In the island of Flores the placenta is put in an earthen pot, along with some rice and betel, and buried by the father in the neighbourhood of the house, or else preserved in one of the highest trees.[695] The natives of Bali, an island to the east of Java, believe firmly that the afterbirth is the child’s brother or sister, and they bury it in the courtyard in the half of a coco-nut from which the kernel has not been {p192} removed. For forty days afterwards a light is burned, and food, water, and betel deposited on the spot,[696] doubtless in order to feed the baby’s little brother or sister, and to guard him or her from evil spirits. In Java the afterbirth is also called the brother or sister of the infant; it is wrapt in white cotton, put in a new pot or a coco-nut shell, and buried by the father beside the door, outside the house if the child is a boy, but inside the house if the child is a girl. Every evening until the child’s navel has healed a lamp is lit over the spot where the afterbirth is buried. If the afterbirth hangs in a rice-pot in the house, as the practice is with some people, the lamp burns under the place where the rice-pot is suspended. The purpose of the light is to ward off demons, to whose machinations the child and its supposed brother or sister are at this season especially exposed.[697] If the child is a boy, a piece of paper inscribed with the alphabet is deposited in the pot with his placenta, in order that he may be smart at his learning; if the child is a girl, a needle and thread are deposited in the pot, that she may be a good sempstress, and water with flowers in it is poured on the spot where the placenta is buried, in order that the child may always be healthy; for many Javanese think that if the placenta is not properly honoured, the child will never be well.[698] Sometimes, however, women in the interior of Java allow the placenta, surrounded with fruits and flowers and illuminated by little lamps, to float down the river in the dusk of the evening as an offering to the crocodiles, or rather to the ancestors whose souls are believed to lodge in these animals.[699]
Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Sumatra.
In Mandeling, a district on the west coast of Sumatra, the afterbirth is washed and buried under the house or put in an earthenware pot, which is carefully shut up and thrown {p193} into the river. This is done to avert the supposed unfavourable influence of the afterbirth on the child, whose hands or feet, for example, might be chilled by it. When the navel-string drops off, it is preserved to be used as a medicine when its former owner is ill.[700] In Mandeling, too, the midwife prefers to cut the navel-string with a piece of a flute on which she has first blown, for then the child will be sure to have a fine voice.[701] Among the Minangkabau people of Sumatra the placenta is put in a new earthenware pot, which is then carefully closed with a banana leaf to prevent the ants and other insects from coming at it; for if they did, the child would be sickly and given to squalling.[702] In Central Sumatra the placenta is wrapt in white cotton, deposited in a basket or a calabash, and buried in the courtyard before the house or under a rice-barn. The hole is dug by a kinsman or kinswoman according as the baby is a boy or a girl. Over the hole is placed a stone from the hearth, and beside it a wooden spoon is stuck in the ground. Both stone and spoon are sprinkled with the juice of a citron. During the ceremony koemajen is burned and a shot fired. For three evenings afterwards candles are lighted at the spot,[703] doubtless to keep off demons. Among the Battas of Sumatra, as among so many other peoples of the Indian Archipelago, the placenta passes for the child’s younger brother or sister, the sex being determined by the sex of the child, and it is buried under the house. According to the Battas it is bound up with the child’s welfare, and seems, in fact, to be the seat of the transferable soul, of whose wanderings outside of the body we shall hear something later on.[704] The Karo Battas even affirm {p194} that of a man’s two souls it is the true soul that lives with the placenta under the house; that is the soul, they say, which begets children.[705]
Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Borneo, India, and Assam.
Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in the Patani States, China, and Japan.
In Pasir, a district of eastern Borneo, the afterbirth is carefully treated and kept in an earthen pot or basket in the house until the remains of the navel-string have fallen off. All the time it is in the house candles are burned and a little food is placed beside the pot. When the navel-string has fallen off, it is placed with the placenta in the pot, and the two are buried in the ground near the house. The reason why the people take this care of the afterbirth is that they believe it able to cause the child all kinds of sickness and mishaps.[706] The Malas, a low Telugu caste of Southern India, bury the placenta in a pot with leaves in some convenient place, generally in the back yard, lest dogs or other animals should carry it off; for if that were to happen they fancy that the child would be of a wandering disposition.[707] The Khasis of Assam keep the placenta in a pot in the house until the child has been formally named. When that ceremony is over, the father waves the pot containing the placenta thrice over the child’s head, and then hangs it to a tree outside of the village.[708] In some Malayo-Siamese families of the Patani States it is customary to bury the afterbirth under a banana-tree, the condition of which is thenceforth regarded as ominous of the child’s fate for good or ill.[709] A Chinese medical work prescribes that “the placenta should be stored away in a felicitous spot under the salutary influences of the sky or the moon, deep in the ground, and with earth piled up over it carefully, in order that the child may be ensured a long life. If it is devoured by a swine or dog, the child loses its intellect; if insects or ants eat it, the child becomes scrofulous; if crows or magpies swallow it, {p195} the child will have an abrupt or violent death; if it is cast into the fire, the child incurs running sores.”[710] The Japanese preserve the navel-string most carefully and bury it with the dead in the grave.[711]
Contagious magic of placenta and navel-string in Africa, especially among the Baganda.
Among the Gallas of East Africa the navel-string is carefully kept, sewn up in leather, and serves as an amulet for female camels, which then become the child’s property, together with all the young they give birth to.[712] The Baganda believe that every person is born with a double, and this double they identify with the afterbirth, which they regard as a second child. Further, they think that the afterbirth has a ghost, and that the ghost is in that portion of the navel-string which remains attached to the child after birth. This ghost must be preserved if the child is to be healthy. Hence when the navel-string drops off, it is rubbed with butter, swathed in bark-cloth, and kept through life under the name of “the twin” (mulongo). The afterbirth is wrapt up in plantain leaves and buried by the child’s mother at the root of a plantain tree, where it is protected against wild beasts. If the child be a boy, the tree chosen is of the kind whose fruit is made into beer; if the child be a girl, the tree is of the kind whose fruit is eaten. The plantain tree at whose root the afterbirth is buried becomes sacred until the fruit has ripened and been used. Only the father’s mother may come near it and dig about it; all other people are kept from it by a rope of plantain fibre which is tied from tree to tree in a circle round about the sacred plantain. All the child’s secretions are thrown by the mother at the root of the tree; when the fruit is ripe, the father’s mother cuts it and makes it into beer or cooks it, according to the sex of the child, and the relatives of the father’s clan then come and partake of the sacred feast. After the meal the father must go in to his own wife, for should he neglect to do so, and should some other member of the clan have sexual relations with his wife first, the child’s spirit would leave it and go into the other woman. Further, {p196} the navel-string plays a part at the ceremony of naming a child, the object of which among the Baganda is to determine whether the child is legitimate or not. For this purpose the navel-string (the so-called “twin”) is dropped into a bowl containing a mixture of beer, milk, and water; if it floats, the child is legitimate and the clan accepts it as a member; if it sinks, the child is disowned by the clan and the mother is punished for adultery. Afterwards the navel-string or “twin” (mulongo) is either kept by the clan or buried along with the afterbirth at the root of the plantain tree. Such are the customs observed with regard to the afterbirth and navel-string of Baganda commoners. The king’s navel-string or “twin,” wrapt in bark-cloths and decorated with beads, is treated like a person and confided to the care of the Kimbugwe, the second officer of the country, who has a special house built for it within his enclosure. Every month, when the new moon first appears in the sky, the Kimbugwe carries the bundle containing the “twin” in procession, with fife and drums playing, to the king, while the royal drum is beating in the royal enclosure. The king examines it and hands it back to him. After that, the minister returns the precious bundle to its own house in his enclosure and places it in the doorway, where it remains all night. Next morning it is taken from its wrappings, smeared with butter, and again set in the doorway until the evening, when it is swathed once more in its bark-cloths and restored to its proper resting-place. After the king’s death his “twin” is deposited, along with his jawbone, in the huge hut which forms his temple. The spirit of the dead king is supposed to dwell in these two relics; they are placed on the daïs when he wishes to hold his court and when he is oracularly consulted on special occasions.[713]
Contagious magic of navel-string and afterbirth in America.
The Incas of Peru preserved the navel-string with the greatest care, and gave it to the child to suck whenever it fell ill.[714] In ancient Mexico they used to give a boy’s {p197} navel-string to soldiers, to be buried by them on a field of battle, in order that the boy might thus acquire a passion for war. But the navel-string of a girl was buried beside the domestic hearth, because this was believed to inspire her with a love of home and a taste for cooking and baking.[715] Algonquin women hung the navel-string round the child’s neck; if he lost it, they thought the child would be stupid and spiritless.[716] Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia the navel-string was sewed up by the mother in a piece of buckskin embroidered with hair, quills, or beads. It was then tied to the broad buckskin band which extended round the head of the cradle on the outside. Many thongs hung from it, each carrying fawn’s hoofs and beads that jingled when the cradle was moved. If the navel-string were lost, they looked on it as a calamity, for they believed that in after years the child would become foolish or would be lost in the chase or on a journey.[717] Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia the afterbirth of girls is buried at high-water mark, in the belief that this will render them expert at digging for clam. The afterbirth of boys is sometimes exposed at places where ravens will eat it, because the boys will thus acquire the raven’s prophetic vision. The same Indians are persuaded that the navel-string may be the means of imparting a variety of accomplishments to its original owner. Thus, if it is fastened to a dancing mask, which is then worn by a skilful dancer, the child will dance well. If it is attached to a knife, which is thereafter used by a cunning carver, the child will carve well. Again, if the parents wish their son to sing beautifully, they tie his navel-string to the baton of a singing-master. Then the boy calls on the singing-master every morning while the artist is eating his breakfast. The votary of the Muses thereupon takes his baton and moves it twice down the right side and twice down the left side of the boy’s body, after which he gives the lad some of his food to eat. That {p198} is an infallible way of making the boy a beautiful singer.[718] Among the Cherokees the navel-string of an infant girl is buried under the corn mortar, in order that the girl may grow up to be a good baker; but the navel-string of a boy is hung up on a tree in the woods, in order that he may be a hunter. Among the Kiowas the navel-string of a girl is sewn up in a small beaded pouch and worn by her at her belt as she grows to womanhood. If the girl’s mother ever sells the belt and pouch, she is careful to extract the navel-string from the pouch before the bargain is struck. Should the child die, the pouch containing her navel-string would be fastened to a stick and set up over her grave.[719]