Nor do all these tabus concern the mother only, for the father also among some of the tribes must abstain from meat a short time before, as well as after, the child’s birth.[229] This recognition of a definite connection between the father and the child, a more intimate connection than civilised peoples recognise, is to be noted, and should be borne in mind when considering the curious custom of the couvade, which must be recorded anon.
Whatever the weather may be no accouchement ever takes place within the house.[230] When birth is imminent the expectant mother will go out into the forest with some trusted older woman, or alone, for the Indian wife is quite willing to take full responsibility without any further aid. Among some of the tribes north of the Japura the mother is accompanied to the forest, and assisted while there by other matrons, who have their faces painted red. But the Boro and the Witoto women go unattended or with but one female attendant. Neither the husband nor any other man is permitted to be present whatever the circumstances.
The shelter of the forest gained, the woman makes a small clearing, and spreads a bed of leaves on which she sits down.[231] Her trouble is not of long duration. When the child is born she ties the umbilical cord with fibre-string, and then bites it through,[232] or cuts it with a wooden knife. This done she at once proceeds to the nearest water and bathes, after which she returns to the house. She wears no covering or bandage.
The infant is taken with her to the river and is washed and ducked. If it survive this drastic treatment its body is covered with what the Witoto call hittagei, that is, rubber latex, over which a brown or red clay is smeared. Hardenburg relates that he was told this was done by the Witoto “in order to keep it warm.”[233] I have often seen the process carried out, but the warmth theory never occurred to me, and none of the Indians suggested it as a possible reason or gave any explanation of the custom.
As I have said, with all these tribes infant mortality is very great. The custom of submerging the new-born child undoubtedly causes an immense increase in the number of deaths. This led me to inquire why they persisted in such a fatal course, but one and all said that if the child was not strong enough to survive it had better die. This is the Indian attitude, and explains much of the seemingly ignorant or harsh treatment to which young children are subjected.
Indians do not care to have large families. To support a number of children would often be a matter of grave difficulty.[234] But fœticide is not practised, and abortion is probably unknown except to the medicine-men, who would only procure it for their own purposes or protection. Should destruction for any reason be desired, the birth would be allowed to take place, and the child afterwards killed “accidentally” during the subsequent lustration. Bastard children are undoubtedly destroyed, and the second of twins is left in the bush by the mother before immersion; or, among some of the tribes of the Kuretu, if the babies are of both sexes it is the girl that is killed, whichever may have been born first. Otherwise they kill the second, because it is obvious that the second is the transgressor, it had no right to come, and it is a disgrace to bear twins, as these people hold the opinion that to be delivered of more than one child at a birth is to lower themselves to the level of the beasts. The act of killing is performed by the mother secretly, at the parturition if possible, and the body would be concealed by her in the bush.[235]
PLATE XXXVIII.
KARAHONE CHILD
BORO WOMEN CARRYING CHILDREN