INVOLUNTARY ABORTION
Involuntary abortion, however, is a matter of frequent, occurrence. It would be hard to form an approximate estimate, but, from the opinions expressed by several warrior chiefs and headmen, I believe that it occurs not infrequently. No explanation as to its cause was obtained. The fetus is usually buried without any ceremony under the house. In the upper Agúsan, the Manóbo follows a Mandáya custom by erecting over the grave, which is always under the house, an inverted cone of bamboo slatwork, about 30 centimeters high and 60 centimeters in diameter. The usual feelings of fright are not displayed on these occasions as on the death of one that has died an ordinary death, for the child has not yet been consociated with its two soul companions. Neither is the house abandoned, as would ordinarily be done on the death of an older person.
THE APPROACH OF PARTURITION
THE MIDWIFE10
10Pa-na-gám-hon.
About the seventh month when the expectant mother feels the quickening impulse of life within her, she selects a midwife and undergoes almost daily at her hands a massage, without which it is thought she would be in danger of a painful delivery. As far as I could learn, the method followed is such as to keep the creature in a vertical position within the womb, with the head downward. The massage is said to take place at the beginning of a lunar month. The midwife is eminently the most important personage in all that concerns birth. She is not necessarily a priestess, but is usually a relative of the prospective mother. She is always a woman of advanced age who has had abundant experience, and "has never lost a case." She is reputed to be versed in many secret medicines and devices necessary for the cure of any ailment proceeding from natural causes and connected with childbirth. I always found the midwife very reluctant to disclose the secrets of her profession.
When the woman announces the maternal pains, the midwife goes at once to the house, taking with her various herbs and other things, all carefully concealed on her person. She is not alone on such occasions, but is usually accompanied, if not preceded, by the greater portion of the female population in the community. Few of the male portion, and none of the bachelors, attend, but they keep themselves informed of the progress of the patient by frequent yells of inquiry from the neighboring houses.
The midwife bids the patient lie upon her back and, aided by a few relatives of the parturient, proceeds to administer one of the most ferocious massages imaginable. I witnessed one case in which the mother was tightly bound with swathing clothes and the husband called upon to exert his strength in an endeavor to force delivery.