It is to be observed, also, that marriages do not, as a general fact, take place among the aborigines before the period at which the body has attained its full vigor. The men seldom marry before thirty, and the women before twenty years of age. Abortion, one of the most frequent mishaps with women of civilized life, is almost entirely unknown among the Indians. They nurse their children for two years, and often longer, and during this whole period they utterly refuse the embraces of the opposite sex. The manual labor to which they are constantly subjected, and their hardy habits generally, tend powerfully to invigorate their bodies, and although they are, during pregnancy, exempted from the more laborious parts of duty, they are always habitually active. Nature is their only midwife; and according to Dr. Rush, “each woman is delivered in a private cabin, without so much as one of her own sex to attend her. After washing herself in cold water, she returns soon to the usual employments of her station;” so that, according to the authority just quoted, “she knows nothing of those accidents which proceed from the carelessness or ill-management of midwives, or those weaknesses which arise from a month’s confinement in a warm room.”
It is, indeed, said on good authority, that if, during journeys, the Indian woman is taken in labor, she merely falls back for a little on her way in the forest, delivers herself, and then shortly makes up to her companions with her new-born child on her back.
The most natural state of the female constitution, and one which is connected with the best and firmest health, is that of pregnancy and nursing; and it is a remarkable fact, that there is seldom a period during the interval between marriage and the cessation of the menstrual function in which the Indian women are not either pregnant or giving suck.
Among other nations than the aborigines of our own country, we find also striking examples of the freedom from suffering with which childbirth is endured. Thus, according to Stephenson’s “Twenty Years’ Residence in South America,” “among the Araucanian Indians of South America, a mother, immediately on her delivery, takes her child, and going down to the nearest stream of water, washes herself and it, and returns to the usual labors of her station.”
The women of Otaheite, according to “A Description of Pitcairn’s Island and its Inhabitants,” have all learned the art of midwifery. Childbirth generally takes place in the night time, labor lasting seldom more than five hours. It is always safe, and no cases of twins occur. Miscarriages, too, are unknown among them, except from accident. Infants are generally bathed in cold water (which in that latitude must be only moderately cool) three times a day, and are sometimes not weaned for three or four years; and when they are taken from the breast they are fed upon ripe plantains and boiled taroroot rubbed into a paste. Nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the island than the uniform good health of the children; the teething is easily got over; they have no bowel complaints, and are exempt from those contagious diseases which affect children in more civilized countries. Neither the young nor the old are ever vaccinated. “The natives of Otaheite,” says Captain Cook, “both men and women, constantly wash their whole bodies in running water three times every day; once as soon as they rise in the morning, once at noon, and again before they sleep at night, whether the sea or river be near them or at a distance. They wash not only the mouth, but the hands, at their meals, almost between every morsel; and their clothes, as well as their persons, are kept without spot or stain.” “The women,” according to a missionary writing of this people in 1797, “have black and sparkling eyes, teeth white and even, skin thin, soft, and delicate, limbs finely turned; their faces are never darkened with a scowl, or covered with a cloud of sullenness or suspicion; their manners are affable and engaging, they step easy, firm, and graceful, their behavior free and unguarded; always boundless in generosity to each other and to strangers; their tempers mild, gentle, and unaffected; slow to take offense, easily pacified, and seldom retaining resentment or revenge, whatever provocation they may have received. Their arms and hands are very delicately formed, and though they go barefooted, their feet are not coarse and spreading. In private life they are affectionate, tender, and obedient to their husbands, and uncommonly fond of their children; they nurse them with the utmost care, and are particularly attentive to keep their infants’ limbs supple and straight; a cripple is hardly ever seen among them in early life; a sickly child is never known; any thing resembling it would reflect the highest disgrace on the mother.”
A very worthy medical friend who spent some time at New Zealand in 1839, gave the writer lately the following particulars concerning midwifery, as practiced among the inhabitants of that island.
Women (who generally followed out-door active employments a considerable portion of the day), as soon as they experience the first symptoms of labor, retire some little distance from the settlements, among the fern (a native growth resembling bushes in the United States), by the side of a stream of pure water. Within about one hour not unfrequently the mother returns with her new-born infant, both herself and it having been previously washed in the pure stream. The child is never bound with clothes or swathed, but for a few days at first it is dressed in one light flaxen garment. This is placed loosely about the trunk of the body, the extremities being left wholly free and exposed to the action of air and light, and after a few days, they are left entirely naked, being allowed freely to roll about and exercise their limbs upon a mat of smooth texture. It is left much of the time in the open air, but not exposed to the sun’s rays. At other times, when the mothers are at work, planting or hoeing in the ground, they are allowed, even when not more than one week old, to roll among the potatoes and corn. They are often taken to the streams of pure water with which the island abounds, for the purpose of being bathed. The mothers, in consequence of their almost constant labor and exercise in the open air, and their simple habits generally, are remarkably strong and muscular, and free from deformity and disease. Their food, particularly of the inland parts (where the finest specimens of physical development are to be found), consists almost wholly of the vegetable productions of the earth, such as corn, pumpkins, potatoes, common and sweet, peaches, and various other fruits, all of which articles grow to great perfection on the island. The New Zealanders wear but a single garment of flax, sometimes thrown loosely over the shoulders, and sometimes only about the loins. They have a great dislike to head-dresses, and never wear them.
In civilized countries, also, we find among the laboring classes, some remarkable examples of the general safety with which childbirth is endured; and it has often been remarked among the legal profession, that in cases of concealment and child-murder, a most wonderful degree of strength and capability of exertion is often exhibited. There is, it is true, in cases of this kind, a powerful stimulant for extra exertion; but even admitting this consideration in its full force, these examples afford a striking proof of what the human constitution is able to endure, even under many untoward circumstances.
Mr. Alison mentions the case of one Catharine Butler, or Anderson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, who in the spring of 1829, walked in two or three days after delivery, in a single day, with her child on her back, from Inverury to Huntly, a distance of twenty-eight miles; and the same author also remarks, “that it is not unusual to find women engaged in reaping, retire to a little distance, effect their delivery by themselves, return to their fellow-laborers, and go on with their work during the remainder of the day, without any change of appearance but looking a little paler and thinner. Such a fact,” Mr. Alison observes, “occurred in the case of Jean Smith, of Ayr, in the spring of 1824.”
Among the peasant women of the mountains in Austrian Silesia, childbirth is regarded in a very different light from that among the women of our own country. They are exceedingly hardy and robust, and seem to care as little about giving birth to a child as if it were an everyday occurrence. Physicians are very rarely employed on such occasions in that country, as I learned when there by frequent inquiries. In the winter of 1848, when I was last at Graefenberg, the wife of the proprietor of the Hotel de Graefenberg, a very good and worthy woman, of the middling class, gave birth to her first child, without the aid of any one save her husband and a female attendant; and, although the labor was a severe and protracted one, lasting a day and a half, she preferred to have no physician, although one of skill and experience lived next door to them, and who was, moreover, a particular friend of the parties. These German peasants appear to regard labor as it should be, a natural process, and the degree of patience for which the German character is noted, is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than in the matter of childbirth.