Isis at
Philae represents the dead body of Osiris with stalks
of corn springing from it while a priest waters the
stalks from a pitcher in his hand. This representation
suggests that the sacred legend of Osiris was much to
the same effect. It was probably only one of sev^eral
such myths, for a manuscript in the Louvre refers to
the cedar as sprung from him ; his soul is elsewhere
represented as inhabiting the tamarisk ; he is spoken of
as " the solitary one in the acaciaj" ; on the monuments
he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree
or with plants, and trees are represented as growing
from his grave. ^

In classical legends we meet everywhere cases of
transformation, either before or after death, of men and
women into trees or plants or into some of the lower
animals. Indeed, Ovid's poetical compendium of
mythical history derives its name and substance
from the number and variety of these cases. One of
the most famous is that of Attis, whose worship,
together with that of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods,
was introduced from Phrygia to Rome in the year B.C.
204. We have already seen that the god's birth was
caused by pomegranate-fruit which his mother laid in
her bosom. He died, according to one account, by the
attack of a boar ; according to another, by loss of
blood from self-mutilation in an access of frenzy. In

^ C. V. Hartman, /oi^r;/. Am. F. L. xx. 144.

2 Frazer, Adonis. 323, 342, citing and discussing several
authorities. The adventures of Osiris as Bata have already been
referred to, supra, p. 14.

i68 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

either case he was believed to have been changed after
death into a pine-tree/ Dr. Frazer has marshalled a
number of arguments whence it is probable that Attis
was originally a tree-spirit. Perhaps we may go one
step further back and suggest that the worship was at
first that of a sacred tree, and that the connection of
this tree with a human being or an anthropomorphic
divinity was a subsequent development." Be that as
it may, the legend as we have it, the worship as it is
recorded for us, implied a belief in metamorphosis as a
possible and actual occurrence consequent upon death.
This belief must have descended to classic times from
savagery.

Already we have seen that the belief in metamor-
phosis of this kind arises in savagery. Like many
another belief equally baseless it survives under re-
ligious associations into higher stages of culture.
Of the belief and its survival I proceed to give a few
more illustrations, selected from an endless number
found all over the world. Nor shall I distinguish
between metamorphosis and metempsychosis. Before
this branch of the inquiry is closed I shall consider the
relation between such cases ; in the meantime we may
treat them as equivalent.

The pious yEneas, beholding the gorgeous snake

that crept from his father's tomb and tasted his

offering, was at a loss whether to recognise in the

reature the genius of the place or an attendant on his

^ Frazer, Adonis, 163 sgg. ; the authorities are there collected and
discussed.

2 So the sacred trees of many countries are believed to be dwelt
in by spirits, sometimes non-human, sometimes human. Annamite
sacred trees include examples of both {Anthropos, ii. 959). They
were probably sacred before they were thus haunted.

TRANSFORMATION 169

father in the other world. ^ The Zulu, not less pious,
has no doubts. A chief after death turns into an imamba
(a poisonous snake), a woman or an ordinary man
turns into a thin brown whip-snake called umhlwazi^ a
very old woman into a mabibini, or little black snake.
Such snakes are treated with respect when they visit
the kraal. They are praised and offerings are made
to them.' Other forms may also be assumed. That
of dead queens is the tree-iguana ; some men become
wasps.^ All the Bantu peoples indeed believe that the
dead may become animals of various kinds, from
elephants lions and hippopotami downwards ; but the
snake is the form most commonly ascribed to them.*
Whether the animal, whatever it may be, reincorporates
the soul of the deceased or is on the other hand a new
manifestation of the body, the soul undergoing mean-
while a distinct and separate destiny, does not appear
without doubt. The reincorporation of the soul is
affirmed so circumstantially and by so many authors who
have had opportunities of ascertaining the belief of the
peoples of which they speak, that it is impossible to
reject their testimony. Yet we have some evidence
equally positive, that the animal manifestation is
neither to be confounded with the soul nor is a re-
incorporation of it. Thus a recent writer says :
" Both the Angoni and the Achewa believe in reincar-

1 Vergil, ^H. V, 84. In Greece the Hero was frequently
honoured under the form of a snake : Harrison, 325.

^ S. A. F. L. Journ. ii. loi ; Callaway, Rel. Syst. 140, 196, 199.

3 Leslie, 213 ; Callaway, op. cit. 200.

* Thomas, Eleven Years, 2S0 ; J. A. I. xxi. 377 ; xxxvi. 50, 281,
291 ; Miss Werner, 64, 85 ; H. Trilles, Biiil. Soc. Neuchat. Geog.
xvi, 64 ; and many other authorities, some of which are enumerated
by Dr. Frazer, Adonis, 73.

I70 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

nation, some saying they turn into the object from
which they derive their name, as their fathers and
relations have before them ; others, again, into some
other animal not their totem-animal. . . . This idea
of reincarnation does not appear consistent with the
well-known fact that all these tribes are manes-
worshippers ; and neither is it, if one associates the
idea of transformation of the body with that of trans-
migration of the soul. The soul, vizinni, does not
enter into the animal ; and the animal which is lociked
upon as the reincarnation of the dead relation does
not have any human attribute whatever, and does not
concern the native in any way. He does not pro-
pitiate it or appeal to it at any time, as he does to the
mzinni or spirit which comes back to live in the hut
in which it had its abode when alive ; only he will not
willingly eat it or destroy it."^ So we are told
concerning the rites on the death of a king of the
Bahima, a Bantu people though by no means of pure
blood, that the body is taken to Ensanzi the burial-
place of the kings, where it lies in state until it swells
and bursts. Ensanzi is a forest inhabited by sacred
lions " said to be possessed by the spirits of former
kings of Ankole." "In the forest is a temple; and
attached to it are a number of priests whose duties are
to feed and care for the lions, and to hold communi-
cations with the former kings when necessary."
While the body is lying in state the priest " has to
find a young cub to present to the people, because the,
swelling and collapse of the corpse represent pregnancy
and the birth of the lion-king. Directly the collapse
takes place a lion-cub is produced and the priest
1 Raffray, 178, 198.

TRANSFORMATION 171

announces that the kino- has brouorht forth a Hon.
He presents the cub to the people and proceeds to
feed it with milk. For some days the people remain
until the cub has gained strength and begins to eat
meat. All the interest and anxiety now centre in the
cub ; the corpse receives an ordinary burial and is
forgotten ; the king lives in the cub. When the cub
grows up it is released and allowed to wander in the
forest with the other lions,, It is thus by no means
fully tame ; still it is less fierce than the ordinary wild
lions, and it is accustomed to seek its food in a certain
place from the hands of the priests." In a similar way
the corpse of a queen gives birth to a leopard in
another belt of the same forest, and those of dead
princes and princesses to snakes.^ Whether these
proceedings can be properly described as transmigration
of the souls of the deceased seems more than doubt-
ful. In any case the animal is a new manifestation of
the departed.

As the tale of The Two Brothers has prepared us to
believe, the Egyptians held that the dead " were
able," in Dr. Budofe's words, "at will to assume the
form of any animal or bird or plant or living thing
which they pleased ; and one of the greatest delights
to which a man looked forward was the possession of
that power." ^ The Book of the Dead provides the
deceased with a number of formulae necessary to en-
able him to effect such transformation, or even to
assume any form he chose. The belief seems, in
fact, universal in Africa. The Masai, a Piamitic
people with Bantu admixture, do not as a rule bury

^ Rev. J. Roscoe, /. A. I. xxxvii. loi*.
^ Budge, Egyptian Magic, 230.

172 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

their dead. The common people are left to be eaten
by hyenas and, it is believed, there is an end of them.
But medicine-m,en, chiefs and persons of wealth are
buried, and their souls become snakes which haunt
their children's kraals and are regarded as sacred.-^
On the Slave Coast the Yoruba think the souls of the
dead are sometimes born again in animals, most
commonly the hyena or the solitary yellow monkey
called oloyo, or (though more rarely) in plants.^ The
Brames of Senegal believe that the soul of the dead
passes into the body of an animal not used for food.
At the funeral the body is exposed to fire until the
epidermis is easily rubbed off. This is done to
facilitate passage into the body of the animal chosen
by the deceased.^ Among the Ewhe the noli, or in-
dwelling spirit of a man, often enters the body of one
of the lower animals, sometimes friendly, sometimes
hostile? to mankind. In the neighbourhood of Whydah
the friendly noli frequently takes up its abode in the
body of an iguana, " whence these reptiles are allowed
to run about the house, and are regarded almost as
tutelary deities, the death of one being considered a
calamity."^ Similar beliefs are reported from the
Gold Coast and the Niger.^ The Banyang in Northern

^ HoUis, 304, 307; Merker, 192, 202. According to the latter
the clan of the El Kiboron bury all their married men and believe
that their bones change into snakes. See also Johnston, Uganda, ii.

832.

^ EUis, Yoruba, 133, 134. Compare the Djagga belief that their
ancestors inhabit the bodies of colobus monkeys {J. A. I. xxi. 377).

3 Leprince, VAnthrop. xvi. 61, 62. ■* Ellis, Ewe, 164.

* C. H. Harper, J. A. I. xxxvi. 184, 186. Here it seems that
the form of the sacred (totem) animal is or was usually believed to
betaken. J, Parkinson, Ibid. 314, 319; Leonard, 142, 185, 188,
217.

TRANSFORMATION 173

Cameroon do not kill certain birds, believing that they
are dead persons.^ In Madagascar we are told the
same of the Sakalava and the Betsileo. A Betsileo
noble becomes a crocodile ; the souls of common
people lodge in certain eels named lo7ia} Some
unspecified tribes hold the kingfisher and the death's
head sphinx to be men who have changed into these
forms after death. A great number of Malagasy are
said to take these creatures for ancestors, and to hold
them in consequent respect."

The Ansairee, or Nasaree, of Tarsus in Asia Minor,
though outwardly conforming to Islam, practise a
religion combining many heterogeneous elements.
They call their supreme god Ali. The Kalazians, one of
their sects, are moon-worshippers, that is to say, they
believe that Ali dwells in the moon, which is conse-
quently the object of numerous rites. A few years
ago the chief of this sect was Sheikh Hassan, one of
the richest men at Tarsus. They believe that at his
death he will become a star. Other men less holy or
fortunate will eo through various transformations.
With this people, says Mr. Theodore Bent, " metem-
psychosis partakes strongly of the ridiculous : bad men
put on ' low envelopes,' or kafiiees, in the next world ;
Mussulmans become jackals, and Jewish Rabbis apes ;
a man may be punished by becoming a woman, but a
good woman may be rewarded in the next life by
becoming a man." ^

In the East Indies when a woman dies in child-

i Hutter, 297.

* van Gennep, Tabou, 271, 283, 291, 322, 323

* Ferrand, Conies Pop. Malg. 139, translating Dahle.

* B, A. Rep. (1890), 544.

174 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

birth on the islands of Ambon and Uliase thorns or

pins are stuck between the joints of the fingers and

toes, in the knees shoulders and elbows, eggs of hens

or ducks are laid under the chin and the armpits,

and a portion of her hair is brought outwards and

nailed fast between the coffin and its lid. The object

of this is to prevent her from getting out of the coffin

and flying away in the form of a bird. Even if she

should succeed in this, it is believed she could not

forsake the eggs. Were these precautions not taken

she would be able to plague men and pregnant

women. On the Tanembar or Timorlao Islands the

matmate or ancestral spirits are worshipped. They

take the form of various animals — opossums birds

hogs turtles dugongs snakes crocodiles and sharks.

In the Babar Archipelago small offerings are thrown to a

snake seen lurking about a house, because it is believed

that a woman who has died in childbirth has made

use of it as a means to enter the village.-^ In certain

districts of the south-east of Borneo a Dyak who dies

by accident, as by drowning, is not buried, but carried

into the forest and simply laid down there. It is

believed that his soul enters a tree a fish or some

other brute. Accordingly certain kinds of fish are not

eaten, and certain kinds of wood are not used, because

they willingly harbour souls. On the other hand, the

soul of a man over whom all proper funeral rites have

been performed enters the Town of Souls. But it cannot

abide there for ever. After a life seven times as long as

on the earth it dies and returns to this world, where it

enters a mushroom a fruit or a leaf, in the hope that it
^ Riedel, 8i, 281, 338. Similar beliefs in other East Indian
islands, Kruyt, 181, 187, &c.

TRANSFORMATION 175

may be eaten by a human bein£^ or one of the lower
animals. In such case the deceased is born again in the
next offspring of the living creature which has eaten
it ; if such creature be one of the lower animals the soui
still has a chance of being born again as a human being,
provided the animal be eaten by a man or woman.
But if the animal the fruit, or whatever it may be, be
not thus eaten the soul comes to an end/ The Dyaks, as
is well known, are addicted to the observation of omens
from birds. " They suppose that these birds are their
ancestors who have been transmigrated in order to watch
over the welfare of their tribe, and who are still interested
in everything connected with it. None but the brave
are thus distinguished. Every household has certain
birds which it follows and other birds which are of ill
omen, that is, which warn of approaching danger. Once>
it is said, when an unusually brave man was fighting,
the enemy cut off his cJiawat (loin-cloth) behind ; he
died and became a bird without a tail."^ ''The
Malanaus believe that after a long life in the next
world they again die, but afterwards live as worms or
caterpillars in the forest." ^ Among the Kayans '* when
the soul separates from the body, it may take the form
of an animal or a bird, and as an instance of this belief,

^ F. Grabowsky, Int. Arch. ii. i8i, 187 ; Kruyt, 383. See
further as to the belief of the peoples of Java, Sumatra and neigh-
bouring islands,. Kruyt, 271, 335, 348, 375, 418, 419; as to the
specific belief of the Karo-bataks of Sumatra and the Madurese of
Java in reincarnation as human beings, Ibid. 8, 11.

2 Ling Roth, Sarawak, i. 224, quoting Rev. W. Crosland. These
Dyaks seem to be Land Dyaks. From another source we learn that
the omen-birds are directly addressed as ancestors and prayed to
avert rain, darkness, storms, swords and other dangers [Ibid. 226,
quoting Rev. W. Chalmers).

^ De Crespigny, y. ^3. /. v. 35.

176 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

should a deer be seen feeding- near a man's grave his
relatives would probably conclude that his soul had
taken the form of a deer, and the whole family would
abstain from eating venison for fear of annoying the
deceased."^

The Bahau of Central Borneo ascribe not merely to
human beings but to all things living and not-living
the possession of a soul called bruwa. This soul at
death escapes in the shape of a fish a bird or a snake,
a,nd makes its way to Apu Kesio, the land of the dead.
But human beings, their domestic animals and some
others have a second soul called ton liiiva, which only ^
forsak-es the corpse after death, and remains at the
grave until it becomes an evil spirit. The ton luwa
however, may appear in the form of a goat or a grey
monkey, and stories are told showing that it is able to
sojourn in such animals ; wherefore the Bahau are
loth to eat them.^ The inhabitants of Nias believe
that the soul divides into two or three parts according
a.s the deceased was rich or poor. One part, after the
performance of all the funeral rites, goes to the village
of souls, where it passes through many successive lives.
Often it takes brute form. Thus men who have been
murdered become grasshoppers, those who die with-
out male issue become night-flying moths, old men
assume the form of bior hog-s, and children become
earthworms. Another part, called the ehdha, or
hereditary soul, must be received in a purse if there
be no direct heir ; otherwise the soul of the dying man
must receive it in his mouth from the mouth of the

1 Hose,/. A. I. xxiii. 165.

2 Arch. Religionsw. ix. 263, summarising Nieuwenhuis, Qucr
durch Borneo. -

TRANSFORMATION 177

latter in order to be recognised as heir. When this is
done, however, a small part of the soul stiil remains
and lingers about the body, transformed into a small
four-footed animal. For this animal formal search is
made, and when found it is safely conveyed into a
statuette representing the deceased/

In the Malay Peninsula the Eastern Semang
believe that the soul of a U Han (priest chief and
magician) enters after death into the body of some
wild animal, such as an elephant tiger or rhinoceros.
In this embodiment it remains until tlie beast dies,
when it is admitted into the Upper Heaven, that of
Fruits. The Besisi of Selangor hold that the souls of
their chiefs find a resting-place in the bodies of tigers
deer pigs and crocodiles. The Benua of Johor
suppose the soul of a magician to enter into a tiger.
The Jakun tell a story of a king whose soul migrated
into a white cock. The Jakun of Sungei Ujong relate
that a king having died and been buried, when the
mourners visited the tomb seven days later they were
astonished to find no trace of the deceased save his
clothing and his shroud ; but a sia77iang (a species of
ape) was swinging from branch to branch of the great
tree that overshadowed the o-rave. Their efforts to
drive away the animal failed, and they concluded it
could be nothing else than the deceased king : an
opinion confirmed by a subsequent prodigy. For
when wounded once by the dart from a blowpipe the
siamang transformed himself for a moment into a tiger
striking such terror into his assailant that the latter

1 Modigliani, 292, 277, 290, 293, 479. Is it too much to sav
that the Greek custom whereby the nearest relative received the
dying breath in a kiss probably originated in a similar intention ?

I M

178 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

expired not long afterwards. The white siamang is
also one of the forms taken by the soul of a deceased
chieftain among the Sakai. Other Jakun hold that
phosphorescent jelly-fishes in the sea are wandering
souls of men awaiting the impending birth of a child
in order to try and enter its body. Moreover among
the Eastern Semang not merely human beings have
souls but also the lower animals. Fish-souls come
from grasses, bird-souls from fruits which are eaten by
the mother-bird. Each kind of animal has its corre-
sponding soul-plant. The tigress-milk- fungus contains
the soul of an unborn tiger-cub ; the tiger eats the
fungus and thus the soul is conveyed. Souls of beasts
noxious to men are conveyed by poisonous, and those
of harmless beasts by non-poisonous fungi. Phos-
phorescent fungi convey souls of night-beasts. In a
Mantra saga the hero having died and been buried
reappears as a skink, or grass-lizard. The hero's
brother throws his jungle-knife at it and cuts off its
tail, whereupon the dead man comes to life again,
leaves his grave and returns to his own house.^
Pakhangba, the ancestor of one of the clans of
Meitheis of the state of Manipur, still sometimes
appears to men, but always, like a Zulu, in the form of
a snake.^

Among the traditions preserved in the Nihongi or
Chronicles of Japan is one concerning the prince
Yamato-dake, of whom it is said that when he died
and was buried, taking the shape of a white bird he
came forth from the niisasagi or tumulus and flew

1 Skeat and Blagden, ii. 194, 221, 223, 227, 305, 351 note, 365,
290, 190, 23, 216, 336.
^ Hodson, 100.

TRANSFORMATION 179

towards the land of Yamato. The coffin was opened,
and nothing but empty clothing was found remaining
within. Messenorers were sent to follow the bird,
which rested in two places, where tumuli were subse-
quently erected in memory of the event, and it then-
soared aloft to heaven/ Another tradition preserved
in the same work relates to a noble named Tamichi,
who being sent to quell a rebellion was worsted by the
rebels and slain. He was buried, but the rebels after-
wards dug up his tomb, v^^hereupon "a great serpent
started up with glaring eyes and came out of the tomb."
It bit the rebels who had violated the tomb so that
nearly all of them died. "Therefore the men of that
time said : ' Althouo^h dead, Tamichi at last had his
revenge. How can it be said that the dead have no
knowledcre ? ' " ^

The Gilyaks of the island of Sakhalin hold that a man
has two souls, the one diffused throughout his entire
body, the other small like an ^^'g which during life goes
forth in dreams but after death becomes the double of
the deceased. For awhile it inhabits his favourite dog,
v/hich is tied to his former sleeping-place and treated
with the best of food. After some months the dop" is

o

sold, for the double is believed to have quitted it on his
journey to the other world. In the other world the
soul lives much as here, save that conditions are
altered so that the rich become poor and the poor rich.

1 Aston, Nihongi, i. 210, It is interesting to note that although
this account gives the occurrence beyond doubt as a bodily change,
his son (who became Emperor) is represented under a later date in
the annals as saying of his father : " His divine spirit became
changed into a white bird and ascended to Heaven." Ibid. 217.
But see Mr. Aston's observations, quoted infra, p. 248.

2 Ibid. 296.

i8o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

But it does not remain there for ever. Again it dies
and enters a third world, and so on three times more,
until it diminishes in size and is changed into ever
smaller beings, into a bird, a midge, and finally dust.
Sometimes, however, it is born again into our world
and undergoes an endless series of transformations.
This is the lot especially of women.^ In a Chukchi
tale the black bear is a wife who was forsaken by her
husband for another woman. " The mountain sheep
is also a woman forsaken by her husband. She threw
herself from a steep rock and was dashed against the
stones, thus becoming a sheep. Her braided hair was
turned into horns." ^

In China the belief that the dead change into
animals, though never taken up seriously into Chinese
philosophy, is current. Dr. De Groot has collected a
number of stories expressive of this belief, in which
we find men changing into asses cows birds of various
kinds fish and even insects. Often only the soul is
spoken of as manifested in such a shape. But other
stories appear to present the bodies as undergoing
metamorphosis. Thus a writer in the third century
A.D. lays it down that persons who are drowned in the
sea change into wei, probably a kind of sturgeon : a
superstition current no doubt in his day and in that
changeless country still entertained.^ Similarly " it is
generally believed by Hindus that a person who dies
from snake-bite is born a snake in the next life." An
Indian gentleman relates that after an uncle of his

1 Sternberg, Arch. Religionsw. viii. 470.
^ Bogoras, y«5M/ Exped. vii. 329.

3 De Groot, iv. 157, 207, 208, 225, 227, 230, 231, 234, 238,
245-

TRANSFORMATION i8i

own had died in this way he was constantly worried
by the old ladies of the harem, whenever they saw a
snake in the house, to take measures to free the
deceased from his life as a snake. So he consulted an
expert, and the following rules were prescribed : He
was directed to have a snake with five hoods made of
silver gold wood or clay, to represent Vdsuki Ndga
the lord of snakes. He v/as to fast, and on the
Ndgpanchmi, or feast of the dragon, in the month of
Bhadon he was before eating to w^orship this image
with an offering of milk flowers oleander lotus-flowers
sandal-wood-powder and sweetmeats. Then he was to
feed a Brahman with jaur, or rice boiled with milk
and sugar, ghi and a laddu sweetmeat. Then making
a libation of washed rice and white sandal-wood-
powder in honour of the image, he was to pray the
lord of snakes to free that member of his family who
had been born in the race of snakes, owing to his
death from the bite of one of them. " This remedy,"
he goes on to say, "in the opinion of my mother has
proved effectual ; and now whenever she sees a snake
and I ask her if it is my uncle who still appears in
that shape she says : ' No ; this is not your uncle. It
is a messenger from Shesha Naga who is prowling
about to discover what the world is doing and to kill
some evil-doer. ' " ^ The Majhwars, an aboriginal
tribe of South Mirzapur, " believe that the souls of
departed ancestors are embodied in certain animals."
If after a death a calf be dropped and it refuse to
drink milk, the Ojhd, or exorcisor, is called in. He
very often declares : *' Your father has been reborn in
this calf." Such a calf is therefore taken ofreat care of
^ N. Ind. N. and Q. iv. 130 (par. 295).

i82 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

and not worked in the plough.^ The Paharias of the
Rajmahal Hills hold that for the spirits of the suicide
and the murderer there is no hope. They are con-
demned to wander up and down in the nether world
v^ithout rest. Other spirits, however, after awhile are
born again. Those who have done good are born in
a better position than before. Those who have mis-
used their opportunities or abused their position in
former days will be born again in a lower grade.
This process of reincarnation may be repeated again
and again until the good man reaches the highest
position, and the wicked man ceases to be born of a
woman and joins the ranks of the inferior animals.^
So in a much higher grade of civilisation the Laws of
Man-u declare that for disloyalty to her husband a wife
is censured in this world, and after death she is born
again from the womb of a jackal and is tormented by
diseases, the punishment of her sin.^

An old Dutch traveller tells us that the Cinghalese
are persuaded that the souls of men pass into domestic
buffaloes, rather than into other animals. Accordingly
they will not kill these creatures lest they kill or injure
their relations or friends.^ The Chingpaw of Upper
Burmah hold that the souls of such as have behaved
well on earth live in the air or are born again as
chieftains ; the wicked on the other hand turn into
lower animals and insects.^ The natives of Ugi in the
Solomon Islands believe that the souls of the dead

^ N. Ind. N. and Q.'i. 129 (par. 817); Crooke, Tribes and Castes^
iii. 434. The Pataris referred to in these authorities are a branch
of the Majhwars now occupying the status of their family priests.

2 Bradley-Birt, 309.

3 Sacred Books, xxv. 197, 332. ■* Schouten, ii. 24.
fi Dr. Wehrli, Int. Arch. xvi. Suppl. 52.

TRANSFORMATION 183

pass' into fireflies/ On Ulawa, another of the same
group of islands, "a man of much influence not long
ago Jorbade the eating of the banana after his death,
saying that the banana would represent him, that he
would be in the banana." This is stated to be the
origin of a taboo recently laid on bananas. " The
practice at Ulawa is illustrated by what is common
at Saa, in Malanta. A man before his death will say
that after he dies he will be a shark. When he is dead
the people will look out for the appearance of some re-
markable shark " and identify it with the deceased.
Certain food, cocoa-nuts for example, will be reserved
to feed it.^ A story of the islanders of Mabuiag in
Torres Straits presents a metamorphosis comparable
to some of Ovid's. Certain men being- clubbed to
death were transformed into flying foxes (that is, fruit-
eating bats) and flew away. They were however
afterwards retransformed by being caught and their
heads bitten off", as in European nursery tales the
transformed hero is frequently delivered from his
enchantment by having his head cut off.^ In the
Murray Islands " the ghost of one about to die or of a
recently deceased person usually appeared to the living
in the form of some animal. A kingfisher may appear
for any one, but there are certain animals that appear
at the death of members of particular groups of indi-
viduals, the idea evidently being that the ghost of a

1 Guppy, 54.

2 Codrington, /. A. I. xviii. 310. In the Karesau Islands off the
coast of Dutch New Guinea a dying man not long ago said he would
come back as a star with a bird of paradise on his head. The
fulfilment of the promise was apparently a comet (W. Schmidt,
Anihropos. ii. 1051 note).

Haddon Torres Sir. Exped. v. 90.

i84 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

person takes the form of the animal to which it is akin
and in that guise appears to the survivors. Usually it
is the eponymous animal of a group with an animal
name that appears on the death of a male member.
Women are represented by flying animals, bats and
birds, but no relation was indicated between groups of
women and particular birds." ^ In Raiatea, one of the
Society Islands, the destiny of the soul was deter-
mined by various circumstances. The souls of ship-
wrecked persons enter trepang-fish. Those who fall
in battle take the shape of sea-birds and frighten the
living by their nightly cries. ^ On the continent of
Australia some of the blackfellows of the Namoi and
Barwon rivers in New South Wales " say that human
beings on dying pass into the form of the turuwiin,
a little bird with a very cheerful note." ^ Among the
Kurnai " the birds bullazvang, yeering and djeetgun are
said to be three of the leen muk-kurnai (real Kurnai
ancestors)."^ The Euahlayi hold that the spirits of
dead women return in the form of the little honey-eater
bird which they call durrooee.^ The spirit of Eerin,
a man who was a very light sleeper, is in the little grey
owl. The bird is called Eerin too, and by its cries it
ever warns its old tribe at night of any danger threat-
ening them.® The Narrinyeri suppose nearly all
animals to have been originally men who performed
great prodigies and at last transformed themselves ;

^ Haddon, Tylor Essays, 178.

2 Arch. Religionsw. x. 534, citing Huguenin, Bull. Soc. Neuchat.
Ge'og. XV.

3 Ridley,/. A. I. ii. 269.

* Howitt, /. A. I. xiv. 304 note. As to the Muk-Kurnai, see
Howitt, 487.

Mrs. Parker, 85. ^ Mrs. Parker, Tales, ii. 98.

TRANSFORMATION 185

and they tell the same story of many large stones and
some stars. ^

The Moquis of North America " are firm belit-vers
in metempsychosis, and say when they die they will
dissolve into their oriofinal forms and become bears
deer, &c., again." ^ "Sorcerers will occasionally
leave their graves in the form of bull snakes. Bull
snakes are often seen coming out of certain graves
still wound in the yucca-leaves with which a corpse
was tied up when laid away. If such a bull snake
in which a sorcerer is supposed to have entered
happens to be killed the soul of the sorcerer living
in it is set free and then goes to the Skeleton House,"
that is to say, the abode of the dead.^ In California
the Tachi Yokuts believe that the dead dwell on an
island in a river. The island is joined to the mainland
by " a rising and falling bridge," over which it it
necessary to pass. In doing so the dead are liable
to be frightened by a large bird ; then they fall off
the bridge and are changed into fish. Every two
days the island becomes full. Then the chief of the
dead gathers the people and tells them to bathe. In
the course of bathing the bird frightens them, and
some turn to fish, others to ducks, only a few coming
out of the water again in their proper shape. In this
way room is made when the island is too full.*
Among the Gallinomero bad men were thought to
return in the shape of coyotes, just as the Buddhist

^ Taplin, Narrinyeri^ 45, 46, 43.

2 McLennan, Studies, ii. 357, quoting Schoolcraft. The beliaf
seems here as in several other of the cases cited to be connected
with totemism, but the question cannot be discussed now.

^ Voth, Field Columb. Mus. Pub. Anthrop. viii. 109 {cf. 114).

* A. L. Kroeber, Univ. Cal. Pub. Amer. Arch. iv. 217, 218.

i86 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

population at Ladak hold that a malicious person
is reincarnated as a marmot/ Among the Haida
of the Queen Charlotte Islands some souls are sent
back to earth to be born again in human form, others
enter the bodies of animals and fish. " Sometimes
the soul enters the body of a fin-back whale, and
consequently fin-back whales are much honoured and
at the same time feared. On no account could an
Indian a few years ago be persuaded to shoot one." ^
An old Jesuit Father reports of the Hurons on informa-
tion from one of their chief men that many believe
we have two souls, both divisible and material and
yet both rational ; one leaves the body at death,
but remains in the cemetery until the Feast
of the Dead, after which it is either changed into
a turtle-dove, or according to the more general belief
it goes immediately to the village of souls. The
other soul remains with the corpse, never quitting it
unless to be born again. ^ The medicine-men and
women of the Sioux, it was believed, might be
changed after death into wild beasts.* "In two of
the buffalo gentes of the Omaha there is a belief that
the spirits of deceased members of those gentes return
to the buffaloes."^ The Southern Cheyenne hold the
opossum to be a dead man.^

In South America the Abipones were reported by
Dobrizhoffer as calling little ducks, which flew about

1 Powers, 182 ; Knight, 109. The Caribs are stated to hold a
similar doctrine ; but see the question discussed, Muller, Am. Urrel.
207 sqq. 2 y, _^, /, xxi. 20.

3 Jesuit Rel x. (1636), 286.

* Bourke, Rep. Bur. Etlm. ix. 479, quoting Schultze in Smiths.
Rep. (1867). s J. O, Dorsey, Ibid. xi. 542.

« H. L. Scott, Amer. Anthr. N.S. ix. 560.

TRANSFORMATION 187

in flocks at night uttering a mournful hiss, the shades
of the dead.^ The Isanna think that the souls of the
brave enter beautiful birds and enjoy good fruits,
but cowards become reptiles." The common fate of a
Boror6 of Central Brazil, whether man or woman, is to
become after death a red bird called arara. The
red araras are Bororo ; indeed the Boror6 go further
and say : "We are araras." Consequently they never
eat araras ; they only kill wild ones to obtain their
feathers for personal ornament. They never kill the
tame ones which they keep for the same purpose ;
but on the other hand when a tame bird dies they
mourn for it. The dead of other peoples are believed
to become other birds. The baris, or medicine-men,
however change after their death into such animals
as are reckoned the best game — certain kinds of large
fish capivaras tapirs and caymans. When one of
these is caught it has to be subjected to a process
which is called by Dr. von den Steinen consecration
{einsegnung\ but which from his description is rather
a desacralisation or driving-out of the bari-soul.^

Even from Europe, civilised and Christian as we
are pleased to think it, the belief in transformation has
by no means yet disappeared. Both in England and
in Ireland butterflies or moths are looked upon as
souls of deceased persons.* In Cornwall, King
Arthur was up to the latter years of the eighteenth
century, if not later, thought to be still living in the
form of a raven or a chough. In Nidderdale the
country people say that nightjars embody the souls of

^ Dobrizhoffer, ii. 270. 2 /^^/_ Arch. xiii. Suppl. 127.

^ von den Steinen, 511, 492.

* Choice Notes, Folklore, 61 ; TV. and O. 5 th ser. vii. 284.

i88 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

unbaptized infants/ On certain parts of the east coast
of England many of the old fishermen believe that
they turn into gulls when they die. Writing on the
subject a few years since Mr. P. H. Emerson remarks :
" It was with great difficulty I first found out that this
strange belief in a post-mortem transformation existed
at all, but once having learned it, I found to my as-
tonishment that the belief was common, but was spoken
of with much reserve." Children, it seems become
kitti wakes, but women '* don't come back no more, they
have seen trouble enough."^ A story is told at Brad-
well, in the Peak of Derbyshire, concerning a child
who had been murdered and whose ghost could not
be appeased. Recourse was had to a wise man. He
pronounced the words : " In the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost, why troublest thou me ? " and
turned the ghost into a fish, which thenceforth haunted
Lumley Pool and terrified people who came to draw
water from the wells there on Christmas Day.^ In
Poland about Dobromil it was believed that every
member of the Herburt family changed after death
into an eagle. In a Polish manuscript of the year
1526 it is stated that the first-born daughters of the
mighty house of Pilecki, if they die unmarried, change
into doves, or, if married, into nocturnal birds, and
that to every member of their family they announce

1 Swainson, 98, citing Macquoid, About Yorkshire. Numerous
cases are on record in which on the occasion of a death a
mysterious bird appears, flutters about and flies away, or disappears.
The most commonly cited example is that of the Oxenham family
recorded by Howell (see Gent. Mag. Lib. Pop. Sup. 212). These
are perhaps traceable to the same belief.

2 F. L. xiv. 64, quoting English Idyls, by P. H. Emerson
(2nd ed. 1889). ^ Addy, Househ. Tales, 60.

TRANSFORMATION 189

his death by a bite.^ In Burgundy the Baroness de
Montfort wanders for her cruelties under the form of a
she-wolf that nobody can kill.^ These are a few
specimens of a considerable body of European folklore
representing the dead under animal form.

But if human beings can be changed by means of
death and a fresh birth into brute and vegetable form,
brutes and vegetables may equally be changed by the
same process into human beings. As I have already
pointed out at the commencement of this chapter a
large cycle of mdrchen displays this power. In the
light of the transmutations we have now passed in
review it is abundantly clear that the fisherman's sons
their horses dogs life-tokens and so forth are nothing
more or less than the ancestor-fish in new moulds.
Probably at one time this was explicitly stated in the
tale. A Pawnee saga states that before the heroine's
birth her father had killed a bear, and the bear's spirit
had entered the child : this accounted for her
mysterious ways.^ A story from the island of Saibai
in Torres Straits reports that the hero got inside a
certain small shell called ui found in mangrove
swamps. It was gathered and swallowed by a
wo.man, from whom the hero was quickly born again
in consequence.* Not very long ago an Efik and his
wife were charged at Duke Town on the Calabar River
with murdering their child. It appeared that the child
was sickly from birth. Their story was that he
crawled about long after he ought to have been able to

1 Woycicki, 7 note.

2 Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 209. Other cases noted by the same
author, Paganisme, 196.

3 Dorsey, Pawnee Myth. i. 346 (Story No. 91).
* Haddon, v. Rep. Torres Sir. Exped. 32.

19® PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

walk and when his parents were lying down to sleep
he used to lick them like a snake. So they consulted
a witch-doctor, who told them that the child was in
reality a water-serpent, and advised them to take him
to the waterside and put him into the water when he
would resume his natural shape. They determined to
do so, and when they took him to the water there in
their presence the boy changed himself into a serpent
and rolled into the river. ^ Major Leonard who relates
the incident argues, and doubtless with justice, for the
entire o-ood faith of the defendants, on the grround that
the child was a boy and therefore of value to the
family both on its human and spiritual sides, and that
the explanation of his inability to walk and his habits
given by the local diviner was in harmony with all the
convictions and traditions of his parents, and contri-
buted materially to their delusions. Parallel beliefs
are found in British Columbia. The Kwakiutl and
other peoples hold that twins were salmon before their
birth and have the power to become salmon again ; "^
and the Lillooet say that twins are grisly bears in
human form, and that when a twin dies his soul goes
back to the grisly bears and becomes one of them.^

In previous chapters we have examined tales in
which men and women deceased have reappeared as
human babes without undergoing any intermediate
change into lower forms ; and we have others yet to
examine. What is expressly affirmed where pregnancy
is caused by tasting the ashes of a corpse, what is
implicit in the disgusting superstitions that lead women
to swallow portions of dead human bodies or to bathe

^ Leonard, 194. ^ Boas, Ind. Sag. 209, 219, 174.

^ Teit, Jesup Exped. ii. 263.

TRANSFORMATION 191

in human blood, must also be understood in the
parallel cases where fishes and fruit are eaten and
result in the production of children. Here then we
have the real meaning of many of the tales and super-
stitions we have been considering^. At their root lies
the belief in Transformation. Flowers fruit and other
vegetables eggs fishes spiders worms and even
stones are all capable of becoming human beings.
They only await absorption in the shape of food or in
some other appropriate manner into the body of a
woman to enable the metamorphosis to be accom-
plished. It would be going too far to attribute this
meaning to every story of supernatural birth and to
all the practices detailed in the last chapter. Where
drugs and other compounds are used, where water or
a sunbeam is the fructifying power, credit for the birth
is given to a vague divine or magical virtue. It
matters little, however, whether such a belief was or
was not primary. Enough evidence remains that the
belief in Transformation was equally original. It is
intimately bound up with the savage theory of the
universe. In that theory no strict line of cleavage
runs across Nature. All things may change their
shape, some at will (for they are all endowed with
personality and will), others on the fulfilment of certain
conditions, whereof death as applying to all animal
and vegetable life is perhaps the most usual. Our
farther illustrations of the doctrine of Transformation
are intended to emphasise the widespread distribution
in the lower culture of the belief that dead men and
women may reappear in human form and live a new
human life. The dead are not lost : they have only
departed for awhile, to come back by means of birth

192 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

or in some other way to human society. In The
Golden Bough Dr. Frazer has admirably expounded
certain aspects of this belief. These I shall for the
most part avoid, desiring to concentrate attention upon
the general belief rather than upon particular applica-
tions of it. And if to some extent I travel over the
ground occupied a generation since by Professor Tylor
in the second volume of his great work on Primitive
Culture, it will be to explore certain territory beyond,
into which his argument did not require him to
penetrate.

Buddhism as popularly understood in the East is
founded on the doctrine of Transmigration. Not that
this was the teaching of the great Sakyamuni, but the
common people of India, the tribes of Tibet and the
practical Chinese, it is safe to say, never assimilated
the subtle doctrines of Karma and the Skandhas. It
is indeed more than doubtful whether these philo-
sophical speculations have penetrated the intellects of
even the grreatest doctors of the Northern Church.
The current belief is that at death the soul trans-
migrates and is born again in some other body.
Whether that body will be desirable or not depends
on the actions in the present life. At death a man's
good and bad actions are weighed against each other.
If the good preponderate he rises in the scale of being,
if the bad he sinks. An adaptation of this doctrine is
exemplified in the successive incarnations that provide
a perpetual succession of Grand Lamas at Lhasa and
of skooshoks for minor monasteries. In these cases
the soul is believed always to flit into some unknown
infant who is about to be born. While as to the
Southern Church we are not dependent for our

TRANSFORMATION 193

assumption upon the folklore and the general culture of
the Cingalese and the peoples of Further India. In
the Jatakas, or parables attributed to Gautama, we
have irrefragable witness of the teachinof current from an
early period of Buddhist history. They are apologues,
most of them probably of much older date, which have
acquired sacredness by being fitted to alleged events
in the ministry of the Buddha. The master is repre-
sented as taking occasion from some remark made by
his disciples upon a passing occurrence to declare that
in a former birth the same things had happened to
them ; and in proof of his assertion he tells the tale.
The following may stand for a typical conclusion or
application. It is that of the cruel crane outwitted by
the crab : " When the Teacher had finished this dis-
course showing that ' Not now only, O mendicants,
has this man been outwitted by the country robe-
maker, long ago he was outwitted in the same way,' he
established the connection and summed up the Jdtaka
by saying, ' At that time he [the crane] was the
Jetavana robe-maker, the crab was the country robe-
maker, but the Genius of the Tree was I myself.' " ^
To the personages of the tale is thus ascribed complete
identity with the Buddha and his contemporaries.
Transmigration, in short, as conceived in popular
Buddhism, was no product of the subtleties of Hindu
metaphysics. It was no refined philosophical doctrine.
It is undiscoverable in the Rig-Veda, the earliest
sacred book of the Sanskrit-speaking settlers in the
valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Its ethical value
even, if we may judge from the Jatakas, was of the

1 Jdtaka, i. 95 (No. 38) ; Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories,

315-

I N

194 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

smallest. Such as it was, Transmigration was a direct
evolution of the more savage belief in Transformation,
as we have seen that belief exemplified in the present
chapter.

Far in the west the Celts are reported to have held
the dogma of Transmigration of Souls. This report,
comincf to us from writers imbued with Greco- Roman
philosophy, who interpreted according to the wont of
classical antiquity the religions of barbarous races in
the terms of their own, has been understood to imply
an elaborate philosophical system such as those of
Pythngoras and Buddha. Indeed more than one of the
writers in question expressly identifies the teaching of
the Druids about the soul with that of Pythagoras.
That the Celts had imbibed Buddhist theories we
cannot suppose. The doctrines of the Samian
philosopher may have penetrated into Gaul by com-
mercial routes or by contact with Greek colonies. But
no classical author ventures to ascribe such an origin
to the Druidic teaching. On the contrary, it is derived
by Caisar from Britain, where it was furthest removed
from foreign influences. Our direct information con-
cerning Driiidlsm supplied from classical sources is
of the most meagre and fragmentary description.
Supplemented by modern archaeological investigation of
prehistoric burial mounds, it leads to the conclusion
that the relio^ion of the ancient Britons and Gauls was
of the same general character as other barbarous cults.
The belief in Transmigration was held concurrently
with the belief in another world, a world of the dead
where debts incurred in this world were paid and
where those who sacrificed themselves on the funeral
piles of their relatives lived with them just as they had

TRANSFORMATION 195

lived with them in this world. The arms and the
wealth which were buried or burned with the deceased
chieftain, the slaves and retainers who were offered at
his obsequies constituted his splendour and contributed
to his power in the next world. Arising thus from
the common ground of savagery, no more incon-
sistency would have been perceived in these two
beliefs than the Zulu perceives who holds that his
deceased father lives underground in a village, like
that which he inhabited in his lifetime, wealthy in
cattle and wives, yet that he may be the snake that
lurks about the kraal or comes to visit his descendants
in their huts. Neither Celtic mythology nor Celtic
folklore, as reported by mediaeval and modern writers,
warrants us in supposing that metempsychosis in any
philosophical sense was part of the ancient Celtic
creed. ^

Before turning to rites and superstitious beliefs, we
may notice the legend of Oankoitupeh, son of the Red
Cloud, the hero of the North American Maidu. A
maiden sees a beautiful red cloud and hears sweet
music. The next day while picking grass-seed pinole
she finds an arrow trimmed with yellow-hammer
feathers ; and suddenly a man is standing beside her,
who is none other than the red cloud she had seen the
day before. The resplendent stranger declares his
love, and the maiden replies: "If you love me, take

1 I have no space to discuss the question at length. The
literary evidence as to the Celtic behef in the life after death has
been examined in recent years by several writers, most fully and
conclusively by Mr. Alfred Nutt in The Voyage of Bran (2 vols.
London, 1895-7). The archaeological evidence is scattered through
the\ transactions of numerous learned societies in the United
Kingdom and France.

196 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

and eat this basket of grass-seed pinole." Retouches
the basket and its contents vanish. Thereupon the
girl swoons. When she returns to consciousness,
behold ! she has already given birth to a son. The
Red Cloud tells her : " You love me now ; that is my
boy, but he is not of this world. . . . He shall be
greater than all men ; he shall have power over all,
and not fear any that live. Therefore shall his name
be Oan-koi-tu-peh (the Invmcible). Whenever you
see him, think of me. This boy has no life apart from
me ; he is myself." ^ Compare with this the statement
concerning Cuchulainn, one of the mythological heroes
of Ireland, and himself a new birth of the god Lug.
The great epic cycles took final shape after the wars
with the Danes in the eleventh century. A manu-
script of that period relates that the men of Ulster
took counsel about Cuchulainn, because they were
troubled and afraid he would perish early, "so for that
reason they wished to give him a wife that he might
leave an heir, for they knew that his re-birth would be
of himself."^

These pas?ages, though related of more than
common men, point to a belief shared by the ancient
Irish with the Maidu of California that the son is in
some sense identical with his father — a new birth, a
new manifestation of the same person. This curious
belief, implicit throughout the laws and philosophy of
the Indian Aryans, finds categorical expression in the
great Brahman compilation known as the Laws of

1 Powers, Tribes of California, Contrib. N. Amer. Ethn. iii. 299.
The Haida tell of a mythological hero whom they identify with the
moon, that he married a woman "from whom he was presently re-
born in the form of a woman " (Swanton, Jesup Exped. v. 204).

^ Kuno Meyer, The Wooing of Emer, Arch. Rev. i. 70.

TRANSFORMATION 197

Manu. There we are told : " I'he husband, after
conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is
born again of her."^ Corresponding with this de-
claration the ritual prescribes, among other ceremonies
when a boy is born, that the husband should address
the babe thus : " From limb by limb thou art pro-
duced ; and of the heart thou art born. Thou art
indeed the self {atmmi) called son ; so live a hundred
autumns." In the same words he addresses the boy
every time he himself returns from a journey,
embracing^ his head and kissing- him thrice.^

There is reason to think that this doctrine was held
by the ancient Egyptians, as applicable at all events
to the gods, and if to gods then probably in earlier
times to human beings. Each temple was dedicated
to a single god, but he usually had companion deities
who formed with him a cycle. This cycle was in
most cases composed of father mother and son.
"The son was the counterpart of the father, and
destined to replace him when he should grow old and
die, according to that law of nature to which even the
gods were subject. Thus the son became the father,
and the Egyptian texts could speak of the gods as

1 Sacred Books, xxv. 2>'^<^ ; cf. 352. Cf. also Sacred Books, xii.
334 ; passages from the Aitareya Brahmana cited by von Negelein,
Arch. Religionsw. vi. 320 ; and the remarks by Mr. Justice Markby in
reference to modern Hindu lawyers, quoted Hearne, 165 note.

^ Grihya-Sutra of Hiranyakesin, Sacred Books, xxx. 211; G.-S. of
Asvalayana, Ibid. xxix. 183. To this theory may perhaps be traced
the idea that a first-born son is peculiarly dangerous to his father's
life. A tradition concerning the rajahs of Bashahr in the Panjab
relates that for sixty-one generations each rajah had only one son,
" and it used to be the custom for the boy to be sent away to a
village and not be seen by his father until his hair was cut for the
first time," which was done with solemn rites in his sixth year
(Rose, Census of Ind. 1901, xvii. 141).

198 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

eternal ; for so soon as the elder god vanished he
would be succeeded by a divine personality precisely
similar. In this sense also the god was self-begotten,
being father to the son who was as himself; and he
was ' the husband of his mother,' in that after the
death of his father he had entered upon all rights as
regards the goddess of the triad, and was in his turn
by her the father of the new divine son who should
one day replace him."^ An illustration of this belief
is found in the Book of the Dead, where allusion is
made to a period "when Horus came to light in his
own children."^ In south-eastern Australia, among
the Kulin tribe the line of descent runs through males.
So far have the natives got on the road from mother-
right (in which descent is traced exclusively through
females) that they regard the woman as little more
than the nurse of the child. Mr. Howitt even records
the exclamation of an old man to his son, with whom
he was vexed : " Listen to me ! I am here, and there
you stand with my body." ^ It would hardly be fair

1 Wiedemann, 103.

2 Book of the Dead, c. 112, translated by Le Page Renouf, in
Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xvii. 8.

3 Howitt, 255 ; /. A. I. xiv. 145. Among the Dieri a man
speaking calls his son or his brother's son Athamurani, a word
interpreted by Mr. Howitt as meaning a revival of myself {Ato, I,
mura, new). Here it is to be observed that the Dieri still trace
descent through the mother only, and the interpretation is merely a
philological conjecture which wants confirmation (Curr, i. 124 note).
Coming nearer home it would seem that the ancient Scandinavians
held the opinion that the son was in some sense a reincarnation of
the soul of the father. They appear to have thought that a man
possessed more than one soul. A family soul {cettarfylgja) is
spoken of in opposition to the individual soul [mannsfylgja). It is
the cettarfylgja which passes from a man to be reincarnated in his
son. Strictly speaking, we are told, it is not an undivided collective

TRANSFORMATION 199

to build upon a solitary phrase of a single man the
affirmation that the Kulin tribe had reached the creed
implied in the Hindu ceremony ; but, as we shall see
hereafter, some at any rate of the Australian peoples
were familiar with the theory that children were new
manifestations of the dead.

Traces of the notion that a child is neither more nor
less than the reappearance of an ancestor are found
almost all over the world. It seems to be a general
opinion among the Negroes of the western coast of
Africa that the ghostly self of a dead man enters the
body of a new-born babe belonging to the same family.
In Guinea, as well as among the Wanika, a Bantu tribe
of the eastern side of the continent, the resemblance,
physical or mental, borne by a child to its father is
attributed to this cause. The Yorubas inquire of
their family god which of the deceased ancestors has
returned, in order to name the child accordingly ; and
they greet its birth with the words " Thou art come ! "
as if addressinrr some one who has returned.^ Some
hold that the soul of a dead person comes back in the
next-born child ; while others think it necessary to
ascertain by divination who it is. Miss Kingsley has
given an amusing account of the divination, which

soul common to the members of a single family; it is rather a
" support " for the patronymic which is transmitted from father to
son [Rev. Hist. Rel. xlix. 374, citing and reviewing Chantepie do la
Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons., translated by Vos). Compare a
speculation by Mr. A. B. Cook, as to the reincarnation of the manes .
of the old Italian clans {F. L. xvi. 293).

^ Tylor, Prim. Cut. ii. 4, citing several authorities ; Ploss, Kind, i.
259, citing Bastian. Ellis {Yoruba, 128) says the inquiry is made
of a priest of Ifa, the god of divination. See also Dennett, Black
Man's Mind, 268, quoting Yoruha Heathenism, by Bishop James
Johnson.

200 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

resembles that used to identify the new Dalai Lama
and consists in placing before the child various articles
belonging to deceased members of the family who are
still absent, in order to see which of them he will
appear to claim. ^ In the French Soudan the Mossi
and Gourounsi are convinced that the souls of the
dead go to certain villages — actual earthly villages —
where they seem to live in the same condition as
before death. After awhile they become Kinkirse
(pi. q{ Kinkiriga, an indefinable being, material, some-
what evil-disposed and of variable power) and in-
habit the bush that surrounds the villages, hiding in
the thickets. Such thickets are therefore respected,
from fear that their suppression would entail sterility
on the part of the women. For these Kinkirse are
potential human beings. When a birth takes place it
is one of them that returns to life ; and the newborn
child is always considered a Kinkiriga? The Malinkes
say that when a married man dies, if any of his wives
be pregnant the soul of the deceased husband passes
into the child in the womb and remains there until
a name has been given to the child. The name given
is always that of the deceased husband. If the child
prove to be a daughter the feminine form of the name
is taken. ^ On the Gold Coast parents who have lost
several children sometimes cast into the bush the
body of the infant who last died. They believe the
next-born to be the same child returned ; and if it have
any congenital deformity or defect, that is attributed

1 Winwoode Reade, 539 ; Kingsley, Trav. 493 ; W. A. Studies,
145. Another form of divination is mentioned as used by the
Bulloms and Timmanees, Winterbottom, i. 227,

^ E. Ruelle, VAnthrop. xv. 687.

2 Father Brun, Anthropos. ii. 727.

TRANSFORMATION 201

to injuries received from wild beasts or other evil
influences in the jungle.-^ Among the Ewhe of Togo-
land, if a newborn child show a likeness to any of his
dead brethren or relations, he is named Dogba or
Degboe, meaning "the returner."'^ Among some of
the Ewhe it is sufficient for a priest to certify which of
the deceased members of the family has returned.^
The opinion that a subsequently born child was a
previously deceased child who had returned was
current among the people of Old Calabar ; * and the
Ibani, when a first-born son dies and a second is after-
wards born, call him Di-ibo, or born again. ^ Nor is
the belief, with which we are now concerned confined
to the Negroes proper. It is found among the Bantu
of West Africa, though some of the latter appear to
hold the possibility of re-birth either into the family
of the deceased " or into any other family, or even
into a beast." ®

Among many of the Negroes and Bantu of West
Africa, however, a human soul is believed to be not a
unity but composite. The Tshi-speaking peoples of
the Gold Coast and the Ewhe-speaking tribes of the
Slave Coast draw a distinction between the ghostly
self that continues a man's existence after death in the
spirit- world, and his kra or noli, whicli is capable of
being born again in a new human body. In the

1 Burton, Wanderings, ii. 174. Cf. a Winnebago tale, Journ.
Am. F. L. ix. 52.

^ Globus, Ixxix. 350; Arch. Religionsw. viii. no.

^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxviii. 42.

* Burton, Wit and Wisd. 376.

6 Leonard, 549. As to the general belief in Southern Nigeria
that a deceased person is born again into the same family, see Ibid.
141, 150, 207. • Featherman, Nigricans, 447 ; Nassau, 237.

202 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

eastern Ewhe districts and in Dahome the soul is
indeed, by either an inconsistency or a subtlety,
believed to remain in the land of the dead and to
animate some new child of the family at one and the
same time ; but it never animates an embryo in a
strange family.^ This is attributed by Sir A. B. Ellis
to contact with the Yoruba who do not hold the
doctrine of the multiple soul. Among them, "as the
births at least equal in number the deaths, and the
process of being re-born is supposed to have gone on
'from the beginning,' logically there ought to be few,
if any, departed souls in Deadland ; but the natives do
not critically examine such questions as this, and they
imagine Deadland to be thickly populated, and at the
same time every newborn child, or almost every one,
to be a re-born ehost." ^ But other tribes hold that a
human being possesses as many as four souls. These
are differently enumerated by different authorities,
possibly speaking of different peoples, but perhaps
trying to interpret the vagueness and reconcile the
inconsistencies natural to men in the lower culture who
have not thought out the perplexing problems of
psychology awakened by their experiences and their

^ Ellis, Tshi, 149; Ewe. 114; Burton, Gelele, ii. 158; Wander-
ings, ii. 173; Seidel, Globus, Ixxii, 21; Westermann, Arch.
Religionsw. Vixi. no.

2 Ellis, Ewe, I.e. ; Yoruba, 129, The Bahuana, a Bantu tribe on
one of the tributaries of the Congo, speak of a soul called bun and
a double called doshi. The former (which is only possessed by
adults), if the deceased had been properly provided with fetishes,
enters the body of some large animal, such as an elephant hippo-
potamus buffalo or leopard, and an animal so possessed is re-
cognised by its ferocity. The doshi remains to visit its friends,
haunt its enemies and to persecute its relatives if the body have not
received a proper funeral (Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxvi. 290).

TRANSFORMATION 203

slowly advancing civilisation.^ We need not discuss
the question at length, for it is clear that among these
souls there is one which is destined to reincorporation
in some member of the family. It is called by the
Tshi kra, and by the Ewhe during lifetime luwho and
while awaiting reincorporation noli. It has been com-
pared to the guardian spirit familiar to ecclesiastical
speculation in Europe ; and in some aspects it resem-
bles it, being treated with reverence and often even
with a kind of worship.^

This division of the soul into various entities has
been held by numerous and very widely sundered
peoples. We have already seen reason to believe that
the ancient Egyptians were not strangers to the belief
in Transformation by death. Their official doctrine,
however, taught that man was a compound being, con-
sisting of the body [kka), the double {ka)^ the name
{ren), the heart {ab), the soul {ba), the self [saku), the
shadow {khaib\ the Shining One {k/m), the power
{sekkem)y the Osiris, and other parts. Of these the ka
the sakil and the Osiris are practically indistinguish-
able ; and we are told that " it would seem that in these
cases we have to do with the different conceptions of
an immortal soul which had arisen in separate places
and prehistoric times, and were ultimately combined
into one doctrine, the Egyptians not daring to set any
aside for fear it should prove to be the true one."'
None of these was immaterial ; and which of them it
was that reappeared in human or brute form we need
not now decide.

^ Kingsley, W. A. Studies, 200 ; Nassau, 53, 64.

2 Ellis, Ewe, 102 ; Tshi, 149; Nassau, 55.

3 Wiedemann, 234 sqq.

204 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

It would draw us too far away from our present
subject to consider the speculations of mankind on
the multiplicity of the human soul. Suffice it to say
that such speculations have been recorded of nations
in almost every part of the globe. They may be
traced with probability to the conflict of opinion
inevitably arising when men who have fled from their
dead friends, or comfortably deposited them in sub-
stantial graves with all precautions against their return,
continue to be haunted by them in dreams or in
the phenomena of " possession," or trace their linea-
ments in the corporeal form and mental characteristics
of their descendants. The earliest efforts to solve the
riddle of another life were necessarily crude material-
istic and limited by the experiences of this life. As
those experiences gradually widened and higher planes
of civilisation were painfully won, fresh aspects of
the problem presented themselves, different solutions
of the riddle were reached. When these came into
contact more or less conscious attempts to synthesise
them would be made. The fresh contradictions that
resulted, as soon as they emerged into consciousness
(often a very long process), had to be reconciled
as best they could. One of these appears to be
preserved in the Egyptian doctrine, as indicated by
Professor Wiedemann in the sentence just quoted.
The West African Negroes and other peoples in a
lower stage of culture than that of the Egyptian
official classes, travelling in a similar direction to find
the key to the puzzle, have arrived at a similar but far
less complex scheme. Indeed in Egypt itself there
seems to have lain beneath the official doctrine a
more primitive folk-belief differing as much from that

TRANSFORMATION 205

recorded in the monuments as the folk-belief of
modern Europe differs from the creed of Christian
theologians concerning the soul. The current Egyp-
tian belief, if correctly reported by Herodotus, was
in his time that at death of the body "the soul enters
into another creature which chances then to be cominof
to the birth, and when it has gone the round of all the
creatures of land and sea and of the air, it enters
again into a human body as it comes to the birth,
and that it makes this round in a period of three
thousand years." ^ This belief excited the historian's
scorn. It is very different from the official Osirian
doctrine, and has evidently been elaborated from that
exhibited in the story of the Two Brothers. We
have already seen that a belief equally wide of the
official doctrine certainly existed with regard to the
gods, according to which they were born, like Lug, of
themselves. It is safe to think that what was pre-
dicated of the gods, was in earlier ages by all classes,
and probably by the backward classes down to the
very end of Egyptian paganism, held concerning
human beings, though it may have been held con-
currently with other solutions of the problem.

We may therefore proceed with our investigation of
the belief in the reappearance of a deceased ancestor
in the person of a child without concerning ourselves
with the subtle divisions of the soul, which we have
previously met and shall again meet with in the course
of the inquiry. Turning next to the aboriginal tribes
of India, we find among the Khonds of Orissa the same
belief. Anthropologists have often quoted Macpher-
son's description of the divination for determining
^ Herod, ii. 123. I quote Macaulay's translation.

2o6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

a child's name. The priest drops grains of rice into
a cup of water, naming with each grain adeceased
ancestor. From the movements of the seed in the
fluid and from observ ations made on the infant's
person, he pronounces which of the progenitors has
reappeared in it ; and the babe is usually named
accordingly. Khond psychology endows every one
with four souls. Out of such a company there is no
difficulty in arranging that one of them shall be
attached to some tribe and perpetually born again into
it. This in fact is what is believed to happen.^ The
Kols, a Dravidian people found in considerable
numbers along the Vindhya Kaimur plateau, also
practise this divination ; and the child is generally
named after some deceased ancestor, who has thus
returned from the region of the dead."

Among the Korwa, a Dravidian tribe inhabiting the
part of Mirzapur south of the river Son and along the
frontier of Sarguja, "the child is named by the father
or grandfather, and is generally called after some
deceased ancestor, who is understood from a dream to
be re-born in the baby." " The Bhuiyars say that the
dead man's soul is first judged by Paramesar. If he
be pronounced good, he is born again as a boy or girl
in the same family. Similar beliefs are held by the
Kharwars and Pankas.^ The Patdris hold that the

1 Macpherson, Memorials, 72, 92, 134.

2 Crooke, Tribes and Castes, lii. 308 ; Hahn, Kolsmission, 72,
105. According to Dalton the Kols of Bengal perform a similar
ceremony without the same belief (Dalton, 295). But the belief
as the origin of the ceremony must be inferred. See below (p. 207)
as to the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush.

^ Crooke, op. cit. 330.

* N. Ind. N. and Q. \. 70 (par. 482).

TRANSFORMATION 207

souls of the departed are embodied in certain animals.
If after a death a calf is born and refuses to drink
milk, it is often declared to represent the spirit of the
deceased. In the same way, when a baby refuses to
suck a ceremony is performed, "The mother sits
down and the father names each of his departed
ancestors — father mother grandfather, and so on.
At whichever name the baby takes the breast, that
ancestor is supposed to have been re-born in the
family, and the child is henceforth treated with special
care. The Ghasiyas similarly believe that deceased
ancestors are from time to time re-born in the family," ^
Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush " the instant an
infant is born it is given to the mother to suckle, while
an old woman runs rapidly over the names of the
baby's ancestors or ancestresses, as the case may be,
and stops the instant the infant begins to feed. The
name on the reciter's lips when that event occurs
becomes the name by which the child will thenceforth
be known during its life." The analogy of other cases
leads to the conclusion that here too the ancestor must
be thought to be born ao^ain. Sir George Robertson
who reports the custom indeed adds that as a conse-
quence, it not unfrequently happens that " several
members of a family are compelled to bear the same
name," and are " distinguished from one another in
conversation by the prefix senior or junior, as the case
may be,"" This of course may happen also among
peoples who, we are definitely informed, practise
similar divination in order to ascertain what ancestor
has returned. How their philosophy settles the
question of identity when such duplication occurs we
1 N. hid. N.and O. 129 (par. 817). * Robertson, Kafirs, 596.

2o8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

are not told. By the same belief Mr. Crooke explains
one of the marriage rites of the Deshashth Brahmans
of Dharwar. " Among them," he says, " the couple
first walk thrice round the sacred fire. A stone called
the Askmd, or spirit stone, that which is used at the
funeral rites of the tribe, and into which . . . the
spirit of the dead man is supposed to enter, is kept
near the fire, and at each circuit, as the bride followed
by the bridegroom approaches this stone, she stands
on it till the priest finishes reciting a hymn. Here it
seems clear that the idea underlying the rite is that
the spirit of one of the tribal or family ancestors
occupying the stone becomes reincarnated in her, and
so she becomes ' a joyful mother of children.' For
it must be remembered that accordingr to Indian
popular belief all conception is . . . the result of a
process of this kind, one of the ancestors becoming
reborn in each successive generation." ^

In the foregoing examples it appears that any
ancestor may return. It will be remembered that the
Laws of Mami specifically taught that the husband
was born again of his wife. Mr. Rose points out that
as a consequence of this the father was supposed to
die and in certain sections of the Khatrisof the Panjdb
(for instance, the Kochhar) his funeral rites are
actually performed in the fifth month of the mother's
pregnancy. He adds: "Probably herein lies an
explanation of the dev-kdj, or divine nuptials, a cere-
mony which consists in the formal remarriage of the
parents after the birth of their first son. The wife
leaves her husband's house, and goes not to her
parents' house but to the house of a relative, whence
^ F. L. xiii. 236.

TRANSFORMATION 209

she is brought back as a bride. This custom prevails
among the Khanna, Kapur, Malhotra, Kakar and
Chopra, the highest sections of the Khatris, These
ideas are an almost logical outcome of the doctrine of
the metempsychosis, and it as inevitably results that if
the first-born be a girl, she is peculiarly ill-omened, so
that among the Khatris of Multan she used to be put
to death." ^

1 cited some pages back a custom of the Gold Coast,
from which it appears that children dying young are
apt to return to their parents in the next pregnancy.
The phenomenon appears also in India. In Bengal,
if " a woman g-ive birth to several stillborn children in
succession, the popular belief is that the same child
reappears on each occasion. So, to frustrate the
designs of the evil spirit that has taken possession of
the child, the nose or a portion of the ear is cut off
and the body is cast on a dunghill." ^ In the Panjab,
Hindu women who lose a female child during infancy,
or while it still sucks milk, take it into the jungle and
put it in a sitting position under a tree. Sugar is put
into its mouth and a corded roll of cotton between its
fingers. Then the mother says in Panjdbi :

Eat the sugar ; spin the cotton ;
Don't come back, but send a brother.

If on the following day it be found that the dogs or

^ Census of India, 1901, xvii. 215. So the Bakairl of Brazil are
said to call a child, whether boy or girl, "little father," as though a
new birth of the father; and among the Tupi the father after the
birth of each new son took a new name. The Bakairi reckon
kinship through the mother; but there are indications of transition
to reckoning through the father (von den Steinen, 337).

2 Crooke, F. L. N. hid. ii. 67.
1 o

2IO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

jackals have dragged the body towards the mother's
house, she considers it a bad omen, saying : " Ah !
she is coming back — that means another girl." But if
it be dragged away from the home, she is glad, saying :
"The brother will come." ^ Among the Andaman
Islanders every child conceived has had a prior
existence ; and " if a woman who has lost a baby be
about to become a mother, the name borne by the
deceased is bestowed on the fcetus in the expectation
that it will prove to be the same child again. Should
the infant at birth prove to be of the same sex as the
one who had died, the identity would be considered
sufficiently established." ^

The belief with which we are now concerned is
common in China, and stories are found in the liter-
ature of that country, of children who have remembered
and related incidents of their previous life ; and on
inquiry made the truth of their statements is said to
have been proved. " A dissolute son squandering the
possessions of his family and disgracing it by a licentious
and criminal Hie is often taken for a man who, being
wronged by the father or by some ancestor, had him-
self re-born as that son, thus to have his cruel ven-
geance. Conversely, an excellent child, which is the
glory of its family, generally passes for a reincarnation
of some grateful spirit." A tale is told of a father who,
while engaged in drowning a second unwelcome little
daughter, heard a voice from the water-tub exclaim :
" This is the second time you drown me ; but now it
is" my turn to destroy both you and your sons." In a

• ^ Mrs. Steel, Panjab N. and Q. i. 51.
2 Sir R. C. Temple, Census of Ind. 1901, iii. 63 ; E. H. Man,
/. A. I. xii. 155.

TRANSFORMATION 211

short time he died from anguish, and within a month
his two sons were killed by a catastrophe.^

The Chinese often think that a child who falls ill
and dies is a hateful demon which has come to tor-
ment the mother. Precautions must therefore be
taken against its return. For fear it may be re-born
of her she sometimes blackens the face of the dying or
just dead child, that it may not be able to find its way
back. Or a hand or merely a finger is cut off, appar-
ently in the belief that should it succeed in being
re-born, it would be recognised.^ The Ainu say that
people are sometimes re-born into this world. Women
"should therefore carefully examine a baby's ears as
soon as it is born, to see whether they have been bored.
If they have, it is a certain sign that a departed
ancestor has come back, and if this be the case, he has
returned for some very good reason." It would seem
that he has some message from the other world. ^
Among the Chukchi the new-born child is believed to
be some ancestor come back to earth. Its name is
found by divining with an object such as a divining-
stone, or some part of the mother's or child's dress
such as a boot or cap, held suspended by the mother
while she pronounces in turn the names of all deceased
relatives and says after each one : " This has come.''
When the suspended object begins to swing the name
is selected. The idea of the return of the dead is so
strong in the Chukchi mind that half of the proper
names have relation to it. Children are called by such

1 De Groot, iv. 143, 452, 459.

2 Miss Mary Lattimore, of Soochow, in Records of Women's
Conference on the Home Life of Chinese Women, Shanghai, 1900, 9.

'^ Batchelor, Ainu F. L. 237.

212 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

names as Returned, T he-former-one-rising, Rising-on-
the-field, and so forth. ^ The Koryak hold that the
souls of the dead go to the house of The-One-on-High.
He hangs them up there on posts and beams. When
the time comes for a soul to be born once more
he sends it for that purpose to a relative of the
deceased. As soon as the child is born the father
divines what relative has returned, using a divining-
stone much in the way it is used by the Chukchi.
Sometimes the divination is by means of the child
himself. The names of dead relatives are enumerated.
When the child cries the name is not the right one ;
when he stops crying or begins to smile his identity is
ascertained. As soon as the name is given the father
carries the child out to his people and says : "A
relative has come." Mr. Jochelson relates that during
his stay in the village of Kamenskoye a child was
named after its mother's father. The husband lifted
his child and said to the mother : " Here, thy father
has come."^ In Assam the Mikirs give to children
born after the death of relatives the names of the
deceased and say that the dead have come back ; " but
they believe that the spirit is with J dm [the Lord of
Spirits, in the abode of the dead] all the same." The
solution of this apparent contradiction seems to be
that the dead go for awhile to " J 6m Recho's city,"
but that they return to be born again ; and this goes
on indefinitely.^

In New Zealand the priest, after certain ceremonies,
first recited to the child the following stave :

^ Bogoras, y^5«/> Exped. vii. 512 ; Am. Anthr. N. S. iv. 635.
2 Jochelson, Jesitp Exped. vi. 26, 100 ; cf. 203, 237, 274.
^ Stack, 29.

TRANSFORMATION 213

Wait till I pronounce your name.
What is your name ?
Listen to your name,
This is your name —

Then followed strings of ancestral names, until the
babe sneezed. The name being uttered at the moment
of the sneeze was the one chosen.^ We are not ex-
pressly told that the object of this rite was to identify
the child with one of his forefathers ; but it can hardly
be doubted. It was difficult, if, indeed, we may not
use a stronger expression, to distinguish between ances-
tors and gods among the Maori. The worship of the
kindred inhabitants of Samoa was, there can be little
doubt, of a similar character. During the mother's
labour, first the household god of the father's family
and then that of the mother's family was invoked.
The god being invoked at the instant of birth was
looked upon as the child's special aitu (Maori, atua)
or god ; and its incarnation was " duly acknowledged
throughout the future life of the child." During
infancy the child was called and actually named
'■'■ nierda of Tongo," or "of Satia," or whatever other
divinity it might be, though later in life a special name
was given. " Occasionally a chief bore the name of
one of the gods superior."^ In the island of Aurora,
New Hebrides, where the people are Melanesians,
women often speak of a child as the nutm, or echo, of
some dead person. Dr. Codrington says : " It is not
a notion of metempsychosis, as if the soul of the dead
person returned in the new-born child ; but it is
thought that there is so close a connection that the
infant takes the place of the deceased."^

1 Taylor, 184.

2 Turner, Samoa, 17, 78, 81. ^ /. A. I. xviii. 311.

214 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

We may set this explanation beside the statement
quoted by Dr. Tylor from Charlevoix that "some
North- American Indians were observed to set the child
in place of the last owner of its name, so that a man
would treat as his grandfather a child who might have
been his grandson."^ It may also be compared with
the belief of the Eskimo. Dr. Tylor cites from Crantz
the assertion that a helpless widow would seek to
persuade some father that the soul of a dead child of
his had passed into a living child of hers, or vice versa,
thus gaining to herself a new relative and protector.
Dr. Rink on the other hand considers that the de-
ceased person whose name a child bore was only
looked upon as a kind of guardian spirit. His state-
ment, however, that the child when grown up was
bound to brave the influences that caused his name-
sake's death — for instance, if the namesake had
perished at sea, his successor had all the greater
inducement to become a skilful kayaker — points to
more than this ; while numerous stories in Rink's
collection indicate nothing less than identity ; nay, one
of them at least definitely asserts it.^ Like Crantz^

^ Tylor, Prim. Cul. ii. 4.

2 Tylor, Prim. Cul, ii. 3; Crantz, i. 200 {cf. 161); Rink, 44,
54, 64, 434, 450. Compare the belief of the Baganda. Speaking
of the custom of naming a child Mr. Roscoe says : " With royalty
the name of the great-grandfather is given to the eldest son ;
peasants do not follow this custom, but take the name of some
renowned relative. The spirit of the deceased relative enters the
child and assists him through life " (/. A. I. xxxii. 32). Among the
Awemba the diviner after consulting the lots gives a new-born child
" the name of some dead chief, declaring that the spirit will look after
his namesake " (J. H. W. Sheane, /. A. I. xxxvi. 155). Comparison
of such cases as these enables us to surmise the stages through which
the belief in the identity of the child with the deceased has decayed.
Compare the Roman Catholic custom cited in a note, infra, p. 223.

TRANSFORMATION 215

Dr. Rink writes of the Eskimo of Greenland. The
stories of those of Baffin Land witness to the same
belief. " There is one tradition in which it is told how
the soul of a woman passed through the bodies of a
great many animals, until finally it was born again as
an infant." Dr. Boas, however, who records this and
other tales, states that the Eskimo in question believe
that a man has two souls, of which at death one goes
to " one of the lands of the souls ; " the other stays with
the body, and when a child is named after the deceased
enters its body and remains there about four months.
"It is said that the soul enters the body because it is
in want of a drink." This seems inconsistent with
what follows: *' It is believed that its presence
strengthens the child's soul, which is very light, and
apt to escape from the body. After leaving the body
of the infant, the soul of the departed stays near by,
that it may re-enter the infant in case of need." ^

The practice of naming a child after a deceased
person obtains also among the Eskimo of Bering
Strait ; but here it appears in a connection entirely
different. "The first child born in a village after a
person dies is given the dead one's name, and must
represent that person in subsequent festivals which
are given in his honour. This is the case if a child is
born in the village between the time of the death and
the next festival to the dead. If there be no child
born, then one of the persons who helped [to] prepare
the grave-box for the deceased is given his name and
abandons his own for the purpose. When the festival

1 Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. xv. 132, 130. As to the Eskimo of.
Davis Strait, see Boas, Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 612. The practice pt
naming seems the same, but no reason is assigned.

2i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

to the dead is given in which the relatives of the dead
person wish to make offerings to the shade, the latter
is invited to attend by means of songs of invitation
and by putting up sticks with the totem-marks of the
deceased upon them." The shade is supposed to obey
the summons. In company with other shades in the
fire-pit under the floor of the kashwt, or assembly-
house, "it receives the offerings of food water and
clothing that are cast on the floor. Then is rendered
the song that announces the presence of the namesake,
at which the shade enters the form of that person.
The feast-giver then removes the new suit of clothing
he wears for the purpose and places it upon the name-
sake, and in doing this the shade becomes newly
clothed ; the food- offerings given to the namesake
during this festival are in the same way believed to be
really given to the dead. When this ceremony is
finished the shade is dismissed back to the land of the
dead." ^

A comparison of these customs and beliefs suggests
that the interpretation reported to us from Greenland
and Baffin's Bay, and the rites observed by the Eskimo
of Bering Strait are alike of more recent origin than the
practice of naming children after the dead which is
common to all Eskimo. The Eskimo of Bering Strait
are in direct contact with the Athapascans and other

^ Nelson, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 289, 424. For further details
see Ibid. 364, 365, 371, 377. So far is the identification of the
living representative with the deceased carried that during the Doll
Festival " the namesakes of men dead are paired with namesakes of
their deceased wives without regard to age, and during this period
the men or the boys bring their temporary partners firewood, and
the latter prepare food for them, thus symbolising the former union
of the dead" {Ibid. 379). This is surely much more than
symbolism.

TRANSFORMATION 217

American Indian peoples. Their culture in various
ways shows traces of this contact. It is possible (but
this is no more than a conjecture) that among them
the representation of the dead at the festival by a
living person is derived from analogous customs of
some of their neighbours. Such customs are at all
events practised by many of the North American
tribes. That the union of the deceased with his
representative is permanent is clear. The name is
retained until old aoe, when it is sometimes chanofed
in the hope of obtaining an extension of life. In such
a case the new name is not that of another person, but
one usually indicative of some personal peculiarity ;
and after the change is made it is considered improper
to mention the former name."^ The object is of course
to conceal the identity and so escape the fate allotted
to the bearer of the old name. On the other hand,
belief in a merely temporary occupation of an infant by
the spirit of the dead is probably due to a developing
psychology. In an earlier stage it would seem that
the deceased was reincarnate in the child, and not
simply a kind of guardian spirit. To this the tra-
ditional tales and the obligation in Greenland to
submit to the same dangers which had caused the
death of the previous owner of the name indubitably
witness. The probability is confirmed by what is
related of the Eskimo of Angmagsalik on the eastern
coast of Greenland. They say that man consists of
three parts, the body, the soul and the name iatekatd).
The last enters the child when after its birth a sort of
baptism is performed by rubbing water on its mouth
and naming the name of the dead after whom the
1 Nelson, op. cit. 289.

2i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

child is to be called. When a man dies the atekata
remains with the body in the water or (where it is
buried) in the earth until a child is named after him.
It goes then into the child and there continues its
existence.-^ Moreover, of the Eskimo on the west
coast of Hudson's Bay, Captain Comer reports that the
souls of the dead, if they so choose, may return and
be born again. He adduces two recent cases where
this was believed to have occurred. " An old man who
died in 1896 said at his death that he would be born
again by a certain woman. Soon after this the
woman gave birth to a girl, who it was believed," in
spite be it observed of the difference of sex, "to be
the old man returned. Another man who died in
1885 said that he would be born again as a child of
his own daughter. The latter had one son ; and soon
another son was born, who was looked upon as the
dead one returned." -

Whatever may be the fact as regards the Melane-
sians and the Eskimo it is certain that in North
America the new birth of the dead was widely believed
in. Among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia this opinion is now said to be confined to the
cases of children dying in infancy. If such a child be
succeeded by another of the same sex they say it is the
same child come back again. " They do not believe
that the soul of an elderly person can be re- born, nor
that the soul of a male infant can be born again in a
female infant, nor that the soul can return in an infant
having a different mother." Formerly, we are told
however, " this belief was more general than it is

^ von Andrian, Wortaber. 20, citing Holm, Ethnologisk Skisze.
2 Bull. Amer. Miis. Nat. Hist. xv. 146.

TRANSFORMATION 219

now." ^ And still " there seems to be a vasfue belief
with some that adults^ if they so desire, may also be
re-born on earth ; but this seldom happens." ^ Among
the Haida '' belief in reincarnation was so e^eneral that
a large proportion of the children were named in
accordance with this idea. When the shaman an-
nounced what ancestor was reincarnated that ancestor's
name was of course sfiven to the child. A man was
always re-born into his own clan and generally into his
own tamily." According to one opinion a man might
return in this way four times from the Land of Souls.
Ultimately he became a blue fly ; what happened after
that does not appear.^ Among the Thlinkit, if a
pregnant woman dreamed of a dead man it was said
that the ghost had taken up its abode in her body ;
and if a newborn child had the least resemblance to a
deceased relative, the latter was believed to have
returned and the child was called by his name.^

On this side of the Rocky Mountains the Hareskins,
a branch of the Dene or Athapascan stock, roam over

^ Teit, Mem. Am. Miis. N. H. Anthrop. i. 359. The last state-
ment is not unambiguous. I understand it to mean that the belief
was formerly more general in its terms. It is likely that the cases
mentioned would survive in the tribal opinion as cases of re-birth
when others had been given up.

^ Id. Jesup Exped. ii. 287, 277.

^ Swanton, Jesup Exped. v. 117, 35. A story of a man who
remembered his sojourn among the dead and his new birth, Ibid.
36. Rev. C. Harrison (/. A. I. xxi. 20) gives a similar account of
Haida belief, but unquestionably coloured in some of its details by
Christian ideas.

^ Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 392; Bancroft, iii. 517. See a saga
of a man who remembered his experiences, Brit. Ass. Rep. (1889),
844; cf. Id. (1888), 241. Similar beliefs and stories of other
British Columbian tribes, Id. (1890), 580, 611, 614; Boas, Ind.
Sag. 322.

220 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the steppes and stunted forests of the great North-West.
Of them it is told that sometimes men die to be re-born
almost immediately without going to the land of the
dead. When these souls have chosen a woman for
their mother they go to her and are reincarnated in
her womb. Such migrations are recognised by several
signs, as when the child is born with two teeth in the
upper and two in the lower jaw, or when it is born
immediately after a death, or when it remembers what
it has been during its previous life, or when it re-
sembles trait for trait a person defunct.^ The Tacullies,
or Carriers, also an Athapascan tribe, assist the soul's
decision as to the child in which it will become
reincarnate. They inquire of the dead if they will
return to life or not. The shaman inspects the naked
breast of the corpse, and if satisfied on the point he
blows the soul into the air, that it may seek a new
body, or puts his hands on one of the mourners, thereby
conveying the spirit into him, to be embodied in his
next offspring. The relation thus favoured, we are
told, added the name of the deceased to his own.^ ^

Like the Thompson Indians, the Iroquois held
that it was chiefly the souls of children to which
the privilege of a new birth was granted.^ Huron
philosophy posited the existence of two souls in a

^ Petitot, Traditions, 275, The author gives one other sign
which I do not understand : " Lorsqu'elles \sc. the women] cessent
d'avoir leurs regies au temps prescrit par la nature dans notre pays.'

^ Bancroft, iii. 517. Tylor (o/>. «V. 3), citing Waitz, states that
it was the child who bore not only the name but the rank of the
deceased. I have preferred to cite Bancroft both because the state-
ment is second-hand instead of third -hand (I have no access to the
original), and because it tells somewhat less strongly in favour of the
argument. See also Boyle, Archaeological Report, Ontario (1898), 142.

' Featherman, op. cit. 31.

TRANSFORMATION 221

man. One was chano-ed at death into a turtle-dove
or went to the village of souls. The other remained
attached to the body, never to leave it " unless some
one gave birth to it again." The striking resemblance
which some persons bear to others who are dead was
adduced to the Jesuit father who records this belief,
in proof of its truth. The Hurons called the bones of
the dead Atisken, or the souls. Babes who died
under one or two months of age were not placed, like
older persons, in sepulchres of bark raised on stakes,
but buried in the road, in order that they might enter
secretly into the wombs of passing women and be
born again. The Jesuit father quaintly adds : " I doubt
that the good Nicodemus would have found much
difficulty here, although he only objected concerning old
men Quomodo potest homo nasci cum sit senex?"^ I
shall have to recur to this practice. The Dakota held
that a man had four souls. Some Sioux however
speak of a fifth " which enters the body of some animal
or child after death ; " and they "go so far as to aver
that they have distinct recollections of a former state
of existence and of the passage into this." But it does
not appear that the belief is general.^ It is said that
the medicine-men and women of the Sioux might
"be transformed after death into wild beasts," but
that the Dakota believed that their medicine-men and
women ran their career four times in human shape and
then were annihilated.^ Some Siouan medicine-men

1 Relations des Jesniies, x. (1636), 286, 272 ; Rep. Bur. Ethn. v.
1 14, III.

^ Dorsey, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 484.

^ Bourke, Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 470, quoting Schultze, Fetichism
(New York, 1888). Some of them begin life as winged seeds, and
after preparation and instruction by the divinities go forth and

222 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

however "profess to tell of what occurred to them
in bodies previously inhabited for at least six genera-
tions back."^ Twins are a mystery to the Teton, who
believe that they are of superhuman origin and must
come from Twin-land. They may die ; but they are
sure to be born again into separate families, and will
then be able to recognise one another though others
are unable to do so. Medicine-men often found their \
claims to supernatural power on having had a previous ;
existence as twins.^ A tale belonging to the cycle f
of Orpheus and Eurydice told by a member of the
Teuktcan-si tribe in California relates that the bereaved
husband when in the other world saw a long line of
little babies moving silently back across the bridge
that spanned the furious river between the living and
the dead. "They were coming here to our women." ^
In Peru, if we may trust Garcilaso dela Vega, the
Cavinna, one of the tribes to the south of Cuzco
subdued by the Inca Manco Capac, claimed to be
descended from parents who came out of a certain
lake, and believed that the souls of those who died
entered the lake and thence returned again to animate
other bodies.*

The custom of calling a child by the name of one of
its forefathers or other previously deceased relations is
so common that it is useless to adduce instances,
unless there be some concomitant like that of
divination or a dream for connecting it with the belief

selecting their mothers are born into human society (Ibt'd. 494,
quoting Pond in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes).
^ Dorsey, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 493.

* Dorsey, op. cit. 482, quoting MS. by Dr. J. M. Woodburn in
possession of the Bur. Ethn. ^ Journ. Am. F. L. xv. 105.

* Garcilaso, Bk. i. c. xx ; Markham's trsln., i. 80.

TRANSFORMATION 223

in re-birth. It may notwithstanding be observed that
it is a common behef in the lower cuhure that a name
is an essential part of its owner. It is much more than
a mere label : it is looked upon as having a real
objective existence. The knowledge of the name gives
power over the person or thing designated. This is
the origin of innumerable magical practices. It
accounts for the reluctance of savages to tell their
names, for their propensity to adopt by-names by which
they may usually be called without disclosing their
true and proper names, and for the very general
taboo of the names of the dead. Although therefore
we are unable to discover any existing belief in the re-
birth of an ancestor in many cases where the practice
exists of giving an ancestral name to a child, still that
belief may have been in earlier times at the root of the
custom. Such a belief is quite likely to have faded
with the advancing dawn of civilisation into the belief
attributed to some of the Eskimo that the deceased
whose name is thus appropriated becomes ipso facto a
kind of guardian spirit to its new bearer, or into
the analogous reason adduced by the Bontoc Igorot of
northern Luzon for their invariable practice of giving a
child the name of some dead ancestor. They allege
that by so doing they will secure for the child the
protection of the anito, or manes, of the ancestor in
question. "If the child does not prosper or has
accidents or ill health, the parents will seek a more
careful or more benevolent proctector in the anito of
some other ancestor ; " and the child is thereafter
known by the name of the latter.^

1 Jenks, 62. Compare the belief in Belgium, and probably other
Roman Catholic countries, that to give a child the name of a saint

224 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

A different reason however for a change of name
in such a case is given by the Lapps. It was
believed that when a woman was near child-bed, one
of the ancestors appeared in a dream to her and
instructed her what name was to be given to her
child ; and ordinarily the ancestor in question was the
one who was about to be born again in the person of
the child. Failing any such intimation the name was
ascertained by divination. But if the babe sickened
or cried after baptism, it was deemed that the ancestor
had not been rightly identified. As it was necessary
to discover him in order to give his name to the child,
resort was had to a fresh baptism to correct the effects
of the previous one.^ In Norway, if a pregnant woman |
dream of one who is dead, the child must be named
after him. If the dream be of a man, and a P"irl bei
born, the man's name must be feminised, and vice versd.\
If she dream of more than one person, the names of all*
must be given. ^ This perhaps resulted from the un-
certainty as to which of the dead who appeared was to
be identified with the coming stranger. The same
practice of giving a new-born babe the name of a
deceased person is to be traced back in the old Ice-
landic sagas, where a dying person often appeals to
is to " place him under the invocation " of that saint. The name
of Ghislain preserves the child from convulsions, that of Hubert
from hydrophobia and from toothache, and so forth {Bull. F. L. ii.
150). Compare also the African customs cited above, p. 214, note.

1 Rhys, Celtic F. L. 658, where he has tracked to its source in an
old Scandinavian writer, whom he quotes. Prof. Tylor's authority for
the statement given by him {op. cit. 4) from Klemm's Culturgeschichte.
He adds from another Scandinavian writer of the eighteenth century
the reason for change of name.

^ Liebrecht, 311. Compare the Irish legend of the birth of
Cuchulainn, D'Arbois de Jubainville, Ep. Celt. 37 ; Rev. Celt. ix. 12.

TRANSFORMATION 225

another to name a future child after him, because he
expected advantage from it.^ It is no far-fetched
inference to suppose that he thereby expected to
secure a new birth. In the Romagna it is usual to
give the names of p^randfathers uncles and other
relatives to children, but not ihe names of relatives
who are living, lest their death be accelerated — a
vague reminiscence probably of the real reason.^ In
the Valdelsa the name by constant custom is that of
the last person in the family who has died.^ If a child
die among the christianised Indians of Sonora, Mexico,
the next that is born takes the name of the departed.*
The reverse is the case in the province of Posen
(Polish Prussia) and in the north of England, where a
subsequent child must not be named after one that is

1 Zeits. des Vereins, v. 99. Maurer cites on the authority of
Vigfusson a curious tale of an Icelandic peasant who lived at the
end of the sixteenth century, and to whose wife when pregnant the
Devil himself appeared and desired that his name should be given
to the child about to be born When the parents however came
to the baptism the priest refused to baptize the boy by the name of
Satan, and called him Natan. He grew up a clever man and a
renowned physician, but was guilty of all sorts of crimes and
ultimately came to a violent end (Maurer, 193).

2 Placucci, 78, 23. The reason, however, may be derived from
the belief that to bestow the name is to bestow a part of the life and
personality of the original owner of the name, who would thus lose
it. Even if this be so, the bestowal of the name of one who is dead
would be in some sense at any rate to revive him. How far the
present belief in Italy definitely regards a baby as a dead relative
returned is doubtful (see Pigorini-Beri, 283, Leland, £■//-. Rom. Rem.
200) ; though witches are thought to be born again (Leland. op. cit.
1 99). The opposite result to that expected in the Romagna is
looked for at Chemnitz when the first children take their parents'
names. In such a case the children die before the parents (Grimm,
Teut. Myth. 1778).

■^ Archivio, xv. 50.

* Anier. Anthrop^ N. S. vi. 79 note.

1 P

226 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

dead, lest It also die/ The Andamanese, who as we
have seen -definitely believe in re-birth, name "a
second child after a previous dead one, because the
spirit of the former babe has been transferred to the
present one." ^ In certain districts of Papua children
are often named after living" relatives who indeed
sometimes offer their names ; but frequently a child is
named after some one who is dead and whose soul, as
the expression runs, it is desired to retain. '^ It is
significant too, as Kohler has pointed out, that among
the Marshall Islanders, a blood feud arising from a
death is more easily settled after the birth of a new
child in the injured family. In such a case the slayer
takes advantage of the fact to pray for reconciliation in
the name of the new-born infant.^

Sometimes special measures are taken to secure the
return of children dying young. Such is the Huron
custom already mentioned of burying children in the
road where they would enter the wombs of passing
women and be born again. The Musquakie bury
children in the path to the river, in order that the
mother as she passes to and fro may absorb the soul
of her little one and have it born again of her body ;
whereas old people are buried at a distance on the hill-
tops.^ A practice followed in many parts of the world

1 Zeits. f. Volksk. iii. 233; Addy, 94; Denham Tracts, ii. 49.
This looks like complete identification, unless it be attributable to
some evil influence in the name itself. But of course the real origin
of the superstition is now forgotten.

2 Census of Ind. (1901), iii. 63.
^ Zeits. Vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 359, quoting Vetter.
* Ibid. 447, quoting Jung,
5 Owen, F. L. Mnsq. 86, 22. In the Delta of the Niger a

similar practice prevails, but the reason given is different. It is
" that mothers, either on the way to or from the spring, may keep

TRANSFORMATION 227

is that of burying a dead child within or immediately
outside the hut where it died. It can hardly be
doubted that the object here is the same. This is the
usage of the Fans in West Africa.^ The Kavirondo of
British East Africa bury the child near the door of its
mother's hut.^ The Jaiswaras of the Panjab bury
under the threshold all children who die within fifteen
days after birth. The reason assigned is that " in
constantly stepping over [the grave] the parents would
run no risk of losing any subsequent children." ^ This,
however, is probably not the original reason. So about
Sirhali in the Panjab the custom prevailed of burying
the female children, when killed, under the door. The
belief was that by this means subsequent children
(sons it was hoped) would be born in their place : that
is to say, the children buried would be born again of
the more desired sex. Mr. Rose suggests with proba-
bility that the general Hindu practice of burying
instead of burning the bodies of young children is
explained in a similar manner.* In Java a child who
has died before receivino- a name is buried without
ceremony behind or near the house. Among the
Karo-bataks a premature birth or a child under four
days old is buried under the house.^ The Andamanese,
whose belief and practice of naming have already been
referred to, bury babies under the floor of their parents'

in touch with the departed spirit ; and women who were especially
attached to these infants during their life will frequently go and
keep up an imaginary conversation with them for quite a long
time " (Leonard, 191). But is this the real, or the original reason ?
They believe in reincarnation (See ante, p. 201 note).

1 Roche, 91. ^ Johnston, Uganda, ii. 749.

3 Panjab N. and O. i. 123 (par. 925).

* Census of India, 1901, xvii. 214. ^ Kruyt, 72, 242.

228 - PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

hut.^ In Russia the peasants bury a still-born child
under the floor.^ The Chinese of the province of
Kan-su cut it in pieces and bury it, in the belief that
a boy will be born in a month afterwards.^ The
Southern Slavs in burying a babe lift the little coffin
thrice out of the grave and lay it down again. The
cover of the coffin is never fastened at the head and
feet of the corpse, because it is believed that if it were
the mother would never bear again, or if she did the
next birth would be very difficult.'* This alternative is
probably late ; and both the former alternative and the
ceremony of lifting the coffin thrice from the grave
point to a belief in the child's return. The ancient
Italians like the peoples of India forbore to burn the
dead bodies of young children. They were buried
under the eaves of the house.^ Recent excavations in
Palestine have discovered beneath the floors of temples
numerous remains of newborn children buried in large
jars. Dr. Frazer has probably with justice interpreted
these not as the remains of sacrifice, but as deposits in
the precincts of a god regarded as above all the source
of fertility, laid there " in the hope that quickened by
divine power they might enter again into the mother's
womb and again be born into the world." * Among
the northern Maidu of California a stillborn child must
not be buried face downwards, else the mother will

1 Census of India, 1901, iii. 65. ^ Ralston, Songs, 136.

3 Anthropos, iii. 764.

* Krauss, Sitte iind Branch, 545.

^ Pliny, vii. 15. See also Dieterich's observations. Mutter
Erde, 2 i .

8 Frazer, Adonis, 82. A similar custom to that under discussion
probably accounts for the absence of children's remains in prehistoric
burial-places that has puzzled the veteran antiquary Canon Greenwell
[Archoeologia, Ix. 306).

TRANSFORMATION 229

tver afterwards be barren/ In the legend of the
manioc already cited the maiden from whose grave the
manioc sprouted was buried in her parents' house. In
1 variant it is the maiden's infant child who is thus
buried ; and we are told that he was thus buried
according to ancient custom."

Among; the rites for obtaining;' children referred to in
the last chapter were attempts by women in India and
elsewhere to possess themselves of the life of a little
infant, or of an executed criminal or other corpse, in the
hope that the life thus obtained would be born again
of them.^ The subject was postponed for fuller discus-
sion in connection with the subject of Transformation.
Directing our attention first to the practice at Bombay
of cutting off the end of a fruitful woman's robe, it might
be thought that the object was merely to share, by a
well-known magical process illustrated in practices
elsewhere, in the fertility of the woman who owned the
robe. That this is not so is shown by the requirement
that in Guzerat the woman whose skirt is detached
must be one pregnant for the first time, and the belief
that she will thus be caused a miscarriage, while the
woman who takes the skirt will bear a child.* Similarly

1 Dixon, BiiIL Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 230.

2 Carl Teschauer, ^M^/jro/os. i. 742. Many peoples bury adults
in their huts. The hut is then usually abandoned, but by no means
always : among tribes in various parts of the world it continues to
be occupied. The question whether in such cases the burial has
any relation to the beUef in a fresh birth of the deceased requires
examination for which I have had no opportunity. But even if the
burial have no relation to the belief in question a considerable
volume of evidence remains, of which examples are given above, that
children are buried under or in close proximity to the parental hut
for the purpose of being born again.

' Supra, pp. 69, 71, 75-77. * Daya, 90.

230 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

we are told that among the Mohammedans in Oudh if
a barren woman on a Sunday or a Tuesday tear off and
swallow a piece of the wrapper of a fruitful woman it will
cause her to conceive, but the other woman "considers
the act as an ill omen " for herself/ In Guzerat it is
clear that the intention is to transfer the child from one
womb to the other ; and although the practice in
Oudh is described more vaguely we must interpret it to
the same effect. This view is strengthened by the belief
that when a child's shirt was steeped in water and the
water drunk by a barren woman the child would die
and be born again from the woman who had drunk the
water, and by the general requirement in India that
when, as often happens, a child is put to death for the
purpose of securing offspring to a barren woman, that
child must be a boy. " In the reported cases," says Mr.
Rose, " there is only one in which the victim was a girl,
and in that the parties concerned were Mohammedan
fakirs.^ The child's vitality is usually tested by torture
previously to the final blow. Branding with hot metal
is the favourite process ; and having regard to the
attitude taken by English magistrates to this ritual
murder, the secret branding of a child unable to speak,
and therefore to betray the torturer, is often held to
satisfy the necessities of the case without murder.^

1 N. Ind. N. and Q. iii. 215 (par. 467) ; iv. 161 (par. 373).

2 Census of Ind. (1901), xvii. 214.

3 N. Ind. N. and Q. i. 148 (par. 911) ; Daya, 90. I think the
interpretation I have given of the torture is correct, though both
that and the requirement of a bronze knife for actual despatch
mentioned by Mr. Rose may point to confusion with the idea of a
sacrifice. In any case, one kind of ritual murder, probably of
late development, is the offering of human sacrifices to the gods for
offspring. Professor Westermarck has collected a number of
instances from various parts of the world which raise the suspicion

TRANSFORMATION 231

Murder, or a ritual survival of murder, is however
by no means always necessary to obtain the child.
We have found advantage taken of the death of one
of special powers, as a saint, or of otherwise un-
exhausted powers, as an unmarried man or an executed
criminal, to endeavour to secure a transfer to a barren
woman of the departed life that she may reproduce it in a
child. With these practices we must connect the
stories attributing pregnancy to the absorption of a
portion of a dead man's body, all of which point to a
belief in the possibility of fertilisation by such means
without sexual intercourse. Often in the stories the
identity of the child with the deceased is expressly
affirmed. The customs we have just been studying,
are in complete concord with this affirmation. It may
be further suggested that here we have one at least of
the causes which have concurred to produce so widely
extended a custom as that which I have studied else-
where of eating the corpses of the kin.-^ When we are
told, for instance, of the Botocudos of South America
that mothers ate their dead children as a mark of affec-

(though he does not express it) that the sacrificed life was expected
to pass into the barren woman and be re-born. In the story he
cites of King Somaka from the Mahdbhdrata, when the king's only
son was sacrificed, we are expressly told that the king's one
hundred wives all smelt the smell of the burnt offering and became
pregnant of sons, the eldest of whom was the sacrificed son born
again of his former mother (Westermarck, Moral Ideas, i. 457 sqq.).

The Paraiyans, or Pariahs, of Madras bury children in the ordinary
burial-ground, unless the child be a first-born and a boy. It is •
then buried by the house or even within the house. The reason ;
alleged is " that the corpse may not be carried off by a witch or
sorcerer, as the body of a first-born child is supposed to possess
special virtues" (^Madras Govt. Mits. Bull. v. 82). There can be'
little doubt as to the real meaning of this.

^ Leg. Pets. ii. 278, sqq.

232 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

tion/ we cannot help thinking of the common practice
of burying children in their mother's hur, and of the
analogous measures of the Hurons and Musquakie to
obtain a return of the departed infant ; and we ask
whether the affection entertained by the Botocudo
mother did not centre in the hope that by eating the
body of the child she would get it back again in a new
birth.

The North American tribes, less oppressed by
external nature, had reached a higher plane of culture
than the Botocudos. Long before the seventeenth
century, when their doings are first recorded, the
Hurons had abandoned such crude means of recover-
ing their children, if they had ever made use of them.
They and the other Indians of the plains and the
Atlantic shores had arrived at a conception of per-
sonality based upon a subtler identity. It was this
identity which they strove to retain in ways exemplified
above, not only by Huron and Musquakie practices
but also by those of the Tacullies. Their view of
life was thus much nearer to metempsychosis, though
metamorphosis was not wholly outgrown : it had
still its place in their philosophy. We have observed
the same phenomenon in the Old World ; it has
been frequently illustrated in the preceding pages.
The Danakil on tiie southern shore of the lower end
of the Red Sea hold in spite of Islam that the souls,
especially of their sorcerers and priests, seek new
bodies, and that those who are most active in assistance
during the last few days or hours of a dying sorcerer
receive his powerful spirit in their first male offspring.
Accordingly there is a busy coming and going
1 Featherman, Chiapo-Mar. 355.

TRANSFORMATION 233

around the bed of a sorcerer sick unto death, people
incessantly offering gifts and endeavouring to make
themselves useful/ In the same spirit one of the
prescriptions of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers directs a
woman who has miscarried to 2:0 to the barrow of a
deceased man and step thrice over it with certain
w^ords conjuring the effects of the miscarriage.^ The
Gipsy women in Hungary however require a material
vehicle for the transfer of the life they seek, when at
waxing moon they eat grass from, the grave of a
pregnant woman. ^ So among the Southern Slavs the
woman goes to a pregnant woman's grave, calls upon
her by name, bites some of the grass off the grave,
calls upon her again, conjuring her to give her her
child, and then taking some earth from the grave

^ Paulitschke, ii. 28. In a later passage merely the gift of sooth-
saying is spoken of as thus obtained for the first-born among the
children of these busy-bodies {Ibid. 6i) ; but the passage cited above
expressly connects the practice with the belief in Seelenwanderung,
and speaks of receiving the sorcerer's mcichtigen Geist. It is not
clear whether the people referred to are men. If so, there has
probably been a transfer of function from women similar to that in
the case of mdrchen influenced by Islam, where the magical fruit is
sometimes eaten by the husband and not by the wife {Leg. Perseus,
i. 79). The Mohammedanism of these tribes is, however, somewhat
superficial.

Many of the Nilotic tribes bury the dead outside the door of the
hut in which they had lived. The Soudanese soldiers employed in
Uganda have been required to abandon this practice in favour of
burial in a cemetery. They have " more or less accepted the order,"
save in the case of children, "who are often buried just outside the
hut of their parents ; and whenever Soudanese lines have been
moved from one place to another " a number of these little graves
has generally been discovered (Major Meldon, Journ. Afr. Soc. vii.

127).

^ Sax. Leechd. iii. 66.

' Ploss, Weib. i. 439, citing von VVlislocki.

234 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

binds it in her girdle.^ These practices require no
comment.

There remains the Australian evidence, which is
important, because the aboriginal population of that
continent is on the lowest stage of culture now extant,
and it has been until the early part of the last century
wholly cut off, as far as we know, from intercourse
with other peoples. Prior to recent investigations
it was known that the Australian natives believed in a
posthumous existence in flesh and blood. Members
of various tribes had repeatedly recognised white men
as departed relations and acquaintances who had
found their way back. This is the " Jump up White-
fellow " belief which has been so often discussed since
the time when the experiences of William Buckley
were made public. He was a convict who escaped
from the penal settlement at Port Phillip Bay in the
year 1803, ^^^ "^'^^ found by some of the Wudthaurung
tribe carrying a piece of a broken spear. The frag-
ment in question had been placed on the grave of one
Murrangurk according to tribal custom by his kindred ;
and by this means Buckley was identified with the de-
ceased. He lived with the natives for more than thirty
years and married a native wife.^ Since his time other
white men have been similarly identified by natives
in various parts of Australia as old friends and former
members of their tribes ; and the belief has been
reported from the most widely sundered localities.

It is indeed by no means confined to Australia. It

" may be traced northward," as Prof. Tylor says,

"by the Torres Islands to New Caledonia, where the

natives thought the white men to be spirits of the

1 Krauss, Volksgl. 136. ^ Dawson, no; Howitt, 442

TRANSFORMATION 235

dead, who bring sickness, and assigned ihis reason
for wishing to kill white men." The Bari of the
White Nile thought the first white people they saw
were departed spirits thus come back ; and the same
theory is entertained both by Negroes and Bantu along
the coast of West Africa. In 1861 a missionary was
recognised by a native of Corisco Island in the Gulf
of Guinea as his brother, who had died at such a time
and had gone to White Man's Land. A chief on
the island of Fernando Po who died in 1898 announced
that he would reappear in the person of a ship-
captain. A short time after his death a European
geologist went to study the rocks of the valley where
the chief had dwelt, and was taken for an embodiment
of the deceased coming to look once more upon his
lands.^ Among^ the Bavili of French Conoro it is
apparently held that the dead man does not necessarily
return white. Mr. Dennett relates the case of a
woman whom he knew, who had died and was buried.
"When she rose from the dead she found herself
a slave and married to a white man in Boma. She lived
with him until he went to Europe, when he freed her."
After various adventures she succeeded in getting

1 Tylor, op, cit. 5 ; Howitt, I.e. ; J. A. I. xvi. 342 ; Mathews,
Eihnol. Notes, 147; Journ. Am. F. L. ix. 200; Curr, i. 339;
Nassau, 57 ; Mgr. Armengo Coll, Anthropos, ii. 390. In one
Australian case the natives of the Brisbane district, in spite of his
denials, recognised in a runaway convict named Baker a deceased
member of the tribe, and, we are told, " allotted to him as his own
property the portion of land that had belonged to " the deceased
(Lang, Oueenslayid, 336). As the natives have strictly speaking no
property in land, this can mean no more than that they assigned
him exclusive hunting rights. But even so it is convincing proof of
the strength of their belief See as to the belief in North Queensland,
Roth, Bitll. v. ss. 63, 64.

236 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

back to her native town. " Her parents were rejoiced
to see her again ; but they will not believe that she is
a human beings and continue to treat her as the
departed spirit [chiinbindi) of their daughter." ^ The
Andamanese recognise all natives of India and the
Far East as chauga, or persons endowed with the spirits
of their ancestors.^ The belief thus widely diffused
does not involve new birth. But although the per-
sons returned are recognised by bodily features and
peculiarities, even by scars received in their previous
existence, it does involve Transformation after death,
or Transmigration into a new body, since the original
body has been under the eyes of the relatives not
merely buried (in which event resurrection may have
taken place) but frequently burnt or dismembered ac-
cording to custom.

During the last decade of the nineteenth century
and since important discoveries have however been
made, especially of the ceremonies and beliefs of the
natives inhabiting the central, northern and north-
eastern districts of the Australian continent. Chief
among those to whom we are indebted for accessions
to our knowledge so great as almost to revolutionise
our view of the aboriginal culture, are Professor
Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. J. Gillen, who have
published the results of their joint inquiries in two
elaborate volumes. The information thus obtained,
so far as it relates to the subject under immediate
consideration here, is to the following effect. The
central tribes are all divided, like those in other parts
of the continent, into totem-clans. Every tribe is also
divided into two exogamous intermarrying classes ;

1 Dennett, F. L. Fjort, ii. ^ Ind. Census, 1901, iii. 63.

TRANSFORMATION 237

and these again are subdivided so as further to regulate
sexual relations. But the birth of a child is not
ascribed to sexual intercourse. That intercourse at
most plays an accessory part. The child may come
without it. Intercourse " merely as it were prepares
the mother for the reception and birth also of an
already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the
local totem centres."^ On this point the explorers'
evidence is emphatic and was confirmed by further
inquiries made on their third journey. The Ura-
bunna, the most southerly of the central Tribes,
reckon descent in the female line only. Far in the
past each of the totem-clans originated from a com-
paratively small number of individuals, who were half-
human and half-animal or half-plant, after which the
clan is named. They were possessed of more than
human powers, and they deposited in the ground at
certain spots where they performed sacred ceremonies
a number of spirit-individuals, some of whom became
men and women and formed the first series of totem-
groups or clans. Since that time these spirit-individuals
have been continually undergoing reincarnation.
When one incarnation dies his spirit returns to the
spot where the original deposit was made, and there
awaits reincarnation. He chooses, subject to certain
conditions with which we need not concern ourselves,
the woman whom he will enter.^

^ S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 265. It may be noted, in con-
firmation of the statement that these tribes do not ascribe the birth
of a child to sexual intercourse, that among several of thera at any
rate (and, it may be suspected, now or at one time among all) the
mother uses a different word from that employed by her husband to
indicate the relationship of a son or daughter to the speaker (S.
and G. Cent. Tribes, 76 sqq., North. Tribes, 78 sgq.).

2 S. and G. North. Tribes, 145, sqq.

238 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Going northward, the next tribe met with is that of
the Arunta. According to them the origin of the
various totem-groups was somewhat similar. Their
totemic ancestors were formed by two individuals
called Ungambikula out of incomplete transformations
of animals and plants, which they shaped into human
beings. These newly formed men and women
wandered in bands across the country, carrying objects
called Churinga (a kind of bullroarer, usually of stone
elaborately marked), every one of which was associated
with the spirit-part of an individual. Sometimes each
ancestor carried more than one of these churinga.
At the various places where these ancestors ultimately
" went into the ground," they left behind the churinga
they were carrying. The period when these things
happened is called the Alcheringa, a term not very
happily rendered by " Dream-time," seeing that the
Arunta believe the events to have actually occurred in
an indefinite but far past period. " There are thus at
the present day, dotted about all over the Arunta
country, a very large number of places associated with
these Alcheringa spirits, one group of whom will be
Kangaroo, another Emu, another Hakea plant, and so
on. When a woman conceives, it simply means that one
of these spirits has gone inside her and, knowing where
she first became aware that she was pregnant, the child
when born is regarded as the reincarnation of one of
the spirit-ancestors associated with that spot, and
therefore it belongs to that totemic group." Thus
every individual Arunta is a reincarnation of a mythical
ancestor,^

Further still to the north the Warramunga hold all
^ S. and G. op. cit. 150.

TRANSFORMATION 239

the members of a totemic group to be reincarnations of
a number of spirits, the emanations from the body of
a single ancestor half-human, half-beast or plant. This
belief, which is similar to that of the Urabunna, though
not held by the Arunta, is found among the more
northerly tribes, with one exception, right through to
the Gulf of Carpentaria. The exception is that of the
Gnanji, a wild and somewhat isolated people. For
them this doctrine of reincarnation (in other respects
identical) is limited by the denial of a spirit-part to
women. "They were quite definite," we are told,
*' on this point. There are large numbers of spirit
female-children, but they never undergo reincarnation."^
Whence come the baby-girls we are not informed.
The Warramunga and Urabunna on the other hand,
believe that the sexes alternate with each successive
incarnation.^

In the territory of all these tribes, therefore, there
are certain spots where disembodied spirits were
originally deposited, and where they congregate
during the intervals of incarnation, ready to pounce
on any suitable woman who may come near. Among
the Arunta these spirits are associated with churmga,
which they leave behind when they enter the womb.
Search is made for the churinga ; by it the spirit thus
reincarnated is identified, and the child is named
accordingly. The totem of the child is thus not
reckoned by natural descent. The totems have
become localised, and the totemic group to which the
child belongs is determined by the place at which the
mother first becomes aware of her condition, and by
the churinga found there. In some of the more
1 S. and G. op. cit. 161, 170. ^ Ibid. 358 note, 530.

240 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

northern tribes however the totems descend strictly in
the paternal line, and it is believed that a spirit seek-
ing reincarnation will in general refuse to enter a
woman other than the wife of a man of the proper
totem. -^ It is possible by ma_o^ic to cause a spirit to
enter into a woman. About fifteen miles from Alice
Springs in the territory of the Arunta there is a rounded
stone projecting about three feet above the ground.
It is called Erathipa, meaning child. On one side of it
is *' a round hole through which the spirit-children
are supposed to be on the look-out for women who
may chance to pass near, and it is firmly believed that
visiting the stone will result in conception. . . . Not
only may the women become pregnant by visiting the
stone, but it is believed that by performing a very
simple ceremony a malicious man may cause women
even children who are at a distance to become so. . . .
Or again, if a man and his wife both wish for a child,
the man ties his hair girdle round the stone, rubs it
and mutters : * The woman my wife you (think) not
good, look.' " Similar stones exist at other places.^
Although an ancestor is thus reincarnated the natives
have no hesitation about putting an inconvenient child
to death as soon as it is born. " They believe that the
spirit-part of the child goes back at once to the
particular spot from whence it came, and can be born
again at some subsequent time, even of the same
woman." ^

1 S. and G. op. cit. 169, 175, 176, 273; Cent. Tribes, 124, 132,.
138, 300.

2 S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 3363 North. Tribes, 271, 331,

450-

^ S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 51. As to the Kaitish and Unmatjera,
see S. and G. North. Tribes, 506. As to the theory of multiple soul&

TRANSFORMATION 241

The question presents itself whether the belief in
reincarnation is found among other Australian tribes.
The answer must be that it is found, but our know-
ledge of the tribes is too limited to enable us to say-
definitely that all of them have held it. Only among
a few of the tribes have systematic and prolonged in-
vestigations taken place by persons whose attention
has been directed to the point, and by them only
within recent years ; and the information we have is
in all cases imperfect. In the west of Victoria the
tribes from Avoca River to the boundary of South
Australia and from the Murray River to the Main

held by these tribes and the Arunta, see Cent. Tribes, 513 ; North.
Tribes, 450.

It is right to say that a somewhat different account from that
outhned above of the philosophy of all these tribes is given by
Mr. Strehlow, a German missionary who has lived for some years
among the Arunta. He seems to have had his attention first called
to the matter by inquiries addressed to him in consequence of the
works just cited. He therefore prosecuted researches among the
Arunta and Loritja, and has recently published the results through
the Municipal Museum of Frankfort on the Main. Space does not
allow me to examine these results at length. To some extent they
confirm the statements of Spencer and Gillen. The sexual relations
of men and women have nothing to do with birth. In some cases
birth may be the voluntary reincarnation of a primeval ancestor. It
is more usually the incarnation of a child-germ emanating from one
of such primeval ancestors and not previously born (Strehlow, i. 15 ;
ii. 51 sqq.). Reincarnation is a common feature of the belief of
peoples in the lower culture, and is as we shall see widely held in
Australia. Moreover the account given by Spencer and Gillen has
been confirmed by independent inquiry among the Arunta and
neighbouring tribes (Mathews, Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, xl. 107,
sqq. ; xli. 147). Accordingly on the whole there seems little doubt
that it may be safely trusted. Mr. Strehlow's report, however,
agrees in some particulars with the beliefs of other tribes {infra
p. 242) ; and it may very likely represent the opinions of a section
of the Arunta and Loritja.

I Q

242 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Range are reported to believe that every totem-clan
has its own spirit-land called 7ni-ytir, home or final
resting-place, to which the souls of members of the
clan go after death. There they congregate ; and
thence from time to time they emerge, and are born
again in human shape. The tribes inhabiting the
country from Beaufort towards Hexham and Wickliffe
have only one spirit-land for all their clans. It is an
island a short distance off the coast called by the
natives Dhinmar, but know^n on the map as Lady
Julia Percy Island. Thither every disembodied spirit
makes its way, and there it remains until reincarnated.^
The report I cite gives no further details as to the
method of reincarnation ; but presumably the spirits
are born again into their own respective tribes and
clans. In South Australia the tribe (now extinct)
about Adelaide held that the spirits of the dead went
to Pindi, the western land. At some period they re-
turned from Pindi to be re-born, and in the interval took
up their abode in trees.^ The Nimbaldi tribe, about
Mount Freeling, believe in "a spirit called Muree,
which may be either a male or a female," and which
meets a woman and throws a small waddy called weetchu
under her thumb-nail or great toe-nail, and so enters her
body. In due time she then gives birth to a child.^
The Euahlayi, whose country is the border between
New South Wales and Queensland, hold that babies
and children who die young without passing through

^ Mathews, Ethnol. Notes, 91, 95.

2 N. W. Thomas, Man (1904), 99 (par. 68), citing Tasmanian
Jotirn. i. 64.

3 Mathews, op. cit. 148, citing Taplin, F. L. &c. of S. Aitstr.
Abor. (Adelaide, 1879), 88. Compare the Arunta belief according
to Strehlow, ii. 53.

TRANSFORMATION 243

the puberty rites are born again, either of their own
mother or, if they prefer, of another woman. In the
former case the child is called niillanboo (the same
again). A reason sometimes given for the marriage
which often takes place of young men to old women is
"that these young men were on earth before and loved
these same women but died before their initiation, so
could not marry until now in their reincarnation."
Other babies seemed to be manufactured ad hoc. The
process will be considered hereafter.^ On the other
side of the continent, near York in Western Australia,
there is a stone inhabited by the spirits of children ;
and if a woman oro " near that stone she will oret one
of these children. Sometimes they enter her through
her mouth, sometimes through other parts of her body,
but," says the lady who reports this, " so far as I
have investigated [the natives] did not believe that
procreation had anything to do with conception."^
This belief seems similar to that of the Arunta.

It thus appears that in Australia there is a wide-
spread belief in the reincarnation of the dead. We had
already learnt that the belief in transformation, both
into animal and vegetable forms, was found there.
Beyond this however the Australian natives have
developed the doctrine of the soul, or double, which
after release by death may enter again into a woman
and take flesh as a new child. And the testimony is
express that sexual intercourse is not, at least among
some tribes, held necessary for conception, but that it

^ Mrs. Parker, 50, 56, 73, 89. As to the theory of multiple
spirits see 35, 27, 29.

2 Mrs. Bates, in a letter to Mr. Andrew Lang, quoted by him in
Man (1906), 180 (par. 112).

244 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

is caused by the mere will of such a soul to return to
human society. Even where, as among the tribes of
North Queensland, we have no evidence of the belief
in reincarnation of ancestors, sexual intercourse is
excluded as a necessary condition of birth. These
facts, occurring as they do among a race in a stage of
culture lower than any other now upon the surface of
the globe, materially assist the conclusion that preg-
nancy was widely held in early times to be caused by
other than what we regard as the natural means.

The notion of a factory or warehouse of children
whence they are sent forth to find mothers is shared
by some of the Australian tribes with peoples in other
continents. The Hidatsa of North America have a
cavern near Knife River called Makadistati, the house
of infants. It was supposed to extend far into the
earth, but the entrance was only a span wide. " It was
resorted to by the childless husband or the barren
wife. There are those among them who imagine that
in some way or other their children come from the
Makadistati ; and marks of contusion on an infant,
arising from tight swaddling or other causes, are
gravely attributed to kicks received from his former
comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean
home." Another account which appears to refer to
the same place only mentions squaws as resorting to
it and receiving from it "prolific virtue."^ Precisely
parallel to this cavern is a hill on the Daly River in
the Northern Territory of Australia. It is called
by the natives Alalk-yinga, the place of children.
They believe that the children hereafter to be born
are kept shut up there under the care of one old man
^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 516.

TRANSFORMATION 245

whose duty it is to prevent them from escaping and to
supply them with water. The latter he does by means
of an underground communication with the river, about
a mile away. " When a child is to be born this old
man sees to the business." ^

The question where this baby-factory was was solved
by the ancient Mexicans in favour of the kingdom of the
dead. Accordingly an epithet for that realm was tlaca-
pillachiualoya, the place where the children of men
are produced, or engendered.' The same solution has
been reached by the Santals of the Rajmahal Hills,
in India. Every Santal who bears the sika, or tribal
mark, on his left forearm, after death enters the
kingdom of the gods, and is employed by them "in
grinding the bones of past generations with a pestle
made of the wood of the castor-oil-tree in order to
provide the gods with a good supply of material to
produce the children yet unborn." This is the
continual occupation to which a Santal looks forward
in the next life, interrupted only by a periodical festival
similar to those he loved on earth, or by a momentary

1 Mathews, Proc. R. Soc. N.SW. xl. 113; Ethnol. Notes^ 148,
citing Trans. R. Soc. S. Austr. xvii. 262.

^ Preuss, Arch. Religionsw. vii. 234. Compare a tradition by
which the origin of the present race of mankind was attributed to a
bone of a previous race, fetched from Hell and sprinkled with the
blood of sixteen hundred supernatural heroes. A boy and then a
girl are thus formed from it; and they become the ancestors of
all nations (Southey, Commonpl. Bk. iv. 142, quoting some authority
not indicated). The Maidu of California in a cosmogonic legend
speak of an Earthmaker who forms figures in shape like men, but
barely as big as a tiny seed. These he plants by pairs in the earth,
at different places to grow into men and women. At the appointed-
time they come forth ; the earlier races are all killed or transformed^
and are supplanted by the pairs who have risen from the earth and
their children (Dixon, yowrw. Am. F. L. xvi. 33).

246 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

pause to prepare his tobacco-quid, or if a woman who
has borne children to give suck to the child at her
breast/ Similar material is believed by the peoples
of Togoland in West Africa to be required for the
production of new human beings. The underjaws of
slaughtered enemies are consequently in Kunya
brought by the Guan and dedicated to the fetish
Kombi, an undergod of the great goddess Sia, by
whom they are applied to this purpose.^

I hope that I have now made it plain that stories of
metamorphosis, such as those we have found in the
examination of the theme of Supernatural Birth, are
founded upon the serious belief that at death men are
not annihilated, but pass into fresh forms, sometimes
appearing as plants and trees, sometimes as animals of
the lower creation, and sometimes as men and women
born again into their own kindred or among strangers.
This is a creed held so widely that — though subject
perhaps to varying stress according to the degree and
direction of the evolving civilisation — it may yet be
regarded as practically universal.

The relation between Transformation and Trans-
migration calls for some remark. In the examples I
have set before the reader I have treated them as for
our purpose equivalent. In many cases it is probable
that our evidence is inaccurate, and that what the
observer set down as metempsychosis really presented
itself under a simpler conception to the people of whom
he is speaking. Personality as conceived by savage
thought is not bound to one definite, individual,
relatively invariable form. The form may change, yet
the personality remain. Tales soberly credited in all
■*■ Bradley-Birt, 285. - Globus, Ixxxix. 12.

TRANSFORMATION 247

but the highest culture are full of" shape-shifting. It
would be as vain to attempt to persuade a peasant
in remote parts of our own country that some poor
old woman was not a witch capable of turning herself
upon occasion into a hare, and in fact known to do so,
as to persuade a Wiradjuri in New South Wales that
a bitgi7i, or medicine-man, was not able to turn himself
at will into an animal, or even the stump of a tree or
other inanimate object.

If such a change may take place in a living person
still more freely may it take place by means of death.
It is quite clear that in many of the instances mentioned
in the foregoing pages the change is regarded as a direct
bodily change and not a reincarnation of the soul ; and
these might be paralleled without any difficulty from all
parts of the world. Let it suffice to refer to the Welsh
tale of Math ab Mathonwy. I n that tale we are told of a
hero named Llew Llawgyffes who could not be slain
except when dressing after a bath. The bath must be
arranged by the side of a river ; it must be well roofed
over ; a buck must be brought and put beside the
caldron ; then if the hero put one foot on the edge of
the caldron and the other on the buck's back, in that
attitude whoever struck him would cause his death.
His treacherous wife Blodeuwedd concerts measures
with her paramour Gronw Pebyr and succeeds in
fulfilling the conditions. Gronw flung a poisoned dart
and struck him on the side, so that the head of the
dart remained in the wound. Llew Llawgyffes flew up
in the form of an eagle and disappeared. He was
afterwards traced by Gwydion, son ot Don, and found
in a miserable condition with his flesh putrefying from
the wound. By means of incantations Gwydion got

248 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

possession of the bird and with the help of his magic
wand restored him to his proper shape. Blodeuwedd
was turned into an owl ; " and for this reason is the owl
hateful unto all birds. And even now the owl is called
Blodeuwedd."^ Sir John Rhys commenting on this
and other Celtic stories draws attention to the fact that
" none of these stories of shape-shifting and of being
born again make any allusion to a soul." It is evident
that the eagle in whose form Llew Llawgyffes flew
away cannot be regarded as his soul. The decayed
state of its body, the festering of the wound and the
retransformation into a man are conclusive on this
point. Yet the fatal wounding of the hero was foretold
as his death and is treated in the story as his death.
The story reaches us in a late form and only in a
single manuscript of the fourteenth century. But its
form is probably not later than the eleventh century ;
its substance is much earlier. It has undergone, as
Sir John Rhys has unanswerably shown, in the process
of transmission some misunderstanding as to the
metamorphoses, which appears to have resulted in
tampering with the original plot. But the aim of that
tampering was to obscure the fact of Llew's death, not
to blink his transformation.

Mr. Aston observes on the stories given above from
\S\t. Nihongi : "The modern name for ghost testifies
to the prevalence of this conception [that of bodily
metamorphosis at death] in Japan. It is bake-monOy
or ' transformation,' and is applied to foxes which
change into human form as well as to the ghosts of
the dead and to hobgoblins of uncertain origin. . . .

1 Llyvyr Coch, 75; Mabinogion, 427; Nutt's ed. 74; Rhys,
Celtic F. L. 609.

TRANSFORMATION 249

There are no proper ghosts in the Kojiki or Niho?tgi,
although the writers of these works were fond of
recordino- strange and miraculous occurrences. The

o o

metamorphosed appearances mentioned in them are
never phantoms with a resemblance to the human
form, and possess no spiritual qualities. Even now
the bake-mono, though differing little from our ghost,
is quite distinct from the human mitama or tamashi'i
(soul)."^ We may remind ourselves that a similar
distinction is drawn by the Angoni and the Achewa in
Central Africa between the animal or plant regarded
as the reincorporation of a dead man and the mzimti,
or spirit. With the former the surviving relatives do
not concern themselves, except that they will not
destroy or eat it ; the latter is the object of a cult.^

In cases like these there is no second birth: the
metamorphosis is direct. Nor is the evidence less
cogent where the deceased is born again. When
Bata in bull-form was slain two drops of his blood fell
upon the door-posts and forthwith grew up into trees.
When the trees were cut down a splinter entered the
king's mistress' mouth and rendered her pregnant — of
Bata once more. When an Ainu mother looks to see
whether her baby's ears are already pierced there is
no question of a soul taking flesh in a new body : it is
a new birth of the old body of an ancestor. It is true
that the Mongolian tale of Sheduir Van speaks of his
soul as entering the empress' womb. Sheduir Van
was a Khotogait prince executed for conspiracy against
the Emperor of China. After his death the empress
gave birth to a child ; and the wise men declared that

* Aston, Shinto, 49. See supra, p. 178.

* Supra, p. 169.

250 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the soul of Sheduir Van had, as he had foretold,
entered her womb. How was the babe identified as
the beheaded prince ? By the cicatrice on its neck ;
thus showing, in spite of Buddhist contamination, that
the idea underlying the incident is that of a new birth
of the old body/ The far-spread story of the lovers,
from whose grave two trees grew up and united their
branches, is a story of Transformation and not of
Metempsychosis. If I am right in the conclusion I
have drawn that the stories of fish fruit worms
stones and other objects entering the bodies of women
as food or otherwise and rendering them pregnant
present those various objects not merely as vehicles of
fertilisation but as becoming human beings by the
process of pregnancy and birth, then here we have
once more examples of metamorphosis.

The truth is that the foundation of savage philo-
sophy lies far down below Animism. The lines we
draw between the lower animals and the vegetable and
mineral kingdoms on the one hand and human beings
on the other hand are not drawn in the lower culture.
Man, interpreting all objects in the terms of his own
consciousness, first endowed them with personality,
but a personality such as I have described, vague and
imperfectly crystallised, sufficiently fluid to run first in
one mould and then in another, and even to divide
into parts, without loss of identity. As experience
q^radually widened, the conception of personality
became modified to bring it into harmony with
observed phenomena. In the evolution which resulted
dreams and trances played a prominent part. The
doctrine of a soul or double, an inner, a separable and
1 Gardner, F. L. Journ. iv. 30.

TRANSFORMATION 251

a more elusive self, emerged and like the prior con-
ception of personality was applied not alone to human
beings but also to the lower animals trees rocks and
indeed to all external objects. But it must not be
supposed that the soul was conceived as immaterial.
Long ages elapsed before civilised thinkers arrived at
this ; and the difficulties of such a concept are so great
that even the highest religions, though paying lip-
service to it, fall back in their rites their legends their
promises and their threats on grosser and more
material implications. The distinction between spirit
and matter is unknown in the lower culture. The
African, whether Negro or Bantu, as Miss Kingsley
says, "does not believe in anything being soulless;
he regards even matter itself as a low form of soul,
because not lively ; " ^ in his mind, that is to say, the
confusion is complete. The same confusion appears
in the ideas of peoples the most widely sundered in
space and civilisation. To the savage as to our own
forefathers and to \h.Q folk of all civilised countries still
the idea of an incorporeal soul wanting every attribute
of physical existence, such as a more refined philosophy
demands, is incomprehensible. A man may not be
able to see the soul, he may not be able to handle it,
when it is united with the body that normally possesses
it. But this kernel, this inner self of friend or foe,
comes to him in dreams ; he beholds it in the snake or
the toad the insect or the dove that haunts the tomb
of one who was dear to him, or in the rose-bush or the
lily growing upon the grave ; or he fetches it back in
the shape of a white stone to his child who has
sickened from its absence and is like to die. Finally,
^ Kingsley, Studies, 199.

252 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

it is this that entering the body of a woman may of its
own potentiality cause pregnancy, so that the babe she
brings forth will be no other than the new manifesta-
tion of a pre-existing person. Thus though conceived
as material its materiality is thin and subtle : it may
animate any form and yet remain essentially the same.
Its identity becomes the real identity of the man, pervad-
ing his entire being and transmissible from form to form.
The idea of soul in this more evolved philosophy has
in fact appropriated most of the attributes of the older
and ruder idea of personality without entirely super-
seding it. Hence the distinction between Transforma-
tion and Transmigration is frequently so faint and
indefinable. Transmigration is a natural development
of Transformation, imperceptible because gradual, and
dependent for its complete disclosure upon the degree
of development of the doctrine of the soul.

CHAPTER IV

MOTHERRIGHT

Ignorance in the lower culture on the physiology of birth.
Such ignorance was once greater and more widespread
than now. For many ages the social organisation of man-
kind would not have necessitated the concentration of
thought on the problem of paternity. Descent was and
by many peoples still is reckoned exclusively through the
mother. The social organisation implied by motherright.
Kinship is founded on a community of blood actual or
imputed. The Blood-Covenant. The father not recog-
nised in motherright as belonging to the kin. His alien
position and its consequences. The Nayars. Combat
between father and son. The Blood-feud. Children the
property of the kin. The potesias in motherright. Evo-
lution of the family. The mutual rights and duties of
the children and their mother's brother. Father a wholly
subordinate person. The origin of motherright not to be
found in uncertainty of paternity. Paternity in patrilineal
societies.

Ix^has been shown in previous chapters that :

1. Stories of birth from other than what we now know
as the only natural cause are told and believed
all over the world.

2. The means to which in these stories birth is
attributed are or have been actually adopted for
the production of children.

3. It is also widely believed that birth is merely
a new manifestation of a previously existing
creature, either human or one of the lower animals

253

254 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

or even vegetables ; and conversely that a human

being may after death take form by birth as one

of the lower animals, or may grow up as a plant

or tree.

4. The birth of a previously existing creature may

result from the action of that creature, without

procreation by masculine aid.

Put in another way these beliefs may be summed

up by saying that in the contemplation of peoples

in the lower culture birth is a phenomenon independent

of the union of the sexes. By this it is not meant

that at the present time everywhere among such

peoples physiological knowledge is still in so backward

a condition that the co-operation of the sexes is

regarded as a matter of indifference in the production

of children. That would be to contradict the facts.

Today the vast majority of savage and barbarous

nations are aware that sexual union is ordinarily

a condition precedent to birth. Even among such

peoples, however, exceptions are admitted without

difficulty ; and there are peoples like certain Australian

tribes who do not yet understand it. Their state

of ignorance was probably once the state of other

races and indeed of all humanity. The history of

mankind so far as we can trace it, whether in written

records or by the less direct but not less certain

methods of scientific investigation, exhibits the slow

and orradual encroachments of knowledge on the

confines of almost boundless ignorance. That such

ignorance should once have touched the hidden springs

of life itself is no more incredible than that it should

have extended to the cause of death. There are

plenty of races who even yet attribute a death by

MOTHERRIGHT 255

anything else than violence to the machinations of an
evil-disposed person or spirit, no matter how old
or enfeebled by privation or hardship the deceased
may have been. Nor do they omit anything which
may render their ignorance on this point unambiguous ;
they proceed to discover and punish the sorcerer ;
they expel the malicious spirit ; they appease the
enraged or arbitrary divinity.

Death has a character mysterious and awful, of
which no familiarity has been able to divest it, and
which not even the latest researches of physiologists
have been able to dispel. Ignorance of the real cause
of birth, it might be thought, on the other hand would
not long survive the habitual commerce of men and
women and the continual reproduction of the species.
It would not, in our stao-e of civilisation and with
our social regulations. But the theory of the evolu-
tion of civilisation postulates the evolution of man,
mentally and morally as well as physically. At the
moment when the anthropoid became entitled to be
properly denominated man his intellectual capacity
was not that of a Shakspeare a Newton a Darwin, or
even of an average Eno-lishman of the twentieth
century. He was only endowed with potentialities
which, after an unknown series of generations and thanks
to what we in our nescience variously dub a fortunate
combination of circumstances or an over-ruling Provi-
dence, issued in that supreme result. The savage who
has not been thus favoured is still by comparison
undeveloped. His intellectual faculties are chiefly
employed in winning material subsistence, in gratifying
his passions, in fighting with his fellow-man and with the
wild beasts, often in maintaining a doubtful conflict

256 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

against inclement skies unfruitful earth or tempestuous
seas. Many of them, therefore, are dormant, like a bud
before it has unfolded. His attention, not habitually
directed to the problems of the universe, is easily tired.
His knowledge is severely limited; his range of ideas
is small. Credulous as a child, he is put off from the
solution of a merely speculative question by a tale that
chimes with his previous ideas, though it may transcend
his actual experience. Hence many a deduction,
many an induction, to us plain and obvious has been
retarded, or never reached at all : he is still a
savage.

During many ages the social organisation of man-
kind would not have necessitated the concentration of
thought on the problem of paternity. Descent is still
reckoned exclusively through the mother by a number
of savage and barbarous peoples. This mode of
reckoning descent is called by a useful term of
German origin — Motherright. It would be im-
possible to undertake an exhaustive enumeration
of the peoples among which motherright prevails.
The civilised nations of Europe and European origin
reckon descent and consequently kinship through both
parents. A few others, chiefly more civilised nations
like the Chinese and the Arabs, agree with them.
Apart from these it may be roughly said that
motherright is found in every quarter of the globe.
Not that every people is in the stage of motherright :
on the contrary many reckon through the father. But
even where the latter is the case vestiges of the former
are commonly to be traced. And the result of anthro-
pological investigations during the past half-century
has been to show that motherright everywhere pre-

MOTHERRIGHT 257

, ceded fatherright and the reckoning of descent in the
modern civilised fashion through both parents.

This past universality of motherright points to a
very early origin. It must have taken its rise in a
condition of society ruder than any of which we have
cognisance. Let us consider what social organisation
it implies. Kinship is a sociological term. It is not
synonymous with blood-relationship : it does not
express a physiological fact. Many savage peoples
are organised in totemic clans, each clan bearing
usually the name of an animal or plant often supposed
to be akin to the human members of the clan. Every
member of the clan recognises every other member as
of the kin. Inasmuch as these clans extend fre-
quently through whole tribes and even to distant
parts of a vast continent like North America or
Australia, it is practically impossible that the members
can be in a physiological sense blood-relations. Not-
withstanding this, every member of the totem-clan,
wherever he may be found, is entitle d to all the
privileges and subject to all the disabilities incident to
his status. He is entitled to protection at the hands
of his fellow-clansmen. He is liable to be called on
to take part in the blood-feud of the clan, and to suffer
by an act of vengeance for a wrong committed by
some other member of the clan. Foremost among his
disabilities is the prohibition to marry or have sexual
relations with any woman within the kin. Conse-
quently his children must all be children of women
belonofino- to a different kin from his own.

Though kinship, however, is not equivalent to blood-
relationship in our sense of the term, it is founded on
the idea of common blood which all within the kin

258 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

possess and to which all outside the kin are strangers.
A feeling of solidarity runs through the entire kin, so
that it may be said without hyperbole that the kin is
regarded as one entire life, one body, whereof each
unit is more than metaphorically a member, a limb.
The same blood runs through them all, and " the blood
is the life." Literally they may not all be descended
from a common ancestry. Descent is the normal, the
typical, cause of kinship and a common blood. It is
the legal presupposition : by birth a child enters a kin
for good and ill. But kinship may also be acquired ;
and when once it is acquired by a stranger he ranks
thenceforth for all purposes as one descended from the
common ancestor. To acquire kinship a ceremony
must be undergone : the blood of the candidate for
admission into the kin must be mingled with that of
the kin. This ceremony, no less than the words made
use of in various lan^^uaoes to describe the members of
the kin and their common bond, renders it clear that
the bond is the bond of blood.

The mino-lino; of blood — the Blood-covenant as it is
called — is a simple though repulsive rite. It is suffi-
cient that an incision be made in the neophyte's arm
and the flowing blood sucked from It by one of the
clansmen, upon whom the operation is repeated in turn
by the neophyte. Originally, perhaps, all the clans-
men assembled as witnesses if not as actual participants
of the rite ; and even yet participation by more than
one representative is frequently required. The exact
form is not always the same. Sometimes the blood is
dropped into a cup and diluted with some other drink.
Sometimes food eaten together is impregnated with the
blood. Sometimes a species of inoculation is practised

MOTHERRIGHT 259

or it is enough to rub the bleeding wounds together,
so that the blood of both parties is mixed and smeared
upon them both. Among certain tribes of Borneo the
drops are allowed to fall upon a leaf, which is then
made up into a cigar with tobacco and lighted and
smoked alternately by both parties/ But whatever
may be the exact form adopted, the essence of the rite
is the same, and its range is extraordinarily wide. It is
mentioned by classical writers as practised by the Arabs
the Scythians the Lydians and Iberians of Asia Minor
and apparently the Medes. Many passages of the
Bible, many of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, are
inexplicable apart from it. Ancient Arab historians
are full of allusions to it. Odin and Loki entered
into the bond, which means that it was customary
among; the Norsemen — as we know in fact from other
sources. It is recorded by Giraldus of the Irish of his
day ; and it still lingered as lately as two hundred
years ago among the western islanders of Scotland.
It is related of the Huns or Magyars and of the
mediaeval Roumanians. Joinville ascribes it to one of
the tribes of the Caucasus ; and the Rabbi Petachia
of Ratisbon, who travelled in Ukrainia in the twelfth
century, found it there. In modern times every African
traveller mentions it ; many of them have had to un-
dergo the ceremony. In the neighbouring island of
Madagascar it is well known. All over the Eastern
Archipelago, in the Malay peninsula, among the
Karens, the Siamese, the Dards on the northern
border of our Indian empire and many of the
aboriginal tribes of Bengal and Central India the
wild tribes of China, the Syrians of Lebanon and

^ Roth, Saraivak, ii. 206.

26o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

the Bedouins, and among various autochthonous
peoples of North and South America, the rite is or has
been within recent times in use.^ Nor has it ceased to
be practised in Europe by the Gipsies and the
Southern Slavs. In the French department of Aube,
when a child bleeds he puts a little of his blood on the
face or hands of one of his playfellows and says to him :
"Thou shalt be my cousin." In like manner in New
England, when a school-girl not many years since
pricked her finger so that the blood came, one of her
companions would say : " Oh ! let me suck the blood ;
then we shall be friends." Something more than
vestiges of the rite remain among the Italians of the
Abruzzi. And the band of the Mala Vita, a society for.
criminal purposes in Southern Italy only broken up a
few years ago, was a brotherhood formed by the blood-
covenant. Indeed many secret societies both civilised
and uncivilised have adopted an initiation-rite of which
the blood-covenant forms part, either actually or by
symbol representing an act once literally performed.

That the blood-covenant, whereby blood-brother-
hood is assumed, is not a primeval rite is obvious from
its artificial character. At the same time its barbarism
and the wide area over which it is spread point
with certainty to its early evolution, and the fact
that it is in unison with conceptions essentially and
universally human. It has its basis in ideas which
must have been pre-existent. Even among races like
the Polynesians, and the Turanian inhabitants of

1 So far as I am aware it is expressly recorded only of the
Seminoles in North America (Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 172), a
tribe in Yucatan and a tribe in Brazil (Trumbull, 54, 55. citing
authorities) ; but practices in other tribes point to the underlying
idea.

MOTHERRIGHT 261

Northern Europe and Asia, where the rite itself may
not be recorded, there are unmistakable traces of the
influence of those ideas. On the other hand where,
as among- some of the peoples included above, it
has ceased to be used for the purpose of admission
to a clan, the rite or some transparent modifica-
tion of it, has continued in use for the reconciliation
of ancient foes or the solemnisation of a specially
bindino" league/

In a society organised by the bond of blood, and
where descent is reckoned through females only, the
father is not recosfnised as belonoino- to the kin of the
children. Among matrilineal peoples exogamy, or
marriage outside the kin, is usually if not always
compulsory. So far is this carried that the artificial
tie of the blood-covenant is a barrier to marriage.
When Cuchulainn in the Irish saga of The Wooing of
Enter wounded his love, Dervorofil, in the form of a
sea-bird with a stone from his sling, he became her
blood-brother by sucking from tlie wound the stone
with a clot of blood round it. "I cannot wed thee
now," he said, " for I have drunk thy blood. But I
will give thee to my companion here, Lugaid of the
Red Stripes." And so it was done.-^ This tale beyond
doubt reflects the custom among the ancient Irish.
The islanders of Wetar in the East Indies, to select
only one other example, represent even an earlier

1 There is one doubtful account of its use among the descendants
of Genghis Khan for this purpose (see the passage quoted and
commented on by M. Rene Basset, Rev. Trad. Pop. x. 176). As
to the subject generally, see Robertson Smith {Kinship; and Rel.
San.) ; Trumbull, The Blood Covenant (London, 1S87); Strack, Das
J5/?^^ (Mlinchen, 1900).

^ Eleanor Hull, The Cuchidlin Saga, 82.

262 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

stage in the development of the custom. They live
in hamlets the inhabitants of which are usually related
to one another, and often at odds with the inhabitants
of adjacent hamlets. But sometimes these quarrels
are made up and a blood-covenant is entered into,
after which no intermarriage can take place.^

The alien position of the father with regard to his
children, and consequently the small account taken of
him, has never been more vividly illustrated than by
Miss Kingsleyc She relates that on landing in French
Congo she went to comply with the tiresome ad-
ministrative regulations by reporting herself and
obtaining a permit to reside in the colony. While
she was waiting in the office of the Directeur deT
Administration a black man was shown in. " He is
clad in a blue serge coat, from underneath which float
over a pair of blue canvas trousers the tails of a
flannel shirt, and on his feet are a pair of ammunition
boots that fairly hobble him. His name, the interpreter
says, is Joseph. 'Who is your father?' says the
official. Clerk interprets into trade English. ' Fader ? '
says Joseph. ' Yes, fader,' says the interpreter. ' My
fader?' says Joseph. 'Yes,' says the interpreter;
' who's your fader ? ' ' Who my fader? ' says Joseph.
' Take him away and let him think about it,' says the
officer with a sad sardonic smile. Joseph is alarmed and
volunteers name of mother ; this is no good ; this sort
of information any fool can give ; Government is collect-
ins: information of a more recondite and interestinof
character. Joseph is removed by Senegal soldiers,
boots and all."^ Nobody on the west coast of Africa
reckons descent through his father. Whether he knows
^ Riedel, 446. ^ Kingsley, Trav. 109.

MOTHERRIGHT 263

who is his father or not is very oiten of no consequence
to his social or legal position. The native law of the
Bavili (and the same is true of other tribes) draws no
distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children.
" Birth," we are told by a keen observer who has lived
for many years in intimate converse with the natives,
'"sanctifies the child :"^ birth alone grives him status
as a member of his mother's family. The French
cast-iron regulations, made for a different race and a
different latitude, puzzled and confounded poor
Joseph by the unexpected and absurd questions they
required to be put to him. Miss Kingsley sarcastically
observes: "As he's going to Boma, in the Congo
Free State, it can only be for ethnological purposes
that the French Government are taking this trouble
to get up his genealogy." Joseph does not understand
the French government any more than the French
government understands him ; and he has never
traced his genealogy along those lines before.

Joseph was a member of a Bantu tribe ; but the
case is the same among- the Neg-roes. The Fanti of
the Gold Coast may be taken as typical. Among
them, while an intensity of affection, accounted for
partly by the fact that the mothers have the exclusive
care of the children, is felt for the mother, " the father
is hardly known or [is] disregarded," notwithstanding
he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the legal
husband of the mother." In North America Charle-
voix says that among the Algonkin nations the
children belonged to and only recognised their mother.
The father was always a stranger, "so nevertheless
that if he is not regarded as father he is always

^ Dennett, /oMr«. Afr. Soc. i. 265. - /. A. I. xxvi. 145.

264 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

respected as the master of the cabin." ^ In Europe
among the Transylvanian Gipsies " a man enters the
clan of his wife, but does not really belong to it until she
has borne a child. He never during his life shows the
slightest concern for the welfare of his children, and
the mother has to bear the whole burden of their
maintenance. Even if the father is living, the son
often never knows him, nor even has seen him.""
Among the Orang Mamaq of Sumatra the members of
a suku, or clan, live together, and the feeling of kin-
ship is very strong. As marriage within the clan is
forbidden, husband and wife rarely dwell under one
roof ; when they do, it is because the husband goes to
the wife's home. But he does not become a member
of the family, which consists merely of the mother and
her children. The latter belong solely to their
mother's clan ; the father has no rights over them ;
and there is no kinship between him and them. In
consequence of the spread of foreign influences the
true family has begun to develop in a section of these
people inhabiting the district of Tiga Loeroeng, The
husband and wife usually live together, but the home
is with the wife's clan. Though the husband is
considered a member of the family he exercises little
power over the children. They belong to their
mother's suku, and the. po^esfas, as usual in such cases,
is in the hands of her eldest brother.^

A corollary of the principle that the father is not
akin to his children is that children of the same father
by different mothers are not reckoned as brothers and

1 Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France^ v. 424.
^ Potter, 116, citing von Wlislocki, Vom zvandernde Zigeiiner-
volke. 3 Bijdragen, xxxix. 43, 44.

MOTHERRIGHT 265

sisters. This is the rule of the Papuan tribe settled
about Mowat on the Daudai coast of British New
Guinea,^ and indeed wherever motherright is pure and
uncomplicated by rules which prescribe or presume
the marriage of two or more sisters respectively to two
or more brothers. Such children may accordingly
intermarry. This permission however sometimes tends
to be restricted, as among the Bayaka, of whom we
are told that " marriao-e between children of the same
mother is prohibited ; between children of the same
father it occurs, but is considered unseemly." " On the
other hand it sometimes persists for a time, even a
considerable time, among patrilineal peoples. By the
laws of Athens children of the same father, but
apparently not of the same mother, were allowed to
intermarry.^ The same rule prevailed in Japan.*
According to Hebrew legend Sarah was the daughter
of Abraham's father, but not of his mother. And
when Amnon, King David's son, sought to ravish his
half-sister Tamar, in the course of her protest and
struggles she said : " Now therefore I pray thee, speak
unto the kino; ; for he will not withhold me from
thee,"^ That is: while she resented the indignity

1 Haddon, /. A. I. xix. 467. The Yorubas of the Slave Coast of
West Africa now reckon descent through the father. They perhaps
owe the change to intercourse with the Mohammedan tribes of the
interior. Be this as it may, so strong even yet is the influence of
uterine kinship that children of the same father by different mothers
are by many natives hardly considered true blood -relations (Ellis,
Yoruba, 176).

^ J. A. I. xxxvi. 45.

* Maclennan, Studies, i. 223, quoting the Leges Atticcp.

* Rev. Hist. Rel. 1. 328 note ; Aston, Shinto, 249. Traces are
also found among the Slavs (Kovalevsky, 13).

^ Gen. XX. 12; 2 Sam. xiii. 1 3.

266 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

offered by her brother out of mere passing lust,
marriage with him would have been legitimate and
honourable. It is not necessary to contend that these
stories are narratives of literal fact. There is no
trustworthy evidence that they are. At the same
time they are of high antiquity, and must have
originated in a social condition where the incidents
were not so far removed from daily life as to be
incredible or even surprising. In that social condition
kinship must have been counted only through the
mother, or matrilineal having passed into patrilineal
descent certain vestigial customs must have remained
over from the prior stage. The incidents cited are
therefore justly regarded as among the witnesses
preserved to us that before the dawn of history the
ancient Hebrews had traversed the stao-e of mother-
right.

Among the inhabitants of Southern India the
Nambiitiri Brahmans are the aristocracy. They are a
sacerdotal and landowning caste. Next to them in
rank are the Nayars whose organisation and customs
have often been the subject of discussion by anthro-
pologists. They seem^ to have been in former times
the military caste of the western coast. They present
a typical case of motherright, but one that has been
emphasised and preserved for the advantage of the
Nambiitiri Brahmans, since their virtual subjugation
by that intrusive caste. The Nambiitiris are of
Aryan origin. Like all other Indian Aryans they are
patrilineal. In order to maintain their supremacy, the
Brahmans everywhere follow a custom known as
hypergamy, by which a man may marry or have sexual
relations with a woman of lower rank, but no man of

MOTHERRIGHT 267

lower rank may marry into a caste above his own.
Among the Nambutiris a further rule obtains by which
the eldest son alone enters into lawful wedlock. He,
indeed, may have as many as four wives ; but his
brothers are in general prohibited from marriage, or
at all events their marriages are extremely rare. But
this is not to say that younger sons are condemned to
a life of celibacy. Their needs are supplied by the
Nayars. Before a Niyar maiden attains puberty she
is required to be married by the rite of tying the tali,
a small golden ornament worn on the neck, and the
ordinary badge of marriage among the Dravidian
peoples of Southern India. It is not quite clear
whethv^r this ceremony confers the rights of a husband
on the 7nanavalan, or bridegfroom. Whether it does
so or not, on the fourth day he is required to divorce
her by cutting in two the cloth which she wears.
The ceremonies having all been performed in the
house where she and her family reside, the 7nanavalan
departs and has no more to do with her. The next
business is to get her a real husband. It is arranged
by the kdranavan, or head of the family, with the
head of the bridegroom's family. No religious form-
ality is required, as with the previous rite. All that
is necessary is the consent of the bride and bridegroom
and of their respective families. In South Malabar
husband and wife do not even live together. The
wife continues to reside with her own family, and the
husband visits her there, in North Malabar a special
ceremony is performed, after which the bridegroom is
allowed to take the bride to live at his house ; but
(and this is important) in case of his death she must
leave the house and return to her own home at once,

268 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

before his body is carried out. She has neither part
nor lot in the funeral ceremonies, nor in any property
of her husband. Both in North and South Malabar
either party may terminate the union and contract a
new one at pleasure. It is matter of dispute whether
a woman may have more than one husband (and
consequently whether a husband may have more than
one wife) at the same time. The older accounts
affirmed it. Nowadays it is fiercely denied, though
there is distinct evidence of it at a recent date in
Travancore. The probability is that this was the
custom, but that it is dying out under modern in-
fluences.^ " In consequence of this strange manner
of propagating the species," we are told, " no Nair
knows his father, and every man looks upon his
sister's children as his heirs. He indeed looks upon
them with the same fondness that fathers in other
parts of the world have for their own children ; and he
would be considered an unnatural monster were he to
show such signs of grief at the death of a child, which,
from long cohabitation and love with its mother, he
might suppose to be his own, as he did at the death of
a child of his sister. A man's mother manasfes his
family ; and after her death his eldest sister assumes
the direction. Brothers almost always live under the
same roof ; but if one of the family separates from the
rest he is always accompanied by his favourite sister.
... A man's movable property after his death is
divided amono' the sons and daug-hters of all his
sisters. His landed estate is managed by the eldest

^ Madras Govt. Mus. Bull. iii. 33, 34, 228 sqq.; hid. Census,
1 90 1 (Cochin), XX. 152, 160; (Travancore), xxvi. 327 sqq. ; /, A .1.
xii. 288 sqq. ; Thurston, 115 sqq.

MOTHERRIGHT 269

male of the family ; but each individual has a right to
a share of the income." ^

Now the way in which the Nayars supply the sexual
needs of the Nambiitiris is by providing them with
consorts who, not being married by Brahman rites,
are not regarded as legitimate wives by the Nambiitiris,
though the union is quite regular by Nayar custom.
The Brahman rule of hypergamy is entirely in harmony
with this, for a Brahman may have sexual relations
with a woman of any caste. Among many Nayar
families the women mate with none but Nambiitiris,
and all Nayar women must mate either with Nambiitiris
or with Nayars. The children of such unions, whether
with Nambiitiris or with Nayars, reckon as Nayars,
and belong to the mother's family and clan. A Nambii-
tiri father cannot therefore touch his own children
by his Nayar consort without pollution, which requires
ceremonial bathino- to remove.^ Similar marriag-e
customs are followed by other castes in the south
of India. ^

The fact that the children do not belong to the
father's kin leads in extreme cases to father and son's
being found in arms against one another. The popu-
lation of the Mortlock Islands is divided into stocks
or kins. Each kin inhabits a separate district and
forms a little state. As the children belong to the
mother's stock each of these districts comprises the
group of persons exclusively tracing descent from the
same maternal ancestor. It also comprises as residents

^ Buchanan, Joitrney, ii. 412. Cf. Madras Govt, Mus. Bull. iii.
45; Ind. Cens. 1901, xx. 154 sqq.

2 Madras Govt. Mtts. Bull. iii. 67, 225.

3 In addition to the authorities cited in previous notes, see
Mateer, 172, 82, 87, 103.

270 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

more or less permanent the husbands of women of the
stock ; for the rule of exogamy prevails, and the men
who are thus married to women of another stock
are required to take up their abode with them and
cultivate their land. Beside this, however, they do
not cease to possess their own land at their own
home, the produce of which for the most part they
bring to their wives' families. Only elder men and
chiefs are allowed to bring their wives and children
to live with them ; but such wives and children do not
cease to belong to their own home and stock ; the
children as they grow up very often visit it ; the sons
cultivate property there which belongs to them ; and
their allegfiance is due to it. The writer to whom we
are indebted for the information states generally of
the Caroline Islands (but apparently his statement
is to be understood more definitely of the social
arrangements of the Mortlock Islanders) that "the
children are real children only to the mother ; to the
father on the other hand they are strangers not belong-
ing to his kin. In case of war between two kins father
and son take opposite sides as enemies." ^ The popu-
lation of Malekula, one of the islands of the New
Hebrides, appears to be similarly organised. Though
members of more stocks than one may live mingled in
the same village, the villages to which they properly
belong are well known, for " in speaking of the men
of a village natives never forget to tell you the villages
to which the different individuals belong." Descent
is reckoned through the mother ; in war the children
take the side of her kin, "even although they

^ Wilken, Verwantschap, 756, citing an article by Kubary in
the Mitt, der geog. Geseltschaft in Hamburg.

MOTHERRIGHT 271

may live in another village." ^ Among the Papuas
about Blanche Bay a man's sons follow their maternal
uncle, and oppose their father and his kindred in
batde.^

Many cases of personal combat between father and
son have been collected by Mr. Potter in his book on
Sohrab and Rusteni from literature and popular
tradition in various parts of the world, especially from
the older civilised countries of Europe and Southern
Asia. The learned author traces them with great
probability to the customs involved in the reckoning
of matrilineal descent. In most cases, it is true, the
antaoronists enoaae one another in io-norance of their
relationship. This is natural, since the tales have
usually received the form in which they are now told
among peoples no longer in the stage of motherright.
To such peoples a combat between father and son
would seem unnatural, and must be explained away.
An archaic custom, to be considered more fully here-
after, by which women received transitory lovers, has
favoured the prevalent type of explanation. Many of
the examples of combat brought forward in Mr. Potter's
work, exhibit the combatants as champions on opposite
sides in a war between two peoples, and may be
referred to customs of the kind just illustrated. There
are, however, a certain number defiant of such a classi-
fication. Among them is a legend of the Ingush of
the Caucasus, not mentioned by Mr. Potter. It
relates that a certain Chopa consorted in the forest
with a supernatural lady, who bore him two daughters.
To put his courage to proof on one occasion she left

^ Rep. Australian Ass. iv. 698, 706.

2 Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 352, quoting Hahl.

272 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

him alone in the forest, warning him that at midnight
he would see the Forest-man, another supernatural
being who haunted its gloomy depths. Accordingly
at midnight he met the monster, and at once fired on
him, wounding him fatally. The dying monster re-
vealed himself as the brother of the lady with whom
Chopa dwelt. She herself afterwards cast it in his
teeth that he had murdered her brother. But she did
not refuse to continue cohabitation on that account,
and a son was born as the result. Fearful that he
might avenge his uncle's death, Chopa, as his son grew
up, ceased to resort to the forest. His forecast was
justified ; for one day he met his son ; a struggle
ensued ; and the son left his father, not indeed slain,
but wounded and robbed, by way of vengeance for his
uncle's death. ^

This is no mere story of a battle between contending
peoples ; it is an exampl^^ of a much more poignant
character. We may disregard the supernatural
elements of the tale as not for our present purpose
relevant. The tribes of the Caucasus have now long
since passed from motherright, but there linger among
them more than one relic of the former social condition.
The blood-feud is an institution not peculiar to tribes
reckoning descent through females ; and it is still in
force. By virtue of its requirements every member of
a kin, one of whom had suffered at the hands of a
member of another kin, was bound to avenge the
wrong upon the latter kin. Such is the solidarity
between members of a kin that vensfeance mio"ht be
taken upon any member of the offending kin, though
he might be personally quire innocent. In the

^ Darinsky, Zetts, vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 192, citing Achrijeff.

MOTHERRIGHT 273

growth of civilisation vengeance has gradually come to
be concentrated upon the offender only. Under
motherright relatives through the mother were alone
liable to the duty of vengeance ; and where the father
or a member of his kin was guilty, he would not be
spared in pursuit of the end in view. It may be con-
fidently said that a few generations ago an Ingush
would not have scrupled — indeed, would have regarded
it as his duty — to avenge his kin even upon his own
father, just as Chopa's son does, if not in a more extreme
fashion.

The subject of the blood-feud is so important in
this connection that it is worth while followinof it
further. In so doing we will confine ourselves to
some of those cases in which our reports bring out
the position of the husband and father in strong con-
trast to his wife and her kin, including his children.
Starting then from the Caucasus, among the Chechen
(a tribe related to the Ingush) the murderer of a son,
although he might be subjected to no blood-feud or
ransom, was compelled formally to make his peace
with the relations of the victim's mother ; and in fact
it sometimes happened that the other sons (where
there were any) avenged their brother's death on
their own father. Among the Kumiks if one murdered
his brother by a different mother a blood-feud arose
between him and the surviving brothers born of the
mother of the murdered man. Blood-feud cannot arise
between members of the same kin ; hence if a brother
by the same mother were murdered there would
of course be none. In southern Daghestan the
murderer of a wife was required to pay her kinsmen
ransom ; and if she left sons by him they shared

274 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in the sum paid/ If a Chevsur husband murder his
wife, he is required to pay blood-money to her brother.^
In our own island among the ancient Welsh, the law
declared that when a man was murdered compensation
for the personal injury or indignity to him (called
saraad) was due as well as the galanas or blood-money,
compensation for his value as a member of the stock.
Of the saraad or compensation for the personal affront
the wife was entitled to a share. In the g-a/anas or
compensation to the stock she had no interest : it was
divided among his relatives. In the same way if a
wife were slain her husband obtained a share of the
saraad, but to the galafias he had no claim. And
inasmuch as the liability to pay was commensurate
with the right to receive gala^ias neither husband nor
wife was liable for homicide by the other.^

Turning to the African continent we shall find the
same rule in even a more startling form, for mother-
right is still in full force over a large part of its area,
and where that stage has been passed much more than
traces linger. The Beni Amer on the shores of the
Red Sea and in the Barka valley have accepted Islam,
and with it of course a very different method of social
organisation from that of motherright, but not without
concessions to the older family ties. Thus when a
woman is murdered, the duty of revenge falls not on
her husband but on her blood-relations.'^ Further
to the south, the Kunama have not yet wholly
surrendered to the Mohammedan propaganda, and

^ Darinsky, Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 196, 197.

^ Kovalevsky, U Anthropologic, iv. 273.

3 Atident Laws and Institutes of Wales, 109, no, 112, 113, 199,
226, 253, 342, 364, 398, 554, 555. All the Welsh codes were
practically the same in this respect. * Munzinger, 321,

MOTHERRIGHT 275

even among converts the acceptance of the new faith
is superficial. A Kundma husband never avenges his
wife's death unless the murder be committed in his
presence. That duty falls in the first place on
her children, failing them on her brothers by the
same mother or on her sister's son. Conversely, neither
a man's father nor his children are responsible for him,
but his brothers by the same mother or his sister's
son ; and they pay or receive as the case may be the
price of blood. The father who kills or sells his own
child is brought to account by the child's uncle on the
mother's side.^

On the other side of the continent in Gaboon and
in Ashanti we are told that when a woman gets into
a "palaver," or lawsuit, her own family and not her
husband becomes involved.^ In German South-west
Africa the old matrilineal orofanisation of the Herero
in oma-anda (pi. of eanda), or clans, is in process of
supersession by a corresponding patrilineal organisation
in otiizo (pi. of ortczo), which has taken over most of
the characteristic rights and duties of the o?na-anda.
The blood-feud, however, remains in the eanda, and
has not yet passed to the oruzo. Consequently if a
father neglect a child so that it dies — nay, apparently if
his wife or child die without any fault on his part — he
is compelled to pay compensation to his wife's kin.^
Further north, amon;^ the Mundombe the husband on
his wife's death, whatever may be the cause of death,
pays a blood-fine to her relatives. Among the

^ Munzinger, 48S, 490, 499, 503.
' Bowdich, 437, 260.

' Dannert, 10; Kohler, Zeits. vergl. Rechisvu. xiv. 307, quoting
authorities.

276 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Ganguellas when a woman dies in childbed, her
husband pays not only the expense of burial but also
compensation to her kin ; if he fail in doing so, he
becomes their slave.^ The Wazaramo of the Lake
Region also have a custom that the parents of a
woman who dies in childbed demand a certain sum from
'* the man that killed their daughter." ^ The Baganda
attribute death in childbed to adultery. In such a case
the woman's relatives fine the husband, because they
say they did not marry her to two men, and he has
allowed her adultery by negligence. The fine is two
women, or two cows two goats two hoes and two bark-
cloths.^ The Bambala, inhabiting the Congo State
between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu, require a husband
"to abstain from his wife for about a year after child-
birth, during which time the child is suckled ; nor may
he resume intercourse without his father-in-law's
permission, which is granted on payment of Kutusa
Mwana, a present of two goats. It is believed that
an infraction of this rule would prove fatal to the
woman, and in the event of her death soon after child-
birth the husband is accused of being the cause and
heavily fined, or more often compelled to submit to
the poison ordeal."^ The permission of the father-in-
law is an indication of the decay of strict matrilineal
organisation. Among the Basanga on the south-west
of Lake Moeru children other than those of slaves
belong entirely to the mother and her kin. Conse-
quently, if a child were " lost or devoured by wild

^ Kohler, loc. cit. citing Serpa Pinto.
^ Burton, Lake Regions, i. 115.
' Rev. J. Roscoe, /. A. I. xxxii. 39.
Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxv. 410.

MOTHERRIGHT 277

animals, the father would have to pay its value to his
wife's relations." ^

The child is regarded by many of the African
peoples as so entirely the property of the kin that he
is liable to be given in pledge for their debts. Among
the Bavili " the mother alone has the right to pawn
her child ; but she must first consult the father, so that
he may have the chance of giving her goods to save
the pledging. The father cannot pledge his child. The
brother can pawn the sister, or the uncle his niece, the
mother being dead. But the father being alive the
uncle must first ^o to him to g-ive him the chance of
helping him out of his difficulty by means of a loan of
goods. ... A person is never free from being pawned
in this way." The father, however, always has the
right to ransom the child.^ This is doubtless one stage
on the way to fatherright. On the Ivory Coast the
Alladians take account only of the maternal descent.
As among the Bavili, there is no distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate children. The whole
organisation is based on uterine parentage. *'The
father's authority scarcely exists, and from the civil
point of view he is not the parent of his children."
Children cannot be sold, but they may be pledged for
the debts of their etiocos or kindred. The father
cannot pledge them : he is not one of the kin. But
the maternal uncle may do so, without any limit of
age ; though if he seek to pledge a married niece he
must first give her husband the opportunity of making
the necessary loan. The father cannot be made
responsible for his children's debts ; the mother is

^ Arnot, Garenganse, 242.

2 Dennett, Journ. Afr. Soc. i. 266.

278 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

responsible, and may even be taken in pledge for them.
But she cannot pledge them for her debts without the
authority of her brother, or other the eldest etioco}
Among the Ga of the Gold Coast the uncles or aunts,
especially if older than the mother, can take the
children away, make use of them, pledge or give them
in marriage at their pleasure.^

On the other side of the Indian Ocean and en many
of the Pacific islands the alien character of liusband
and father is as strongly marked as in any African
tribe. On Yaluit, one of the Marshall Islands, there is
no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate
children. On Nauru, another of the same group,
although fatherright has begun to develop and has
succeeded in excluding illegitimate children from their
mother's inheritance, motherright is still so strong that
when a man is slain his children are excluded from the
weregeld, which falls to his brothers and sisters.^ In
the Talauer Islands of the East Indies in case of the
wife's adultery compensation is made on the part of the
guilty man to her parents. Among the aboriginal
tribes of Manipur "on the death of a wife her father
demands munda (literally bone-money) from the
husband, or if he be dead the late husband's nearest
relative. On the death of a child mufida is also
demanded by the wife's father."'* In the case of two
of these tribes, the Kukis and the Kabul Nagas, the
sum payable on a wife's death is the same as that

^ Journ. Afr. Soc. \. 411; Clozel and Villamur, 399. The
Brignans are a stage nearer to full fatherright. The maternal
uncle's right among them does not arise until the father's death
{Ibid. 461). 2 Globus, xciv. 137.

^ Kohler, Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 423, 422, citing authorities.

47. A. I. xvi. 138, 355.

MOTHERRIGHT 279

originally paid tor her as bride at the time of marriage/
On the Tami Islands when a child dies the father
makes presents to the mother's kin. He calls it
" buying the child " ; but obviously, as Dr. Kohler
remarks, the father is held responsible for the death,
and redeems his liability with a gift.' The Maori
father is in a much worse plight, for though descent
is reckoned in the paternal line fatherright is hardly
yet followed out to its logical consequences. When a
child dies or even meets with an accident unattended with
fatal results the mother's relatives headed by her brother
turn out in force against the father. He must defendhim-
self until he is wounded. Blood once drawn the combat
ceases ; but the attacking party plunders his house and
appropriates everything on which hands can be laid,
finally sitting down to a feast provided by the bereaved
father.^ The entire clan in fact is held to have been
injured because one of its members (as under uterine
descent the child would be) has suffered, and his father
(who does not belong to the clan) is held responsible
and makes in this way compensation.

1 /. A. I. xxxi. 305. If the parents he dead, the husband has
to pay their heirs.

- Zeits. vcrgl. Rechtsiu. xiv. 351. A similar custom in Fiji, Anthro-
pos,\. 93. ^-2

^ Old Nevo Zealand, no ; Wilken, Ferivants. 757, citing Bastian.
So Mr. Shortland relates that " on a certain occasion when the wife
of a young chief had been guilty of infidelity, her father uncles and
other relations to the number of nearly one liundred made a descent
on the village of her husband and father-in-law, and remained there
three days feasting on their pigs, which they caught and killed with-
out opposition." The reason they gave for acting in this manner
was that the wife had been tempted to commit the fault in order to
avenge herself for her husband's neglect (Shortland, 235). The
blame of her misconduct was thus laid to his charge and reparation
exacted by her insulted relatives.

28o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

An illustration still more abhorrent to our feelings
of the alien character of the father is given by
Mr. J. C. Callbreath as occurring within his own
experience among the Tahl-tan of British Columbia.
" Kinship," he says, "so far as marriage or inheritance
of property goes, is with the mother exclusively ; and
the father is not considered a relative by blood. At
his death his children inherit none of his property,
which all goes to the relatives on his mother's side.
Even though a man's father or his children may be
starving, they would get none of his property at his
death. I have known an instance where a rich Indian
would not go out, or even contribute to send others
out, to search for his aged and blind father who was
lost and starvino- in the mountains. Not counting- his
father as a relative, he said : ' Let his people go and
search for him.' Yet this man was an over-average
good Indian."^ The Haida of Queen Charlotte
Islands are divided into two strictly exogamic clans,
the Raven and the Eagle. Marriage within the clan
was viewed " almost as incest is by us. On the other
hand, the members of the opposite clan were frequently
considered downright enemies. Even husbands and
wives did not hesitate to betray each other to death in
the interests of their own families. At times it almost
appears as if each marriage were an alliance between
opposite tribes ; a man begetting offspring rather for
his wife than for himself, and being inclined to see his
real descendants rather in his sister's children than in
his own. They it was who succeeded to his position
and carried down his family line."^

1 Quoted by Dr. Da.wson, Ann. Rep. Geolog. Survey Canada, 1887,
p. 7 of offprint. 2 'S,\{a.nton,JesitpExpeci. v. 62.

MOTHERRIGHT 281

Enough has now been said to exhibit the alien
position occupied among" matrilineal peoples by the
father in regard to his children. Other aspects of the
social oroanisation will come under discussion here-
after. Meanwhile, it remains to complete the picture
by showing how the duties of head of the family are
fulfilled, and in whom the authority — or, according to
the technical term, \hQ potestas — is vested. We have
seen that among many of the African peoples
the mother's brother has o^reater rio^hts over a child
than the father, and that the duty of blood-revenge
falls to him, even against the father. Wherever
progress has been made in the organisation of the
family, and motherright is still the basis of organisa-
tion, as over perhaps the greater part of the African
continent, the supreme power is vested in the mother's
brother or maternal uncle. In Loango the uncle is
addressed as Tate (father). He exercises paternal
authority over his nephew, whom he can even sell-
The father has no power ; and if the husband and
wife separate the children follow the mother as
belonging to her brother. They inherit from their
mother ; the father's property on the other hand goes
at his death to his brother (by the same mother) or to
his sister's sons,-^

The customs of the peoples of the Lower Congo are
the same. Around the missionary settlement of
Wathen a woman is married by means of a bride-
price, the bulk of which is paid to her mother's family,
though the father receives a portion. But the wife is
not bought as a slave is bought. The husband
acquires merely the right to her companionship, and
^ 'Stzsimn, Loango-Kiistey'i. i66.

282 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in case of her death to another wife in her place. He
has no control over his children by her. They belong
to their mother's family ; and as they grow up they go
to live with their uncles.^ Among the Igalwas the
father's authority over his children is very slight.
" The really responsible male relative," says Miss
Kingsley, " is the mother's eldest brother. From him
must leave to marry be obtained for either girl or hoy ;
to him and the mother must the present be taken
which is exacted on the marriaoe of a g-irl ; and
should the mother die, on him and not on the father,
lies the responsibility of rearing the children ; they go
to his house, and he treats and regards them as nearer
and dearer to himself than his own children, and at
his death, after his own brothers by the same mother,
they become his heirs." ^ Two kinds of marriage are
known amonor the Bambala. The first is child-
marriage. " A little boy of his own free will may
declare that a certain little girl is his wife ; by this
simple act he acquires a prescriptive right to her. He
visits his future parents-in-law and takes them insig-
nificant presents. When he is of mature age he gives
a larger present, of the value of about 2000 djimbii
(a small shell of the species Olivella Nana), and then
he is allowed to cohabit with her. Their children
belong to the eldest maternal uncle. This form of
marriage is attended by no special ceremony. If the
girl, when of age, is unwilling, he cannot coerce her ;
but if she marries another man, the latter must make
him a present of several thousand djimbu,'' The
other form of marriage is contracted between adults.
The man pays a bride-price from 10,000 to 15,000
^ Bentley, ii. 333. - Kingsley, Trav, 224.

MOTHERRIGHT 283

djimbu to the father or maternal uncle of the bride. In
this case the children belong to the father ; but " parents
have little authority over their children, who leave
them at a very early ag"e." " A man's property is
inherited by the eldest son of his eldest sister, or in
default by his eldest brother." The mother's brother is
the guardian of his sister's children. Here, as we
have already seen reason to think, fatherright is
beofinninof to make inroads on the orioinal orcranisa-
tion. This is confirmed by the further statement that
" kinship is reckoned very far on the female side," but
" in the male line not beyond the uncle and grand-
father,"^ indicating that some kinship is now
reckoned on the paternal side. The Bayaka,
neighbours of the Bambala, and like them a Bantu
people, dwell in small villages, often consisting of
not more than two or three huts, presided over by a
chief. " Each married woman has a separate hut
where she lives with her children, and the husband
moves from one to the other ; unmarried men live
tooether. several in a hut." " A child belongrs to the
village of his maternal uncle. ' The inhabitants of a
village regard themselves as akin. It is added that
" relationship on the female side is considered closer
than that on the male side."- Among the Bangala of
the Cassange Valley the chieftainship is elective. This
is not unusual where female kinship prevails, for
primogeniture has not yet developed, and among a
band of equal brothers he who has proved himself the
most capable is often preferred. Our information
as to the Bangala is very defective. We are told :
" The chief is chosen from three families in rotation.

^ J. A. I. XXXV. 410, 411. '-^ Ibid, xxxvi. 43, 4.5.

284 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

A chief's brother inherits in preference to his son.
The sons of a sister belong to her brother ; and he
often sells his nephews to pay his debts." ^ It may be
said generally that motherright prevails throughout
Angola. " The closest relation is that of mother and
child, the next that of nephew or niece and uncle or
aunt. The uncle owns his nephews and nieces ; he
can sell them, and they are his heirs, not only in
private property, but also in the chiefship, if he be a
chief."" The father has, among the Kimbunda, no
power over his children, even when they are young.
Only his children by slaves are considered his propert}
and can inherit from him.^

To avoid further repetition we may leave the fore-
going to stand as examples of the organisation of the
western Bantu. They exhibit the mother's brother or
maternal uncle as the head of the family with almost
absolute power over his sister's children, in which the
authority of the father is however beginning to make
breaches. Among the Nei^^roes I have already referred
to the Alladians. It may be added that the eldest of
the etiocos, whether man or woman, is the head of the
family. Although during the father's lifetime the
children reside with their mother in his house, on his
death the sons otq to live with their mother's brother,
unless he consent to her retaining them while very
young ; the daughters remain with her, but under
their uncle's tutelage. Polygamy prevails, but the
children of the same father by different mothers
scarcely consider that there is any tie between them.
Marriages are arranged by the etiocos in council ; and

^ Livingstone, Miss. Trav. 434. ^ Chatelain, S.

3 Post, Afr.Jur. i. 23, citing Magyar.

MOTHERRIGHT 285

apparently unless the bride be a mere child the bride-
price is paid to them/ The Ewhe-speaking peoples also
trace kinship through females, except the upper classes
of Dahomey, among which male kinship is the rule.
" The eldest brother is the head of the family, and his
heir the brother next in age to himself; if he has no
brother his heir is the eldest son of his eldest sister . . ,
Members of a family have a right to be fed and clothed
by the family head ; and the latter has in his turn a
right to pawn and in some cases to sell them. The
family collectively is responsible for all crimes and
injuries to person or property committed by any one
of its members, and each member is assessable for
a share of the compensation to be paid. On the other
hand, each member of the family receives a share of
the compensation paid to it for any crime or injury
committed against the person or property of any of its
members. Compensation is always demanded from
the family instead of from the individual wrong-doer,
and is paid to the family instead of to the individual
wronged."^

Among the Ewhe of Anglo in Upper Guinea the
maternal uncle has more authority over his sister's
sons than their father. Since they succeed to him at
his death he requires from them labour and support in
his lifetime. The nephew accompanies his uncle on
trading journeys, carrying provisions cowries and
merchandise. Under his uncle's tuition he thusoradu-

o

ally learns to trade, besides other useful work such as
weaving and so forth. By-and-by he begins to trade

1 Clozel, 391, 392, 393, 394, 397. As to the Yoruba and the
Egbas, see EUis, Yoruba, 176 ; Journ. Afr. Soc. i. 88.
^ Ellis, Ewe, 207, 2o8j 209.

286 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

on behalf of his father or uncle, accounts to him for the
proceeds and receives a share of the profit. And at
length his father and uncle too-ether neo;otiate a bride
for him. The mother has naturally the charge and
teaching of her daughter ; but the father is consulted
as to her marriage and cheerfully takes his share of the
brandy and other gifts furnished by the bridegroom/
The Fanti Customary Laws have been expounded by
Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, in an elaborate treatise
which throws much light on the present condition of
the Fanti family. Without discussing details, many
of which are foreign to our present purpose, it may
be stated generally that the Fanti are matrilineal.
The head of the family is usually (but not always) the
eldest male member in the line of descent. He has
control over all the members ; he is their natural
guardian ; he alone can sue or be sued, as the repre-
sentative of the family, respecting claims on the
family possessions. Wit) in his compound the head
of a family reigns supreme not only over his younger
brothers and sisters and the children of the latter but
also over his own wives and children. But he cannot
pawn his child without the concurrence of the mother's
relations ; and children who have left his compound
to reside with their maternal uncle are no longer
under his power : they are wholly subject to their
uncle.^ The Negro has carried these customs in
even a more archaic form to South America. The
Bush Negro husband in Surinam does not live with
his wife and often has wives in several different places.
The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family.^

^ Zeits.f. Ethnol. xxxviii. 43. 2 Sarbah, 31, 39, 50, 86, 5, 9..

^ Potter, 115, citing Zeits. vergl. Rechlsw. xi. 420.

MOTHERRIGHT 287

Among- the peoples of the Eastern side of the
African continent the Kunama of northern Abyssinia
are as we have seen not yet wholly emancipated from
the stage of motherright. The father has a right to
his son's earnings until the son marries. But his power
extends no further : a child's life and liberty belong to
the maternal uncle. In case of death the inheritance
goes first to the uterine brother, then to the sister's
sons by seniority, failing them to the sisters. The
Barea and Baze, who are still without doubt matrilineal
hold the relationship between a man and his sister's
children to be very close, but they entirely disregard
that between father and son. It is the more remark-
able that they agree in this since the sexual morality of
these two tribes is very different. Among the latter
the matrimonial tie is very slight, and adultery is not
resented ; while among the former the reverse is the
case, and adultery is very rare. Both prefer as children
daughters to sons ; a woman returns to her mother's
house for her first deliverv : her son often receives her
brother's or father's name ; her brother can sell her
child, but her husband cannot.^ Amono- the Bo^os
when a youth comes of age he presents himself before
daybreak at the house of his mother's brother, who
comes forth, ceremonially shaves his head, gives him
his blessing and a gift of a lance and a young cow.*
There could hardly be a plainer recognition of the
uncle's position as head of the family. In defiance of

1 Munzinger, 477, 490, 527, 528. See however the Table of
Kinship, p. 448, which seems to relate only to the Kunama.

- Post, A/r. Jur. i. 16, citing Munzinger. Compare Kilhwch's
application to his cousin King Arthur to cut his hair and grant him
a boon (Y Llyvyr Coch, 102 ; Nutt's Mabinogion, 103).

288 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

Moslem law, to which the Suahili of the east coast
have nominally submitted, Suahili children are the
property not of the parents but of the mother's brother
who can sell any or all of his nephews or nieces.
Popular opinion, indeed, compels him to do so, if it be
necessary/ Their neighbours, the still heathen
Wanyika who occupy the hinterland of Mombasa,
follow the same rule. " Children become the property
of their mother, or rather of her brother to be disposed
of as he pleases : the only one who has no voice in the
matter is the putative father."^

We have already seen that the Nayars of Southern
India are in the stage of motherright. In theory the
ancestral property is indivisible, belonging to the
entire family, and no one can acquire individual
property, except movables and jewels obtained by gift
or otherwise. Division however under modern influ-
ences is coming more and more into practice, " The
family property is enjoyed by all in common as a kind
of commonwealth or civil family, administered by a
kdranavan, or head of the family — either the maternal
uncle or the eldest brother. The common property
is vested in him as executive officer or trustee, but
without power to make arbitrary alienation. He is
authorised to alienate it only to meet necessities, in
order to save the property from greater loss, or for
some similar purpose." It is the kdranavan who
arranges his sister's matrimonial affairs, and subject
perhaps to her consent changes her " husband " from
time to time. It has been mentioned that the wife
has no part in the funeral rites of her husband. The
duty of performing funeral rites is always among the
^ Burton, Zanzibar^ i. 437. * Id. ii. 88.

MOTHERRIGHT 289

propertied castes of India as elsewhere connected with
the right to succession. "A man's sister's son, and a
woman's own son, as their respective nearest blood-
relatives, perform (if their age permits) the funeral
rites on their decease, and observe mourningf remain-
ing one year without shaving or cutting the hair."^
It is accordingly on them that the movables of the
deceased devolve. The Malays of the Padang High-
lands of Sumatra have institutions bearing many
points of similarity. On marriage neither husband
nor wife changes abode. The husband merely visits
the wife, and the fact of his conjugal relation to her
is disclosed only in the form and intimacy of his visits.
As in the case of the kindred Orang Mamaq, the
husband has no rights over his children, who belong
wholly to the wife's S2tku, or clan ; her eldest brother
is the head of the family and exercises the rights and
duties of a father to her children.^ The husband of a
Papuan woman about Blanche Bay has a right to his
wife's labour, and wields certain authority over her.
But the power over life and limb is vested in her
uncle or her brother. It is even her brother, not her
husband, who punishes with death her adultery. He
makes good to the husband the price he has paid for
her and takes his part against the adulterer. She
does not wholly leave her family on marriage ; it is to
them she looks for nursing in case of sickness. The
husband has no rights over any property she may
leave. If she die childless it returns to her family ; if
there be children, both they and her property go to
the owner of the potestas, that is to say, her uncle or

^ /. A. I. xii. 292.

' Wilken, Verwanlickap, 67S ; BijdragetT, xxxix. 43.
I

290 PmMITIVE PATERNITY

brother. Her ordinary oath is by her brother; her
husband's is by his brother-in-law. Her sons as we
have seen take their uncle's side in war against their
own father and his relations. Though the father
often names his children the right to do so is also
exercised by the maternal uncle. On the Tami Islands
the masculine relatives of a woman dispose of her in
marriage ; but the decisive word belongs to her
brothers. They are called the owners of her children,
who though they may reside in their father's village
are only regarded as strangers there. In their uncle's
village they have rights of inheritance and there alone
can they attain the highest positions. Both about
Blanche Bay and on the Tami Islands the dignity of
chief is inherited by the nephew from his mother's
brother.^

InMelanesiakindred is reckoned through the mother.
On the Gazelle Peninsula of New Pomerania the
mother's brother is the head of the family. The father
cannot decide anything about his children. He rults
his mother and sisters ; but he has the disposal of his
wife only when he has paid the bride-price. Even then
she can leave him for the most triftino- cause and seek
refuge and protection among her own kin. Thus wife
and children do not really belong to the husband and
father, but to the mother's maternal uncle or brother.
Neither the wife nor the children belong to the
husband's clan, nor do they inherit from him. At death
theproperty of husband or wife goes to the relatives of

1 Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 34S, 349, 344, 352, 351, 353.
Similar customs seem to obtain among the Wedau and Wamira of
Bartle Bay ; but our information is not n earl)' so definite (Co/o/v/fi/
Reports, No. 168, Brit. New Guinea, 1896, 40).

MOTHERRIGHT 291

the deceased ; the male children of a woman succeed
10 her brother/ On the island of Efate in the New
Hebrides a kindred or family reckoning descent from
the same mother in the female line is called nakain-
anga. It has no chief, but the older male members
exercise " a kind of parental authority over it." '* All
the members of a nakainanga in a particular place
w^ere to a large extent responsible for the conduct of
any one member ; for instance, they had to pay a fine
incurred by him, if he could not pay it himself."
Hence it was the duty of a man to instruct his sister's
son, not his own son, because he was not of the same
nakainanga and the father would not be responsible
for him. The chief of a village has a right to appoint
his successor. He appoints not his own son, "but in
preference to all others his sister's son, who by the
law of the nakainanga is considered nearer and dearer
to him than his own son, and to be his proper heir."^
The claims of a nephew upon his uncle have been
carried to extraordinary lengths in some of the
Melanesian islands, as in Fiji, where a maternal uncle
can hardly deny his nephew anything he chooses to
demand. Everywhere the relation of uncle and
nephew is more intimate than that of father and son.
Speaking generally a man's property at death descends
to his sister's children, usually rather to the male
children. There is now a tendency, however, t©
substitute inheritance from the father.^ In the
western islands of Torres Straits motherright has
given way to fatherright probably within the last

1 Father Josef Meier, Anthropos, ii. 380.

2 Rev. D. Macdonald, in Rep. Atisir. Ass. iv. 722, 723.

2 Codrington, 34, 59, sqq. ; McLennan, S/W/es_, ii. 222, sqq.

292 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

hundred years. The relation of maternal uncle and
nephew still brings with it similar rights and au-
thority to those in Fiji, or even in some respects
greater. The relation is called ivadwam and is re-
ciprocal, no distinction in. privileges being drawn
between uncle and nephew. The wadwam was not
merely entitled to take anything belonging to the man
to whom he stood in this relation ; he might stop a
fight in which his wadvjam was concerned. The
moivai or guardians of a boy during the initiation
ceremonies were his wadwam. "It seemed quite
clear," says Dr. Rivers, "that the chief mowai was
the eldest brother of the mother and the second mowai
was the next in order of seniority either in the family
of the mother or in the clan." On the island of
Muralug, though under the present patrilineal system
the bride's father must give consent to her marriage
and reoeives the bride-price, it is her brother who
arranges what presents are to be made in return and
other details. The bridegroom must supply a bride
in exchange ; failing a sister it is the duty of the
wadwam to give his daughter. Moreover in paying
the bride-price the bridegroom's ivadwa7n made the
actual presentation on both Muralug and Mabuiag.
These customs point to the mother's brother as
wielding the authority in the former matrilineal stage.^
The interference of the bride's brother in the arrange-
ments for marriage may perhaps be ascribed to his
interest in getting a bride m return.

Among many of the tribes we have mentioned a
true family life has hardly yet arisen. It may be said
to be in course of formation ; the consciousness
■^ Rivers, Torres Str. Rep. r. 145, 147, 231.

MOTHERRIGHT 293

of kinship exists, but it has not 3'et become fully
organised as we understand it. Relationships are still
described by terms which include many others than
those we recognise by the names we are obliged to
employ as equivalents. Thus the term used by the
western islanders of Torres Straits for brother, tukoiab,
is not only the reciprocal term used by brothers for
one another and by sisters for one another ; it is also
used " for all men of the same gfeneration on the
father's side, corresponding to first second and third
cousins, etc., through the male side, for all men of the
same generation in the mother's clan, for all men of
the same generation in the father's mother's clan, for
the sons of a brother and sister, for the sons of two
sisters." ^ The term wadwam had a corresponding
extension. It must not be supposed that the con-
sciousness of kinship has not outrun these terms.
Men are aware that those whom we should describe
as their " own brothers " are nearer to them than
those whom we call their third cousins. And doubt-
less the ritrhts and duties belono-inor to a tukoiab or a
wadwam are emphasised in the case of these nearer
kin. Still the others are by no means excluded from
such rights and duties ; they may claim the former
and be called on to perform the latter. Neither the
language nor the law has yet succeeded in defining
degrees of relationship more closely. We are accord-
ingly warranted in believing that both language and
law represent a stage in the evolution of society when
the consciousness of the kinship was vaguer than it
has since become.

It is always necessary lo bear in mind the differences
^ Rivers, Tu/re^ Str. Rep. v. 130.

294 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

in value l>et\veen our terms for deofrees of kinshio
and those of peoples in savagery and barbarism —
differences not only of extension but often of exclusion.
They are of importance in considering the evolution
of kinship. For our present point, however, they
are not material : the headship of the kin is vested in
some male member whose claims are founded on
seniority, on election, or on special qualifications such
as wisdom or renown in war. As the family begins to
develop within the wider circle of the kin and
relationships become more defined, there emerges a
head of each inner group owing his position to the
same causes and qualifications. The nomenclature
of his relations to the female members, whether
brother uncle or son, gradually approximates to our
conception of those terms, though not precisely coin-
ciding with them until a high degree of civilisation is
reached.

Bearing in mind these differences we turn to
Australia where the aboriginal population is in a lower
degree of savagery than any other race whose institu-
tions have been investigated. The family has hardly
begun to be distinguishable from the kin in general.
The authority of the father, even among those tribes
which have advanced to paternal descent, is non-existent
after the early years of childhood. When a boy has
attained puberty and passed through the rites which make
him anadult member of the clan or the tribe he is as a rule
subject only to the authority of the elders in whom the
oovernment of the tribe is vested. With a sfirl the
case is somewhat different : She is always m mamc.
Practically, however, the power exercised over her
before" marriage seems to be limited to the right of

MOTHERRIGHT 295

betrothal : after marriage the husband keeps her in
subjection. Apart from the father however there Is
little concentration of authority. Such as there is
tends to the hands of those members of the kin
who have a direct interest in its exercise. They are
as a rule the brothers of the girl or of her mother,
who would be entitled on her marriage to obtain a
bride in exchange. Among the Dieri the right of
betrothal is exercised by the mother with the con-
currence of her brothers. Betrothal often takes
place in earliest infancy. When the bridegroom is
also an infant it is entered into on his behalf by his
mother ; but in any case of difficulty it would seem
that her brothers are called in.^ Amonof the Tatathi
and Keramin on the Murray River "girls are very
frequently promised when children, and when marriage-
able are taken to the future husband's camp by the
mother or mother's brother."" " In the Wollaroi it is
the mother who promises her daughter to some man of
her selection, but to this rule there is the exception that
brothers also exchanged their sisters without the direct
interventions of their mothers. . . In cases of elope-
ment with the wife of another man it was the Wollaroi
practice for the abductor to stand out before a number
of the woman's kindred, who were armed with speirs,
he having merely a spear for his protection to turn
them aside. "^ Here we are reminded of the duty of
the woman's brothers among the Papuans of Blanche
Bay to avenge her adultery ; for the word kindred
probably means her brothers. The reason for the
interference of the brothers is given by Mr. Howitt in
his account of the customs of the Wakelbura tribe
^ Howitt, 177, 167. - Id. 195. " Id. 217,

296 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

(now extinct). The Wakelbura mother exercised the
right of betrothal as soon as her daughter was born.
If the child on growing up consented to the match or
had been compelled to it, and afterwards eloped with
another man, her brothers "might almost kill her,
because they would thereby lose tne woman by whose
exchange they would obtain a wife for one of them."^
In none of these cases had the father anything to do
with the matter. The growing patria potestas, how-
ever, has made itself felt among many of the matri-
lineal tribes ; though in most of them the consent of
the kindred is required."

Among the Haida the growth oi patria potestas has
been hindered by the custom, similar to that among
the peoples of the Lower Congo, by which the children
settle and build houses in the town of their mother's
brothers, whose successors in the family organisation
they are. The term ddgalan, which we translate
brothers, as used by a woman, was applied to all men of
her clan in her own generation. Each of the two clans
into which the tribe was divided was subdivided into
families. " The fundamental unit of Haida society
was the family, and the family chief was the highest
functionary. Generally the family chief was also
town chief, . . . but the large places were usually
inhabited by several families. In this case the town-
chief stood first socially among the family chiefs."
War might be declared by the chief of any family,

1 Howitt, 2 2 2. In the Mukjarawaint tribe the paternal grand-
parents had a voice in the disposal of their grand-daughter. But
there no doubt the paternal grandfather was the uncle, own or
tribal, of the mother, and consequently one of the elder men of
the grand-daughter's kin {Id. 243).

2 Id. 2iOj 216, 227, 243, 251, 260.

MOTHERRIGHT 297

and that " without reference to any council ; but it is
quite certain that he must have obtained the acquies-
cence of his house-chiefs if he intended the whole
family to participate. In fact, the stories speak of
meetings en masse to ' talk over ' important questions.
For each household into which a family was sub-
divided was a family in miniature, over which the
house-chiefs power was almost absolute. Once having
obtained his position, he was only limited by the other
chiefs and the barriers raised by custom. He could call
his nephews together to make war on his own account.
. . . Success in amassing property generally governed
the selection of a new chief of the town the family
or the house. It might be the brother, own nephew,
or a more distant relation, of the predecessor. Two
are known to have succeeded to one position. The
election seems to have been a foregone conclusion ;
but in so far as any choice was exercised, it appears
to have rested in the case of a family or town-
chief with the house-chiefs, while the sentiment of a
household probably had weight in deciding between
claimants to a doubtful position in a single house.
Only the town-chief's own family had anything directly
to say about his election. A chief's household was
made up of those of his own immediate family who
had no places for themselves, his nephews his retainers
or servants, and the slaves. A man's sisters' sons
were his right-hand men^ They, or at least one of
them, came to live with him when quite young, were
trained by him, and spoke or acted for him in all
social matters. The one who it was expected would
succeed him was often his son-in-law as well."^
^ Swanton, y^sM/i Exped. v. 66, 63, 68, 69.

298 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

A large number of the aboriginal peoples on the
mainland of North America reckoned descent in the
female line. Conspicuous among them were the
Iroquois. The Iroquoian gens or kin was ruled by
chiefs of two grades distinguished by Morgan as
sachem and common chiefs. The sachem was the
official head of the gens and was hereditary. The
actual occupant of the office was elected by the
adult members of the gens, male and female, " an
own brother or the son of an own sister being most
likely to be preferred." In the same way, when a
man died, though all his clansmen seem to have had a
legal right to share his effects, in practice those effects
were appropriated by his nearest relations within the
gens ; that is to say, his own brothers and sisters
and maternal uncles divided them. A woman's pro-
perty was taken by her children and sisters, to the
exclusion of her brothers.^ These rules point to the
fact that the family was in course of evolution within
the gens. If so, an authority was probably developing
within that family distinct from the general authority
of the sachem, though doubtless subordinate to it,
A report made by an official for Indian affairs and
including two of the Iroquoian tribes with tribes
belonging to the Hurons and Algonkins states that
in marriages the brothers and uncles of the woman
on the maternal side are consulted as to the proposed
match, "and sometimes the father; but this is only a
compliment, as his approbation or opposition is of
no avail." ^ Another account, however, attributes the
arrangement of the marriage to the mother.^ Morgan

^ Morgan, ^7ic. Soc. 64, 71, 76. '^ McLennan, S/w^?Vs,ii. 339.

^ Kohler, 60, citing Morgan, League, 321. Morgan says that

MOTHERRIGHT 299

illustrates the position of the maternal uncle among
other tribes from usages of the time at which his
inquiries were made. " Amongst the Choctas," he
says, " if a boy is to be placed at school his uncle,
Instead of his father, takes him to the mission and
makes the arrangement. An uncle among the Winne-
bagoes may require services of a nephew, or administer
correction, which his own father would neither ask
nor attempt. In like manner with the lowas and
Otoes an uncle may appropriate to his own use his
nephew's horse or his gun or other personal property
without being questioned, which his father would
have no recognised right to do. But over his nieces
this same authority Is more significant, from his
participation in their marriage contracts, which in
many Indian nations are founded upon a consideration
in the nature of presents."^

The foregoing will suffice to identify the persons in
whom the potestas is vested where mother-right is
supreme. In the first instance it vests in the elders of
the kin at large. As the consciousness of kin becomes
gradually more vivid and defined the elders of the
inchoate family absorb the headship of their more
Immediate kin and administer its concerns. Gradu-
ally the headship becomes concentrated in the hands of
one man, often chosen by the family from among a
small number specially qualified by age experience
wisdom or courage, or designated by propinquity of
blood to the predecessor in office The way is thus

the Iroquois recognised " no right in the father to the custody of
his children's persons or to their nurture " (McLennan, Studies,
i. 271, quoting League, 327).
^ Morgan, Sysi. Consaug. 158.

300 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

prepared for the transition from motherright to father-
right. Meanwhile, when the family under motherright
emerges the power is found to be wielded not by the
husband but by the wife's brothers, or her maternal
uncles, a circle constantly narrowing until the definition
of these terms approximates to our own, one of whom
takes ultimately the lead and appropriates the greater
part or sometimes the whole o[ the _poUs/as. Nor does
the transition to the reckoning of descent through the
father entirely and at once divest him of it. Enough
survives in his hands to form very material evidence of
the more archaic social organisation which preceded
the establishment of fatherright.

Such being the social organisation of motherright,
it is obvious that the father is a wholly subordinate
personage, whose identity is- of comparatively small
importance. A juridical system, it has grown out of
the consciousness of kin. The origin of the conscious-
ness of kin it is not my purpose here to investigate.
However originated, it was confined to kinship through
one parent only : the other parent was disregarded.
The assertion has often been made that the reason for
reckoning kinship exclusively through the mother is
that paternity is uncertain. There is undeniably a
distinction between maternity and paternity in this
respect. As it has been cynically put, maternity is a
question of fact, paternity a question of opinion.
This, for example, is the cause assigned by the old
Dutch writer Schouten for the rules of inheritance
among the Nayars ;^ and since his day it has been
assigned for similar rules of many other peoples.

Uncertainty of fatherhood would be a good reason
^ Schouten, 458, 459.

MOTHERRIGHT 301

for reckoning kinship only through females, and for the
disinheritance of a man's children in favour of his sister's
children, if only tribes whose conjugal relations were as
loose as those of theNayars reckoned kinship in this way.
Motherright, however, is the rule of numerous peoples
where there is no reasonable doubt of the paternity;
Among the coastal tribes of western Africa from the
equator to the Congo the husband buys his wives ; they
are taken into his dwelling and belong to him. The laws
against adultery are very severe. The punishment is
death, and it is sometimes carried out, though now gene-
rally commuted for a fine. Severe as the law is, it is in-
creased in severity by the exceedingly wide definition of
the offence. It is " often only a matter of laying your
hand, even in self-defence from a virago, on a woman,
or brushing against her in the path." ^ In Mayumbe,
so jealously are the married women guarded that the
husband may even put them to death if any other man
so much as touch them unknowingly.' Yet, as we
have seen, motherright is the law ; and at the father's
death the children obtain nothing of his property, save
what he may have previously made over to them.
The Ondonga of German South-west Africa also
reckon descent through the mother only, and children
inherit nothing from the father. On marriage the
husband establishes a werft of his own and takes his
wife to live there. Polygyny is practised wherever
a man has the means to do so, but on the woman's
part strict fidelity is required. Contrary to the
customs of many savage and barbarous natives, the
woman married for the first time is expected to be a

^ Kingsley, Trav. 497.

* Bastian, Loango-Kiiste, i. 168.

302 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

virgin.^ Among the Ondonga therefore in ordinary-
cases there can be little doubt on the subject of
paternity.

On the other side of the continent the Wayao and
Mang'anja of the Shire Hiofhlands trace descent
through the mother. Like other Bantu nations they
practise polygyny whenever circumstances permit.
But the husband requires strict fidelity on the part of
his wife. Adultery is looked upon as a very serious
crime ; and where the man is not speared or shot, he
is made to pay damages, or is sold into slavery. The
wife, says Miss Werner, speaking in general terms but
with special reference to these tribes, "is frequently
let off with a warning the first time, but for a second
offence either killed or divorced and sent back to her
relatives, who in such a case must return whatever
present was made at the marriage. Sometimes she
drinks mwavi \_i.e., submits to the ordeal of poison],
and is of course accounted guilty if she dies."^ We
have already noted the rarity of adultery among the
Barea of northern Abyssinia. How easily broken is
the conjugal tie on the Gazelle Peninsula of New
Pomerania we also know. Yet while it lasts the
husband watches over his wife with jealousy. He has
all the more need since there is, owing to the pre-
vailing polygamy, a dearth of unmarried women.
Men who cannot afford to buy a wife seek other men's
wives. They lay constant snares for them, make use
of philtres and every sort of enticement. The
husband therefore if he wish to preserve his wife's
fidelity follows her about and takes every means to

1 Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt. 328, 335, 330, 332.

2 Werner, 265.

MOTHERRIGHT 303.

protect her chastity. In case of adultery the punish-
ment is severe ; both parties were before the German
occupation put to death without more ado. Countless
wars have been occasioned by adultery.^

Allowance must of course be made for the per-
sistence of a juridical system after the reason for it has
passed away. If we found motherright wherever
there was uncertainty of paternity we might perhaps
be right in assuming that when we found it where
there was none, it was merely a survival from a stage
in which morality was laxer. This, however, is by no
means the case. The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush
practise the strictest fatherright but that Kafir would
be of a highly sporting disposition who ventured to
stake much on the authenticity of any child of whom
he was legally the father. Sir George Robertson
says : " Young women are very immoral, not because
their natural disposition is either better or worse than
that of women of other tribes and races, but because
public opinion is all in favour of what may be called
' o-allantry.' When a woman is discovered in an
intrigue a great outcry is made, and the neighbours
rush to the scene with much laughter. A goat is sent
for on the spot for a peace-making feast between
the gallant and the husband. Of course the neigh-
bours also partake of the feast ; the husband and wife
both look very happy, and so does every one else
except the lover, who has to pay for the goat, and
who knows that he or his family must also pay the
full penalty, sooner or later." The customary penalty
is six cows. "There are several households in
Kamdesh whose sole property in cows consists of the
^ Father Josef Meier, Anihropos, ii. 380.

304 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

number thus paid." " Divorce is easy," he goes on
subsequently to say. " A man sells his wife or sends
her away. ... If a woman behaves very badly, and
her husband, although he dislikes her, cannot dispose
of her, he may send her back to her parents. I
remember an instance of this kind. The woman was
the prettiest I ever saw in Kafiristan, and would have
been considered a beauty anywhere ; but she was so
bad and troublesome that no one would take her.
She was sent back to her father's house. If any one
were found intriguing with her he would have to pay
the usual fine to the husband. If a girl were born to
her, the woman would keep her ; if a son, the husband
would claim him."^

In many countries indeed where fatherright is well
settled as the juridical system husbands are far from
squeamish over what we should call their wives' virtue,
or over their children's paternity. As the general
subject of marital complacency will be more fully
treated in a subsequent chapter we will confine our
attention here to a few examples having regard more
particularly to the relation between the woman's
husband and the children she bears. I pass over the
jus primcE noctis, of which examples are to be found in
Indian custom.'"* Subject to any uncertainty arising
from this cause, the husband might perhaps be able to
count upon begetting his wife's children. As a matter
of fact he is often quite careless on the subject.
The Bawariyas, a hunting and criminal tribe in the

1 Robertson, Kafirs, 533, 536.

* The last case I have met with is that of Zikris, an heretical
Mohammedan sect in Baluchistan, among whom the Mulla exercises
the right, HLs touch is supposed to sanctify and cleanse the bride
{Ind. Cens. C901, v. 45).

MOT HER RIGHT 305

United Provinces (formerly the North-west Province),
have a lovv standard of sexual morality. In the
Muzaffarnagar district it is extremely rare for a
woman to live with her husband. " Almost invariably
she lives with another man ; but whoever he may be
the official husband is responsible for the children."^
Among the Sumuwars, a cultivatinor tribe of Nepal, in
most cases girls are married after they are grown up
to men of their own choice ; and sexual intercourse
before marriage is tacitly recognised on the under-
standing that in the event of pregnancy the girl will
be married without delay. Divorce is permitted on
the ground of adultery or misconduct on the part of
the wife ; and divorced women may marry again in
the same manner as widows, that is to say, by simple
cohabitation without any ceremony at all. Their
children by the second husband are deemed legitimate.
In case of divorce the first husband usually keeps
his own children ; " but if the divorced wife is allowed
to take them with her, as sometimes happens, they
are treated as the children of her second husband."^
Among the Reddies of Tinnevelly in Southern
India a young woman of sixteen or twenty years of
age is frequently married to a boy of five or six years
or even younger. She, however, lives with some
other man, a relative on the maternal side, perhaps
an uncle or cousin, but not with one of her father's
relatives. Occasionally it may be the boy-husband's
nominal father with whom she cohabits. Any children

1 V. A. Smith, N. bid N. and O. \. 51 (par. 387). Mr. Vincent
Smith describes the Bawariyas as not a tribe but " a specially
organised predatory caste." The description in the text is
Mr. Crooke's (7>YZ'fs and Castes, i. 228).

^ Risley, ii. 282.

1 U

3o6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

so begotten are affiliated on the boy-husband. When
he grows up his wife is old and probably past child-
bearlngf. He therefore in his turn cohabits with some
other boy's wife in a similar manner and procreates
children for him.^ Among the Malaialis of the
Salem district " the sons when mere children are
married to mature females, and the father-in-law
of the bride assumes the performance of the pro-
creative function, thus assuring for himself and his
son a descendant to take them out of Put. When the
putative father comes of age and in their turn his
wife's male offspring are married he performs for
them the same office which his father did for him.
Thus not only is the religious idea involved in the
words Putra and Kumaran (both meaning son) carried
out, but klso the premature strain on the generative
faculties which this tradition entails is avoided." The
word putra means one who saves from Put, a hell
into which those who have not produced a son fall.
The custom described is in fact widespread in the
south of India, and as we shall see hereafter is by no
means confined to that country."

More than this, libertinage is practised under the
sanction of religion to procure fecundity in women.
We need not insist on mythological stories of barren
women who have been embraced by gods and thereby
obtained issue, nor on the imitation in modern times
of these ancient tales by devotees who passing the

1 Shortt, Trans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. vii. 194, 264 note. It is not
clear that this is a case of polyandry, which it is understood the
Reddies repudiate. Rather it would seem that the nominal husband
and father never cohabits with his " wife " at all.

■^ Thurston, 49 sqq., 108; Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N. S. vii. 264;
Ind. Cens. 1901, xv. 141, 181.

MOTHERRIGHT 307

nig^ht at such temples as that of Tirupati in the
Carnatic beheve that they receive the embraces of
Vishnu/ There are other temples where barren women
hope to achieve their hearts' desire for children by
granting their favours at a yearly festival in the month of
January to a fixed number of mortal men in pursuance
of a vow previously made.- A Thotigar in fulfilment
of certain vows will place his wife during the festival
of vSoobramaniya in a solitary hut on the roadside and
watching for travellers will beg the first person he
meets to go in and have intercourse with her. This is
repeated until the number of strangers has been
procured, though it necessitate bringing her again and
again to the place.^

A story from the Jataka relates to one of the higher
castes. The righteous king Okkaka, who ruled in the
city of Kusavati, had sixteen thousand wives ; but his
chief wife Sllavati had neither son nor daughter. As
he had no son to perpetuate his race his subjects
assembled at the door of his palace and began to
complain, in fear lest a stranger should seize the
kingdom and destroy it. The king opened his
window and parleyed with them. They advised him :
'' First of all send out into the streets for a whole week
a band of dancing women of low degree — giving the
act a religious sanction — and if one of them shall
o-ive birth to a son, well and o-ood. Otherwise send
out a company of fairly good standing, and finally a
band of the highest rank. Surely among so many one
woman will be found of sufficient merit to bear a son."
These women must have been in some way attached to

■*■ Dubois 601. 2 Ihid. 603.

^ Trans. Et'nn. Soc. N. S. vii. 264.

3o8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

his court or members of his harem, though it is not
explicitly so stated. However, compliance with the
advice was not followed by conception on the part of
any of them. The king" was in despair, and when the
men of the city renewed their reproaches he asked
them again what he was to do. " Sire," they answered
" these women must be immoral and void of merit.
They have not sufficient merit to conceive a son. But
because they do not conceive you are not to relax your
efforts. The queen-consort, Silavatl, is a virtuous
woman. Send her out into the streets. A son will be
born to her." The tale avers that "the king readily
assented, and proclaimed by beat of drum that on the
seventh day from that time the people were to assemble
and the king would expose Silavatl — giving the act a
religious character. And on the seventh day he had
the queen magnificently arrayed and carried down from
the palace and exposed in the sreets." But Sakka
came from heaven to the rescue disguised as a brahman
and with merely a touch of his thumb rendered her
pregnant of the Bodhisatta.^

If we turn from Buddhist tales to the sacred law of
the Hindus we find an unmistakable emphasis laid on
the necessity for children, and above all for a male
child. A son is an absolute necessity to carry on the
ancestral rites. "He only," says the great law-book
of Manu, " is a perfect man who consists [of three
persons united], his wife, himself, and his offspring."
" Immediately on the birth of his first-born a man
is [called] the father of a son and is freed from the
debt to the manes ; that [son], therefore, is worthy to
receive the whole estate. That son alone on whom
^ Jdiaka, v. 141 (Story No. 531).

MOTHERRIGHT 309

he throws his debt and through whom he obtains
immortaHty, is begotten for [the fulfilment of] the
law." ^ A son being so important, where a man failed
to beget a son on his wife various devices were resorted
to in order to supply his place. A daughter might be
appointed to bear a son who would fulfil the rites.
Or a son of another member of the same caste miorjit
be given with certain rites by his parents and adopted
by the sonless man. A son so adopted would cease
to have any claim on his own father and family and
would be deemed instead to be the son of him to
whom he had been transferred, would perform his
funeral rites and take his estate." But there was still
another course which, repugnant though it may be to
our moral code, was at least fraught with more regard
for the purity of the race than that suggested by the
men of Kusavati to their king. After expounding
the duty of a husband to guard his wife and to keep
her pure, because " offspring, [the due performance of]
religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happi-
ness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself
depend on one's wife alone," and proclaiming that
"she who, controlling her thoughts speech and acts,
violates not her duty towards her lord, dwells with him
[after death] in heaven, and in this world is called
by the virtuous a faithful [wife]," Bhrigu is represented
as plunging into a grave discussion whether the male
issue of a woman belongs to her lord or to the begetter.
" Those who, having no property in a field, but
possessing seed-corn, sow it in another's soil, do indeed
not receive the grain of the crop which may spring

^ Sacred Books, xxw. 335, 346. Cf. xiv. 271.
2 Id. XXV. 353, 355, 361

3IO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

up. If [one man's] bull were to beget a hundred
calves on another man's cows, they would belong
to the owner of the cows. . . . Thus," he decides,
"men who have no marital property in women, but
sow their seed in the soil of others, benefit the owner
of the woman, but the giver of the seed reaps no
advantage." This is preliminary to a declaration of
the law applicable to women " in times of misfortune,"
that is to say when there is no male offspring. In
spite of the taboo which hedges alike the wife of
an elder brother and the wife of a younger brother, the
breach of which would make both guilty parties
outcasts, "on failure of issue [by her husband] a
woman who has been authorised, may obtain [in the]
proper [manner prescribed], the desired offspring
by [cohabitation with] a brother-in-law or [with some
other] sapinda " [of the husband]. She may, it seems,
be authorised for this purpose by her husband or after
his death by his relatives ; but when once the object
is accomplished cohabitation must cease. However,
if the son born be not fit to offer the Sraddhas,
a second may be begotten. A son so begotten would
be deemed the son of the husband, whether such
husband was in fact living or dead at the time of his
procreation.^

This was the law throughout Vedic times. There
is reason to think indeed that as formulated by
Manu it limited the pre-existing custom. A sapinda
is a kinsman within six degrees, that is to say, a
descendant of the same great-grandfather. But it is
noteworthy in all the early examples of the Niyoga, as
the custom of authorisation by the husband was called,

^ Sacred Books, xxv. 327-338; cf. ii. 267, 302, 303.

MOTHERRIGHT 311

that a stranger was the person appointed as the agent
to beget a child.-^ Moreover the ceremonies which
hedged round the acconipHshment of the agent's duties,
whether appointed by the relatives after the husband's
death, or as it seems by the husband in his Hfetime,
display an anxiety to reduce the act itself to a minimum.
And later law-books disclose an effort to get rid of it
altogether.^ But as the law stands in Manu, not
merely sons begotten by an appointed sapinda on
a wife or widow are recop-nised as the husband's sons.
The illegritimate son of an unmarried girl who
afterwards marries, a son born of a bride already
pregnant at the time of her marriage, and even a son
born of a wife's adultery are also all deemed to be the
husband's sons.^ In fact, as a recent commentator on
the Hindu law says, it is a law " in which twelve
sorts of sons are recognised, the majority of whom
have no blood-relationship to their own [nominal]
father." * The Chinese also esteem it so important
to have children that it is looked upon as somewhat
of an infamy to be destitute of them. There are
husbands, at least in the province of Fo-Kien and
doubtless elsewhere, who for this purpose force their
wives to entertain other men and invite or even pay
some friend to have intercourse with them. The girls
who are not already delivered over to their intended
father-in-law's custody at an early age are very dissolute.
A law-suit arising out of a claim by a family that a
girl on marriage is not found a virgin is no uncommon
event ; but money is always deemed a sufficient com-

^ iV'ayne, S4. See also McLennan, Pat. Theory\ 269.
^ Sac. Bks. ii. 130. ^ Ibid. xxv. 362, 363.

^ Mayne, 73; cf. 81. See also Jolly, 71.

312 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

pensation to enable the bridegroom to accept his
bride as if nothing had happened.^ So among the
Hill tribes of Northern Aracan sexual intercourse
before marriage is unrestricted, " and it is considered
rather a good thing," we are told, " to marry a
girl in the family- way, even though by another
man. ^

In the same way in ancient Arabia when a husband
^did a bride-price all the children borne by his wife
*vere his, and were reckoned to his kin. This, says
Professor Robertson Smith, " is the fundamental
doctrine of Mohammedan law : the son is reckoned
to the bed on which he is born. But in old Arab law
this doctrine is developed with a logical thorough-
ness at which our views of property stand aghast."
And he shows by an examination of cases that
" when a man desired a goodly seed he might call
upon his wife to cohabit with another man till she
became pregnant by him," and in such a case the
child would be the husband's ; that the child of a
woman already pregnant by another man at her
marriage would belong to the husband ; that when a
mother married again after divorce or the death of
her previous husband if she were allowed to take her
children with her they might become incorporated in
her new husband's stock ; that the husband might
lead his wife to a guest, or on going a journey
might get a friend to supply his place in his absence,
or might enter into a partnership of conjugal rights
with another man in return for service ; yet in all
these cases he would be reckoned the father of her

1 Father Jaime Masip, j^ntl'.ropos, ii. 716.

2 /. A. I. ii, 239.

MOTHERRIGHT 313

children/ It is true that at the period referred to (at
and before the time of Mohammed) the social organisa-
tion was undergoing a revolution : the present system
had not yet completely taken the place of motherright.
But some of these practices continued into quite
modern times, and some, like the hospitality-rite of
leading a wife to a guest, are well-known practices
among many patrilineal peoples. It is even asserted
to have been the custom in the Netherlands in com-
paratively modern times. '^

Pursuing our inquiries on the continent of Africa
we find numerous examples of the indifference of the
husband to the actual paternity of the children who
are reckoned to him. Only a few can be mentioned
here. Among the Dinkas of Bahr-el-Ghazal when a
man dies his wives become the wives of his sons,
except of course their respective mothers. If a son have
children by a wife so inherited they are looked upon as
brothers and not as sons : that is, they are reckoned to
his father. So, if a beng (sheikh, or head of a village)
be " too old to be sexually efficient, he nevertheless
continues to take wives, but these cohabit with his
sons. Children so beo:otten are regarded as the
children of the sheikh and as the brothers of their
actual fathers." Adultery indeed is punished with the
death of the male offender,^ if caught in the act ;
but the definition of adulcery is limited as among
many other peoples to sexual relations without the
husband's consent. Among the Dinkas in general
marriage is concluded by the payment of a bride-price.

1 Robertson Smith, Kinship, 107, sqq.

* Ploss, Weib, i. 300.

* Capt. S. L. Cummins,/. A. I. xxkiv. i^i.

314 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

The dissolution of a marriage may be effected by the
repayment of all the cattle given for the bride-price
and all their young. On such repayment the marriage
is "broken" and the woman returns to her father.
When she marries again all the children of her former
husband, except such as may have been left with him
by arrangement when the marriage was ''broken,"
are regarded as the children of the second husband.
If within two years of a marriage the wife fail to give
birth to a child her husband may sue for return of the
cattle on the orround that she is unable to conceive.
But before doing so he " must have had recourse to
the tribal custom of permitting one of his male relations
to cohabit with " her, in order to support the allegation
of barrenness : that his other wives may have borne is
no proof in his favour. It is the duty of a widow to
raise up children to her husband by cohabiting with
her dead husband's brother or some other of his near
relations. Any children born in consequence, or
from any other connection, are considered those of
the deceased, irrespective of the time that may have
elapsed since his death. Even when a man dies
childless, leaving only a widow who is past the age of
child-bearing, or leaving an only daughter, no sons
and no widows capable of bearing, an heir must still
be provided. The duty of providing the heir lies upon
the widow or daughter as the case may be ; and in
default of male relations she holds the property in trust
for the future heir. Any children the daughter may
have will be reckoned to her husband, not to her
father ; and adoption seems to be unknown. The
difficulty therefore looks insoluble ; and to us the
strangest of all the Dinka customs is that by which

MOTHERRIGHT 315

the widow or daughter left in this embarrassing posi-
tion fulfils her duty. She " marries " in the name of
the deceased a girl whom she selects and whose bride-
price she pays out of his herds. It is then incumbent on
her to arrange for a man to cohabit with the bride in
order to produce children, A widow whose husband
has left no male relations arrano-es for one of her own
to act as husband ; in default of male relations of her
own she may appoint any man she pleases. The
children resulting from the connection are in name
and rights of inheritance those of the deceased, the
natural father having no claim on them whatsoever.^

This is carrying the custom of raising up seed to
the deceased, with which we are familiar in the laws
of the Hebrews and the Hindus, further than in any
other case with which I am acquainted. In a more
restricted form ii is common to many of the African
tribes. Among the Wadjagga when a man dies with-
out children or unmarried his father if living takes a
wife in his name, and any children she bears will
count as the sons of the deceased, their actual father
being regarded as their grandfather.^ Macheng, a
chief of the Bamangwato, was the legal son and
successor of Khari. He was not born until some
years after Khari's death. Khari had had other sons,
but not by the woman whom he had appointed head-
wife. Having paid her price in cattle she and her
offspring were to be reckoned to him, although the
children were not born for a dozen years after his
death. Macheng was her son. He had to make good
his claim against the powerful chief Sekhome, who

^ MS. Collection of Dinka Laws by Capt. Hugh D. E. O'Sullivar

2 Gutmann, Globus, xcii, 3.

3i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

was an elder and undoubted son of Khari, but
by another wife. "It is not etiquette," says the
mssionary who witnessed and who best tells the tale
of the contest, "ever to refer to the man who thus
raises up seed to another, in connection with such
children. They are not his children. They are the
children of him who is dead. . . . Even the most ardent
friends of Sekhome admit that according to their
customs Macheng is the rightful chief." ^ And it was
not merely his personal character or the fortunate
concatenation of events, but quite as much the legal
strength of his title, that gave him ultimate victory
over Sekhome. The same custom is reported of the
Bahurutsi and of the Bavenda.^

Among the Baroswi of Mashonaland there is a
recognised practice for an old man with young wives
to allow a younger man to raise up children for him.*
Among the Bavenda a man will sometimes give one
of his wives to a friend ; but any child she may have
by that friend belongs to the former husband.* A
Mosuto chief inherits his father's wives "as well as
his other possessions. These wives, as a rule, each
chief distributes amongst his councillors and favourites ;
but their children are always called his, thus giving
him a considerable source of wealth, as the sons work
for him and the daughters bring him large dowries of
cattle. Fidelity either from the husband or wife is
a virtue rarely to be found amongst the heathen ; but
its absence creates no trouble as long as it is not

^ Mackenzie, Ten Years, 364.
^ Stow, Races, 525.

* Journ. Afr. Soc. iv. 315.

* Rev, E. Gottschling, /. A. I. xxxv. 373.

MOTHERRIGHT 317

discovered."^ This remark by a lady who has resided
for some years in Basutoland is probably to be under-
stood, so far as regards the wife, by assuming- a
general knowledge on the part of the husband of
his wife's habits, at which he winks unless open
scandal result. Mr. Mabille, an official and the son
of a missionary, tells us that " adultery is general :
every man has his mistress and every woman her
lover." ^ The lady just quoted adds: "In cases
where a chief wishes to retain the services of a man,
he will bestow one of his wives upon him for the
length of time his services are required ; but any
children born of this marriage belong to the chief." ^
It is hardly exact to speak of such a connection or of
similar relations previously mentioned in the present
paragraph, whether among the Bavenda or the
Basuto, as a marriage, because in none of the cases
would a bride-price have been paid. The wife tem-
porarily bestowed upon a follower is in law the chief's
wife still ; and for this reason it is that the children
she may bear will belong to him.^ What really
happens is that the chief lends a wife to a follower,
usually a headman, in order to " raise children to
the kraal." ^ Nor are we surprised to find that among
the Basuto, as among other peoples whom we shall
consider hereafter, it is a hospitable duty on the part
of a chief when visited by another chief to offer him one
of his women during his stay.® Of the coast-tribes
parallel customs are recorded. If the pregnancy be the

1 Martin, 87. 2 jonrn. Af;\ Soc. v. 365.

3 Martin, loc. cit.

4 K. Endemann, Zeits. f. Ethn. vi. 40.

' Hewat, 108. * Zeits.f. Ethn. vi. n.

7.i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

o

result of adultery the child will belong to the husband!^
As ?.n old writer says, " he is so far from revenging his
wife's infidelity upon her that he prefers to accept the
bastard child as his own." This however does not
prevent his bringing her partner in the offence before
the chief for punishment ; and he receives one half of
the fine inflicted, which consists of cattle.^ Similar
customs may be said to be general among such of the
Bantu tribes as are patrilineal. Among the Nilotic
tribes the rule of the Kavirondo is that any children of
a woman at the time of her marriage, whether they be
legitimate or not, become her husband's by virtue of
marriage.^

Turninor now to the true Neofroes we find in Buna
on the Ivory Coast a social condition in which father-
right is predominant, but has not yet succeeded in
stamping out all vestiges of the more archaic stage.
The family is strongly organised, its head being
the eldest male, who is absolute master. All the
children born during a marriage are the husband's
property, even those who are the fruit of adultery. In
case of divorce where the wife is known to be pregnant
the child subsequently born belongs to the husband ; if,
however, her pregnancy be not then known she retains
the child. ^ In Seguela parentage runs in the paternal
line by preference, and the family is similarly organised.
Every child born during the marriage belongs to the
husband. In case of lengthened absence of the
husband the wife is authorised to live in concubinage

1 Kidd, 229, 231, 357 ; Post, Afr.Ji'.r. i. 472 ; Cape Rep. Native
Laws, Evidence, 136. ^ Alberti, 141.

^ G. A. S. Northcote, /. A. I. xxxvii. 62.
* Clozel, 308-312.

MOTHERRIGHT 319

with another man, preferably a member of the family*
At his return the husband takes her back, together
with any children born during his absence/ The
Krumen of Sassandra reckon descent on both sides,
but we are told that the female side is of little im-
portance. The descendants of a common ancestor in
the male line d \ ell tooether in the same villaQ-e and
form a clan. Since polygamy is here as elsewhere
among the Negroes practically unlimited, infidelity to
one wife leads to no more serious consequence than
little tifi's. Adultery by the wife herself is hardly
graver, the French official report tells us ; and every-
thing is comfortably arranged, if she only share with
her husband the presents she has received from her
lover. Some husbands, indeed, especially old chiefs
who are inclined to violence, revenge themselves ; but
it is rare to find a really jealous husband. Sometimes,
but very seldom, the husband demands a divorce when
the wife is thoroughly abandoned. Conformably with
these easy-going morals the law declares no distinction
between legitimate illegitimate and adulterine children.
Is pater quern nuptice deinonstrant admits of no excep-
tion. The husband is considered the father, even
though he has been absent for ten years, of any
children his wife may have borne in the meantime.^
The Krumen of Cavally reckon descent only on the male
side. There is no distinction between legitimate and
illeg-itim.ate children. The children are the wealth of
the family and they are always welcome, even when
the husband knows he is not the real father. They
belong to him in all cases. He may however inflict

^ Clozel, 330, 331, Women may inherit in certain cases (Jd.
335)- - I<^i- 495> 497, 498-

320 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

corporal punishment on his adulterous wife, or even
send her back to her family and obtain repayment of
the bride-price. He may also institute a palaver
against the adulterer for damages, which may be
settled if he so please by an exchange of wives. The
patria poiestas vests in the eldest male of the highest
generation living, and devolves with the property on
his next brother at his death. When there are no
brothers the eldest son inherits.^ In the foregoing
cases the marriage rites are of the most restricted
character. On the other hand, among the Andoni of
Southern Nigeria (if I am right in thinking them
patrilineal) an elaborate ceremony is performed. Two
stout sticks of a certain wood called odiri, about four
feet long, are supplied by the Juju priests from the
sacred grove. They are sharpened at the end and
first laid on the ground in a corner of the bridegroom's
house by the priests. The bride and bridegroom are
then made to place their feet on them. The priest kills a
goat and sprinkles its blood on their feet and on the
sticks. The stakes are then driven by their sharpened
ends into the ground in the corner of the house, and there
they remain until they fall to pieces. From that
moment the wife and all the children she may bear, by
whomsoever begotten, are the husband's property.
The marriage is indissoluble. Even if she leave her
husband and have children by chiefs or kings they must
be delivered up to him on his demand. When she dies
she cannot be buried save by him ; any other person
undertaking this important function would incur heavy
punishment ; before the days of British rule it was death.^

"^ Clozel, 507, 511, 512, 515.

^ Journ. Afr. Soc. iv. 4143 Leonard, 414.

MOTHERRIGHT 321

Islam is not necessarily a reliscion of high civilisation.
It has made extensive conquests in Africa by reason of
its power of adaptation to lower stages of culture. By
Mohammedan law kinship is reckoned through both
lines ; but such preponderant importance is attached to
the paternal side that semi-civilised African popu-
lations professing Islam may for our purpose be
regarded as patrilineal. Just as among patrilineal
peoples where fatherright is carried out to its logical
term, great importance is attributed to the purity of
Mohammedan women. On the other hand the law,
by the aid of the physiological ignorance of the early
doctors who framed it, stretches beyond all probability
the presumption of legitimacy in its doctrine of the
possibility of very lengthened gestations. A famous
Maghribin saint named Sidi Nail left his home and
went on pilgrimage to Mecca where he abode for two
years and a half. At length he returned to find that
his wife Cheliha had only a short time before given
birth to a son. Even the credulity of the faithful,
supported by the law, has had the greatest difficulty
in digesting the legitimacy of this child. Yet the
saint himself seems to have accepted him, and his son-
ship has been duly attested by heaven ; for it is
especially among his descendants that the gift of
miracles possessed by Sidi Nail has been perpetuated.^
In the same way the Baydzi, an heretical sect of
which the bulk of the Arab population of Zanzibar
consists, allow legitimacy to children born within two
years after the husband's death. The Shafei, another
sect, extend the period to four years. ^ Mohammedan
law, exaggerated by these heretical sects, seems indeed

^ Rev. Hist. Rel. xli. 315. 2 Burton, Zanzibar, i. 403.

322 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

a device for gathering into the husband's kin all the
children of his wives to whom any semblance of a claim
can be made. Among the Galla of north-eastern
Africa, who are Moslem, the illegitimate children of a
woman married by the solemn rite of the rakko are
legally descendants of the husband.^

Customs similar to those prescribed in the ancient
Indian law-books have even been in use in Europe.
A Spartan law attributed to Lycurgus required an old
man who had a young wife to introduce to her a young
man whose bodily and mental qualities he approved,
that he might beget children on her.- The primary
object indeed of this law and of others fathered on the
same law-giver was said to be what is called in modern
scientific jargon Eugenics. However that may have
been as regards the form in which they are reported to
us, there can be little doubt that they are formulations
of pre-existing custom which enabled the continuance
of the husband's family by another man. At all events
at Athens a law ascribed to Solon was in force which
provided that if the next-of-kin who had in accordance
with law successfully claimed an heiress for himself
were impotent, his place should be supplied by some
of his relatives {cum mariti adgnatis concubito\ This
as McLennan points out is identical with the law of
Manu cited above. In both cases the object was to

Paulitschke, ii. 142. As to the rakko see Ibid. 47. I am not
aware whether the Boni, a subject people among the Galla and
Somali, are Mohammedans, or whether they are, as has been sug-
gested, of Galla origin. " There is no divorce among these people,
all the children of one woman, by whatever father, are the property
of the woman's original husband, if alive ; if dead, of her brother"
(Capt. Salkeld, Man (1905), 169 (par. 94).

2 Xenophon, Rep. Laced, i. 9 ; Plutarch, Lycurgus.

MOTHERRIGHT 323

provide heirs ; and the children took the estate as soon
as they were able to perform the duties to their legal
ancestors/ The old peasant custumals of Germany,
especially of Westphalia, lay it down that an impotent
husband shall perform the ceremony of taking his wife
on his back over nine fences and then calling a neigh-
bour to act as his substitute. If he cannot find one
who is able and willino- he is to adorn her with new
clothes, hang a purse at her side with money to spend
and send her to a kermess, in the hope of finding some
one there to help her.^ Grimm, commenting on these
curious prescriptions, admits that there is no historical
record of any such actual transaction, but observes that
they are plainly and seriously prescribed and that
their memory lingers in tradition, instancing an old
poem on Saint Elizabeth. He suggests that in the
custumals all the details are not mentioned, that
probably the rite was only performed where serious
detriment would result from the want of an heir, and
that the husband's choice of a substitute was not
unlimited. In any case he holds the custom to be
very archaic, though in the records it appears adapted
to the circumstances of mediaeval peasant-proprietors.
The foregoing examples are all chosen from peoples
among whom fatherright is the rule, or who deduce
kinship through both parents with preference for the
father, as in the highest civilisations. Where these
customs are in vogfue the husband cannot be sure of
the paternity of the children born of his wife. On the

^ Plutarch, Solon; McLennan, Studies, i. 223; Seebohm, Greek
Tribal Soc. 23.

- Grimm, Rechtsalt. 443. The details of the ceremony vary in
different places.

324 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY

contrary he is often sure that the children belonging
to him, reckoned of his kin and inheriting his property,
are not in fact heirs of his body. They may even be
born long after his death as the result of inter-
course between his wives and other men. The list
might be indefinitely lengthened if the customs of
peoples among whom fatherright though predominant
is imperfectly developed were considered. Thus in
Madag-ascar motherric/ht has left much more than
traces. The hindrances on marriage of relatives are
greater on the mother's side than on the father's.
Children of two sisters by the same mother cannot
intermarry, nor can their descendants. On the other
hand children and grandchildren of a brother and
sister by the same mother may intermarry on the
performance of a slight ceremony prescribed to remove
the disqualification of consanguinity. The royal
family and nobles trace their lineage, contrary to the
general practice, through the mother and not through
the father. Yet so great a calamity is it counted that
a man should die without posterity that if an elder
brother die childless his next brother must take the
widow and raise up seed to the deceased.^ This
involves sexual relations only after the husband's death
between the widow and his brother. But the
Malagasy customs are further-reaching still ; for all
the children of a married woman belong to her
husband, whoever may beget them. Divorce is a
frequent occurrence and for trivial causes. When it
takes place, not only are the children previously born
retained by the husband, but any whom the wife may
afterwards bear to another man belong to the husband
^ Ellis, i. 164; Sibree, 246.

MOTHERRIGHT 325

who has divorced her. And he hastens to secure
them by taking a present to each one as it is born ; a
ceremony which appears to constitute a formal claim
to them. In the ceremony of divorce the husband's
final word to his wife is an injunction to remember
that though she is now at liberty to marry any one
else, all her future children will belong to him, the
husband divorcing her/

Motherright then is found not merely where
paternity is uncertain, but also where it is practically
certain. Fatherright on the other hand is found not
merely where paternity is certain, but also where it is
uncertain and even where the legal father is known
not to have begotten the children. Nay, the institu-
tions of fatherright often require provision for, and
very generally permit, the procreation by other men of
children for the nominal father. It follows therefore
that the uncer:ainty of paternity cannot be historically
the reason (or the reckoning of descent exclusively
through the mother. Some other reason must be
discovered.

^ Verbal information to me by Rev. T. Rowlands, L.M.S.,
Missionary to the Betsileo. The information does not agree with
that in Ellis, Hist. Mad. i. 173. Possibly the latter refers to (or
includes) children of tender age who are necessarily left with their
mother for the time.

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