The women of the Kobéua Indians give birth in the common family house, or in an outlying hut, or even in the wood, with the assistance of all married women, who first paint their faces red for the festive occasion. The navel cord is cut off by the husband's mother with a blade of scleria grass, and is immediately buried, together with the after-birth. Of twins the second born is killed, or the female if they are of different sexes. After the birth, the witch doctor performs exorcism. The parents keep up a five days' lying-in, and eight days after the birth a drinking feast is held (Koch-Grünberg, I., p. 182; II., p. 146).
Among the Bakairi of Brazil, according to Karl von den Steinen (p. 334), abortion is said to occur frequently. The women are afraid of the confinement. They prepare for it by drinking tea, and mechanical measures are also resorted to. The women are delivered on the floor in a kneeling position, holding firmly to a post. The hammocks must not be soiled. Women who have had experience declared with emphasis, and showed by pantomime, that the pains were great. But they soon get up and go to work, the husband going through the famous couvade (the man's lying-in), keeping strict diet, not touching his weapons and passing the greatest part of his time in his hammock. He only leaves the house to satisfy his physical needs, and lives completely on a thin pogu, manioc cake crumbled into water. There exists the belief that anything else might injure the child, as if the child itself ate meat, fish or fruit. The couvade only ends when the remainder of the navel cord falls off.
Among the Bororo, according to the same author (p. 503), the woman is delivered in the wood. The father cuts the navel cord with a bamboo splinter, and ties it with a thread. For two days the parents do not eat anything, and on the third day they may only partake of some warm water. If the man were to eat he and the child would become ill. The after-birth is buried in the wood. The woman is not allowed to bathe until the reappearance of menstruation; but then, as generally after menstruation, she does it frequently. Abortion by the help of internal means is said to be frequent, especially among the Ranchao women. If the mother wishes to stop suckling, they squeeze the breasts out, and "dry the milk over the fire, whereupon it keeps away." Medicine for sick children, which the chemist had prepared, was swallowed by the parents, as among the Bakairi.
Among the Paressi the woman is confined in a kneeling position, being held by her mother under her breast. The couvade is also customary among them.
VI IGNORANCE OF THE PROCESS OF GENERATION
The mentality of the different branches of mankind varies a great deal. A good example of this is the fact that there are peoples who do not know the connection between cohabitation and conception. There are other tribes, again, who, as we have reason to assume, did not possess this knowledge previously. In fact, Ferdinand von Reitzenstein thinks that there was a time when the connection between cohabitation and pregnancy was unknown to all mankind, and he adduces examples which show that traces of such a state are to be found in the legends and customs of many peoples. And, says von Reitzenstein, we need hardly be surprised at this ignorance of the generative process when we consider that "it is only since the days of Swammerdam, who died in 1685, that we know that both egg and spermatozoon have to come together for fertilisation, and only since Du Barry (1850) that we know that the spermatozoon must penetrate the egg." The belief in supernatural conception has been preserved, not only in the Christian Churches, but also in the myths of the gods in most religions. Originally man could not conclude from the mere appearance of a pregnant woman that the cohabitation which had occurred months ago was the cause of her condition. Primitive people do not bring into causal connection phenomena separated by wide intervals.
Von Reitzenstein writes that primitive people, who generally marry their girls before the advent of puberty, must have been turned aside from seeing the connection between cohabitation and pregnancy because these girls had no children at first in spite of having sexual intercourse. But to this it may be objected that even the lowest races must have noticed that pregnancy only occurs after the advent of the first menstruation. The appearance and abeyance of menstruation must have formed a step towards the understanding of the generative process. It is otherwise with von Reitzenstein's objection that by far the largest number of cohabitations do not lead to pregnancy. Even among comparatively enlightened races this observation led to the assumption that some additional supernatural process is necessary for fertilisation. Among the Australians, the least developed race of man, the necessity of cohabitation for pregnancy is totally unknown. Baldwin Spencer and Frank J. Gillen have shown (1899, pp. 123 et seq.; 1904, pp. 145, 606) that among the natives of Northern and Central Australia there exists the general belief that the children penetrate into the woman as minute spirits. These spirits are said to come from persons that have lived once before and are reborn in this manner. The belief in rebirth, together with the ignorance of the generative process, is very widespread in Australia, e.g., among many tribes in Queensland, in Southern Australia, in the Northern Territory and in Western Australia. It is now too late to get reliable information in this matter from those parts of Australia where the natives are in regular contact with whites. Spencer takes it as certain that the belief in asexual propagation was once general in Australia.
Among all those tribes by whom this belief has been preserved up to the present the traditions concerning the tribal ancestors are quite definite. Among the Arunta, for instance, who live in the district of the transcontinental telegraph line between Charlotte Waters and the McDonnel mountains, and among whom ignorance of the process of generation was first discovered, there exists the tradition that in bygone times, called altcheringa, the male and female ancestors of the tribe carried spirit children about with them, which they put down in certain places. These spirit children, like the spirits of the tribal ancestors, themselves enter into the women and are borne by them. The Arunta believe that at the death of a person his spirit returns to a special tree or rock, out of which it came, and which is called nandcha. It remains there until it thinks fit once more to enter into a woman, and thus go amongst the living. All these spirits are called iruntarinia. But before the first rebirth of an iruntarinia there arose another spirit from the nandcha, which is the double of the iruntarinia, and is called arumburinga. This arumburinga never becomes embodied, but remains always a spirit, which accompanies its human representative whenever inclined, and, as a rule, remains invisible. Only specially gifted people, particularly witch doctors, can see arumburinga; they can even speak with them. Among other Australian tribes which believe in rebirth, no belief in spirits like the arumburinga has been traced (compare B. Ankermann, "Totenkult und Seelenglauben bei Afrikanischen Völkern," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Jahrgang 50, pp. 89 et seq.).