As soon as it becomes apparent that the patient is in great pain, the midwife, and perhaps others expert in such matters, resort to means which are designed to produce an easy and speedy delivery.
PRENATAL MAGIC AIDS11
11Ta-gi-á-mo.
During several childbirths which I attended in various parts of the valley, I observed the use of the following aids to delivery:
1. A piece of rattan12 is taken by one of the women present and, after being slightly burnt, is extinguished by the midwife and held close to the person13 of the parturient. With her hands the midwife then wafts the smoke over the patient, muttering at the same time a formula.
The explanation of this procedure, as given to me in all cases, was the following: The rattan is symbolic of the various fleshy bonds with which the child is confined within the mother and as the rattan, wound round and round the various portions of the house, is an impediment to the removal of the piece which it retains, a piece of it is burnt in order that by some mystic power the puerperal bonds may be undone. During the burning the child is exhorted not to resemble the tardy rattan but to come forth free and untrammeled from its mortal tenement.
This charm, it was explained to me, counteracts the violations of the taboos whereby husband or wife, or both, are enjoined not to wear necklaces or bodily bindings, and not to work in rattan and resin, or to carry anything on the head. Should the burning of a piece of rattan be omitted, it is believed that the umbilical cord14 would be found to have actually become tangled around the neck or body of the child during the act of delivery, thereby increasing the difficulty and the danger.
2. The burning of a small piece of the house ladder15 and the subsequent fumigation of the person of the parturient are practiced in identically the same manner as the above, and are thought to neutralize the evil effects that might result from the transgressions, even involuntary, of those taboos which forbid that anyone should sit at the door of a pregnant woman's house, or return to the house after having begun his descent down the house pole or ladder.
3. A third magic means, helpful in birth, is the consuming of a portion of the hearth frame followed, as described above, by a fumigation of a part of the patient's person. The particular effect of this charm is to counteract the evil influences which might otherwise result to the child from the nonobservance of the various other taboos mentioned previously.
4. Finally, various herbs, of which I did not learn the names because of secretiveness on the part of the women, are put on a plate or on anything that is convenient, and burned. On one occasion I observed that the leaves16 used to cover sweetpotatoes and other vegetables during the process of steaming were employed, and on another I procured a piece of grass that had fallen from the plate and later on I ascertained it to be the leaf of a variety of bamboo. I was unable to learn the purpose of this charm, the replies being contradictory or variable in different localities.
The midwife applies numerous other medicinal herbs and has various other secret expedients of which I have been utterly unable to learn the nature. In one case a midwife claimed to have a bezoar stone17 found in the body of an eel. This could not be seen, for it was wrapped in cloth. When the patient gave signs of suffering, she would dip this stone in water and rub it over the woman's abdomen.
12Lá-gus.
13Vulva.
14Pó-sud.
15Pá-sung.