Should a woman, however, be contented to share the nuptial bed with a rival you may be quite sure that the very best harmony would reign in that menage à trois.
The Sakai women are born with the instinct of maternity and will never renounce nursing their own babes unless scarcity of milk or a weak constitution compels them to do so. These exceptions are, however extraordinarily rare and they are at the height of their pride when their little ones are drawing life and strength from their breasts.[11]
There are very few cases of complete sterility or excessive fecundity amongst them. Hardly ever does a woman have more than four or five children.
She nurses and takes care of them with great tenderness, delighted at seeing them grow strong and healthy.
Children are weaned at from seven months (reckoned roughly by the moon) to two years of age (two seasons of fruit) but generally when they are about a year old (one season).
The first food given to the baby is a well-cooked pap made with a certain bulb and the tender leaves of a little plant whose names I do not remember.
When the little fellow has become accustomed to his new food (whether he likes it or not) or begins to babble a word or two, he is given a name that usually recalls the place where he was born, some particular event of the moment or the way he may have of making use of a word often, or of pronouncing it badly.
The good-heartedness and maternal kindness of the Sakai woman is extended even to young animals that have been deprived of their mother. They will adopt them and bring them up with the same care they bestow upon their own children or human orphans.