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 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY 
 
 [LXV.] 
 [1909] 
 
PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 THE MYTH OF SUPERNATURAL 
 
 BIRTH IN RELATION TO THE 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 
 
 BY 
 EDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND 
 
 F.S.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OK "THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS," ETC. 
 
 C3 R45 
 
 o 
 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 LONDON : DAVID NUTT 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE PHCENIX 
 
 57-59 LONG ACRE 
 
 1909 
 

 Printed by Ballantyne <*^ Co. Limited 
 Tavistuck Street Covent G^irdcn, Ixindon 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the year 1 894, in the first vokime of a study of The 
 Legend of Perseiis (3 vols., London, D. Nutt, 1894-5-6), 
 I examined the world-wide story-incident of Supernatural 
 Birth. Summing up the results of the inquiry, I sug- 
 gested that the incident and the actual practices and 
 superstitions corresponding to it originated in the 
 imperfect recognition, or rather the non-recognition, 
 in early times of the physical relation between father 
 and child. At that time I was not in a position to 
 carry the conjecture further. It remained, however, in 
 my mind as a subject for investigation. During the 
 period that has since elapsed large contributions have 
 been made by explorers, missionaries, and scientific 
 anthropologists to our knowledge of savage and bar- 
 barous peoples in many parts of the world. In the 
 light of these contributions I now venture to lay before 
 the reader the case for the conjecture I made sixteen 
 years ago. 
 
 The beliefs, customs, and institutions of tribes in a 
 low degree of civilisation are our only clue to those of 
 a more archaic condition no longer extant. They are 
 evolved from them, and are in the last resort the 
 outgrowth of ideas which underlay them. When, there- 
 fore, we find a belief, a custom, or an institution — still 
 more when we find a connected series of beliefs, customs, 
 and institutions — overspreading the lower culture we 
 
 V 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 may reasonably infer its root in ideas common to man- 
 kind and native to the primitive ancestral soil. The 
 inference is greatly strengthened if vestigial forms are 
 also found embedded in the culture of the higher races. 
 It is raised to a certainty if unambiguous expression of 
 the ideas themselves can be discovered to-day among the 
 lower races. The advance of even the most backward 
 from primeval savagery has been so great that a large 
 harvest of these ideas is not to be expected. But the 
 researches of the last few years have yielded enough, it 
 is hoped, to afTord a satisfactory solution of, among others, 
 the problem under consideration in these volumes. 
 
 The Legend of Perseus has been out of print for 
 several years. Consequently I have not hesitated to make 
 use of the material comprised in the first volume. The 
 myth of Supernatural Birth is now admitted to be in 
 one form or another practically universal, and I have 
 deemed it enough to present as the starting-point of the 
 inquiry a mere summar}^ of the stories. Of the other 
 material I have made larger use ; but its presentation 
 has been revised, and much new and important matter 
 has been included. The chapters that succeed, occupying 
 the remainder of the first and the whole of the second 
 volume, are intended to exhibit the argument from 
 institutions and customs. Incidentally they traverse 
 conclusions arrived at by some distinguished anthro- 
 pologists on the subject of the conjugal relations of 
 early man. But this is beside their chief object, and I 
 have abstained from controversy. 
 
 HlGHGARTH, 
 
 Gloucester, 
 August^ 1909- 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORIES 
 
 The subject proposed. Stories of supernatural birth defined. Birth 
 as a result of eating or drinking. Birth from absorption of some 
 portion of a dead man. Birth from smell or from simple contact 
 with a magical substance. Mediaeval and other fancies as to the 
 Annunciation. Impregnation by wind, by bathing, by rain or 
 sunshine, by a glance, by a wish Pp. 1-39 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MAGICAL PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 
 
 It is still thought possible to obtain children in the manner described 
 in the stories. Use of vegetable substances. The Mandrake. Use 
 of animal substances. Use of minerals. Sacred wells. Use of 
 water and other liquids. Ceremonies to obtain a transfer of 
 fecundity or of the life of another. Bathing or sprinkling. Puberty 
 rites and taboos of girls considered as means to obtain, or for the 
 moment to avoid, conception. Conception by sun, moon, stars, 
 fire. Midsummer fires. The Lupercal. Discussion of the meaning 
 of the blows by the Luperci, and similar practices in Europe and 
 elsewhere. Conception by the foot. The attempt to share the 
 fecundity of another. The virtue of sacred vestments. Amulets. 
 Contact with sacred stones, images, and other substances. 
 Marriage rites. Jumping over a stone, broomstick, or other object. 
 Votive offerings and the throwing of stones. Vows. Simulation. 
 Belief in fecundation by the eye and ear and by wind. The stories 
 beliefs and practices disclose an ancient and widespread belief 
 that pregnancy was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse 
 
 Pp- 30-155 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TRANSFORMATION AND METEMPSYCHOSIS 
 
 Birth is often a new manifestation of a previously existing personage. 
 Ballads and stories in which the dead manifest themselves as 
 trees. Corresponding beliefs and practices. Transformation after 
 death into brute-form. The converse transformation of brutes and 
 vegetables into human beings by birth. Buddhist doctrine of 
 Transmigration. Celtic doctrine. New birth of human beings. 
 Belief in multiple souls. Rites to ascertain which of the ancestors 
 has returned. Naming a child after a deceased member of the 
 family. Rites to secure a transfer of life. Australian behefs in 
 re-birth. Warehouse of children. Relation between Transforma- 
 tion and Transmigration Pp. 156-252 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MOTHERRIGHT 
 
 Ignorance in the lower culture on the physiology of birth. Such 
 ignorance was once greater and more widespread than now. For 
 many ages the social organisation of mankind would not have 
 necessitated the concentration of thought on the problem of 
 paternity. Descent was and by many peoples still is reckoned 
 exclusively through the mother. The social organisation implied by 
 motherright. Kinship is founded on a community of blood actual 
 or imputed. The Blood-Covenant. The father not recognised 
 in motherright as belonging to the kin. His alien position and its 
 consequences. The Nayars. Combat between father and son. 
 The Blood-feud. Children the property of the kin. The ; otestas 
 in motherright. Evolution of the family. The mutual rights and 
 duties of the children and their mother's brother. Father a wholly 
 subordinate person. The origin of motherright not to be found in 
 uncertainty of paternity. Paternity in patrilineal societies 
 
 Pp. 253-325 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORIES 
 
 The subject proposed. Stories of supernatural birth de- 
 fined. Birth as a result of eating or drinking. Birth from 
 absorption of some portion of a dead man. Birth from 
 smell or from simple contact with a magical substance. 
 Mediaeval and other fancies as to the Annunciation. 
 Impregnation by wind, by bathing, by rain or sunshine, 
 by a glance, by a wish. 
 
 Stories of supernatural birth may be said to have a 
 currency as wide as the world. Everywhere heroes 
 (and what nation has not such heroes ?) of extra- 
 ordinary achievement or extraordinary qualities have 
 been of extraordinary birth. The wonder or the 
 veneration they inspired seems to demand that their 
 entrance upon life, as well as their departure from the 
 earth, should correspond with the total impression left 
 by their career. Moreover women desirous of off- 
 spring are everywhere found to make use of means to 
 produce conception analogous to and often identical 
 with the means attributed to the mothers of those 
 heroes : means that in any case are equally remote 
 from the operations of nature. To examine these 
 phenomena, so extended if not universal in their 
 range, and to determine if possible alike the origin of 
 the stories and of the customs, is the object of the 
 following pages. 
 
2 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 The attempts of savage and barbarous peoples to 
 explain the existence of the universe as they con- 
 ceive it, or of mankind, abound in tales of personages 
 in human form, though often monstrous in propor- 
 tions, who because they are the beginnings of the 
 race cannot be described as issuing from birth. Thus, 
 to give a familiar example, the giant Ymir, in the 
 Scandinavian mythology, was produced by the melt- 
 ing of the primseval ice ; from his sweat other beings 
 were produced who became the progenitors of the 
 Frost-giants ; subsequently the first man and woman 
 were formed from two pieces of wood. Cosmogonical 
 myths of this kind are not within the scope of the 
 present inquiry. As little have we to do with heroes 
 who were the result of amours between women and 
 beings of supernatural order, whether in human form 
 or that of the lower animals. Such heroes were 
 indeed born. As the children of gods like Zeus or 
 Apollo they boasted a supernatural parentage. But 
 though their fathers were no ordinary mortals the 
 manner of their generation was regarded as taking 
 the normal course. 
 
 Our concern is with children whose mothers gave 
 them birth without sexual intercourse, and as the 
 result of impregnation by means which we now know 
 to be impossible. It will not be necessary to treat the 
 stories at length. A summary sufficient to mark the 
 salient points will enable us to enter upon the inquiry 
 as to the ground of the belief which they embody. 
 Stories which include the incident of supernatural 
 birth may be divided into two kinds : Mdrcken, or 
 stories told for mere pleasure without any serious 
 credence being attached to them ; and sagas, or 
 
THE STORIES 3 
 
 stories believed in as recording actual events. 
 Between these two classes there is often no clear line 
 of demarcation. Especially in the lowest stages of 
 culture it is often difficult to say whether a story Is 
 regarded as a narrative of facts or not. In either case 
 we expect to find marvels. In either case the realm in 
 which the personages of the story live and move and 
 lave their being is beyond the realm of nature as we 
 understand it. It is a fantastic world where magic 
 reigns, where shape-shifting is an ordinary incident ; 
 Dut it is the world in which the savage dwells. For 
 lim it is hardly too much to say the laws of nature do 
 not exist : everything depends on the volition and the 
 might of beings conceived, whatever their outward 
 "orm, in the terms of his own consciousness. In such 
 a world events happen that we know to be impossible. 
 The conviction of their impossibility however is 
 arrived at only gradually ; and not until intellectual 
 evolution has reached a much higher stage can we 
 distinguish with certainty between the mdrchen and 
 the saga. Even then when marvels are rejected 
 as matters of everyday occurrence they are often 
 held to have occurred in exceptional persons, and 
 they form the subject of many a saga sacred or 
 profane. 
 
 In this brief account of the stories therefore I shall 
 confine myself in the main to those I have called 
 sagas. They are as widespread as the mdrchen ; they 
 rest upon the same foundation ; they result from the 
 same view of the universe ; many of them are a part 
 f the religious tradition of the peoples who tell them. 
 I hope the selection which follows will present typical 
 specimens and enable the reader to judge of the world- 
 
 o 
 
4 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 wide distribution of the stories and their inexhaustible 
 wealth. 
 
 We will take first the stories in which pregnancy is 
 attributed to eating or drinking. Heitsi-eibib, the 
 divine ancestor of the Hottentots, owed his birth to 
 this cause. In one of the legends a young girl picks a 
 kind of juicy grass, chews it, and swallows the sap. 
 Thence becoming pregnant she gives birth to the hero. 
 In another legend it is a cow that eats of a certain 
 grass, and Heitsi-eibib is consequently born as a bull- 
 calf.^ The quasi-divine hero of the tribes of British 
 Columbia, Yehl, was many times born. His ordinary 
 proceeding was to transform himself into a spear of 
 cedar, a blade of grass, a pebble, or even a drop of water. 
 In this form he was swallowed by the lady who was 
 destined to bear him.^ The Sia, a pueblo-people of 
 the south-west of North America, relate that their hero 
 Poshaiyanne, was born at the pueblo of Pecos, New 
 Mexico, of a virgin who became pregnant from eating 
 two pinon-nuts.^ According to the sacred legends of 
 the Hopi, another pueblo-people, a horned Katcina, a 
 mythological personage, appeared in a time of re- 
 ligious laxity and of distress to the oldest woman of 
 the Pdtki tribe, and directed that the oldest man 
 should go and procure a certain root and that she and 
 a young virgin of the clan should eat of it. After 
 a time the old woman, he said, would give birth to a 
 son who would marry the virgin and their offspring 
 would redeem the people. The Katcina was obeyed, 
 
 ^ Hahn, Tsuni-\\goam, 69, 68. 
 
 2 Bancroft, iii. 99, apparently quoting Holmberg, Ethn. Skixz,; 
 Niblack, Nat. Mus. Rep. 1888, 379. The incident is very 
 common in stories of the North- West, 
 
 ^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 59. 
 
THE STORIES 5 
 
 and the old woman brought into the world a son with 
 two horns upon his head. But the design of the 
 supernatural power was frustrated by the people, who 
 called the child a monster and killed it. The virgin 
 also gave birth later to a daughter, whose offspring, 
 twins, were sacred beings known as Aldsaka. They 
 however in their turn were put to death, and the 
 miseries of the people continued.^ 
 
 Fo-hi, the founder of the Chinese Empire, was the 
 child of a virgin named Ching-mon, who ate a certain 
 flower found on her garment after bathing.^ The 
 ancestry of the present or Manchu dynasty is traced 
 to a similar adventure on the part of a heavenly 
 maiden who found on the skirt of her raiment after 
 bathing a red fruit, placed there by a magpie, and 
 having eaten it was delivered of a son ordained by 
 heaven "to restore order to disturbed nations."^ The 
 story in one form or other is in fact quite common in 
 the east of Asia. Not less common is it in India. 
 Of the birth of Raji RasAlu, the hero of the Panjab, 
 we are told that Rani Lon^n, one of the two wives of 
 Raja Salbahan of Sialkot, fell in love with her stepson 
 Puran and because he did not return her passion 
 traduced him to her husband, who cut off his hands 
 and feet and threw him into a well. Pfiran however 
 survived this treatment, and being rescued by the Guru 
 Gorakhnath, a Brahman of great sanctity, became a 
 celebrated fakir. Not knowing who he really was 
 
 ^ Fewkes, Amer. Anthr. N.S., i. 536. 
 
 * De Charencey, 204, citing Barrow's Voyage to China. 
 
 ' James, 31 note, citing a Chinese chronicle; De Charencey, 
 185, citing Koppen, Die Religion des Buddha; and 195, citing 
 Amyot, Ambassade memorable a I'Empereur du Japon. The story, 
 however, is not Japanese. 
 
6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the rani and her husband desirous of offspring came to 
 him to pray for a son. He induced her to confess her 
 crime ; then revealing himself he gave her a grain 
 of rice to eat and told her she would bear a son who 
 would be learned and brave and holy. That son was 
 Raj^ Rasalu, a monarch identified with the historical 
 Sri Syalapati Deva.^ The birth of an older but 
 equally famous hero, Visvdmitra, is attributed by the 
 Vishnu Purana to a similar cause.^ Guga Pir, the 
 Mahratta saint, was born of a mother whose husband 
 had deserted her, but who received from Gorakhnath 
 some resin to be eaten mixed with milk. Her father's 
 mare Lilli, licking round the basin of resin and milk, 
 also became pregnant and foaled the winged stallion 
 Lila, afterwards Gtlga's steed. We need not pursue 
 Guga's wonderful career in detail. Suffice it to say 
 that this mode of propagating the species was a family 
 specialty. His mother's sister brought into the 
 world two sons from two barleycorns given her by 
 the Guril Gorakhnath ; and he himself was childless 
 until his guardian deity bestowed upon him a similar 
 gift, by means of which he obtained from his wife a 
 son and from his favourite mare the famous steed 
 Javadiya.^ The traditions of the Malayan Minang- 
 kabau population of the Highlands of Sumatra speak 
 of a particular kind of cocoa-nut called niver balai that 
 had the property of causing pregnancy without fleshly 
 intercourse. The hero Tjindoer Mato was thus 
 called in allusion to this immaculate generation.* 
 
 ^ Temple, Leg. Panj. i. i ; Steel, 247. 
 
 * Wilson, V. P. 399 (/. iv. c. 7), 
 
 8 N, Ind. N. and Q. iii. 96 (par. 205) ; Elliot, N. W. Prov. i. 
 256; Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 211. 
 
 * Van der Toorn, Bijdragen, xxxix, 78. 
 
THE STORIES 7 
 
 Such marvellous tales are not confined to trans- 
 actions of the distant past. Maba' Seyon is a saint 
 whose deeds are related in an Ethiopic manuscript 
 of the fifteenth century, probably written very shortly 
 after his death. His miracles were numerous. A 
 barren woman came to him one day for help, 
 promising that if the Lord gave her a son she would 
 dedicate him as an offering to the commemoration of 
 the Redeemer. The saint "gave her some of the 
 bread of the commemoration of the Redeemer, and 
 she ate it," and the saint blessed her. So success- 
 ful was the performance that in two years she returned 
 with two children.^ A satiric poet of the court of 
 Earl Eric Hakonsson, a Norse ruler who assisted in 
 the conquest of England by Sweyn and Cnut, recounts 
 in one of his lampoons that a nameless lady ate " a 
 fish like a stone-perch, soft of flesh," which " came 
 ashore with a tide on the sand." The outward and 
 visible signs of her resulting pregnancy are described 
 with gusto. She gave birth to a boy, "a currish 
 morsel. "2 This lampoon, if not based on actual gossip 
 respecting the persons intended to be satirised, is at 
 all events evidence that such a birth was not then 
 reckoned impossible. A story current in Iceland 
 in the middle of the last century witnesses to the 
 same belief. It is that a lady of rank who desired to 
 have a child laid herself down at a brook, on the 
 advice of three women who appeared to her in a 
 dream, and drank from it. In so doing she contrived 
 
 ■*■ Lady Meux Manuscript No. i. The Lives of Maba' Seyon and 
 Gabra Krastos. The Ethiopic Texts edited with an English trans- 
 lation by E. A. Wallis Budge, M.A. Litt.D. (London, 1898, 64.) 
 
 ^ Corp, Poet. Bor. ii. 109. 
 
8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 that a trout came swimming straight into her mouth. 
 She swallowed the fish and her wish was by that means 
 fulfilled/ The three women of the lady's dream are ob- 
 viously mythological figures of pre-christian antiquity. 
 In the modern European marchen belonging to the 
 cycle of Perseus, one of the favourite agencies of 
 conception is a fish. The typical story comes from 
 Brittany, and is called the King of the Fishes. A 
 poor and childless fisherman once caught in his net a 
 fish whose scales shone like gold. It prayed for life, 
 which was granted and the fisherman obtained a 
 bountiful catch in exchange. But the fisherman's wife 
 desired to eat the King of the Fishes ; and when her 
 husband again caught it he was not to be moved by 
 its supplications. The fish then directed its captor to 
 gives its head to his wife to eat, and to throw the scales 
 into a corner of his garden and cover them with earth, 
 promising that his wife should give birth to three 
 beautiful boys with stars on their foreheads, and that 
 from its scales should grow three rose-trees correspond- 
 ing to the three children. One of the rose-trees was 
 to belong to each of the boys and to become his life- 
 token, so that when he should be in danger of death 
 his tree should wither.^ In some variants parts of the 
 fish are to be given to the fisherman's mare and his 
 bitch, which accordingly bring forth young to the 
 number of the children. Beyond the limits of 
 Europe the Tupis of Brazil in one of their sacred 
 legends represent a supernatural being as fertilising a 
 young virgin by the gift of a mysterious fish ; ^ and in 
 
 ^ Bartels, Zeits, Ethnol. xxxii. 54, citing Arnason. 
 2 Sebillot, Contes Pop. i. 124 (Story No. 18). 
 ^ Denis, 94. 
 
THE STORIES 9 
 
 Samoa a similar incident occurs.^ Flesh-meat is more 
 common as a fecundating substance in North American 
 tradition.^ It is significant in this connection that the 
 ordinary mode of wooing in many of the North 
 American tribes was by gift of the produce of the 
 chase. 
 
 In Ireland the legends of supernatural birth date 
 back to heathen times although not put into writing 
 until after Christianity had become the dominant 
 religion. We have space only for one or two. In 
 the saga entitled " Bruden da Derga," Etdin, the 
 daughter of a more famous heroine of the same name, 
 was married to Cormac, King of Ulaid. Being barren 
 she applied to her mother, who made her some pottage. 
 She ate it ; but the result was not wholly satisfactory, 
 for she gave birth to a daughter, whereas Cormac 
 desired a son. No other child was born ; consequently 
 he forsook her.^ The births both of Conchobar and 
 his sister's son Cuchulainn were ascribed to their 
 mothers having drunk water and swallowed worms in 
 the draught.* Of another sister of Conchobar it is 
 quaintly said that she " suffered from hesitation of 
 
 ^ von Bulow, Internat. Arch. xii. 67. 
 
 ^ Boas, Kathlamet Texts, 155 ; Kroeber, Univ. Cat. Pub. iv. Amer. 
 Arch. 199, 243; Catlin, i. 179 {cf. Will and Spenden, Peabody Mus, 
 Papers, iii. 139, 142). 
 
 3 The Sack of Da Derga's Hostel, Translated by Prof. Whitley 
 Stokes, Rev. Celt. xxii. 18. 
 
 * Rev. Celt. vi. 179; D'Arbois de Jubainville, Epopee Celt. 16; 
 both translating MSS. of the fourteenth century now in the library 
 of the Royal Irish Academy; Rev. Celt. ix. 12 ; D'Arbois, op. cit., 
 37, translating Leabhar nah Uidhre (Book of the Dun Cow), MS. 
 dating back to about the year 11 00. According to one account 
 however, Dechtire, Conchobar's sister, succeeded in vomiting the 
 creature forth '■^ and thus becoming virgin again" She then con- 
 ceived in the ordinary course. 
 
lo PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 offspring, so that she bore no children." A certain 
 Druid, however, promised her offspring if his fee were 
 good enough. On her accepting the terms, he fared 
 with her to the well and there he "sang spells and 
 prophecies over the spring. And he said : ' Wash 
 thyself therewith and thou will bring forth a son ; and 
 no child will be less pious than he to his mother's kin 
 to wit, the Connaught-men.' Then the damsel drank 
 a draught out of the well, and with the draught she 
 swallowed a worm, and the worm was in the hand of 
 the boy [sc. whom she thereby conceived] as he lay 
 in his mother's womb, and it pierced the hand and 
 consumed it." The boy was Conall Cernach.^ As 
 Irish civilisation advanced, however, such incidents 
 were frequently softened into mere dreams. Thus the 
 Irish life of Saint Molasius of Devenish preserved to 
 us in a manuscript written probably from dictation in 
 the sixteenth century presents the holy man's mother as 
 dreaming " that she got seven fragrant apples and the 
 last apple of them that she took into her hand her 
 grasp could not contain it for its size ; gold (as it 
 seemed to her) was not lovelier than the apple." Her 
 husband interprets the dream of " an offspring excellent 
 and famous, with which the mouths of all Ireland shall 
 be filled : " an interpretation justified of course by the 
 saint's birth. We can hardly doubt that as the story 
 was originally told Molasius was the direct result of 
 his mother's eating an apple. The same manuscript 
 indeed contains an account of his blessing a cup of 
 water and giving it to a childless woman to drink with 
 
 ^ Nutt, Bran, ii. 74, quoting translation in Whitley Stokes' Irische 
 Texie of an eleventh-twelfth century work. 
 
THE STORIES li 
 
 intent that she should thereby become pregnant ; and 
 " the very noble bishop Finnacha " was the result/ 
 
 But not merely animal and vegetable substances, 
 even stones have been described as fructifying women. 
 We have already found an instance of this in the 
 traditions of the north-western tribes of Canada. 
 The Aztecs too attributed the birth of their famous 
 god Quetzalcoatl to a precious green stone, identified 
 by Captain Bourke with the turquoise, but perhaps 
 rather jade, which his mother Chimalma found one day 
 and swallowed.^ A pearl fell into the bosom of a girl 
 and she swallowed it, as the Chinese tell, with the 
 result that a boy was born (according to one version, 
 from her breast) who afterwards became the great 
 emperor Yu.^ In the extreme north-east of Asia in a 
 lower stage of culture than the Chinese or the Aztecs, 
 the Koryaks report similar incidents. For example, 
 two incautious ladies, we are told, found an arrow and 
 ate it. Thereafter one of them gave birth to a son 
 with five fingers, and the other to a daughter with 
 only three.* In India the Jain Kathdkofa, or Treasury 
 of Stories, relates that a female servant who had 
 become a devout convert having died, " her soul was 
 conceived again " by Jayd the wife of King Vijaya- 
 varman. " At that moment the Queen saw a flaming 
 fire enter her mouth. The next morning she told the 
 King, who said : * Queen, you will have a truly 
 
 ^ Silva Gad. ii. 19, 23, translating MS. in the British Museum. 
 Stories of dreams of this kind are common as an alternative to the 
 more materialistic concept. The dreams of Athelstan's mother and 
 Cyrus' mother are the best-known examples of a numerous class. 
 
 ^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 590, quoting Mendieta. 
 
 ' Da Charencey, 202. 
 Jochelson, /fs«/> Exped. vi. 214. 
 
12 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 remarkable son.' " And the epithet was certainly 
 justified by the account which follows of that son's 
 adventures in the process of securing a harem/ The 
 Celtic saint Aidan or Maedoc was born of a star which 
 fell into his mother's mouth while she slept.' 
 
 In various parts of the world stories have been told 
 of women who have been fertilised by semen imbibed 
 through the mouth or even through the nose. An 
 Irish manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth 
 century tells us that Cred the daughter of Rondn, 
 King of Leinster, gathered cress on which the sperma 
 genitale of a certain robber Findach by name had just 
 fallen and ate it, " and thereof was born the ever- 
 living Boethin." ^ We need not dwell on this unsavoury 
 subject. Let it suffice to say that stories containing 
 this incident are found among the Salish of North 
 America, among the ancient Peruvians, and repeatedly 
 in India. The Gipsies of Southern Hungary tell a tale 
 of a woman who was transformed into a fish as a 
 punishment for repulsing Saint Nicholas when he 
 appeared to her as a beggar. She was condemned to 
 remain in that form until impregnated by her husband. 
 This was effected by devouring a leaf on which some 
 of his spittle had fallen.** 
 
 The drinking of water or some other liquid is a 
 frequent cause of impregnation. The birth of 
 Zoroaster is attributed in a Parsee work of the ninth 
 century a.d. to his mother's drinking of homa-juice and 
 
 ^ Tawney, Kathako^a, 64. 
 a Rev. Celt. v. 275. 
 
 2 Prof. Whitley Stokes, Rev. Celt. ii. 199, translating the Leabhar 
 breacj a MS. now in the Royal Irish Academy. 
 * von Wlislocki, Volksdicht, 300. 
 
THE STORIES 13 
 
 cow's-milk infused with his guardian spirit and glory.* 
 The mother of Nanabozho, the culture-hero of the 
 Lenape of the Delaware, became pregnant in conse- 
 quence of drinking out of a creek." One rainy autumnal 
 night a woman of Annam put an earthen vessel to re- 
 ceive the drippings of her roof and saw a star fall into 
 the vessel. She drank the water and became pregnant. 
 She was delivered of three eggs from which three ser- 
 pents were hatched. They were heavenly genii, and 
 /two of them are still worshipped as the tutelary divinities 
 of the village in which they were born.^ 
 
 Almost any portion of a human body may be 
 possessed of fructifying power. The mdrchen attribute 
 it variously to a hermit's heart cooked and eaten, to 
 the gratings of a bone found in the churchyard or to 
 the ashes of a burnt skull. According to a manuscript 
 in the Khedivial Library at Cairo a bone crushed in 
 /the hand of a man and thrown on the dungheap grew 
 up into so fine a tree that no one had ever seen the 
 like. His daughter desired to see this tree. Drawing 
 nigh to it she embraced it and kissing it took a leaf in 
 her mouth. As she chewed it she found the taste 
 sweet and agreeable and accordingly swallowed it. 
 At the same instant she conceived by the will of God.* 
 The analogy of other stories leads to the belief that 
 the tree here is neither more nor less than a trans- 
 formation of the man from whose bone it grew. The 
 oldest known story wherein transformation of this kind 
 forms an incident is the Egyptian tale of the Two 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, v. 187. See a curious tradition concerning the 
 birth of St, John the Baptist, cited by Saintyves, Les Vierges Meres, 
 263. ^ Brinton, Lenape, 131. 
 
 ^ hatxidts, Annam., 12. * Oestrup, 26. 
 
14 PJIIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Brothers. The manuscript now in the British Museum 
 was written by the scribe Enna, or Ennana, and 
 belonged to the monarch Seti II., of the nineteenth 
 dynasty, before he came to the throne. We have 
 the story therefore in the shape it bore about the 
 earlier half of the thirteenth century before Christ. It 
 is long, and I have only space for the material points. 
 Bata, the hero, is betrayed by his wife, who becomes 
 the King's mistress and by her advice causes the king 
 to put her husband to death. Bata's brother, however, 
 restores him to life, and he assumes the form of a great 
 bull with all the sacred marks. In this form he obtains 
 an opportunity to make himself known to his wife. She 
 for her part was by no means pleased to see him ; and 
 having wheedled an oath out of the king that he 
 would grant her whatsoever she asked, she demanded 
 the bull's liver to eat. As he was being slain two 
 drops of his blood fell upon the King's two door-posts, 
 and forthwith grew up two mighty persea-trees. One of 
 these trees spoke to the King's mistress, accusing her 
 of her crimes and declaring : " I am Bata, I am living 
 still, I have transformed myself." She persuaded the 
 King to cut the trees down ; but while she stood by 
 to watch, a splinter flew off and entering her mouth 
 rendered her pregnant. In due time she gave birth to 
 a son, who was none other than a new manifestation 
 of Bata. When at the King's death he succeeded to 
 the throne he summoned the nobles and councillors ; 
 his wife was brought to him and he had a reckoning 
 with her.^ 
 
 * Records of the Pasty ii. 137; Maspero, 3; Le Page Renouf, 
 Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xi. 184. Bata and his brother were wor- 
 shipped at Cynopolis. The former, whose name means " the soul 
 
THE STORIES 15 
 
 Bata's metamorphoses are parallel to a long series 
 of similar adventures found in mdrchen and saga all 
 over the world. For the present we confine ourselves 
 to a few examples in which birth is occasioned by a 
 woman's consumption of some portion of a dead 
 human body. The twin heroes of the Bakairi of 
 Central Brazil owed their origin to a woman who was 
 married to a jaguar. In her husband's house she 
 found many finger-bones ; for the jaguar was ac- 
 customed to kill and eat Bakairi and to make his 
 arrow-heads from their finger-bones. Two of these 
 bones she swallowed ; and the story expressly says that 
 it was from them and not from her husband that she 
 became pregnant.-^ Among the legends current in classi- 
 cal times of the birth of Bacchus was one that claimed 
 him as the son of Jupiter and Proserpine, According 
 to this story he was torn in pieces by the Titans, but 
 his heart was pounded up and given by Jove in a drink 
 to Semele, whence he was born again of her.^ The 
 story with some slightly different details was told in 
 connection with the Orphic mysteries in order to 
 identify Zagreus and Dionysus but it is probably in 
 origin independent of them and was only seized upon 
 and adapted to their requirements as stories have been 
 in all ages and by all religions. At all events, as 
 Prof. Jevons observes, the incident " in which some 
 one by swallowing a portion of the bodily substance of 
 the hero becomes the parent of the hero in one of his 
 re-births . . . must have been familiar to the average 
 Greek, else it would not have proved so successful as 
 
 of the loaves," seems to have been identified with Osiris, and the 
 latter with Anubis {Rev. Hist. Rel. Ivii. 89). 
 
 ^ von den Steinen, 372. ^ Hyginus, fab. 167. 
 
i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 an explanation of the fundamental identity of Zagreus 
 and Dionysus." ^ The relics of Christian saints and 
 martyrs have a special procreative virtue. A Nestorian 
 legend edited from a Syriac text by Dr. Wallis Budge 
 relates that a certain man whose name was Zedkoi of 
 the village of Perath was deprived of the blessing of 
 children. He came with his wife to Rabban Bar 
 *Idti and with bitter and sorrowful tears besought his 
 help. On the promise if she have three sons to give 
 one of them to the holy man, the latter says to the 
 woman : " My daughter, take these three little cakes 
 of martyr's dust and go to thy house in faith, and each 
 day take one little cake." Her compliance is rewarded 
 by the birth of a son, whom she sets apart in payment 
 of her vow, and by the subsequent birth of two more 
 boys.^ In a Breton legend the Apostle Philip is burnt 
 to death in obeying a command of the Saviour to set 
 fire to a chapel. "Poor Philip!" says the Saviour; 
 " but let us see if we cannot find any remains of him, 
 any piece of calcined bone." He finds a piece of bone 
 which has the shape of a soup-spoon, and puts it in his 
 pocket. That evening He comes with Peter and John 
 to a farmer's house. They are well received ; but there 
 are only two spoons. The Saviour produces the bone 
 and asks the servant-maid if the soup is good. " I 
 think so," she replies. "But have you tasted it?" 
 "No." "Then take a spoonful to see." And He 
 gave her a spoonful of soup, but she swallowed the 
 bone-spoon and all. "Good God!" she exclaimed, 
 " I have swallowed the spoon. I don't know how 
 that happened." Of that spoon she became pregnant, 
 
 ^ Jevons, Introd. 556, 
 
 ^ Budge, Rabban Hormuzd, ii, 262. 
 
THE STORIES 17 
 
 and was turned out of the house. In a stable on the 
 straw she gave birth to a magnificent boy who was no 
 other than Saint Philip born again/ 
 
 In tales of both hemispheres women are represented 
 as conceiving by smell or by simple contact of the 
 magical substance. When from the blood of the 
 mutilated Agdestis a pomegranate-tree sprang up, 
 Nana the nymph gathered and laid in her bosom some 
 of the fruit wherewith it was laden, and hence in the 
 belief of the Greeks, Attis was born.^ Danae conceived 
 Perseus through the shower of gold. The ancestress 
 of one of the clans of the Lynngams in the Khasi Hills 
 of Assam was conceived by the touch of a flower which 
 fell on her mother as she slept.^ A legend of the 
 island of Tanah- Papua relates that the hero Konori 
 owed his birth to a marisbon-fruit flung on the breast of 
 a maiden.* Coatlicue, the serpent-skirted, was the 
 mother of Huitzilopochtli, one of the great Aztec 
 deities. A little ball of feathers floated down to her 
 through the air. She caught it and hid it in her 
 bosom ; nor was it long before she found herself 
 pregnant.^ Further north, in a Wichita tale, a man of 
 extraordinary powers contrives that a maiden shall 
 pick up and put in her bosom a small bone-cylinder or 
 pipe-bone, such as used to be worn round the neck. 
 It disappears and she becomes pregnant without 
 
 ^ Luzel, Leg. Chret. i. 44. 
 
 ' Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, v. 6; Pausanias, vii. 17 (5). According 
 to the latter the tree was an almond-tree. 
 
 2 Gurdon, 195. 
 
 * Bastian, Indonesien, ii. 35 ; cf. Featherman, Papuo-Mel. 43. 
 
 ^ Bancroft, iii. 296, quoting Torquemada ; Brinton, Essays, 94 ; 
 G. Raynaud, Rev. Hist. Rel. xxxviii. 279, 280, quoting a hymn 
 preserved by Sahagun. 
 
i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 having been embraced by a man.^ In a Hopi story a 
 young woman is fecundated by wet clay while she is 
 kneading and trampling it to prepare it for making 
 pottery.^ Servius commenting on the y^neid has 
 preserved the legend that Caeculus the founder of 
 Praeneste, was conceived by a spark that leaped into 
 his mother's bosom. In India we hear of a woman 
 who was fertilised by happening to sit down on a rock 
 on which the childless Rajd Bhishma had lain and 
 slept.^ 
 
 More direct masculine action is sometimes invoked. 
 The Buddhist Birth-stories comprise a narrative to 
 which we shall have occasion to refer in another 
 connection, wherein a childless queen is impregnated 
 by a divine being by means of the touch of his thumb.* 
 Sagas from New Guinea and British Columbia repre- 
 sent impregnation as effected by the finger.^ The 
 saliva of the lynx in a tale told by the Indians o 
 Thompson River falling on a girl's navel causes| 
 conception.^ The Todas tell how an eagle fertilised 
 woman by sitting on her head. In another story 
 Toda divinity knocks a woman on the head with a 
 iron stick which he habitually carries, and at once sh 
 becomes pregnant.' In a Balochi tale a remarkabl 
 boy is begotten, as he himself subsequently assure 
 his mother's husband, by the shadow of AH, of who 
 the Balochis are devoted followers. The lady' 
 husband was away at Delhi with his army. As sh 
 was one day washing her head a shadow passed i 
 
 ^ Dorsey, Wichita, 172. 2 Voth, 155. 
 
 3 N. Ind. N. and Q. iii. 141 (par. 297). 
 
 * Jdtaka, V. 144 (Story No. 531). 
 
 ^ /. A. L XIX. 465 J Boas, Ind. Sag. 198. 
 
 ' Teit, 37 ' Rivers, 196, 191. 
 
THE STORIES 19 
 
 front of her and disappeared ; from that shadow the 
 child was born.^ 
 
 Conception takes place sometimes by the hand or 
 the foot. Hun Ahpu and Xbalanque, the twin divinities 
 honoured by the Quiche of Central America, were born 
 in consequence of the head of their murdered father 
 spitting into a maiden's hand.^ A similar incident is 
 told by the people of Annam concerning an historical 
 personage who was put to death in the year 1443 of 
 our era.^ In China the Skih-KingvQ\dl&s of Hau-A'i, the 
 ancestor of the kings of Aan, that his mother Alang- 
 Ytian was childless until she trod on a toe-print made 
 by God. That instant she felt moved ; she conceived 
 and at length gave birth to a son. The poet does not 
 mention her husband, and the common Chinese tradi- 
 represents her as a virgin.^ 
 
 Impregnation by an unusual part of the body is 
 in fact by no means a rare incident in sacred and 
 historical traditions. During the Middle Ages it seems 
 to have been seriously believed — at all events the idea 
 was current — respecting the conception of Jesus 
 Christ. The Fathers had dwelt upon the physio- 
 logical details of the Incarnation with prurient 
 rudeness. They were as familiar with at least the 
 negative results of the miracle, as minute and positive 
 
 1 Dames, 138. 
 
 2 Popol Vuh, 89. ; Journ. Am. F. L., xx. 148. 
 
 3 Landes, Annam-. 63. In two Yana myths from California a 
 child originates directly from masculine spittle without female 
 intervention (Curtin, Creation Myths, 300, 348). 
 
 * Sacred Books, iii. 396. There seems some ambiguity in the 
 word translated God (see Rev. Hist. Rel. xli. 11 ; xliii. 137). The 
 historian Se-ma-thsien, who flourished in the middle of the second 
 century B.C., relates that iTiang Yiian became pregnant by walking 
 on the footsteps of a giant (De Charencey, 199). 
 
20 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in their descriptions, as if they had made an obstetrical 
 examination. In their zeal for the virginity of the 
 Saviour's mother they insisted that he was conceived 
 and born without any physical changes in the body 
 that bore him.^ This naturally led to speculation on 
 the manner of this conception. Grave divines like 
 Saint Augustine asserted that " God spake by the 
 angel and the Virgin was impregnated through the 
 ear." ^ The hymn of Saint Bonaventura phrases it 
 
 Gaude Virgo, mater Christi, 
 
 Quae per aurem concepisti, 
 
 Gabriele nuntio. 
 
 Painters represented the Holy Ghost as entering at 
 Mary's ear in the shape of a dove, or hovering over 
 her while a ray of light along which the babe is de- 
 scending passes from his beak to her ear.^ Other 
 opinions, however, seem to have contended for 
 popularity with this. In the chapel of the Palazzo 
 Pubblico at Siena, for example, are benches carved 
 by Domenico di Niccolo, the backs of which are 
 inlaid with intarsia work illustrating the Nicene Creed. 
 One of them shows the Annunciation with a full- 
 formed babe descending in rays from the Father's 
 outstretched finger. The Church of the Magdalen at 
 Aix in Provence contains a picture, attributed t( 
 
 ^ Lucius, Anfdnge^ 427, The context of the passage just citec 
 from the Shih King asserts the same phenomenon of Hau K\^\ 
 birth : " There was no bursting nor rending, no injury, no hurt 
 showing how wonderful he would be." 
 
 ' Several passages from the Fathers are collected by Maury, Leg 
 Pieuses, 179 note. 
 
 ^ L^cky, Rah'onalism, i. 232; Elworthy, Evil Eye, 322. Th 
 hymn was popular, whether written by the gentlest or the mos 
 arrogant of mediaeval saints. 
 
THE STORIES 21 
 
 Albert Diirer, wherein waves of glory descend from 
 God the Father, and in the midst of them a micro- 
 scopic babe floats down upon the Virgin. These 
 works of art leave the precise channel of impregnation 
 vague. They embody an opinion which seems to have 
 been common in the fifteenth century, namely, that 
 Our Lord entered already completely formed into the 
 Virgin's womb — an opinion which orthodox theo- 
 logians in their perfect acquaintance with the divine 
 arrangements were able summarily to pronounce 
 heretical. A picture by Era Filippo Lippi, painted 
 for Cosmo de' Medici and now in the National Gallery, 
 exhibits the Virgin seated in a chair with her Book of 
 Hours in her hand. The angel bows before her. 
 Above is a right hand surrounded with clouds. A 
 dove, cast from the hand amid circling floods of glory, 
 is making for the Virgin's navel and is about to enter 
 it ; while she, bending forward, curiously surveys it. 
 So Buddha in the form of a white elephant entered 
 his mother's right side.^ The parallel is instructive. 
 Mohammedan tradition, it may be added, ascribes the 
 miraculous conception by the Virgin to Gabriel's 
 having opened the bosom of her shift and breathed 
 upon her womb.^ In like manner one of the variant 
 legends of the birth of the Aztec divinity, Quetzalcoatl, 
 relates that the Lord of Existence, Tonacatecutli 
 appeared to Chimalma and breathed upon her, 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, xix. 2 ; Rhys Davids, Birth Stories, 63, trans- 
 ating the Niddna Kathd ; Id. Buddhism, 183. In the earlier 
 iccounts the incident appears only as a dream ; later it is soberly 
 related as a fact. A similar story is told in China of Laotzij ; but it 
 s probably borrowed from Buddhist tradition. 
 
 ^ Sale, Koran, note on ch. xix. citing Arab authors. 
 
22 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 thereby quickening life within her, so that she bore 
 Quetzalcoatl/ 
 
 Wind has been deemed sufficient to cause the 
 birth of gods and heroes. The examples most 
 familiar to us are those of Hera, who conceived 
 Hephaistos without male concurrence by simply 
 inhaling the wind, and of the maiden (in Longfellow's 
 poem called Wenonah) who was quickened by the 
 west wind and bore Michabo, the Algonkin hero better 
 known to us as Hiawatha. The incident appears in 
 the mythology of more than one American people. In 
 the Finnish Kalevala the virgin Ilmatar is fructified 
 by the east wind and gives birth to the wizard Vaina- 
 moinen.^ The Minahassers of Celebes claim to be de- 
 scended from a girl in primseval days who was 
 fecundated by the west wind.^ According to the 
 tradition current in the Luang-Sermata group of islands 
 in the Moluccas the earth and the sky were once 
 nearer together than they are now. The sky was 
 then inhabited, but not the earth. One day, however, 
 a sky-woman climbed down along a rotan-palm-tree 
 whose root is still shown turned to stone on the 
 island of Nolawna. Arrived on earth she was im- 
 pregnated by the south wind and bore many children, 
 who had access to the sky, until the Lord Sun, as the 
 result of strife with them, cut the rotan in two.^ In a 
 
 ^ Brinton, Amer. Hero-Myths, 90 ; Bancroft, iii. 271 ; both citing 
 the Mexican Codex in the Vatican and the Codex Telleriano- 
 Remensis. See also Preuss, Globus, Ixxxvi. 362, who claims that 
 according to Mexican belief the masculine breath was necessary to 
 conception, 
 
 2 Kalevala, runes i. xlv. ; cf. Abercromby. Finns, i. 316, 318, 322. 
 
 ' J. A. T. Schwarz, Int. Arch, xviii. 59. 
 
 * Riedel, 312. 
 
THE STORIES 23 
 
 Samoan tale a snipe is fecundated in this manner, and 
 bears a daughter.^ 
 
 Stories of conception by bathing have been seriously- 
 believed alike in the Old and New worlds. A Zulu 
 saga represents a king's daughters as bathing in a pool 
 in the river. The youngest, a mere child, comes out 
 with breasts swollen as large as a woman's. By the 
 counsel of the old men she is driven away. After 
 wandering from place to place she gives birth to a boy 
 who grows up a wise doctor. From what is said of 
 his beneficent deeds it has been conjectured that we 
 have here a corrupted account of Our Lord's birth, 
 derived possibly from the Portuguese.^ There is how- 
 ever no evidence to support this improbable suggestion : 
 the story in all its details is purely native. The 
 Black Kirghiz of Central Asia asserted that their great 
 foremother was a princess who became pregnant by 
 bathing in a foam-covered lake.' Some of the 
 Algonkins traced the lineage of mankind from two 
 young squaws who swimming in the sea were im- 
 pregnated by the foam and produced a boy and girl.* 
 Virtually the same incident appears not infrequently in 
 North American tradition. The Yurupari of South 
 America relate a story of some women who were for- 
 idden by an old wizard to bathe in a certain holy 
 Dool. They disobey and are fertilised by his semen 
 which is mingled with the water.^ The same incident 
 was part of the religious belief of the ancient Persians. 
 Three drops of the seed of Zoroaster, we are told in 
 
 ^ Inf. Arch.xv'i. 90. * Callaway, Tales, 335. 
 
 • De Charencey, 184, citing Girard de Rialle, Mernoire sur I'Asie 
 "entrale. 
 
 * Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 80. * Ehrenreich, 47. 
 
24 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 their sacred books, fell from him. They are preserved 
 by the agency of angels and at the appointed time a maid 
 bathing in the lake Kasava will come in contact with 
 it, will conceive by it and bring forth Saoshyant, the 
 Saviour who is to reduce all peoples under the yoke 
 of the true religion and prepare the world for the 
 general resurrection.^ In the twelfth century the 
 Moorish philosopher Averrhoes of Cordova related, 
 as having actually occurred, a case of a woman who 
 became pregnant in a bath by attracting the semen of 
 a man bathing near. In Christian Europe, it is need- 
 less to say, parthenogenesis was long held possible. 
 Controversy on the subject was lively even in the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 Rain has begotten children too. Montezuma, the 
 culture-hero of the Pueblos of New Mexico, was the 
 son of a maiden of exquisite beauty but fastidious and 
 coy. When the drought fell on her people she opened 
 her granaries and fed them out of her abundance. 
 " At last with rain fertility returned to the earth ; 
 and on the chaste Artemis of the Pueblos its touch 
 fell too. She bore a son to the thick summer shower, 
 and that son was Montezuma."^ The Pimas of Cali- 
 fornia, the Mojave of the Rio Colorado in Arizona, 
 and the Apaches all tell the same story.^ According 
 to the Chinese historian Ma-twan-lin, the founder 
 of the kingdom of the Fou-yu was the wonderful son 
 
 * Indeed she will be thrice fecundated and bear three sons ; or 
 three maidens will be thus successively fecundated. Sacred Books, 
 iv. Ixxix ; v. 143 note, 144; xxiii. 195, 226, See also Tavernier, 
 Six Voyages, 1. iv. c. viii ; E. Blochet, Rev. Hist. Rel. xxxviii. 61. 
 
 * Bancroft, iii. 175 note; DeCharencey, 235 ; Gushing, Z«mF. T. 
 
 ^ Payne, i. 414 note; Jotirn. Am. F. L. ii. 178. ^ 
 
THE STORIES ' 25 
 
 of a woman on whom, so she said, a vapour about the 
 size of an egg descended from the sky and caused her 
 pregnancy/ 
 
 So also the rays of the sun fertilise women. Perhaps 
 this was the original form of the story of Danae : the 
 incident appears in several modern European mdrchen 
 which are variants of that story. In China impregna- 
 tion by the sun seems to have been a common fate of 
 the mothers of distinguished emperors.^ A Japanese 
 legend tells of a poor maiden, into whose body as 
 she slept by the shore of a lagoon the rays of the sun 
 drove like the shafts from a celestial bow and caused 
 her to be pregnant. She was delivered of a red jewel 
 which, acquired at length by the chiefs son, was 
 changed into a fair girl and became his wife.^ A 
 Siamese legend reported by a Jesuit father in the 
 seventeenth century attributes the birth of the deity 
 Sommonocodon (an obvious form of Buddha) to the 
 same cause. ^ The Admiralty Islanders deduce the 
 descent of mankind from a woman who was fecundated 
 by the sun.^ The Samoan saga of the invention of 
 the fish-hook relates that a woman was fructified 
 by the rays of the rising sun and directed by a 
 sunbeam to call the child Aloaloalela.^ Among the 
 Pueblo peoples of North America the tale recurs 
 more than once. In all cases the offspring are twins, 
 who are benefactors of their tribe.' The Kwakiutl 
 
 ^ De Charencey, 188, citing the Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denis. 
 
 * Instances are collected by De Charencey, 208, 203. 
 3 Rev. Hist. Rel. lii, 43 note, 46 note. 
 
 * Second Voyage du Pere Tachard, 247. 
 
 6 Anihropos, ii. 938. * Inf. Arch. xv. 170. 
 
 ' Matthews, Navaho Leg. 105, 231 ; Fewkes, Journ. Am. F. L, 
 viii. 132 ; Gushing, Zufii F. T. 431 ; Rep, Bur. Ethn. xi. 43. 
 
26 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Phaethon named Born-to-be-the-Sun was begotten by 
 the sun's suddenly shining on the small of a woman's 
 back.^ A hero of the Skidi Pawnee of the plains was 
 the offspring not of the sun but of a passing meteor 
 that flashed upon a maiden at night while her father 
 and mother were standing on guard beside her.^ 
 In Egypt Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, was 
 believed to have been begotten by a blaze of light 
 descending from heaven (according to Plutarch, from 
 the moon) upon the cow which was to become his 
 dam.^ 
 
 Analogous to this method of impregnation is the 
 glance of a divine or quasi-divine being. To this cause 
 in Kirghiz tradition was ascribed the birth of the 
 famous Genghis Khan/ According to orthodox belief 
 in India Parvati, the consort of Siva, was conceived 
 by a look and spit forth upon the world. The 
 Brahmans have a legend whereby the Musahar, a 
 Dravidian jungle-tribe in the eastern part of the 
 United Provinces, descend from a maiden who waited 
 on a certain hermit. Siva visited the hermit in 
 disguise and his eye fell on the girl. From that 
 glance she became pregnant, and the twin children, 
 boy and girl, whom she bore were the ancestors of the 
 Musahar.^ Similar incidents are reported in legends 
 from Further India and the Marquesas." The culture- 
 
 ^ Boas and Hunt, Jesup Exped. x. 80. 
 ^ Dorsey, Skidi Pawnee^ 307. 
 
 3 Herod, iii. 28; Mela, i. 9; ^lian, De Nat. Anim. xi. lo ; 
 Plut. De hide, 43. 4 Radloff, iii. 82. 
 
 ^ Crooke, Tribes and Castes, iv. i6, quoting Calcutta Rev. Ixxxvi. 
 
 • De Charencey, 210, citing Father Giov. Fil. Marini ; Southey, 
 Comtnonpl. Book, iv. 41, quoting Picart; Ellis. Polyn. Rts. i. 362. 
 
THE STORIES 27 
 
 hero and creator (or rather transformer) of the Hupa 
 of California fertilised two women by his look. The 
 incident is related not merely in the sacred narrative, 
 but also in a charm used to facilitate childbirth/ The 
 Yana, another Californian tribe, tell of two sisters each 
 of whom gave birth to a boy in consequence of the 
 chicken-hawk's son's looking at them through his 
 fino-ers.^ At Rome the birth of Servius Tullius was 
 by tradition imputed to a look. His mother, Ocrisia, 
 was a slave of Tanaquil the wife of Tarquinius Priscus. 
 The likeness of a phallus appeared on the hearth ; 
 and she, who was sitting before it, arose pregnant of 
 the future king. The household Lar was deemed his 
 father, in confirmation of which a lambent flame was 
 seen about the child's head as he lay asleep.^ 
 
 Numerous m'drchen found throughout the continent 
 of Europe belonging to the cycle of the Lucky Fool, 
 represent conception as the result of the utterance of a 
 wish by a man. The power to wish with effect is 
 bestowed sometimes by a supernatural being, some- 
 times by one of the lower animals. But in a story 
 from Damascus a supernatural being himself is by 
 this means the father of the child.^ So in a saga of 
 the Wishosk of California a supernatural being bearing 
 the euphonious name of Gudatrigakwitl, who was 
 as near an approach to a savage creator as can be 
 found, seems to have formed everything by a wish. 
 
 ^ Goddard, Hupa, 126, 279, 
 
 ^ Curtin, Creation Myths, 348. 
 
 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 70. Ovid (Fasti, vi. 629) and Arnobius 
 (Adv. Gent. v. 18) regard Ocrisia as not quite so innocent. Accord- 
 ing to the former, Vulcan it was who was the father. Livy (i. 39) 
 rationalises the tale ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch add 
 pomp and circumstance. * Oestrup, 57 (Story No. 3). 
 
28 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Afterwards he went about and when he saw a woman 
 and wished her to be pregnant, forthwith she conceived/ 
 Sometimes a wish uttered by the woman herself has 
 the same effect. Dr. Paton reports two Greek tales 
 from the ^gean, in one of which a woman wishes for 
 a child *' were it but a laurel-berry," in the other for 
 "a son even though he were a donkey." In both the 
 wish is granted literally.'^ The might of a curse or 
 any other verbal charm is one of the commonplaces of 
 folklore. It is deeply rooted in savage belief, where the 
 mere expression or even the formation without ex- 
 pression of a wish is sufficient to obtain the result. 
 Assyrian tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs yield in- 
 cantations without number. The repetition of these 
 formulae is supposed to produce the effect desired. 
 Virtue, or to use a Melanesian term mana, goes out 
 from the speaker or the chanter, or the person who 
 wills the event ; and the object is attained. Stories of 
 pregnancy caused by a wish are merely examples of 
 incantation employed for a particular purpose. The 
 power which animates the form of words is magical, 
 that is to say, supranormal ; it is mana. 
 
 The tales of Supernatural Birth are practically 
 inexhaustible. In the foregoing pages I have done no 
 more than select and summarise a few belonging to 
 various types within the limit of our inquiry, namely, 
 narratives of births independent of sexual intercourse 
 but the result of means we now know to be inadequate 
 and inappropriate for the reproduction of mankind. It 
 is not too much to say that the myth of Supernatural 
 Birth as thus defined is worldwide. Efforts have often 
 
 ^ Kroeber, /o«r«. Am. F. L. xviii. 96. 
 * F. L. xi. 339 ; xii. 320. 
 
THE STORIES 29 
 
 been made to prove that it has travelled from one 
 centre and thence become diffused throughout the 
 earth. Such efforts are generally connected with a 
 desire to uphold the truth of divine revelation, and 
 consequently to trace the tale to a corrupted form of 
 Hebrew-Christian tradition. They are doomed to 
 failure. The myth is too far-spread — what is more 
 important, it is much too deeply rooted in the savage 
 belief and practices of both hemispheres — to be 
 accounted for by the plain and easy theory of borrowing. 
 This I shall proceed to show in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MAGICAL PRACTICES TO OBTAIN 
 CHILDREN 
 
 It is still thought possible to obtain children in the 
 manner described in the stories. Use of vegetable sub- 
 stances. The Mandrake. Use of animal substances. 
 Use of minerals. Sacred wells. Use of water and other 
 liquids. Ceremonies to obtain a transfer of fecundity or 
 of the life of another. Bathing or sprinkling. Puberty 
 rites and taboos of girls considered as means to obtain, or 
 for the moment to avoid, conception. Conception by sun, 
 moon, stars, fire. Midsummer fires. The Lupercal. 
 Discussion of the meaning of the blows by the Luperci, 
 and similiar practices in Europe and elsewhere. Con- 
 ception by the foot. The attempt to share the fecundity 
 of another. The virtue of sacred vestments. Amulets. 
 Contact with sacred stones, images, and other sub- 
 stances. Marriage rites. Jumping over a stone, broom- 
 stick, or other object. Votive offerings and the throwing 
 of stones. Vows. Simulation. Belief in fecundation by 
 the eye and ear and by wind. The stories, beliefs, and 
 practices disclose an ancient and widespread belief that 
 pregnancy was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse. 
 
 Since then, amid all differences of race and culture, 
 birth has thus been held, broadly speaking over the 
 whole world, to have been caused on various occasions 
 in the marvellous ways enumerated in the foregoing 
 chapter, it is natural to ask whether it has also been 
 thought possible still to make effectual use of such 
 means to produce pregnancy in barren women. The 
 
 30 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 31 
 
 answer is, that It has been, and still is, thought 
 possible. In other words, the traditions of past 
 miracles are organically connected in the popular mind 
 with practices expressly calculated to produce re- 
 petitions of those miracles. It will be observed, how- 
 ever, that parthenogenesis is often spoken of in the 
 stories ; whereas, for the most part, the object of the 
 practices I am about to describe is to promote concep- 
 tion by women who are in the habit of having sexual 
 intercourse. The distinction is often immaterial. In 
 the stage of civilisation, whether among a barbarous 
 or savage people, or among the more backward classes 
 of modern Europe, wherein the stories are told and the 
 practices obtain, medicine and surgery are not as yet 
 separated from magic, nor is there any clear boundary 
 in the mind between the natural and the supernatural. 
 We cannot, therefore, speak positively as to the mean- 
 ing and intention of all the practices. But it is clear 
 that a large number of them, as well as of the stories, 
 imply, if we are not told in so many words, that the 
 origin of the child afterwards born is not the semen 
 received in the act of coition, but the drug or the 
 magical potency of the ceremony or the incantation. 
 In the stories, especially those that have reached us 
 from a comparatively developed civilisation, this is 
 often emphasised by the allegation of the mother's 
 virginity. Among savages and very commonly among 
 peoples whose civilisation is low, though they may be 
 above the status of actual savagery, virginity is of 
 little account, and maidenhood, except of mere infants, 
 is practically unknown. But the fact that the failure 
 of the ordinary means of reproduction in these circum- 
 stances leads to the trial of other methods presupposes 
 
31 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 a faith in the latter as an efficient means to the end. 
 And such means are used not merely in combination 
 with, but in many cases independently of, sexual 
 intercourse. , 
 
 One of the favourite methods of supernatural 
 impregnation in the stories is by eating some fruit 
 or herb. Nor is this method by any means neglected 
 in practice. The maxim attributed to the Druids 
 leaps to the mind, namely, that the powder of mistletoe 
 makes women fruitful. In this form it is perhaps 
 apocryphal ; but Pliny records their belief that a decoc- 
 tion of mistletoe gives fecundity to all barren animals ; 
 and in the book of medical recipes deemed to be 
 derived from the ancient Physicians of Myddfai in 
 Carmarthenshire and printed in the year 1861 from a 
 Welsh manuscript bearing date in 1801, we find 
 it stated that such a decoction causes fruitfulness of 
 body and the getting of children.^ The same virtue is 
 ascribed to the plant by the Ainu of Japan, who hold 
 it in peculiar veneration and among whom barren 
 women have been known to eat it in order to bear 
 children.'^ We are not called upon to decide whether 
 in the Welsh book, the virtues of the magical plant 
 have faded into merely natural efficacy. Two manu- 
 scripts are printed in the volume. The earlier includes 
 two recipes for the cure of sterility in women, ap- 
 parently regarded as a disease to be dealt with by 
 ordinary medicaments.^ On the other hand, in the 
 
 ^ Pliny, xvi. 95; Meddygon Myddfai, 269. The Physicians of 
 Myddfai were of supernatural descent, and their knowledge and 
 skill were attributed in the first instance to their fairy ancestress. 
 Both MSS. comprised in the volume sadly need careful reprinting 
 and proper editing. * Batchelor, 222. 
 
 3 Meddygon Myddfai^ 7, 27, 45, 76. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 33 
 
 later manuscript something more than the light of 
 common day still glorifies the rosemary. Among 
 other things we are told that to carry a piece of this 
 plant is to keep every evil spirit at a distance, and that 
 it has all the virtues of the stone called jet. It was 
 because it was obnoxious to evil spirits that it was used 
 at funerals. But it was not only used at funerals. 
 There is a story told by an old writer of a widower who 
 wished to be married again on the day of his former 
 wife's funeral, because the rosemary employed at the 
 funeral could be used for the wedding also. For its 
 use at weddings there was an additional reason which 
 may be inferred from the Welsh manuscript, where it 
 is prescribed as a remedy for barrenness/ For the 
 same purpose it was administered elsewhere by 
 physicians in the seventeenth century with grains of 
 mastic,^ and it appears to have a reputation still in some 
 parts of Belgium,^ 
 
 We tura to less ambiguous proceedings. Among the 
 ancient Medes, Persians and Bactrians the juice of the 
 sacred soma was prescribed to procure for unpro- 
 ductive women fair children and a pure succession.^ 
 Thus the birth of Zoroaster himself was, as we have 
 seen, believed to have been caused.^ One of the rules 
 for the performance of the Vedic domestic ceremonies, 
 
 ^ Meddygon Myc/d/m, 263; Friend, 113, 124, 581, Compare the 
 parallel uses of rue (i. Arch. Religionsw. 108 ; Hofler, Volksmed. 104). 
 
 * Ploss, Weib, i. 434. Some of the many similar prescriptions by 
 physicians and in folk-medicine are given in the context. A Gipsy 
 charm quoted by Leland from Dr. von Wlislocki prescribes oats to 
 be given to a mare out of an apron or gourd, with an incantation 
 expressly bidding her " Eat, fill thy belly with young ! " {Gip : Sore. 
 84). ' Am Urquell, vi. 218. 
 
 * Ploss, Wcib, i. 431, citing Duncker. * Supra, p. 12. 
 
 c 
 
34 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 given in the Grihya-Siltras , directs the householder 
 who does not study the Upanishad treating of the rules 
 for securing conception, the male gender of the child, 
 and so forth, to give his wife in the third month of her 
 pregnancy, after she has fasted, in curds from a cow 
 which has a calf of the same colour as the dam, two 
 beans and a barleycorn for each handful of curds. 
 Then he is to ask her: "What dost thou drink?" 
 To which she is to reply : " Generation of a male 
 child." When the curds and the question and response 
 have been thrice repeated, he is to insert into her 
 right nostril the sap of a herb which is not withered.-^ 
 One can hardly doubt that this is a ceremony to 
 procure offspring, though according to the rubric not 
 performed until after conception has taken place. 
 Modern Hindu women adopt various means for this 
 purpose. " The most approved plan," says Mr. 
 Crooke, "is to visit a shrme with a reputation for 
 healing this class of malady. There the patient is 
 given a cocoa-nut (which is a magic substance), a fruit 
 or even a barleycorn from the holy of holies." A 
 cocoa-nut in particular " is the symbol of fertility, and 
 all through Upper India is kept in shrines and pre- 
 sented by the priest to women who desire children."^ 
 Every morning at the shrine of Siva an offering of 
 milk, honey and small cakes is made. " A woman 
 who eats tiiese offerings is preserved from sterility" — 
 that is, she is blessed with issue. ^ In Bombay a 
 woman who wishes for a child, especially a son, 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, xxix. i8o; cf. 395. 
 
 2 Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 227 ; ii. 106. 
 
 3 Mel, viii. 109. A number of prescriptions of vegetable and 
 animal substances from old pharmaceutical and magical sources have 
 been collected by M. Tuchmann, Id. vii. 159, sqq. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 35 
 
 observes the fourth lunar day of every dark fortnight 
 as a fast and breaks her fast only after seeing the moon, 
 generally before nine or ten o'clock in the evening. A 
 dish of twenty-one balls of rice like marbles having 
 been prepared, in one of which is put some salt, it is 
 then placed before her ; and if she first lay her hand on 
 the ball containing salt, she will be blessed with a son. 
 In this case no more is eaten ; otherwise she goes on 
 until she takes the salted ball. This is a ceremony 
 which may only be observed a limited number of times ; 
 once, five, seven, eleven or twenty-one times. If she 
 fail altogether to pick out the salted ball first, she is 
 doomed to barrenness.^ At the festival of Rahu, the 
 tribal sfod of the Dosadhs of Behar and Chota 
 Nagpur, the priest distributes to the crowd tulsi-leaves 
 which heal diseases else incurable, and flowers which 
 have the virtue of causing barren women to conceive ; ^ 
 b:;t whether they are to be eaten or (more probably) 
 worn does not appear. 
 
 An old Arab work relates concerning the Isle of 
 Women at the extremity of the Chinese Sea, that it 
 was reported to be inhabited only by women who 
 were fertilised by the wind, or according to another 
 manuscript by a tree the fruit of which they ate.^ The 
 
 ^ Ind. N. and 0. iv. io6. 
 
 2 Risley, i. 256. In ancient Greece certain flowers possessing 
 similar virtue were sacred to Hera (Farnell, i. 182). Mr. Rose has 
 Icollected {J. A. I. xxxv. 271 sqq., 279 sqq.)a. number of observances 
 [by Hindoo and Mohammedan women in the Panjab during and 
 previously to pregnancy. They include in all cases the gift of 
 fruits, rice, and sweets to the woman. Sometimes where these gifts 
 are made to a woman already pregnant she divides them among the 
 kinswomen (even young girls) who assemble on the occasion, the 
 dea being as Mr. Rose with probability concludes " to convey equal 
 fertility to all of them." ^ L'Ab/ege des Merveilles, 71. 
 
36 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 eating of fruit is in fact practised by Arab women to 
 procure fecundity.^ A Tuscan woman who desires 
 offspring goes to a priest, gets a blessed apple and 
 pronounces over it an invocation to Saint Anne.^ The 
 mother of the Virgin is a most sympathetic saint for 
 these cases, since she only gave birth in her old age. 
 Presumably the apple is then eaten ; but Mr. Leland 
 in reporting the custom does not explicitly say so. 
 In the Morbihan a story is told of a girl who was 
 crossed in love and bargained with the Devil for the 
 man of her choice, the consideration being her first 
 child. The Devil however was defrauded by her 
 husband, who plunged the child immediately on birth 
 into a large basin of holy water. In revenge the 
 Evil One carried off the mother, and she was found 
 by a seigneur of Pleguien hanging by the hair to one 
 of the oaks in his avenue. He took her down. 
 She was just able to tell him her story, and to 
 add that she had by incessantly making the sign 
 of the cross protected herself from the tortures 
 which the Devil had designed for her in hell, and 
 consequently he had kicked her with one blow back 
 to earth, where she had been caught by the tree. 
 Before she had time to give her name and place of 
 abode she died. Since that time, whenever a woman 
 of the neighbourhood desires a child she eats a leaf 
 
 1 Jaussen, 35. 
 
 2 Leland, Gip Sore. loi ; Id. Etr. Rom. 246. At King-yang-fu 
 in the Chinese province of Kan-su a goddess of fecundity is wor- 
 shipped by the women. Her shrine is on the top of a mountain 
 and is approached by a long flight of stone steps, which the devotee 
 must ascend on her knees. The goddess appears in a dream and 
 gives fruit to the pilgrim, an apple or a peach if she is to have a 
 boy, plums or pears if a girl {Anthroposy iii. 762), 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 37 
 
 of the oak in question, and her wish is sure to be 
 gratified.-^ 
 
 In the county of Gomor, Hungary, it is believed 
 that a bride, who, at the beginning of summer eats 
 fruit which has grown together [zusammengebackenes 
 Obst) will give birth to twins. ^ In the Spreewald no 
 Wendish woman dares to eat of two plums grown 
 together on one stalk, or she will bear twins. ^ An 
 unmarried girl in Bavaria will not venture to eat two 
 apples or other fruit which have Q^rown together, or 
 she will when married bear twins/ In Poitou a 
 woman who eats a fruit having two kernels in one 
 envelope will suffer the same penalty.^ The aboriginal 
 inhabitants of Paraguay supposed that a woman who 
 ate a double ear of maize would give birth to twins.* 
 In the East Indies the Galelarese are also of opinion 
 that if a women eat up by herself a twin banana (that 
 is, two bananas the rinds of which have orrown 
 together) she will have twins.' On the island of 
 Riigen, in Mecklenburg, Voigtland and Saxon Tran- 
 sylvania and about Mentone only pregnant women are 
 threatened with the penalty.^ Among the Tagalas 
 the husband of a pregnant woman is forbidden for the 
 same reason to eat such fruit.® These taboos are 
 
 ^ Rev. Trad. Rop. xvii. 1 1 1 . Compare Queen Isolte's lily (De 
 Charencey, 230). 
 
 ^ Temesvary, 10. ^ von Schulenburg, 232. 
 
 * Lammert, 158. * Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 391. 
 
 ^ Featherman, Chiapo-Mar, 444. ' Bijdragen, xlv. 467. 
 
 8 Am Urqitell,Y. 1803 Ploss, Kind, i. 30; Wuttke, 376; Johann 
 Hillner, Prograimn des Evang. Gymnasiums in Schdssburg, 1877, 
 13; J. B, Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. iii. The limitation to 
 pregnant women is probably a late form of the superstition. 
 
 ^ H. Ling Roth, /owrM. Anihr. Inst. xxii. 209. In the island of 
 Aurora, a woman sometimes takes it into her head " that the 
 
3^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 inexplicable save on the supposition that the fruit 
 causes pregnancy. 
 
 The Kwakiutl of British Columbia chew the gum 
 of the red pine. " That of the white pme is not used 
 by girls, because it is believed to make them 
 pregnant."^ The Querranna, one of the cult societies 
 of the Sia, possess a medicine called sewz/i, composed 
 of the roots and the blossoms of the six mythical 
 medicine plants of the sun, archaic white shell- and 
 black stone-beads, turquoise and a yellow stone. This 
 is ground to a fine powder with great ceremony. To 
 a woman who wishes to become pregnant it is ad- 
 ministered, a small quantity of the powder being put 
 into cold water, and a '* fetish" of Querranna dipped 
 four times into the water. A single dose ought to be 
 sufficient. The same medicine is also administered on 
 ceremonial occasions to the members of the society for 
 the perpetuation of their race ; and the honaaite (priest 
 or theurgist) taking a mouthful squirts it to the 
 cardinal points, " that the cloud people may gather 
 and send rain that the earth may be fruitful." Quer- 
 ranna was the second man created by Utset, one of 
 
 origin, or beginning, of one of her children is a cocoa-nut, or bread- 
 truit, or something of that kind " ; and this gives rise to a pro- 
 hibition of the object for food, just as in the case of a totem 
 (Codrington, in Id. xviii. 310 ; Rep. Austr. Ass. ii. 612). I hardly 
 know how to account for this notion except by the suggestion that 
 such a woman may have eaten the fruit about the time her preg- 
 nancy commenced, and thence have been led to believe that the 
 pregnancy was due to it. Upon inquiry, however, of Dr. Codrington, 
 he informed me that he had never heard of any belief of the kind. 
 It is perhaps worth noting as a coincidence, if nothing more, that 
 on Lepers' Island, the two intermarrying divisions are called '■'■ branches 
 of fruit, "as if," says Dr. Codrington (Melanesians, 26), "all the 
 members hang on the same stalk." 
 ^ Boas, in Rep. Brit. Ass. 1896, 579- 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 39 
 
 the creative heroines of the tribal mythology. He 
 received from the sun the secret of the medicine which 
 would make both the earth and women fruitful. Hence 
 the society bearing his name has charge of the 
 medicine and performs the rites necessary for both 
 purposes.^ Among the Kansa, a Siouan tribe, a man 
 was reported as having had a red medicine, which was 
 used for women who desired to have children, for 
 horses and for causing good dreams ; but whether it 
 was to be taken internally does not appear." In the 
 Lower Congo a barren woman goes to a nganga 
 ndembo, who takes certain leaves (the identity of 
 which is kept secret), squeezes their juice into palm- 
 wine and gives it to her to drink. ^ The Czech 
 women of Bohemia drink an infusion of juniper to 
 obtain children ; and coffee enjoys a high reputation 
 in Franconia. In China and Japan a medicine called 
 Kay-tu-sing, made from the leaves of a tree belonging 
 to the Tei^nstromacecs, is given at full moon with 
 cabalistic formulae. In the Fiji Islands the woman 
 bathes in a stream, and then both husband and wife 
 take a drink made with the grated root of a kind of 
 bread-fruit tree and the nut of a sort of turmeric, 
 immediately before congress. Siberian brides before 
 the marriage-night eat the cooked fruit of the Iris 
 Sibirica. Asparagus seeds and young hop- buds pre- 
 pared as salad are given to women in Styria against 
 barrenness, They are then required to abstain from 
 conjugal relations for two months, and be bled, 
 before resumingf them. Serb women o-et a woman 
 already pregnant to put yeast into theit girdles ; they 
 
 ^ Rep. Bitr. Ethn. xi. 11,3, -^t^., 71. 
 
 2 Ibid. 4t8. 3 J H. Weeks, F. L. xix. 419 
 
40 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 sleep with it overnight, and eat it in the morning at 
 breakfast.^ The Mexican population just within the 
 southern boundary of Texas make a decoction of a 
 plant called the Verba Gonzalez, which must be pre- 
 pared before the rising of the moon and set to cool in 
 the moonlight the same night. A barren woman must 
 drink of this decoction and take a bath in it every 
 eighth day, and immediately afterwards take a purge. 
 This procedure lasts for forty days, during which no 
 conjugal relations are allowed. She then rests a day 
 from all labour and at night under the direct rays of 
 the moon she takes a final bath in the decoction, after 
 which she may be sure of offspring. When she feels 
 that her wish has been granted she must present her- 
 self at the first soul-mass before the altar of the Virgin 
 and there dedicate a milagro (literally, miracle), a 
 votive offering of silver in the shape of a boy or girl, 
 according to the sex of the child she desires.^ At 
 Kalotaszeg, in Hungary, the sterile woman eats every 
 Friday before sunrise cantharides and hemp-flowers 
 boiled in ass' milk, and shaking the bough of a tree 
 says : " Mr. Friday went to the forest, there met 
 Mrs. Saturday, and said to her, * Let us embrace.' 
 Mrs. Saturday thrust him away and said, ' Thou art 
 a dry twig ; when thou art green again, come to me ! ' 
 Twig, give me strength ; I give thee mine." ^ This 
 
 ^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 434, 431, 432, 445, citing various authorities. 
 But as usual after Dr. Bartels' editing it is not possible in all cases to 
 identify them. The case last cited seems to be a bridal ceremony. 
 
 2 Globus, Ixxxviii. 381. 
 
 ^ Temesvary, 9. Another version is given by von Wlislocki 
 {Volksleb. 137), who adds a detail rendering it still clearer that the 
 object is to unite the woman to the fruitful tree. The Ottoman 
 Jews have a custom which points to the same idea. In order 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 41 
 
 ceremony is evidently an attempt to obtain by magical 
 means the productive virtue of the tree, and probably 
 was originally independent of the medicament. In 
 Friuli, when a bride is introduced into the nuptial 
 chamber her husband causes her to eat a slice of 
 quince.^ In ancient Greece the bride and bridegroom 
 used to eat of a quince together.^ 
 
 It is not irrelevant here to recall that European 
 children who are curious to know whence their little 
 brothers and sisters have come are often told that 
 they come from a tree or a plant. Thus, in England 
 they are said to come out of the parsley-bed or the 
 cabbage-bed ; in Belgium and in France they are 
 
 not to lose her children the mother about to give birth puts an apple 
 on her head. According to a Midrash the Israelite mothers in 
 Egypt, before Moses, used to be delivered under the apple-trees to 
 avoid the persecutions of the infanticide King [Mel. viii. 267). This 
 practice is alluded to as still rife in the Song of Solomon, viii, 5. 
 The last sentence in the Magyar spell above makes allusion to the 
 reciprocal influence of the woman and the tree, when thus united. 
 This of course logically results from the union. In Swabia a 
 woman who is " in an interesting condition " for the first time 
 ought to eat of a tree which bears for the first time ; then both of 
 them will become very fruitful. To this, however, there is one 
 exception ; if an apple be grafted on a whitethorn, and some of the 
 fruit be given to a pregnant woman to eat, she cannot bear (Meier, 
 Sagen, 476, 474). It is a saying at Pforzheim, "To make a nut- 
 tree bear, let a pregnant woman pick the first nuts " (Grimm, Teut. 
 Myth. 1802). The idea of reciprocal influence is very conmion in 
 folklore, and is the foundation of many magical practices (see ii. Leg. 
 Pers. passim). 
 
 ^ Ostermann, 348, 
 
 2 Plutarch, Solon, xx. Among the Manchus the bride and 
 bridegroom sit on a bed face to face. An offspring dumpling is then 
 brought in and handed to the bridegroom, who eats a mouthful. It 
 is next handed to the bride, who takes a small piece into her mouth 
 and afterwards spits it out, as an omen that the marriage wifl be 
 productive of a numerous offspring {F. L. i. 488). 
 
42 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 found under the cabbages (under the parson's cabbages, 
 at Stavelot), or they are dug out of the garden by the 
 midwife ; ^ at Siena, the midwife is said to have found 
 them under a tree or a cabbage ; ^ in the Abruzzi, 
 the child is said to come from a tree or to be found 
 under a tree or in a hedge, in a bunch of grapes, in a 
 pumpkin, or the like ; ^ in various parts of Germany 
 children are said to come out of a hollow lime-tree, 
 beech, or oak, or out of the vegetable-garden.* It 
 may be thought that this is merely a convenient way 
 of parrying awkward questions. It would seem, how- 
 ever, ^to be more than this. In England, in France, 
 and in the Walloon Country a quasi-sacred character 
 is attached to parsley. A parsley-bed must not be 
 dug up nor the parsley transplanted, lest some one in 
 the family die or other ill-luck ensue. Even to plant 
 it is to dig the grave of the head of the family or one 
 of the kindred ; on the other hand, to neglect to weed 
 it is to incur misfortune, so closely is it associated 
 with the life of the family.^ In various parts of 
 France cabbages are given to the newly-wedded pair 
 as a ritual article of food on the marriage night. They 
 are served either in broth in the course of the evening 
 or cooked together with a fowl and partaken of after 
 the pair have retired to the nuptial couch. The 
 plantation or transplantation of a cabbage by the bride- 
 groom is sometimes part of the wedding ceremonies.® 
 
 At Bruneck, in the Tirol, a great hollow ash is 
 shown from which children are brought. At Aargau 
 
 F. L. ii. 112, 148 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 474. 
 - Archivio, xiii. 475. ^ Finamore, Trad. Pop. Abr. 56. 
 
 " Am Urquell, iv. 224; v. 162, 287. 
 ' Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 463, 464, 473. ® Ibid. 515. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 43 
 
 such a tree is called the child-pear-tree. At Nierstein, 
 in Hesse, is a great lime-tree from which children for 
 the whole neighbourhood are fetched. At Gummers- 
 bach is another. A short distance from Nauders, in 
 the Tirol, stood a sacred tree, the last of the wood. 
 It was a larch. Torn and maimed by age and storms, 
 it was reduced to a mere trunk, and at last cut down 
 in the winter of 1855, though the stump remained in 
 the ground for several years longer. From this 
 sacred tree it w^as believed that children, especially 
 the boys, were brought. From its neighbourhood 
 superstitious awe prevented timber or firewood from 
 being gathered. Crying or screaming near it was 
 deemed a serious misbehaviour ; quarrelling, cursing, 
 or scolding was looked upon as an offence that called 
 to heaven for instant punishment. It was generally 
 believed (and the belief was supported by at least one 
 current story) that the tree would bleed if hacked or 
 cut, and that the blow would fall at the same moment 
 on the tree and on the body of the offender who dared 
 to use his axe or knife upon it ; nor would the wound 
 heal in his body until it healed in the tree.^ On the 
 road from Boiizenhagen to Knesebeck, in a district of 
 northern Germany remote from railways, stands an 
 oak called the Children's Tree. It replaces a much 
 older tree, which has disappeared. The people of 
 Boitzenhagen have to go to Knesebeck for baptisms. 
 They always halt on such occasions beside the tree to 
 partake of cakes and brandy, and are careful to give 
 the tree its share of both. Wedding processions also 
 halt and adorn its twio-s with coloured ribbons ; the 
 
 1 Zingerle, Sagen, iio; Atn Urquell, iv. 224; v. 287; Wolf, 
 Hessische Sagen, 13 (No. 15). 
 
44 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 more rapidly these ribbons decay and perish, the 
 greater the luck of the marriage. A story is now told 
 to explain the name of the tree from a child who was 
 said to have been forgotten there and torn to pieces 
 by a wild boar ; but it is more probable, as Dr. Andree 
 remarks, that the tree was an old and sacred tree 
 whence children were believed to come. The ob- 
 servances just mentioned point at least in that direc- 
 tion, and seem to show that it was regarded as in 
 some way a fecundating power.-' This, in fact, is the 
 light in which the Bahoni, a Bantu people on one of 
 the tributaries of the Upper Congo, regard the kola- 
 tree which occupies the centre of each of their villages. 
 Under it assemblies are held; it "belongs to the 
 chief, and is supposed to exercise an influence upon 
 the fertility of his wives. When one of the latter 
 menstruates the chief gives it a cut to remind it of its 
 duty." Its fruit is considered an aphrodisiac, and is 
 reserved to the chief and privileged guests.^ 
 
 Before passing from the eating of fruit and vege- 
 tables, let me point out that the duddim, for which 
 Rachel bargained with Leah, seem to have been 
 possessed of power to put an end to barrenness ; and 
 this, as we gather from the record in Genesis, quite 
 independently of sexual intercourse, for Rachel, who 
 was bitterly envious of Leah's fertility, gave up her 
 husband to her sister in exchange for them. From 
 the Septuagint and Josephus downwards the duddim 
 have been identified with the mandrake, a plant which 
 has been during all history credited with supernatural 
 
 1 Zeits. des Vereins, vi. 366. Other examples are cited by 
 Dieterich, Mutter Erde, 19 sqq. 
 
 2 Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxvi. 291. | 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 45 
 
 powers.^ In particular, it has been held potent as a 
 cause of pregnancy. Henry Maundrell, travelling' in 
 Palestine in the spring" of 1697, httle more than two 
 centuries ago, was informed that it was then customary 
 for women who wanted children to lay mandrakes 
 under the bed.^ It is probable that he did not learn 
 the whole truth. At the present day, in the extremely 
 modern city of Chicago, orthodox Jews are living who 
 import mandrakes from the East. These mandrakes 
 "are rarely sold for less than four dollars, and one 
 young man whose wife is barren recently paid ten 
 dollars for a specimen." The roots, from their shape, 
 "are still thought to be male and female; they are 
 used remedially, a bit being scraped into water and 
 taken internally ; they are valued talismans ; and they 
 ensure fertility to women. " ^ The root of the mandrake, 
 or mandragora, in common with that of several species 
 of plants, has a rough resemblance to human shape — 
 a resemblance which was and still is heightened by 
 art. From this resemblance, according to the doctrine 
 of Signatures, it probably was that the belief in its 
 magic, and especially its procreative, power arose. 
 The prescription current in the Middle Ages for 
 gathering mandrakes dates from classical times. Pliny 
 directs those who gather the plant to take care to 
 keep on the windward side, to circumscribe it thrice 
 with a sword (that is evidently, to surround it with a 
 magic circle drawn with iron) and then to dig it up at 
 
 ^ Gen. XXX. 14 ; Joseph. Ant. i. 19. The mandrake seems to be 
 still used by Jewish and Moslem women in Palestine, [Folklore, xviii. 
 67). It is said to smell offensively. This probably applies only to 
 the root, since the golden-yellow fruit is aromatic [Internat. Arch. 
 vii. 204; Song of Solomon, vii. 13). ^ Early Trav. 434. 
 
 3 Starr, in American Antiquarian, 1901 (1902?), 267. 
 
46 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 sunset.-^ A dog was sometimes tied to it, and then 
 called or enticed away. The dog's efforts to move 
 pulled the plant out of the ground. This proceeding, 
 it may be observed, is recommended by Josephus in 
 respect to a plant which he calls baaras, and which, 
 perhaps, is the mandrake, though he states its only 
 use is to drive out demons.^ A dog is said to be still 
 used near Chieti, in the Abruzzi ; and the Danubian 
 Gipsies, when they gather a kind of orchid called by 
 them boy-root, lay the root half-bare with a knife 
 never before used, and tie a black dog by its tail to it. 
 A piece of ass-flesh is then offered to the animal, and 
 when he springs after it he pulls out the plant. The 
 representation of a linga is carved out of the root in 
 question, wrapped in a piece of hart's leather, and 
 worn on the naked arm to promote conception.^ The 
 Shang-hih [^Phytolacca acinosa) has a similar reputation 
 among the Chinese to that of the mandrake, and for 
 the same reason — its anthropomorphous root. We 
 are told, on the authority of a Chinese herbal, that its 
 black ripe fruit is highly valued by rustic women as 
 favouring their fertility. Sorcerers dig it up with 
 magical rites, carve the root into a closer human like- 
 ness and endow it by means of their spells with the 
 capacity of telling fortunes. Finally, without enumera- 
 ting all the parallel beliefs, like the mandrake, it is 
 
 1 Pliny, XXV. 13. See Dr. CoUey March, in F. L. xii. 340. 
 
 2 Josephus, Wars, vii. 6. The use of the dog is reported by 
 ^lian (Nat. Anim. xiv. 27) to obtain a herb he called cynospastos, 
 or aglaophotis. 
 
 ^ De Gubernatis, Myth. Plantes. ii. 215 note. Prof. Starr {loc. 
 cit.) notes that this root does not simulate human form, but it does 
 suggest the male organ. His article contains an excellent sum- 
 mary of what is known about the mandrake. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN ^7 
 
 esteemed as a philtre, and is believed to grow upon 
 the ground beneath which a dead man lies, just as the 
 mandrake was beHeved to grow beneath the gallows/ 
 The significance of this will appear by-and-by. 
 
 Animal substances of various kinds are taken with 
 intent to obtain children. An insect in India called 
 pillai-ptichchi, or son-insect, is swallowed in large 
 numbers by women in the hope of bearing sons.^ 
 Kamtchatkan women who wish to bear eat spiders.^ 
 To this day, in Egypt and the Eastern Soudan, the 
 scarab, which was sacred among the ancient Egyptians, 
 is "dried, pounded, and mixed with water, and then 
 drunk by women, who believe it," we are told, " to be an 
 unfailing specific for the production of large families." ^ 
 The women of the Lkungen, one of the British 
 Columbian tribes, drink a decoction of wasps' nests, or 
 of flies — insects both of which lay many eggs.^ Among 
 the Southern Slavs, the wife who desires offspring 
 places a wooden bowl full of water beneath a beam of 
 
 ^ For further details about the mandrake and other plants to 
 which similar beliefs attached, see Internat. Arch. vii. 8i, 199; viii. 
 249 ; xii. 21 ; Hertz, Die Sage voin GifUnddchen {Abhandl. k. bayer. 
 Acad. Wiss. 1893), 76; De Gubernatis, op. cit. \\. 213; T, W. 
 Davies, Magic Divination and Demonology among the Hebrews, 
 London [1898], 34; and Prof. Starr's article already referred to. 
 Certain roots are also held by the Pawnees of North America to be 
 transformations of a primitive race of giants destroyed by Tirawa, 
 the head of the tribal pantheon. These roots are in the shape of 
 human beings. They are possessed of curative powers, and for that 
 purpose are dug up with ceremonies, incantations, and an offering 
 of tobacco-smoke (Dorsey, Pawnee Myth. i. 296). A similar (perhaps 
 the same) root was known and prized among the Algonkins 
 (Charlevoix, vi. 24). 
 
 2 Panjab {Indian) N. and O. iv. 107 (par. 415). 
 
 2 Ploss, Weib, i. 432, citing Krashneninnikov. 
 
 * Budge, Egypt. Magic, 39. 
 
 ^ Boas, Rep. N. IV. Tribes, in Rep. Brit. Ass. 1890, 577, 581. 
 
48 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the roof where it is worm-eaten and the worm-dust 
 falls. Her husband strikes the beam with something 
 heavy, so as to shake the dust out of the worm-holes ; 
 and she drinks the water containing the dust that falls. 
 Many a woman seeks in knots of hazelwood for a 
 worm, and eats it when found.^ All these women 
 thus do voluntarily what the mothers of Conchobar 
 and Cuchulainn are reported to have done against 
 their wills. Hungarian Gipsy- w^omen gather the 
 floating threads of cobweb from the fields in autumn, 
 and in the waxing of the moon they, with their hus- 
 bands, eat them, murmuring an incantation to the 
 Keshalyi, or Fate, whose sorrow at this season for her 
 lost mortal husband causes her to tear out her hair. 
 These threads are believed to be the Keshalyi's hair ; 
 and the incantation attributes the hoped-for child to 
 them, and invites the Fate to the baptism.^ A Gipsy 
 tradition from Transylvania derives the origin of the 
 Leila tribe from a king's daughter who ate some of 
 the hairs of a compassionate Keshalyi, dropped for 
 the purpose in her way.^ 
 
 The last-mentioned practice, as well as some referred 
 to on a previous page and some of the others which 
 follow, are not confined to women. They seem to 
 have been extended by analogy to the other sex. 
 The fish is a prolific symbol so well known that it is 
 not surprising occasionally to find its use thus extended, 
 English gallants at one time were said to swallow 
 loaches in wine to become prolific. Farquhar in 
 
 ^ Krauss, Sitte und Branch, 531. Compare a Gipsy story, ron 
 Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 343. 
 
 * von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 13. 
 ' von Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 183. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 49 
 
 The Constant Couple, written at the end of the 
 seventeenth century, puts into the mouth of one of his 
 characters the words : " I have toasted your ladyship 
 fifteen bumpers successively, and swallowed Cupids 
 like loaches in every glass." ^ Dr. Schultz, curator of 
 the Ethnographical Museum at Leyden, received not 
 long ago from a friend who had returned from the 
 Dutch East Indies a Y\\i\.^-^^ \Fistularia serratd), 
 given to him by a Chinese in the Segara Anakkan, 
 or Children's Sea, a district on the south coast of 
 Java, with the assurance that if the husband of a 
 childless woman ate it, he would obtain the desired 
 offspring.^ 
 
 A curious tale is told by the famous French traveller 
 Tavernier, of events that happened at Ahmaddbdd 
 when he was there about the year 1642. The wife of 
 a rich merchant named Saintidas, being childless, was 
 advised by a servant in her household to eat three 
 or four of a certain little fish. Her religrion forbade 
 animal food ; but the servant overcame her scruples, 
 saying that he knew how to disguise it so well that s'le 
 would not know what she was eating. She acco d- 
 ingly tried the remedy, and the next night she 
 conceived by her husband. Before the child was 
 born, Saintidas died, and his relations claimed the 
 inheritance. They treated her assertion that she was 
 pregnant as a lie or a joke, seeing that she had been 
 married fifteen or sixteen years without bearing. 
 The governor, however, on being appealed to, com- 
 pelled them to wait until she was delivered. Vv'hen 
 this happened, they alleged that the child was ille- 
 
 ^ Southey, Commonpl. Book, iii. 20, 75. 
 "^ Int. Arch. ix. 138. 
 
5© PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 gitimate. The governor consulted the doctors, who 
 advised that the infant should be taken to the bath, 
 and that if the mother's story were true the infant 
 would smell of fish. The experiment was tried, and 
 the child's legitimacy was held to be proven. The 
 inheritance was considerable, and the relatives were 
 persons of position. Not satisfied with the result, 
 they went to Agra and appealed to the King, who 
 ordered the test to be repeated in his presence. 
 It was repeated, with the same success as on the 
 previous occasion ; and the widow and child retained 
 the property. *^ This train of incidents is reported to 
 us from a high stage of civilisation. Consequently 
 it would be in vain to expect to find in anything 
 like purity the ideas which it embodies. But in spite 
 of impurity, in spite of the share apparently assigned 
 to the husband in the procreation of the infant, 
 it is clear that the fish is regarded as much more than 
 a medicine for an abnormal condition of the wife's 
 body. It is a true fertiliser, a true begetter, one of 
 whose most distinctive characteristics is reproduced in 
 the offspring. The Gonds of India perform, a week 
 after a death, the rice of bringing back the soul of the 
 deceased. " They go to the riverside, call out the 
 name of the dead man, catch a fish, and bring it home. 
 In some cases they eat it in the belief that by so doing 
 the deceased will be born again as a child in the 
 family."^ Here the practice has become connected 
 with a belief which we shall discuss in the next 
 .•:hapter. On every Christmas Eve unfruitful wives 
 among the Transylvanian Saxons eat fish and throw 
 
 ^ Tavernier, Trav. in Ind. i. 75. 
 ^ Crooke, Things Indian, 221. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 51 
 
 the bones into flowing water, in the hope of bringing 
 children into the world. ^ 
 
 Like some other rites for producing fertility, rites in 
 which fish play a part are performed on the occasion 
 of a marriage. '* The Brahmans of Kanara take the 
 married pair to a pond and make them throw rice into 
 the water and catch a few minnows. They let all go 
 save one, with whose scales they mark their brows. If 
 there be no pond near, the rite is done by making a 
 fish of wheat-flour, dropping it into a vessel of water, 
 taking it out and marking their foreheads with the 
 paste."- The so-called Spanish Jews at Constantinople 
 and elsewhere have a custom that the newly wedded 
 bride and bridegroom immediately after the religious 
 ceremony jump three times over a large platter filled 
 with fresh fish. According to other accounts they 
 step seven times backwards and forwards over a single 
 fish. The ceremony is expounded in the Jeivish 
 Chronicle to be the symbol of a prayer for children.* 
 Thus in the contemplation of the more enlightened 
 members of the community a magical rite has faded 
 into a mere symbol. In our own country a practice 
 analogous to that attributed to the orahants of the 
 seventeenth century still lingers in regard to cattle. 
 A clergyman on the Welsh border wrote to me five or 
 six years ago : " I happened to be talking the other day 
 with our blacksmith's wife when we passed the brook 
 where her husband's apprentice was groping for fish. 
 She remarked : ' I wish he could get me a live trout.' 
 I asked for what purpose. She replied : ' To put down 
 
 ^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 54. 
 
 ^ Crooke, Things Indian, 222. 
 
 ' Lobel, 287 ; N. and Q. 6th ser. viii. 513 ; ix. 134. 
 
52 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 our heifer's throat, to make her take the beast' " In the 
 light of the instances already cited, and of the stories re- 
 counted in the previous chapter, we need have no doubt 
 that the live trout was originally not a mere aphrodisiac, 
 but taken in this way possessed real procreative power. 
 Among the Australian aborigines of Tully River, 
 in Northern Queensland, sexual intercourse is not 
 recognised as a cause of conception so far as they 
 themselves are concerned, though it is admitted in the 
 case of the lower animals and is a mark of the inferiority 
 of the latter. They hold that a woman bears children 
 because she has been sitting over a fire on which 
 she has roasted a particular species of black bream, 
 which must have been given to her by the prospective 
 " father " ; or because she has purposely gone a- 
 hunting and has caught a certain kind of bull-frog. 
 Though we are not told what she does with the 
 creature we may assume that she eats it, since little 
 comes amiss to an Australian native in the shape of 
 animal food, unless there be any taboo upon it. It may 
 be added that a third cause assigned for a woman's 
 conception is that " some man may have told her to 
 be in an interesting condition," just as the Lucky 
 Fool does in the stories referred to in the previous 
 chapter. Twins are accounted for by her having 
 dreamed of being told by two different persons to 
 conceive. A fourth cause is that she may have 
 dreamed of having the child put inside her, pre- 
 sumably by a supernatural being.^ The Ottoman Jews 
 
 1 Roth, N. Q. Ethnog. Bull. v. 22 (par. 81); 25 (par. 92). 
 According to Strehlow the Arunta share the belief of the Tully River 
 tribe in the distinction between the mode of propagation of human 
 beings and that of the lower animals (Strehlow, ii. 52). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 53 
 
 prescribe for a woman who has only given birth to- 
 daughters, and who desires also sons, to eat after 
 taking a bath a whole cock, intestines, comb and all :^ 
 a prescription which would seem to make rather an 
 exorbitant demand on her appetite and digestion. 
 The Ainu of Japan persist in regarding the flying 
 squirrel as a bird. It is called At kamui, a name 
 said to mean " the divine prolific one," for it is believed 
 to produce as many as thirty young at a birth, When 
 a woman has no children her husband is advised to 
 hunt for one of these "birds." Having caught it 
 he cuts it up, cooks it, and offers iitao (willow wands, 
 whittled, with the shavings still attached) to the head 
 and skin, and prays: "O thou very prolific one, 
 I have sacrificed thee for one reason only, and that 
 is that I may use thy flesh as a medicine for procuring 
 children. Henceforth, please cause my wife to bear 
 me a child." He is then to take the flesh and give it 
 to his wife to eat, telling her that it is the flesh of 
 some kind of bird, but carefully concealing the fact 
 that it is that of a flying squirrel ; for if she know^ 
 or even guess, what it is the ceremony would be 
 useless, and she would bear no children." 
 
 Barren women among the Thompson Indians of 
 British Columbia ate a roasted mouse of a certain 
 species. An alternative prescription where male chil- 
 dren were desired was a buck's penis. ^ The ancient 
 Prussian bride having been struck and beaten, and so 
 
 1 Mel. viii. 270. 
 
 2 Batchelor, Ainu F. L. 339. The inao were perhaps phallic 
 emblems in origin, though apparently this significance is not now 
 attached to them by the Ainu (Aston, Shinto, 193). 
 
 Teit, in Mem. Am. Mus., Anthrop. i. 509. 
 
54 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 put to bed, a dish of buck's, bull's, or bear's sweetbreads 
 was served to the wedded pair/ The corresponding- 
 portion of a hare was prescribed in wine by our 
 Anglo-Saxon forefathers to the woman who desired 
 a son. "In order that a woman may kindle a male 
 child," a hare's intestines dried and sliced and rubbed 
 into a drink is also recommended in the leech-book to 
 be taken by both husband and wife. If the wife alone 
 drank it, she would produce an hermaphrodite. The 
 hare's magical reputation is well known ; nor are the 
 foregoing the only remedies from its flesh directed 
 in the same work for the same purpose. Four 
 drachms of female hare's rennet to the woman, and 
 the like quantity of male hare's to the man were to be 
 given in wine ; and after directing that the wife should 
 be dieted on mushrooms and forego her bath we are 
 told : "wonderfully she will bring forth "^ — -which we 
 shall not be inclined to dispute. In Fezzan a woman's 
 fruitfulness is said to be increased by the plentiful 
 enjoyment of the dried intestines of a young hare 
 that has never been suckled. The flesh of the 
 kangaroo, like the hare a swift animal, is held by the 
 Australian aborigines to cause fertility.^ Hare's flesh, 
 especially the testicles, is esteemed a specific against 
 impotence and childlessness in Saxon Transylvania, 
 where also a fox's genital organs dried and rubbed to 
 
 1 Schroder, 171, citing Hartknoch ; Ploss, Weib. i. 445. Mele- 
 tius, arch-presbyter of the Ecclesia Liccensis in Prussia, hovvevery 
 writing in the sixteenth century states that the sweetbreads are those 
 of a goat or a bear (F. L. xii. 300). Among the Istrian Slavs an 
 hour after the married pair retire a roast hen is served to them in 
 bed (Dr. F. Tetzner, Globus, xcii. 88). 
 
 2 Sextus Placitus, Sax. Leechd. i. 347, 345. 
 
 3 Ploss, Weib. \. 431, 432, citing Nachtigall and Junk, 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 55 
 
 powder are given to women against barrenness.^ 
 Italian women are given not merely vegetable drugs 
 like an infusion of valerian, cypress scrapings and 
 the bark of the black mulberry, but also mare's milk, 
 a hare's uterus and a ofoat's testicles.^ And similar 
 nostrums sometimes of the flesh of one animal and 
 sometimes of another are to be found in many of the 
 mediaeval works on medicine and exorcism.^ 
 
 The same train of reasoning is evident in the prohibi- 
 tion, current among the Coast-Salish of north-western 
 America, to an unmarried woman to eat either breast 
 or tenderloin of any animal. It was believed that if 
 she ate the tenderloin of both sides of an animal she 
 would orive birth to twins.* The Perak Semanof are 
 said to hold a complicated belief in a soul-bird, A 
 child as soon as born is named from a tree standingf 
 near its birthplace, and the after-birth is buried at the 
 foot of the tree. An expectant mother visits her birth- 
 tree, as it is called, or a tree of the same species if too 
 far away to reach the identical tree, and there deposits 
 an offering of flowers. A young bird newly hatched 
 inhabiting the tree contains the soul of her expected 
 child, which has been committed to it by Kari the chief 
 god. This bird she must kill and eat, otherwise her 
 child will be stillborn or die shortly after its birth. 
 The expression used by the Semang of Kalantan to 
 describe a woman who is in hope of offspring is : 
 "she has eaten the bird." Twins arise from eatingr a 
 
 ^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 169, 103. 
 
 2 Zanetti, 103. The author discredits the statement of another 
 prescription said to be given to couples desiring children. 
 
 3 M^l. vii. 159 sqq. 
 
 Boas, Rep. N. W. Tribes, Rep. B. A. 1889, 842. 
 
56 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 soul-bird with an egg.^ So in the Murray Islands 
 women eat pigeons, females to get girls and males to 
 get boys.^ 
 
 In England the belief in the consumption of certain 
 kinds of animal food as a cause of pregnancy seems to 
 have survived into modern times. I quote from a 
 letter written to me by a lady who has herself made 
 valuable contributions to anthropology : "Mrs. G., a 
 charwoman who worked for me in 1876, and who lived 
 with her husband in a street leading- out of Theobald's 
 Row, W.C., told me that she and her husband had 
 been married for some years, and had given up all 
 hope of having children, when she, at the instance of 
 her husband's mother (who lived in the same house 
 with them), determined to try other than lawful means. 
 She went out one evening, and, at a butcher's shop 
 some long distance from where she lived, contrived to 
 steal two sausages, which she ate raw then and there in 
 a side-turning off the street, her mother-in-law keeping 
 guard for fear of detection, in fact keeping the butcher 
 in talk while her daughter-in-law stole and ate the 
 articles. This action was kept a profound secret from 
 the husband until the means adopted were found to be 
 effectual. A boy was born at the proper period of time» 
 or, as Mrs. G. said, that day nine months ; and he was 
 fat and roily like a sausage! Unfortunately he died 
 3«3on afterwards. Perhaps this was not surprising, as 
 he was given a small piece of sausage to eat after 
 his birth. The reason assigned for this was that he 
 might not be too fond of sausages as he grew up, 
 refuse other food, and so 'pine away.' His mother 
 
 ^ Skeat and Blagden, ii. 3, 4, 6, quoting Vav ',han-Stevens. 
 > Haddon, Torres Str Rep. vi. 105. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 57 
 
 and orandmother attributed his death partly to 
 bronchitis and partly to the fact that strict secrecy 
 had not been observed about the stolen food. They 
 had afterwards gone before the child's birth to the 
 butcher and paid him for the two sausages, telling him 
 the circumstances. He sympathised wirh them and 
 Mrs. G. added that he told them a similar story 
 about his own wife, or mother, she did not remember 
 which." ^ 
 
 Eggs are naturally supposed to ensure pregnancy. 
 Probably it is for this cause that they are forbidden to 
 adolescent Eskimo girls in Baffin's Land.'"^ Among 
 the Ruthenians a domestic hen is killed, and the small 
 unripe eggs found in her body are put into the vagina 
 of a barren woman. ^ A Gipsy husband will sometimes 
 take an egg and blow the contents into his wife's 
 mouth, she swallowing them, in order that she may 
 bear ; * or in Transylvania she will give him at full 
 moon the egg of a black hen to eat by himself.^ 
 
 As might be expected, eggs like other objects 
 believed to produce fertility are prominent objects in 
 various parts of the world, especially the East, at 
 
 i My correspondent adds that another woman whom she knew, 
 a fairly well-educated woman whose husband was in business as a 
 trunk-maker, had twins at her first accouchement. " They were the 
 colour of scarlet, just like boiled lobsters." One of these twins 
 died ; the other as she grew up continued to have red marks on 
 her skin. Their mother attributed this condition to the lobsters 
 whereof she and her husband had partaken on their wedding night. 
 This would appear to show a similar belief, but in a somewhat later 
 stage exemphfied in the old Prussian and other marriage-rites 
 already mentioned. 
 
 2 Boas, Eskimo of Baffin^ s Land, in Bull. Am. Mus. xv. i6i. 
 
 ^ Kobert, 116. * Leland, Gip. Sore. loi. 
 
 ^ von Wlislocki, Volksdicht. 314. 
 
58 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 marriage ceremonies. In them too, as in other marriage 
 ceremonies discussed in the present chapter, the fertili- 
 sing power of the object itself passes into a charm or a 
 mere symbol of good wishes. The West Russian Jews, 
 particularly the strict sect of the Chasidim, have the 
 custom of setting a raw egg before a bride at the 
 wedding feast, a symbol of fruitfulness and that she 
 may bear as easily as a hen lays an egg.^ At 
 Gossensass in the Tirol, when the wedded pair come to 
 the inn to pay for the wedding-feast, after the business 
 is settled it is the custom to serve the bride with a 
 hard-boiled egg on a large iron fork ; and she is 
 expected to eat it alone.^ In the seventeenth century, 
 a French bride, in order to be happy in her marriage, 
 on entering her new home on the wedding-day trod 
 upon and broke an egg, and wheat was thrown over 
 her.^ Fertility is obviously regarded as the first con- 
 dition of happiness here. Among the Sundanese in 
 West Java a hen's egg is placed before the door of 
 the newly wedded pair ; which appears to imply a 
 similar rite of breaking it. In East Java the 
 Tenggerese bridegroom on the last day of the festivi- 
 ties breaks an egg and the bride smears her feet 
 with its contents mixed with turmeric. 
 
 The direct fertilising power as distinguished from 
 the magical effect or the symbolism of the egg tends 
 to fall into the background when both husband and 
 wife share the virtue of the egg in food or other ways. 
 Among the Mordvins a pot of groats, an omelet and a 
 baked egg are always put upon the table at the bride's 
 house in the elaborate ceremonies of the day before 
 
 ^ Andree, Juden, 145. 2 Zei'is. des Vereins, x. 401. 
 
 3 Thiers, ap. Liebrecht's Gerv. Tilb. 259 (No. 475). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 59 
 
 the marriage. In Great Mandheling and Batang Natal 
 (West Sumatra) the bride and bridegroom must each 
 eat a piece of the white and the yolk of the eggs which 
 lie on the top of the rice at the wedding ceremony. 
 In Minahassa they erect a small altar and offer on it 
 some rice and a boiled egg. They afterwards consume 
 the offering, calling down thereby the divine blessing. 
 Among certain of the Dyaks a hen's egg is struck 
 upon the teeth of the wedded pair and then held under 
 their noses. Among the Orang Maanjan of Borneo 
 they are smeared with a mixture of the contents of an 
 egg and blood of a fowl or pig : this is the binding 
 ceremony. Among the Olon Lavangan, another tribe 
 of the same island, the chief takes a hen's egg, opens 
 it with a knife and smears the contents on the fore- 
 heads of the pair.^ In Armenia and Kurdistan the 
 Mohammedans take various measures against unfruit- 
 fulness in marriage. One of these consists in the 
 priest's writing the one hundred and twelfth chapter 
 of the Koran upon an egg and giving the bride 
 and bridegroom each one half of the egg to eat. 
 Or else he writes it upon a triangular spear over 
 which they are required to jump.^ In Sikkim a 
 present of eggs is an offer of marriage and the accept- 
 ance of the gift is an acceptance of the offer. Among 
 the Shan of Further India the gift of eggs among 
 other things to the bride and her parents is expected 
 from the bridegroom. In South Celebes a hen's egg 
 is always to be found among the wedding presents and 
 
 1 These and other customs have been brought together by 
 Dr. R. Lasch, Globus, Ixxxix. 104. 
 
 2 Volland, Globus, xci. 344. Compare the Jewish rite of 
 jumping over fish, supra, p. 5 1 . 
 
6o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 it is expressly said to hint at offspring/ But we need 
 not pursue the subject of symbolism of eggs on such 
 an occasion. 
 
 Among the Schokaz stock in Hungary a woman 
 who has already several children looks for a stone 
 which has been thrown at an apple-tree and has 
 remained on the tree. She takes it down, puts it 
 into an egg, on which at new moon she pours water 
 and gives to drink of it to the barren woman. Finally, 
 she herself takes the latter's bridal shift and wears it 
 for nine weeks.^ This complex rite is evidently an 
 amalgam of more than one simpler ceremony, all 
 directed to the same end ; and it will be discussed 
 more fully hereafter. Meanwhile, it may be observed 
 that the virtue of the egg as a fertilising medium 
 obviously passes into the water, and is imbibed in the 
 draught. A magical rite in vogue on the island of 
 Keisar in the East Indies appears also to be formed of 
 originally independent elements. There an infertile 
 woman takes a hen's first Ggg to the expert in these 
 matters, commonly an old man, and asks him for help. 
 He lays the egg on a nunu-leaf, and with it presses 
 her breasts, muttering congratulations the while. 
 Then he boils the egg in a folded Koli-leaf, takes a 
 piece, lays it again on the nunu-leaf, and causes the 
 woman to eat it. After that he presses the leaf on 
 her nose and breasts and rubs it upon both her 
 shoulders, always from above downward, wraps another 
 bit of the egg in the nunu-leaf, and causes it to be 
 kept in the branches of one of the highest trees in the 
 neighbourhood of her dwelling.^ In this ceremony 
 
 1 Lasch, ubt sup. 
 
 * Temesvary, 8. See posi, p. 114. ^ Riedel, 416. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 6i 
 
 a hen's irrst egg is used. On the other hand, in 
 Galicia the /as^ egg laid by a hen is taken. It is 
 credited with having two yolks, and with being no 
 bigger than a pigeon's egg. A barren woman who 
 swallows its contents will henceforth bear ; or it is 
 given to a cow or other animal with a similar object.^ 
 
 At the domestic sacrifices offered by the ancient 
 Aryans of India the celebrant's wife usually assisted. 
 Among those rites for which the Grihya-Sutra of 
 Gobhila gives minute directions is the Anvashtakya 
 rite, the object of which was the propitiation of the 
 ancestral spirits. Three Pindas, or lumps of food, con- 
 sisting of rice and cow-beef mixed with a certain juice, 
 are offered. After the offering, if the sacrificer's wife 
 wish for a son, she is to eat the middle Pinda, 
 dedicated among the manes especially to her husband's 
 grandfather, uttering at the same time the verse from 
 the M antra- Brdhmana : "Give fruit to the womb, 
 O Fathers !" ^ No doubt the virtue of this prescrip- 
 
 ^ Am Urquell, iv. 125. 
 
 ^ Sacred BookSyXxx. no. There are numerous prescriptions in the 
 sacred books of India for securing male children. One other may 
 be selected here. A fire is directed to be churned with the ficus 
 religiosa and the mimosa suma while a hymn from the Atharva-veda 
 expressive of the symbolism of the act is recited. Fire thus obtained 
 is thrown into ghee prepared from the milk of a cow with a male 
 calf ; and the ghee is put with the thumb up the right nostril of the 
 pregnant woman. Some of the fire is cast into a stirred drink with 
 honey and the drink is given to the woman. Finally the fire is 
 surrounded with the wool of a male animal and the wool is then 
 tied as an amulet upon the woman (^Sacred Books, xlii. 460, 97). 
 Here the woman is already pregnant and the rites (the symbolism 
 of which is obvious) are only employed to influence the sex. But 
 they are on similar lines to those intended to procure offspring. It 
 sliould be noted that the reading here is uncertain. Mr. Bloomfield 
 adopts male (animal) as yielding a better symbolism than black, the 
 alternative reading. 
 
63^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 tion consists in the food's having been part of the sacri- 
 ficial offering. But the cow is so intimately connected 
 with the well-being of many of the peoples of the Old 
 World, and has consequently. become so well-recognised 
 a symbol of fecundity, that we need not be surprised 
 to find it employed in charms to produce offspring. 
 An old English recipe for a woman who miscarries 
 is to let her take milk of a one-coloured cow in her 
 hand and sup it up into her mouth, and then go to 
 running water and spit out the milk therein. Next, 
 she must ladle up with the same hand a mouthful 
 of the water and swallow it down, uttering certain 
 words. Lastly, she must, without looking about her 
 either |in her^going or coming, return, but not into 
 the same house whence she came out, and there taste 
 of meat-V iln'llceland, as a remedy for sterility, a 
 woman was given without her knowing what it was, 
 the evening after-milkings still warm to drink, or 
 testicles of the wild goose to eat." In Pomerania 
 the prescription is milk from a cow which has just 
 besfun to:<o"ive-milk, warm from the udder half an hour 
 before congress.^ Rye boiled in ass' or mare's milk 
 at the' new moon is given to barren women by the 
 Schokaz in Hungary.* In Belgium, women desirous 
 of offspring are advised to drink a mixture of the milk 
 of the goat, ass and sheep. ^ 
 
 Of mineral substances, Russian women take salt- 
 petre ; and in Styria a woman will grate her wedding- 
 ring and /swallow the filings.* Chinese "medical 
 works declare jade-grease or jade-juice to operate very 
 
 ^ Sax. Leechd. iii. 69. ^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxii. 60. 
 
 ^ Am Urquell, v. 179. ■* Temesvary, 8. 
 
 * Bull, de F. L. it. 82. ^ Ploss, Weib, i. 434, 443. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 63 
 
 efficaciously in curing women from sterility. In fact," 
 says Dr. De Groot, "as those substances may instil 
 life into such creatures, they cannot fail to intensify 
 also their life-producing power. They lengthen of 
 course the life of whomsoever takes them. They pass 
 for mystic products of mounts which contain jade. 
 The belief in their reality rests merely on some hazy 
 passages " of old authors.^ It was a classical super- 
 stition that mice were impregnated by tasting salt ; ^ 
 and the reader need hardly be reminded of the salted 
 ball of rice in the ceremony already referred to as per- 
 formed by Hindu women. Not long ago, "in the 
 Beaujolais, women afflicted with sterility scraped a 
 stone placed in an isolated chapel in the middle of the 
 prairies. At St. Sernin des Bois (Saone-et-Loire), 
 they scraped the statue of St. Freluchot," and swallowed 
 the scrapings in water from a neighbouring well. 
 This was the practice in divers parts of France with 
 regard to the statues of a saint variously called 
 Foutin, Photin or Foustin. The saint in question is 
 not in the official calendar, though he has doubtless 
 received popular reverence from ancient times. To 
 him were attributed all the prerogatives of the heathen 
 deity Priapus ; and it was from those portions of his 
 statues which indicated his powers that his devotees 
 obtained the necessary powder. At Bourg-Dieu in 
 the diocese of Bourges a similar saint was called 
 Guerlichon or Greluchon. There after nine days' 
 devotions women stretched themselves on the hori- 
 zontal figure of the saint and then scraped the phallus 
 for mixture in water as a drink. Other saints were 
 worshipped elsewhere in France with equivalent rites 
 1 De Groot, Rel. Syst. iv. 330. « Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 85. 
 
64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Down to the Revolution there stood at Brest a chapel 
 of Saint Guignolet containing a priapian statue of the 
 holy man. Women who were or feared to be sterile 
 used to go and scrape a little of the prominent 
 member which they put into a glass of water from the 
 well and drank. The same practice was followed at the 
 chapel of Saint Pierre-a-broquettes in Brabant until 
 1837, when the archaeologist Schayes called attention to 
 it, and thereupon the ecclesiastical authorities removed 
 the object of scandal. Women have however still con- 
 tinued to make votive offerings of pins down almost, 
 if not quite, to the present day. At Antwerp stood 
 at the gateway to the church of Saint Walburga in the 
 Rue des Pecheurs a statue, the sexual organ of which 
 had been entirely scraped away by women for the same 
 purpose.^ 
 
 The drinking of water under certain conditions has 
 been held to be productive of children. In the first 
 instance I am about to mention however reliance is not 
 placed wholly on the draught. Beside the Groesbeeck 
 spring at Spa in the Ardennes is a foot-print of Saint 
 Remade. Barren women pay a nine days' devotional 
 visit to the shrine of the saint at Spa and drink every 
 morning a glass of the Groesbeeck water. While 
 drinking, one foot must be placed in the holy foot-print.^ 
 Maidens in more than one of the tales of supernatural 
 birth have proved the efficacy of divine foot-prints. In 
 other cases it is unmistakably the draught which has the 
 virtue. A glass of water from the well of Saint Roger 
 
 ^ Sebillot, Amer. Anthrop. iv. 92 ; Id. F. L. France iv. 172; 
 Dulaure, 204 sqq., where further details are given; Berenger- 
 Feraud, Superst. ii. 191, 193 ; Ploss, Weib, i. 444 quoting an author 
 liOt named; d'Alviella, Rev. Hist. Rel. liii. 73. 
 
 '^ \Volf, Niederl. Sag. 227; Bidl. de F. Z. ii. 8 2 . 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 65 
 
 at Elan also in the Ardennes is drunk by sterile 
 women who wish for children/ ''According to the 
 legend of Saint Armentaire written towards the year 
 1300 the fairy Esterelle dwelt near a spring, whither 
 the Proven{^als brought her offerings and she gave en- 
 chanted drink to barren women."" One of the seven 
 lastral springs around the church of Saint Nicodemus 
 near Locmin6 (Morbihan) is visited by young wives 
 who having drunk a little of the water climb without 
 looking behind them into the belfry and there in order 
 to ensure the success of their wishes sit for a few 
 moments in an old armchair. The fountain of Sainte 
 Eustelle adjoining the Roman amphitheatre at Saintes 
 in the department of Charente Inferieure is resorted to 
 by wives whose hopes of offspring have been delayed 
 and who drink of it nine morninors in succession. 
 That of Saint Rigaud at Monsole, which it is said flows 
 over the saint's body, also possesses the privilege of 
 rendering women fruitful ; but it does not appear what is 
 the actual ceremony performed there The sacred wells 
 of France having fecundating powers a.re in fact very 
 numerous.^ Without specifying any more of them we 
 may turn to our own country. Probably at one time our 
 springs were not less potent or numerous. Some of them 
 still retain their reputation. There is a well called 
 Dewric Well at Bretton, near Eyam in Derbyshire, the 
 water of which is said to make any woman who drinks 
 of it fruitful.* A spring at Burnham near Barton-upon 
 Humber was, until the last half-century at any rate, 
 believed to remove the curse of sterility.^ At Saint 
 
 ^ Meyrac, 45, - Scbiilot, F. L. France^ ii. 197. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 232, 233, 376 ; Cuzacq, no. 
 
 * Addy, 59. '^ Ant. xxxi. 373. 
 
 I E 
 
66 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Maughold's Well in the Isle of Man women sat in the 
 saint's chair and drank a glass of water from the well. 
 Here, as at Locmine, contact with the chair seems to 
 have been necessary in addition to the draught.^ In 
 Germany the same belief in the power of certain wells 
 is equally found. The Amorsbrunnen near Amor- 
 bach in Bavaria is one of these ; the Gezelinquelle 
 near Schebusch, not far from Cologne, is another.^ 
 A Sicilian priest named Maggio, director of the Con- 
 gregazione della Sciabica, writing in the year 1668, 
 mentions that water derived from a spring beneath 
 the altar of the Madonna della Providenza at Palermo, 
 and consecrated yearly on the fourteenth of January, 
 possessed remarkable powers of curing disease. It 
 was given with much faith and devotion to persons 
 who were possessed or bewitched. It was also given 
 to sterile women and to women who were about to 
 bring forth. '^ But in Italy itself at the present day 
 the most valued specific against barrenness is the 
 water of the well of Our Lady of Lourdes. At Perugia 
 in particular the church of Santa Maria Nuova does a 
 profitable trade in Lourdes water, which is said to be 
 sent direct from Lourdes to Rome and there authenti- 
 cated by the pontifical seal. It is drunk in faith by 
 wives desirous of children and also by fathers whose 
 longings for offspring have not been fully satisfied. And 
 it is all the more prized because in Italy there are no 
 fountains having the virtue in question.^ In this 
 respect the Italians are less fortunate than even the 
 Tusayan of North America. The latter have a legend 
 
 ^ F. L. v. 221, citing Sacheverell. 
 
 ^ Ant. xxxviii. 300 ; Am Urqitell, v. 287. 
 
 ^ Archivio, xv. 56. * Zanetti, 103. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 67 
 
 of one of their women who being pregnant was left 
 behind on the Little Colorado during their wander- 
 ings. Under the house where she dwelt is a spring, 
 and any sterile woman who drinks of it will bear 
 children.^ 
 
 Other water than that of sacred springs is also 
 capable of fecundating women. In Thuringia and 
 Transylvania women who wished to be healed of 
 unfruitfulness drank consecrated water from the bap- 
 tismal font." But woe to the husband at Stettin who 
 dared to do so ! At her next delivery his wife would 
 present him v/ith twins. The water of baptism poured 
 before the door of a childless couple in the island 
 of Ruoen would brino;' them children.^ In a certain 
 district of Hungary a barren woman seeks a spring 
 which she has never before seen and drinks of it.* 
 Among the Palestinian Jews childless women drink 
 water wherein moss plucked from the ruins of the 
 temple-wall has been boiled, in order to get children.^ 
 On the other hand unmarried girls in Brunswick 
 refrain from drink after eating sour kraut, lest they 
 become pregnant.*^ At Nuoro in Sardinia the wise 
 women advise poultices on the spine ; they also advise 
 drinking, and especially bathing, in the sea.' A 
 Malagasy woman whose marriage has not been blessed 
 with issue is made to drink litres and litres of water 
 
 ^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. viii. 32. The Crow Indians have also a 
 sacred spring whither barren women go to pray \ but it does not 
 appear whether or not they drink or bathe (Field Columb. Miis. 
 Anthrop. ii. 316). 
 
 2 Witzschel, ii. 244; von WUslocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 152 
 HiUner, 38. ^ Am Urquell, vi. 146. 
 
 * Temesvary, 8. ^ Am Urquell, v. 225. 
 
 * Andree, Braunsch. 291. ' Rivisla, ii. 423. 
 
68 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 until her stomach is so full that it will not hold 
 another drop/ 
 
 Masur women in the province of West Prussia make 
 use of the water which drips from a stallion's mouth after 
 he has drunk. Worse is said to be done in Algiers. 
 There when a woman has already had a child, but has 
 ceased for a long period to conceive, she must drink 
 sheep's urine, or water wherein wax from a donkey's 
 ear has been macerated.^ Mr. Thomson, the traveller 
 among the Masai of Eastern Africa, had the reputation 
 of being a great lybon or medicine-man. He was 
 applied to by a wealthy old Masai and his wife for a 
 medicine to obtain children. He was requested to 
 spit on them, which, he says, " I did most vigorously 
 and liberally, my saliva being supposed to have 
 sovereign virtues."^ 
 
 A Transylvanian Gipsy woman is said to drink 
 water wherein her husband has cast hot coals, or, 
 better still, has spit, saying as she does so : "Where 
 I am flame, be thou the coals ! Where I am rain be 
 thou the water! "* A South Slavonic woman holds a 
 wooden bowl of water near the fire on the hearth. 
 Her husband then strikes two firebrands together until 
 the sparks fly. Some of them fall into the bowl, and 
 she then drinks the water.^ For Arab women the 
 third chapter of the Koran (which, among other things 
 
 1 Mondain, 44. In South-eastern Africa a potion is given 
 instead of water to a childless Ronga woman. It is drunk mixed 
 with native beer, and she is required to take it for months. In 
 this case, however, the husband shares it (Junod, Baronga, 63). 
 
 ^ Ploss, Weib. i. 443, 431. 
 
 3 Thomson, Masai Land^ 287. 
 
 * Ploss, Weib, i, 443, citing von Wlislocki in general terms. 
 
 * Krauss, Sitte ttvd Brattch, 531. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 69 
 
 relates the birth of the Virgin Mary) is written out in 
 its whole interminable length with saffron in a copper 
 basin ; boiling water is poured upon the writing ; and 
 the woman in need drinks a part of the water thus 
 consecrated, and washes her face, breast and womb 
 with the remainder,^ At Bombay a barren woman 
 would cut off the end of the robe of a woman who has 
 borne at least one child, when it is hung up to dry ; or 
 would steal a newborn infant's shirt, steep one end of it 
 in water, drink the water and destroy the shirt. The 
 child to whom the clothing belonged would then die 
 and be born again from the womb of the woman 
 performing the ceremony." Other women in India 
 drink the water squeezed from the loincloth of a 
 sanydst, or devotee, after washing it for him.^ We can 
 only surmise that this practice is followed in the hope of 
 obtaining the benefit experienced by the Princess 
 Chand Rdwati and other heroines of Indian literature 
 and folklore.* 
 
 Be this how it may, there is a group of practices to 
 which reference must be made, and which fully match 
 the foregoing in nastiness. Unfortunately the dislike 
 
 ^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 435, citing Sandreczki. 
 
 " Mel. vi. 109, quoting Rehatsek mjourn. Anthrop. Soc. Bombay,. 
 
 2 Punjab (^Indian) N. and O. iv. 107 (par. 415). Even more 
 disgusting is the rite described by the Abbe Dubois as practised at 
 a temple famous all over Mysore (Dubois, 601). In Egypt in the 
 seventeenth century childless women resorted to certain naked 
 ascetics to kiss their sexual organs (StoU, 653, quoting Thevenot). 
 The same is said to be still done in India. 
 
 * See Sir R. C. Temple, F. L. Journ. iv. 304 ; De Gubernatis, 
 ZooL Myth. n. 331; Panjab N. and O. ii. 19 (par. 122); Hardy, 
 Manual of Buddhism, 251. The incident of conception by semen 
 imbibed through the mouth or nose may in fact be said to be some- 
 what of a favourite in Indian stories. 
 
70 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 of nastiness is an extremely civilised feeling ; and 
 when we read of these things we must remember that 
 we ourselves are not very far removed from a date 
 when powder of mummy was one of the least objection- 
 able of the grosser remedies in our forefathers' pharma- 
 copoeia. We have already found that a Gipsy womsn 
 will drink the water wherein her husband has spit. 
 What is the meaning of the expression " He is the 
 very spit of his father ! " current not only in England, 
 but also, according to the learned Liebrecht, in France, 
 Italy and Portugal, and alluded to by Voltaire and La 
 Fontaine, if it point not back to a similar, perhaps a 
 more repulsive ceremony formerly practised by the folk 
 all over Western Europe ? In Pomerania when a 
 women is barren it is recommended to give her 
 -another woman's milk to drink.^ In Olchowiec 
 (Russia), water containing three drops of blood from 
 the navel of a new-born child is given. Other women, 
 especially Jewesses, are said to suck blood from the 
 •child's navel, and in doing so they should swallow 
 three times.^ Ukrainian women drink water in which 
 a portion of an umbilical cord has been soaked.^ An 
 immigrant Russian Jewess having given birth to a 
 child in the hospital at Boston, one of her neighbours, 
 a woman, asked to see the after-birth. In answer to 
 inquiries why she wished to see it, she said that she 
 had heard that to eat a placenta is a certain means of 
 curing sterility, and she wanted to try.* A Polish 
 woman, to get children, procures a small jar of the 
 blood of another woman at her first child-bearing, and 
 drinks it mixed with brandy.^ Among some of the 
 
 1 Am Urquell, v. 252. 2 Kobert, 92, ^ Mel. viii. 38. 
 
 * UAnthrop. ix. 240. ^ Am, Urquell, iii. 147. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 71 
 
 Roumanians in Hungary it is the custom that a barren 
 woman eat the dried remains of the navel-string and 
 drink some of the blood. Elsewhere in Hungary a 
 barren woman is oiven some of the lochial discharo-e 
 of a woman at her first child-bed. Serb women are 
 advised to bathe in water in which is the placenta of 
 a woman who has just been delivered. Ruthenian 
 women sit on a ctill warm placenta. Elsewhere in 
 Hungary women follow the Polish practice just 
 mentioned.^ In Sicily they are prescribed powder 
 of dried after-birth in pills.^ A Kamtchadal woman 
 who, on bearing, desires to become pregnant soon 
 again, eats her infant's navel-string.^ Among the 
 Ottoman Jews a woman who has only had one child, 
 and has afterwards ceased to bear, may recover her 
 fertility by eating the foreskin removed from a child 
 by circumcision,'^ In Bombay a childless woman 
 secures a few drops of the water from the first bath 
 or washings of a woman who has been recently 
 delivered, and drinks them. The object seems to be to 
 transfer the fecundity of the one woman to the other : 
 hence precautions are jealously taken against the 
 practice.^ 
 
 Among the Gipsies of Roumania and southern 
 Hungary a sterile v.oman scratches her husband's left 
 hand between fingfer and thumb ; and he returns the 
 
 ^ Temesvary, 8. It is also believed among the Magyars that the 
 after-birth of a boy or girl placed under the bed will ensure the 
 procreation of a child of the same sex ; but the husband must be 
 careful which side he gets into bed — on the right side for a boy, on 
 the left for a girl (von Wlislocki, Volkskb. Mag. 80). 
 
 2 Pitre, Bibl:oteca, xix. 448. 
 
 2 Ploss, Wcib, i. 432, citing Kraschneninnikov. 
 
 * Mel. viii. 270. 
 
 " Paiijab N. and O. i. 100 (par. 772). 
 
72 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 compliment. The blood of both is received in a new 
 vessel, and buried under a tree for nine days. It is 
 then taken up and ass' milk poured into it. Husband 
 and wife drink the mixture before going to bed, with 
 an incantation which reminds us of the Zulu story of 
 the blood in the pot ; for its earlier lines run thus : 
 " In the dawn three Fates will come. The first seeks 
 our blood ; the second finds our blood ; the third 
 makes a child thereout."^ The powers of both 
 husband and wife appear to be thus increased. It is 
 rather the women who are directly acted on in the 
 Malagasy rite of "scrambling." This rite is per- 
 formed on a lucky day at the end of the second or 
 third month from the birth of a first-born child. The 
 friends and relatives of the child assemble. Some 
 fat from an ox's hump is minced in a rice-pan, cooked 
 and mixed with a quantity of rice, milk, honey and a 
 sort of grass called voampamoa. A lock of the infant's 
 hair ceremonially cut from the right side, and known 
 as " the fortunate lock " is cast into the rice-pan and 
 thoroughly well mixed with the other ingredients. 
 The youngest female of the family holds the pan, and 
 a general rush and scramble for its contents ensues. 
 In the scramble the women take a prominent part, 
 "as it is supposed that those who are fortunate enough 
 to obtain a portion may confidently cherish the hope 
 of becoming mothers." The rice-pan used becomes 
 taboo for three days.' Presumably the contents are 
 
 1 Am Urquell, iii. 7. In the Zulu story referred to, a pigeon cups 
 the heroine and causes the blood to be put into a pot which is kept 
 covered for two moons when the heroine finds two children in the 
 pot (Callaway, Tales^ 205)- The story is a favourite among the 
 Zulus, Kaffirs and Basiito, and several variants are known. 
 
 2 Ellis, Hist. Mad,/i. isz- 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 73 
 
 devoured after the scramble, though the account I 
 cite does not say so. Transylvanian Gipsy women 
 make a cut in the little finger of an unbaptized child, 
 and suck the blood to promote their conception.^ 
 
 A woman of the Hungarian population of Tran- 
 sylvania hangs for nine consecutive months at the 
 time of full moon on a tree, a cloth on which are some 
 drops of blood of her last previous period and says : 
 "Tree, I give thee my blood, give me thy strength, 
 that thereby I may with my blood breed children." ^ 
 This perhaps may be explained by the doctrine of 
 Transference, by which a disease is believed by the 
 ceremonial acts and words to be transferred to some 
 other object and the patient freed. I am by no means 
 sure, however, that the underlying idea is that of 
 simple Transference, since a prayer for the tree's 
 strength in exchange is included in the rite. It may 
 be that the intention is no more than that of the pre- 
 scription for a barren Gipsy woman. If such a 
 woman succeed in touching a snake caught in Easter- 
 or Whitsun-week, she will become fertile by spitting 
 on it thrice and sprinkling it with her menstruation- 
 blood, repeating the following incantation ; " Grow 
 quick, thou snake ! that I thereby may get a child. 
 I am lean now as thou art, therefore I have no rest. 
 Snake, snake, glide hence ; and when I am pregnant 
 I will give thee a crest (I/aude), that thy tooth 
 may by that means have much poison!"^ Here the 
 woman conjures the snake to grow fat, in order that 
 
 ^ Am Urquell, iii. 8. ^ Temesvary, 9. 
 
 3 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 66. This work, when cited, must 
 be understood, unless otherwise expressed, to deal with the Gipsies 
 of the Danubian countries, where alone, the author says, they are 
 unsophisticated. 
 
74 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 she may do so too. The object of bestowing her 
 secretions upon it is to unite herself with it, because 
 the secretions which are in contact with the snake will 
 still be in mystical union with the body from which 
 they have emanated. They will thus form a bond 
 between the snake and the woman ; and her body will 
 share the improved condition of the snake's body. In 
 the same way I incline to think that the intention of 
 the Transylvanian rite is to unite the woman with the 
 tree that she may share its strength, and not to 
 transfer her barrenness to it, of which there is no hint 
 in the incantation. Upon this notion is founded a 
 practice in German Togoland where on the occasion 
 of a birth one of the women in attendance buries the 
 placenta. If she has not yet borne she micturates over 
 it before covering it up, hoping then soon to have a 
 child herself.^ A Magyar believes that he promotes 
 conception by his wife if he mix with his blood white 
 of egg and the white spots in the yolk of a hen's egg, 
 fill a dead man's bone with the mixture, and bury it 
 where he is accustomed to make water.^ Apparently 
 his potency is held to be thereby increased. In some 
 parts of Hungary an unfruitful woman spits on 
 Christmas night in a spring,^ thus uniting herself with 
 its fertilising power. The principle is of endless 
 application. 
 
 I have just mentioned a dead man's bone as the 
 receptacle of a magical mixture of blood and other 
 ingredients. According to a Mexican saga a dead 
 man's bone, when sprinkled with blood, produced the 
 
 ■*■ Globus, Ixxxvii. 75. 
 
 ^ Am Urquell, iii. 269. For other cases see Ibid. 8. 
 
 " Temesvary, 10. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 75 
 
 father and mother of the present race of mankind/ 
 Portions of corpses are, in the opinion of many people, 
 as valuable for unfruitful women as the blood and 
 secretions of living persons. The Magyars not merely 
 use a dead man's bone as a magical phial : they also 
 hold that such a bone shaved into drink and given to a 
 woman will promote conception ; or if given to a man 
 they will enhance his potency..^ Danubian Gipsies 
 are said to make, for protection from witchcraft, little 
 figures of men and brutes out of a sort of dough of 
 grafting wax taken from the trees in a graveyard, 
 mixed with the powdered hair and nails of a dead 
 child or maiden, and with ashes left after burning the 
 clothes of one who has died. The figures are dried in 
 the sun, and when required for use are ground Into 
 powder. Taken in millet-pap in the increase of the 
 moon this powder accelerates conception.^ Mr. Lane 
 records disgusting practices on the part of barren women 
 at Cairo. Near the place of execution there was a 
 table of stone where the body of every person who 
 was, in accordance with the usual mode of punishment, 
 beheaded Is washed before burial. By the table was a 
 trough to receive the water. This trough was never 
 emptied ; and its contents were tainted with blood and 
 fetid. A woman who desired Issue silently passed 
 under the stone table with the left foot foremost, and 
 then over It. After repeating this process seven 
 times she washed her face in the trough, and giving a 
 trifling sum of money to the old man and his wife who 
 kept the place, went silently away. Others, with like 
 
 1 Southey, Counnonpl. Bk. iv. 142 ; Featherman, Chiapo-Mar. 
 136. 2 von Wlislocki, Volksleb. Mag. 77. 
 
 von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig. 103. 
 
76 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 intent, stepped over the decapitated body seven times, 
 also without speaking ; and others again dipped in 
 the blood a piece of cotton wool, which they after- 
 wards made use of in a manner which Mr. Lane 
 declines to mention.^ 
 
 In the Panjab also indescribable cures for barrenness 
 are often adopted. One of the more respectable 
 remedies is said to be that of bathing over a dead 
 body. For this purpose murder is even committed. 
 Another is that of eating a loaf cooked on the still 
 burning pyre of a man who was never married and 
 therefore never transmitted life, and who was the only 
 or eldest son in his family and so received the fullest 
 possible measure of vitality.^ Low caste women 
 believe that bathing underneath a person who has 
 been hanged is efficacious. Women of the middle- 
 classes with the same object try to obtain a piece of 
 the wood of the gallows.^ In Gujarat, when a Jain 
 ascetic of the Dundiya sect dies in pursuance of a 
 vow to starve himself, women who seek the blessing 
 of a son try to secure it by creeping under the litter 
 on which his corpse is removed, or by joining in 
 the scramble for fragments of his clothes.* Some 
 at least of these practices (and the list might be 
 
 1 Lane, i. 393, 394. There is an analogous way of treating 
 barren cows in German East Africa [Globus, Ixxxvii. 308). 
 
 2 Census of Ind. 1901, xvii. 164. Sir R. C. Temple records a 
 case of conviction of two women, a mother and daughter, of Daboli 
 in the Panjab. The mother desired a male child and being told by 
 the faqir that if she killed the eldest son or daughter of some one 
 and bathed over the body she would have her wish gratified, she 
 with her daughter's help seized and murdered a child answering the 
 
 equirements and performed the ceremony (/. A. I. xxxii. 237). 
 
 3 N. Jnd. N. and O. i. 86. Cf.J. A. I. xxxv. 278. 
 * Forbes, Ras Mala, 611; Daya, 82. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN ^^ 
 
 lengthened) are more revolting than the incidents in 
 the numerous stories wherein portions of dead bodies, 
 criven to maidens and other women, render them 
 pregnant. Special power is, as we might expect, 
 ascribed to saints, ascetics and persons put to a violent 
 death. The latter are often apotheosised, quite inde- 
 pendently of their character, or the reason for their 
 untimely decease. Executed criminals share the 
 honour with the most harmless martyrs ; and ruffianism 
 is no bar to divinity. Triat corporal relics of such 
 personages should have the power of kindling new life 
 in a barren woman may perhaps be regarded as only one 
 of their wonder-working powers. But there would seem 
 to be a further reason. Ascetics do not transmit life in 
 the ordinary way. Those who suffer violent death are 
 cut off before they have exhausted their power of trans- 
 mission. In either case, therefore, there remains a 
 fund which may be drawn upon by contact, or the 
 performance of the proper ceremonies. Both stories 
 and practices, however, point beyond an unexhausted 
 power of transmission to the possibility of securing the 
 life itself. It will be more convenient to pursue this 
 subject in the next chapter. 
 
 The water wherein the Cairene women washed 
 would owe its power to the putrefying blood. Wash- 
 ing in water endowed with supernatural power is not 
 uncommon elsewhere. Incidental allusion has already 
 been made to the practice, v/hich we may now further 
 illustrate. Transylvanian Saxon women not only drink 
 of baptismal water : they also wash in it, preferably 
 on Midsummer Day.' Among the Galician Jews 
 unfruitful women when they bathe according to their 
 ^ von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Sieb. Sachs. 75, 152. 
 
7^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 ritual dip themselves nine times under water.^ An 
 Ottoman Jewess who desires children takes her bath 
 holding in her arms a young girl whose future fecundity 
 thus passes directly to her." Saint Verena, one of the 
 illustrious obscure of mediaeval mythology, bathed 
 in the Verenenbad at Baden in the Aargau, and thereby 
 conferred on it such virtue that pregnant women or 
 such as wish for children, if they bathe there, soon 
 attain their desire.^ The reference to pregnant women 
 must no doubt be understood of those who wish to 
 avoid miscarriage and to be safely delivered. German 
 tales and popular saws used to speak — perchance 
 they still do — of a Kinderbrunnen, or Children's Well, 
 whence babies were fetched. I have alreadv mentioned 
 some of which the water w-as drunk for the purpose 
 of procuring issue ; and we may perhaps infer that 
 similar rites were practised at the rest. The Bride's 
 Well, in Aberdeenshire, was at one time the resort 
 of every bride in the neighbourhood on the evening 
 of her marriage. Her maidens bathed her feet and 
 the upper part of her body with water drawn from it ; 
 and this bathing, we are told, " ensured a family."'* 
 
 Of the Cupped Stones of Scotland tw^o may be 
 mentioned as having the same property. The first is 
 a stone basin called Saint Columba's Font, said to 
 have been used by Saint Columba himself for baptism 
 when he visited King Brude in his castle near 
 Inverness. It lies in the old graveyard of Killianan 
 at the mouth of the burn of Abriachan. on the shores 
 of Loch Ness. Rain-water collects in the hollow, and 
 generally remains even in the hottest weather. 
 
 ^ Am UrqacH, iv. 1S7. " Mel. viii. 270. 
 
 2 Kohlrusch, 324. ^ Rev. W. Gre^or, F. L. iii. 6S. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 79 
 
 Among the virtues of this water are said to be 
 "salutary effects in connection with child-bearing," 
 and women, if report be correct, " frequented it in this 
 belief till recently ; *' but whether it was of inward or 
 outward application is not stated. The other stone is 
 at Arpafeelie, near Inverness. Of this we are told 
 that it possesses similar virtues to those of the former, 
 '* when childless women bathe in its cloud-drawn 
 waters immediately before sun-rise."^ An egg-shaped 
 pebble of quartz two incht^.s long by an inch and a half 
 in greatest diameter was formerly used in the western 
 division of Sandsting parish, Shetland, as a cure 
 for sterility. The would-be mother washed her feet 
 in burn -water (that is, water drawn from a running 
 stream) in which the stone was laid. As in the cases 
 just mentioned, however, none of the details of the rite 
 have come down to us. The stone was said to have 
 been brought originally from Italy. " Unlike most 
 charms, it was not preserved in one family, but passed 
 from the hands of one wise woman to another, the 
 trust being only relinquished when the holder was on 
 her death-bed." ^ 
 
 Among the springs on the continent of Europe, 
 which we know were frequented by women for the 
 purpose of obtaining children, the rites practised at 
 very few are recorded. The Hermitage of Nuria, in 
 Catalonia, is celebrated for its olla, or basin, into 
 which barren women have only to dip their heads, 
 after reciting some Paternosters, to recover their 
 fecundity. There is al-^o a fountain near Bizanos, in 
 
 ^ Proc. Soc. Ant. Scotl. xvi. 377, 387 (1882). 
 2 Id. xviii. 452, quoting letter from Mr. James Shand of the 
 Union Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, the then owner. 
 
8o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Beam, to which women who desire to become mothers 
 go to bathe. ^ At Lanty near Luzy, and at the spring 
 of the Good Lady at Onlay (Nievre), they wash their 
 breasts and then go and pray in tiie church. Some 
 of the French, and especially Breton fountains, as 
 well as a brook near Morlaix, have the reputation of 
 assuring fecundity to mares and other domestic animals 
 by outward application.^ 
 
 In Sardinia, as we have seen, women are recom- 
 mended to bathe in the sea. In Aglu, Morocco, a 
 Schluh woman "desirous of knowing whether she will 
 be blessed with a child or not," goes to the sea-shore 
 on Midsummer Day and the two following days, and 
 *' lets seven waves go over her body each time ; then 
 she knows that, if she is going to have a child at all, 
 she will have it very soon." In this case, as Dr. 
 Westermarck observes, " magic has dwindled into 
 divination."^ In Southern Mexico "there are special 
 streams in which [Tlaxcalan] women bathe to ensure 
 fecundity. Such a stream is the Sawapa. ... It is 
 also believed that bathing in the tei7zascal,'' or sweat- 
 bath, generally found in the enclosure of a dwelling- 
 house " aids to fecundity,"* 
 
 In India the practice of bathing for this purpose is 
 well known. The well into which Puran, that Panjabi 
 
 1 Chauvet, 57 note. For other cases in which the rite is not 
 specified see Sebillot, Petite Leg. Doree, 213 ; Cuzacq, iro. 
 
 2 Sebillot, F. L. France, ii. 233, 381; iii. 79; Id. Paganisme, 
 228. In the Frick valley (Canton of Aargau, Switzerland), at 
 certain times a jocular tribunal is held upon unmarried women over 
 twenty-four years of age, and wine is poured into their laps. 
 Probably this is to be explained in the same way (Hoffmann-Krayer, 
 Schweis. Arch.f. Volkskunde, xi. 265). 
 
 ^ F. L. xvi. 32. * Starr, Ethnog. S. Mexico, i. 22. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 81 
 
 Joseph, was thrown, is situate in the high road 
 between Sialkot and Kalowal. His residence in it 
 sanctified it to such an extent that the women of those 
 parts beheve that if they bathe in it they will become 
 fruitful.^ " In a well in Orissa the priests throw betel- 
 nuts into the mud, and barren women scramble for 
 them. Those who find them will have their desire for 
 children gratified before long. " ' Here again magic 
 is dwindling into divination. Indian women some- 
 times, as we have seen, adopt more questionable 
 means : the following examples may be added to those 
 already mentioned. They wash naked in a boat in a 
 field of sugar-canes, or under a fruiting mango-tree.^ 
 Mangoes, it will be remembered, are favourite fruits 
 for obtaining issue in Indian tales. According to 
 another prescription the patient should begin by 
 burning" down seven houses. But English law is 
 unsympathetic to this procedure ; and women have to 
 content themselves with burning secretly at midnight 
 on Sunday under a cloudless sky, and if possible at a 
 cross-road, a little grass from the thatch of seven 
 dwellings. At this fire they heat the water wherein to 
 bathe.* Or on a Sunday or Tuesday night or during 
 the Diwali festival the woman sits on a stool, which is 
 then lowered down a well. She there strips and 
 bathes, and being drawn up again performs the chauk- 
 P'ltrna ceremony with incantations taught by a wizard. 
 If there be any difficulty about descending a well, it 
 seems she may perform the ceremony beneath a pipal- 
 
 ^ Leg. Panj. i. 2. 
 
 ^ Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 50, citing Ball,///;/^/^ Life in Lndia. 
 3 Panj, (^Indian) N. and Q. iv. no (par. 425). 
 * Ibid. i. 15 (par. 125); 63 (par. 527); 100 (par. 770) ; li. 185 
 (par. 985) ; iii. 98 (par. 447) , N. Jnd. N. and Q. i. 50 (par. 372). 
 
82 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 tree. It is believed that after such a ceremony the 
 well runs dry and the tree withers/ In other words, 
 the woman has succeeded in obtaining a transfer of 
 their life. In the Panjab there is still another way of 
 obtaining issue. On the night of the feast of Diwali — 
 always a night in the moonless half of the month — the 
 husband draws water at seven different wells in an 
 earthen pot, and places in the water leaves plucked 
 from seven trees. He brings the pot to his wife at a 
 spot where four cross-roads meet. She must bathe 
 herself with the water unseen by anybody, and then 
 put on new clothes, discarding her old ones.^ Or else 
 the woman perfectly nude covers a space in the middle 
 of the crossway, and there lays leaves from the five 
 royal trees, the Ficus religiosa, Ficus ifidica^ Acacia 
 speciosa, mango and Butea frondosa. On these she 
 places a black head representing the god Rama, 
 and sitting on it she washes her entire body with 
 water drawn in five pitchers from five wells, one situate 
 in each quarter of the town or village and one outside it 
 to the north-east. She pours the water from the 
 pitchers into a vessel whose bottom is pierced by a 
 hole whence the contents may flow over her body. 
 The ceremony must be accomplished in absolute 
 solitude, and all the utensils must be left on the spot.'* 
 Amono- the ancient Greeks and Latins various 
 
 o 
 
 1 Ind. Cens. 1901, xvii. 164. 
 
 2 Panj. N. and Q. ii. 166 (par. 886). 
 
 3 Ibid. iv. 88 (par. 346). " For the same reason," says 
 Mr. Crooke, "after childbirth the mother is taken to worship the 
 village well." He describes the ceremony, and adds others [F. L. N. 
 Ind. i. 51). "Bathing when standing or sitting on a dead male 
 buffalo's head " is also stated to be a method of obtaining children 
 [Panj. N. and Q. i. 100, par. 770). Does this explain the " black 
 head " mentioned above ? 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 83 
 
 streams and springs were deemed of virtue against 
 barrenness. Dr. Ploss cites divers classical writers 
 as recording the claims of the river Elatus in Arcadia, 
 the Thespian spring on the Island of Helicon, the 
 spring near the temple of Aphrodite on Hymettos, 
 and the warm springs of Sinuessa in Campania. 
 Others might easily be found, if necessary, both ancient 
 and modern. A curious rite is repeated among the 
 Serbs. A young, sterile married woman cuts a reed, 
 fills it with wine, and sews It, together with an old 
 knife and a wheaten cake, in a linen bag. Holding 
 this bag under her left arm she wades in flowing water, 
 while some one on the brink prays for her : " Fulfil 
 my prayer, O God ; O mother of God;" and so on 
 through the whole cramut of sanctities. Durlno- this 
 prayer the wader drops the bag in the stream, and 
 coming out sets her feet in two caldrons, out of 
 which her husband must lift her and carry her home. 
 Here we have unmistakably a prayer and offerings 
 of food and drink to the water, the latter remaining 
 but little changed from ancient times, while the former 
 has put on a Christian guise. ^ Among the Mordwins 
 in the Russian Government of Tambov the barren 
 woman goes at midnight to a river holding in her 
 hands a live cock which she has previously loaded 
 with silken threads hung with tiny bells. She pros- 
 trates herself a certain number of times ; then, praying 
 the ved-ava, or water-spirit, to render her fertile, she 
 flings the bird Into the water. In the adjoining 
 Government of Penza, she takes some oatmeal, millet 
 and hops and one kopeck in a basket, and placing 
 the whole on the river-bank, she prays the ved-ava 
 ^ P/oss, IVeib, i. 437, citing Petrowitsch 
 
84 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 to forgive her, and '' de se /aire une place dans son 
 vi^ntrey On her return home she knocks at the door, 
 saying : " The wood to be dried up, I to be swollen up ! " 
 The ved-ava, it should be noted, are not merely river- 
 spirits ; they dispense rain and fertility. Imagined 
 themselves as females in human form, they are pro- 
 tectresses of love and of the fecundity of women. Young 
 couples pray to them for children and it is to their 
 anger that sterility is ascribed : hence probably the 
 prayer for forgiveness just mentioned.-^ There is no 
 bathing mentioned in these rites. We find it, how- 
 ever, practised in the parallel case of the Burmal 
 er Rabba spring near Constantine, in Algeria, fre- 
 quented both by Jewesses and Moors for the re- 
 moval of infecundity. Each of these women slays 
 a black hen before the door of the grotto, offers inside 
 a wax-taper and a honey- cake, takes a bath and goes 
 away assured of the speedy accomplishment of her 
 wishes.^ Childless couples in Palestine "go long dis- 
 tances to bathe in certain pools ; and barren women 
 visit the hot springs in various districts, not as might 
 be supposed for any medicinal properties, but because 
 the jinn who causes the vapour is regarded as being 
 capable in a definite and physical sense of giving 
 them offspring." ^ The Oromo of East Africa believe 
 in a multiplicity of supernatural beings called by the 
 generic name of Ajana. Some of these have their 
 seat in the depths of streams and springs. Their 
 presence lends the water supernatural power. The 
 
 ^ Srnirnov, i. 432, 397, 398. Kara Kirghiz women spend a 
 night beside a holy well ; but the ceremonies practised are not given, 
 unless they include that mentioned infra, p. 113 {Radloff, v. 2). 
 
 2 PIoss, Weib^ i. 437. 
 
 2 Mrs. H. H. Spoer, F. L. xviii. 55. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 85 
 
 wells and rivers they haunt are therefore much 
 resorted to. Unfruitful women especially believe that 
 by bathing in rivers thus consecrated the desired 
 fertility may be obtained/ 
 
 In the same way it is precisely while bathing that 
 the women of a certain tribe in Northern Queensland 
 are believed to be impregnated. This is done by a 
 nature-spirit, called Kunya, who makes babies out of 
 pandanus-root and inserts them into women in the 
 water.^ The population of the Seranglao and Gorong 
 Archipelago between Celebes and New Guinea is 
 Mohammedan, at least in name. Among the cere- 
 monies for the production of children we are vaguely 
 told that infertile men and women are made to bathe 
 in a particular manner.^ In the partially Christianised 
 Ambon and Uliase Islands persons who have no 
 children take drugs or "bathe in a certain prescribed 
 manner ; " but what that manner is our authority leaves 
 undescribed.'* In the Archipelagoes of Watubela, 
 Aaru and Sula barren women and their husbands go 
 to the ancestral graves, or if Moslems on Friday to 
 the so-called Kub Karana, or sacred tomb, to pray 
 together with some old women. They bring offerings, 
 which include water, and a live goat, or if heathen a 
 young pig. The husband prays for a medicine, and 
 promises, if a child be given him, to offer the goat (or 
 pig, if a heathen), or to give it to the people to eat. 
 It is expected that after this the medicine will be 
 prescribed to both husband and wife in dreams. 
 They both wash in the water they have brought, 
 
 ^ Paulitschke, ii. 36, 
 
 ^ Roth, A^. Queensland Etfwog. Bull. v. 23, § 83. 
 
 » Riedel, 176. * /^. 75- 
 
$^ PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 which is consecrated by thus standing for a while on 
 the grave and eat sirih-pinang together, putting some 
 also on the grave in a dish. They take the goat or 
 pig back home, to be sacrificed in accordance with the 
 husband's vow, only if the wife become pregnant.-^ 
 The heathen Dyaks of Borneo offer domestic fowls 
 and other birds to water-gods against unfruitfulness, 
 which these divinities inflict upon women, or remit, at 
 their own uncontrolled pleasure ; but it does not 
 appear that the votaries bathe. The barren woman 
 (or sometimes a man) gives a big feast called Cara- 
 ramin and goes to the haunt of the Jata, or divinity, 
 in question in a boat beautifully decorated, taking 
 the birds v/ith o'ilded beaks as offerino-s. These birds 
 are either thrown alive into the water, or their heads 
 are merely cut off and offered, while the bodies are 
 consumed by the votaries. In many instances, we are 
 told, carved wooden figures of birds are made use of, 
 instead of the real article.^ The nature-goddess of the 
 Yorubas on the West Coast of Africa is represented 
 as a pregnant female ; and the water that is consecrated 
 by being kept in her temple is highly esteemed for 
 infertility and difficult labours.^ Probably it is for 
 external application as in the case of the correspond- 
 ing goddess of the neighbouring Ewhe.^ The Wan- 
 dorobbo of German East Africa celebrate a feast 
 
 ^ Ploss, Weib^ i. 438, citing an article by Riedel in Bijdragen. 
 
 2 Ibid. 436, citing Hein, 
 
 3 Ibid. 439, citing Bastian. I suspect the goddess referred to is 
 Odudua, who is strictly speaking the Earth-goddess (see Ellis, 
 Yoruba, 41). But there is nothing to identify the passage of Bastian 
 referred to ; and if there were, we should probably be no better off. 
 The blessings invoked by students on both Bastian and Bartels will 
 always be of a limited character. 
 
 * Spieth, 716. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 87 
 
 from time to time to pray Ued, their god, for children. 
 At this feast the married women sit in a circle 
 round a small fire, in which are sprinkled by way of 
 incense the waxen dregs of honey-beer. They sing, 
 calling on Ued, while an old man of distinction 
 sprinkles them with honey-beer. After a quarter of 
 an hour or so of this they get up and dance, still sing- 
 ing. The ceremony closes with a meal of flesh-meat 
 and honey-beer/ 
 
 Most of these observances include bathing or 
 washing or at least sprinkling with water or some 
 other liquid as an integral part of the rite. Where 
 this is not the case the water-orod is invoked. The 
 fertilising power of liquids, especially water, is thus 
 recognised in them all. This would seem to be the 
 chief idea underlying the rites in connection with water 
 performed by a bride on being brought to her new 
 home. It would be wandering too far from our 
 present subject to discuss these rites, which are often 
 very complex. But one at least of the objects they 
 have in view is the production of offspring. I add a 
 few references below for readers who wish to pursue 
 the inquiry." Meanwhile it will be seen that the 
 practices whether of drinking or bathing reviewed in 
 
 ^ Merker, 250. 
 
 2 Jevons, Plutarch's R. Q. ci. ; V Anthrop&logie, iii, 548, 558 ; 
 Congress (1891) Rep. 345; Kolbe, 163; Rodd, 94; Dalton, 
 passim; Ploss, Weib, i. 445 ; Winternitz, Altind. Hocbz. 47, loi ; 
 Lobel, 149, 175, 203; Hoffmann-Krayer, Sclnveis. Arch. f. Volksk. 
 xi. 265. I may add as evidence at once of a belief in the value of 
 washing for the production of children and of a different view of the 
 operation of water, that about Adael, west of the White Nile, in 
 Equatorial Africa, the Kich negresses do not wash in water, but 
 " in liquids much less innocent," unless they want to be sterile 
 (Ploss, Wtib., i. 439, apparently citing Brehm). 
 
88 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the preceding pages bear, in their simpler forms at 
 any rate, a remarkable analogy to the incidents in the 
 stories wherein we are presented with birth as caused 
 by these means. As far as the more complex practices 
 differ, their difference arises by development of ritual 
 or the necessity to screen the real substance of the rite 
 from the jealousy of a predominant religion. 
 
 Having regard to the legends of Danae and the 
 Mexican goddess who was fructified by the rain we 
 may note that Hottentot maidens must run about 
 naked in the first thunderstorm after the festival when 
 their maturity is celebrated. The rain, pouring down 
 over the whole body, has the virtue of making fruitful 
 the girl who receives it and rendering her capable of 
 having a large offspring.^ On the other hand, young 
 unmarried Bushmen w^omen and girls must hide them- 
 selves from the rain,^ probably because they may be 
 rendered pregnant thereby. Among the Bamonaheng, 
 one of the sub-clans of the Bakwena, the principal 
 clan of the Basuto, a cripple named Ntidi used to have 
 a great reputation for assisting barren women by his 
 prayers. Such women used to go to pray in a cavern, 
 and if water fell on their heads it was ascribed to him, 
 and they firmly believed that their prayers were heard. ^ 
 The Ts'etsaut, a Tinneh tribe of Portland Inlet, 
 British Columbia, forbid a girl who is undergoing her 
 seclusion at puberty to expose her face to the sun 
 or to the sky, else it will rain.* It may be suspected 
 that here, as among the Bushmen, we have a taboo 
 
 1 Hahn, Tsuni-\\goatrt, 87. ^ Lloyd, Rep. 21. 
 
 * Jacottet, in Bufl. Soc. Neiichat. Ge'og. ix. 136. Sometimes it 
 was small stones which fell on the women, without their knowing 
 whence. 
 
 * Boas, Brit. Ass. Rep. 1895, 5^^ i ^^- Chinook Texts, 246. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 89 
 
 against premature exposure to rain. It is even 
 possible that a similar belief in the power of rain to 
 fructify women was once common in Europe. In 
 Iceland a light rain at a wedding is still a sign of a 
 fruitful marriage/ It is accounted lucky in this 
 country ; and luck in marriage we know means above 
 all things children. On the Riviera a rhyme declares 
 that "if the bride and bridegroom wet their feet they 
 will be three within the year " — that is, they will have 
 a child. ^ A saying current in many parts of Germany 
 points in the same direction, namely, that when it rains 
 on St. John's Day the nuts v/ill be wormy and many 
 girls pregnant^ — unless as a Slav practice already cited 
 may suggest the pregnancy be the result of their eating 
 the wormy nuts. 
 
 The legend of Danae, however, suggests, and several 
 of the other stories I have cited assert, that supernatural 
 pregnancy was due to the rays of the sun. The 
 ancient Parsees, as we might have expected, believed 
 that the beams of the rising sun were the most effective 
 means for giving fruitfulness to the newly wedded ; 
 and even to-day, in Iran and among the Tartars in 
 Central Asia, the morning after the marriage has been 
 consummated the pair are brought out to be greeted 
 by the rising sun.* The same custom was formerly 
 practised by the Turks of Siberia'' At old Hindu 
 
 ^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxii. 60. 
 
 2 J, B, Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. ri:6. 
 
 * Wuttke, 81. In Hainault a profusion of fruit on tlie nut-trees 
 prognosticates many bastards during the year (Harou, 28). 
 
 * PIoss, Weib, i. 446, without acknowledgment, but apparently 
 on the authority of Vambery {Das Titrkenwolk, p. 112), who is cited 
 by Frazer {G. B. iii. 222 note) for the custom. 
 
 * Frazer, loc. cit. 
 
90 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 marriages, the bride was made to look towards the 
 sun, or in some other way exposed to its rays. This 
 was performed the day before the consummation of the 
 marriage, and was expressly called the Impregnation 
 rite.-^ At the present time among Hindus in the old 
 North-Western Provinces, a woman who is childless 
 and desirous of being blessed with a child, stands, 
 after bathing, naked facing the sun, and invokes his 
 aid to remove her barrenness." Among the Chaco 
 Indians of South America, the bride and bridegroom 
 sleep the first night on a skin with their heads towards 
 the west ; for, we are told, the marriage is not con- 
 sidered as ratified until the rising sun shines on their 
 feet the succeeding morning.^ Whether or not it is 
 really their feet on which the sun is expected to shine, 
 the ratification of the marriage by the sun must be 
 intended to obtain the blessing of fertility. 
 
 Allusion has been made to the puberty customs of 
 the Bushmen and the Ts'ets'aut. In the lower culture 
 it is usual that girls on attaining maturity are placed 
 in retreat ; but in consequence of the vagueness with 
 which the rites are described we are often left uncertain 
 whether they are simply banished from society for a 
 time as " unclean," or are immured with special precau- 
 tions against sunshine. Moreover, it is no uncommon 
 phenomenon that in course of time and cultural 
 changes the real object of a ceremony is forgotten, 
 and the ceremony itself modified — perhaps in conse- 
 quence of this forgetfulness, perhaps for other reasons 
 — or at least the account given of it by the people who 
 
 ^ Crooke, Tribes and Castes, ii. 149, citing Biihler. 
 2 N. hid. N. and O. iii. 35 (par. 71). 
 ^ Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N.S, iii. 327. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 91 
 
 practise it is not to be relied upon. The general 
 subject of puberty customs is too wide to be fully 
 discussed here. I shall therefore adduce only a few 
 cases in which the intention to screen from the sun is 
 either expressed, or a matter of obvious inference. 
 
 Dr. Frazer has made a large collection of such cases 
 of which it is necessary to do little more than remind 
 the reader.^ They include examples from various 
 tribes of South America in which the pubescent girl is 
 confined, usually in her hammock, but at all events 
 closely covered up, for a longer or shorter period, and 
 corresponding examples from the East Indies, both 
 continental and insular, in which the unfortunate 
 victim is immured in the dark, sometimes even for 
 years. The requirement is often express that the sun 
 must not shine on her, and where it is not so stated it 
 is obvious from the description of the rites. The case 
 of the Cambodian maiden is particularly significant. 
 She is said at puberty ** to enter into the shade." 
 She is kept in the house and is only allowed to bathe 
 after nightfall when people are no longer recognisable, 
 and has to submit to other rules. This seclusion lasts 
 from months to years, according to the social position 
 of ihe family ; but it is interrupted during eclipses, 
 when she is allowed to go out to worship the monster 
 that produces eclipses by seizing the heavenly bodies 
 between his teeth, praying him to listen to her prayers 
 for good fortune. 
 
 Among the Indians of the various tribes of British 
 
 Columbia and Alaska the seclusion from the sun was 
 
 very stringent, although it varied In time from a few 
 
 days to two years, and the details differed from tribe 
 
 ^ Frazer, G. B. iii. 204 sqq. 
 
92 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 to tribe. To the tribes mentioned by Dr. Frazer may 
 be added the Chinook, the Squamish, the Lillooet 
 and the Haida. Among the Chinook a girl must 
 remain hidden for five days. A potlatch is then 
 made ; she is brought out to dance and afterwards 
 hidden again. For fifty days she must not eat fresh 
 food. For a hundred days she must not warm herself 
 by the fire, nor look at the people, nor at the sky, nor 
 pick berries. When she looks at the sky bad weather 
 is the result ; when she picks berries it rains ! ^ A 
 Squamish girl does not seem to have been secluded ; 
 but she was kept indoors at work all day long after 
 puberty, and during her catamenia she was not allowed 
 to go near the fire." Among the Lillooet a girl was 
 isolated in a small lodge made of fir-branches or bark. 
 She painted her face red. Each evening at dusk she 
 left her lodge and wandered about all night, returning 
 before sunrise. Even then she wore a mask of fir- 
 branches. Among the Lower Lillooet many girls wore 
 masks of goat-skin which covered head, neck, 
 shoulders and breast, leaving only a small opening 
 from the brow to the chin ; and before going out every 
 one had to paint the exposed part of her face. Girls 
 remained isolated for not less than one year nor more 
 than four years ; but two years was the usual time. They 
 performed at night ceremonies intended to influence 
 their future course of life and obtain easy delivery.^ Of 
 the Haida ceremonies it is only necessary here to 
 refer to two. Among the Masset the girl remained 
 behind a screen in the house. She was subject to 
 
 ^ Boas, Chinook Texts, 246. 
 
 - Hill-Tout, B. A. Rep. 1900, 484. 
 
 * Teit, Jestip Exped. ii. 263. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 93 
 
 certain dietary regulations for two years. She was 
 not allowed to look at the sky or go down to the 
 beach like other people, or it would become bad 
 weather. Among the Stasias the maturing girl had to 
 wear a large hat covered with green paint which 
 protected her face from the sun and fire.-^ The Malemut 
 and other Eskimo about Bering Strait compel a girl 
 to live for forty days in a corner of the hut with her 
 face to the wall or in summer in a rough separate hut, 
 her hood over her head and her hair hano-incf 
 dishevelled over her eyes. She is not allowed to go 
 out at all by day and only once during the night when 
 every one is asleep.^ In south-western Oregon the 
 Takelma girl is subjected to a number of ceremonies 
 and taboos. " She was not permitted for instance to 
 look at the sky or to gaze too freely about her ; and to 
 ensure this a string of the blue jay's tail-feathers tied 
 on close together was put about " her forehead and 
 tied to her back hair, "an arrangement that effectually 
 screened from her view everything about her." She 
 sleeps with her head in a funnel-shaped basket, the 
 declared purpose (which may be very different from 
 the real purpose) being to prevent her from dreaming 
 of the dead — a bad omen.^ 
 
 The Paliyans of the Palni Hills in the south of 
 India celebrate a feast when a girl attains maturity. 
 Two weeks previously a grass-hut is built for her. 
 There she remains shut up for twelve days, food being 
 brought to her once or twice a day. On the morning 
 of the thirteenth day the matrons of the settlement 
 
 ^ ^\ia.r\ior\, Jesiip Exped. v. 49, 50. 
 
 ^ Nelson, JRep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 291. 
 
 ^ E. Sapir^ Amer. Anihrop. N.S. ix. 274. 
 
94 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 forcibly drag her to some neighbouring pond or stream 
 and plunge her seven times into the water. She is 
 then brougrht back to her hut and there confined for 
 two days more, during which time no food at all is 
 given her. On the fifteenth day she is at last set free, 
 the hut where she was immured is burnt down, and a 
 grand feast takes place in which all the families of the 
 settlement join, the headman of the tribe or his repre- 
 sentative sometimes presiding and receiving a gift, 
 such as a skin or valuable roots. The whole day is 
 given up to mirth and gaiety, to eating, drinking and 
 dancino-. In the Madura district two of the castes of 
 the plains observe a similar custom of shutting up girls 
 at the time of puberty, the Valayans for fourteen and 
 the Parivarams for sixteen days ; but the accompany- 
 ing rites differ in some particulars from those of the 
 Paliyans.^ Mr. Macdonald, a missionary, speaking 
 generally of the Bantu tribes of South Africa, espe- 
 cially of those of the south-east, tells us that if 
 menstruation *' commence for the first time while a 
 girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field, 
 she runs to the river and hides herself amono- the reeds 
 for the day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers 
 her head carefully that the sun may not shine on it 
 and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, as would 
 result from exposure to the sun's beams. After dark 
 she returns to her home and is secluded " in a separate 
 hut, where a small portion is partitioned off for her at 
 the farther end. There the sunshine, it may be ob- 
 served, can by no possibility reach her ; and there she 
 remains under taboo, with some other girls to attend 
 her, for about three weeks. She then leaves the hut, 
 1 Father Dahmen, Anthropos, iii. 27. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 95 
 
 washes, and after certain ceremonies is received as a 
 woman. ^ Ordinary girls among the Barotse pass 
 through comparatively simple ceremonies of purifica- 
 tion, and are initiated into the mysteries of adult life 
 by certain old women. But the case of a daughter of 
 the royal house is by no means so simple. She is 
 required to spend three months not merely in retire- 
 ment but in the darkness of a hut alone. She is 
 forbidden to speak to the slave-girls who attend her. 
 From her seclusion she issues so transformed with the 
 fat which is the result of good feeding and complete 
 inaction that she is hardly recognised. She is taken 
 by night to the river and bathed in the presence of all 
 the women of the village. The next day she appears 
 in public decked with ornaments and paint and 
 tattooed around the eyes, a woman and ready for 
 marriao-e.^ Amono- the Bavili in French Cong-o the 
 girl on attaining maturity is caught and forced into 
 what is called "the paint-house." There she is kept, 
 painted red and carefully fed and treated until she is 
 considered ready for marriage, when she is washed 
 and led to her husband.^ Among the Bashilange on 
 the rivers Lulua and Kassai in south-west Africa a 
 girl is shut up for from four to six days in a hut. 
 When she is let out again her whole body is rubbed 
 with powdered tukula wood and castor oil and her 
 face is painted red. The occasion is one of great 
 rejoicing ; and she is carried on a man's shoulders 
 through the village.* Among the natives of Loango 
 girls at puberty are confined in separate huts. The 
 
 ^ /. A. I. XX. 116. 2 Beguin, ri2. 
 
 ^ Dennett, 20. 
 
 * Mittheil. der Afrik. Gesellsch. in Dentschlancl^ iv. 259. 
 
96 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Awankonde of Lake Nyassa and the Wafiomi of 
 Eastern Africa also seclude girls for a considerable 
 period, apparently in the dark. On New Pomerania, 
 the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, the 
 Sulka bride is taken to her future husband's parents 
 some time before the wedding. They keep her 
 secluded in a cell of their house, where she is tattooed 
 and where she is required to observe abstinence from 
 certain foods and can make no fire. On going out for 
 any purpose she must be covered up from head to 
 foot, and must whistle that men may get out of her 
 way. Thus she passes the time until the wedding- 
 day.^ 
 
 On the island of Mabuiag, in Torres Straits, the 
 girl is put into a dark corner of her parents' house 
 surrounded with bushes, which are piled up so high 
 around her that only her head is visible. Here she 
 remains for three months. The sun may not shine on 
 her; or as one of the natives expressed it, "he can't 
 see daytime, he stop inside dark." On the adjacent 
 island of Muralug, a rough bower-like hut is built for 
 the girl on the beach, and she lies inside, in a shallow 
 excavation in the sand. She is not liberated for two 
 months. On the Cape York Peninsula of Australia, 
 a girl at puberty has to lie in a humpy, or shelter, for 
 from four to six weeks. She may not see the sun, 
 and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until 
 the sun has disappeared, "so sun don't strike him." 
 Similar but less lengthy is the seclusion among the 
 Otati of the neighbourhood of Gape Granville, on the 
 east of the same peninsula and the Uiyumkwi of Red 
 Island, the former only lasting during the flow of the 
 ^ Arc/i. Anthrop. N.S. i. 210. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 97 
 
 catamenia, while the latter is reduced to a few 
 hours/ 
 
 The foregoing examples are drawn from the Eskimo 
 and the tribes of British Columbia, from the aboriginal 
 inhabitants of various parts of South America, from 
 the Bantu of Africa, from the Hindus and the Cam- 
 bodians, from more than one of the East Indian islands, 
 from Melanesians, Papuans, the islanders of Torres 
 Straits, and tribes of the extreme north of Australia. 
 Most of the cases from so wide an area were dis- 
 covered by the almost limitless research of Dr. Frazer. 
 They raise, as he has pointed out, the suspicion that 
 the stories of impregnation and capture by the sun 
 are echoes of puberty rites in which exposure to the 
 rays of the sun is forbidden. It would not necessarily 
 follow that the original reason for concealment from 
 the sun was fear of impregnation by that luminary ; 
 though having regard to the stories and to the beliefs 
 respecting impregnation disclosed in the present chap- 
 ter, it is probable. Puberty is a crisis of extreme im- 
 portance in life. The precautions taken with regard 
 to girls indicate that they are held, not merely to be 
 charged with malign influence, but to be specially 
 sensitive to the onset of powers other than human. 
 They may very well be supposed liable at that 
 moment to impregnation by the unusual means of sun 
 or rain. We have seen that Hottentot maidens are 
 rendered fruitful by a thunderstorm, and that other 
 tribes very low down in culture have customs and 
 beliefs pointing in the same direction ; and we seem to 
 find traces of such beliefs even in Europe. A pre- 
 sumption is thus raised in favour of the parallel belief 
 
 ^ Torres Straits Rep. v. 203 sqq. 
 I G 
 
98 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in impregnation by the sun ; and though we cannot 
 be said at present to have actual proof of it, the 
 wedding ceremonies I have cited greatly strengthen 
 the presumption.-^ 
 
 The belief in conception by the moon is rare. It 
 was perhaps the belief, as we have seen, in ancient 
 Egypt with regard to the bull-god Apis. It is still 
 found in Brittany.^ The Ja-Luo of Eastern Uganda 
 hold that " a woman can only become pregnant at the 
 time of the new moon, and generally that the moon 
 has a great deal to do v/ith the occurrence." ^ In some 
 of the East Indian islands a star is credited, as in 
 several stories, vv^ith it. In Ambon and Uliase albinos 
 are attributed to conception by a falling star ; by the 
 people of Seranglao and Gorong the morning star 
 is accused as the cause.* 
 
 Fire, in various parts of Europe, is believed to 
 cause conception. About Ranggen in the Tirol a barren 
 woman is advised to creep into a baking oven while 
 it is still warm.^ Dr. Frazer has pointed out that the 
 custom of leaping over bonfires has this among other 
 things for its object. At Cobern, in the Eifel, an 
 
 1 One difficulty in the way of identifying the immurement in the 
 stories as an echo of the puberty rites is the fact that in many, if 
 not most, of the tales the child is immured from infancy. This is 
 probably a mere exaggeration. On the other hand, such cases are 
 not unknown in savage life, as among certain branches of the 
 Iroquois, when a child (boy or girl) is closely secluded from every 
 one except the appointed guardian, and only allowed out of his place 
 of concealment at night. This seclusion lasts until puberty. It is 
 generally occasioned, as in the stories, by some omen or prodigy 
 accompanying birth ; and the child is regarded as possessed of 
 magical power {Rep. Bur. Ethn. xxi. 142, 255). 
 
 2 Luzel, Rev. Celt. iii. 452 ; Rev. Trad. Pop. xv. 471. 
 
 3 J. A. I. xxxiii, 358. ^ Riedel, 75, 176. 
 ^ Zmgerle, Sitten, 26 (No. 152). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 99 
 
 effigy is burnt on Shrove Tuesday ; the people dance 
 round the pyre and the last bride must leap over it. 
 In Lechrain a young man and a young woman leap 
 together over the bonfire on Midsummer Day. If 
 they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from 
 fever, and the girl will not become a mother within 
 the year — the flames will not have touched and 
 fertilised her. In Ireland barren cattle are driven 
 through the midsummer fires ; and a girl who jumps 
 thrice over it will soon marry and become the mother of 
 many children. In various parts of France a girl who 
 dances round nine fires will be sure to marry within 
 the year. While in some parts of France and Belgium 
 it is the rule that the bonfires usual on the first Sunday 
 of Lent should be kindled by the person who was last 
 married.^ The relation of these beliefs and practices 
 to those which exhibit bonfires as quickening and 
 fertilising influences over the vegetable world is clear. 
 For details reference must be made to the pages of 
 The Golden Botigh. 
 
 The specific manner, however, in which the fires 
 were supposed to work their beneficent purpose is a 
 subject of conjecture rather than of absolute proof. 
 It has been suggested that it was by purification. 
 The fumigation which human beings and cattle would 
 undergo in passing through or over the fire, and which 
 would be conveyed to the fields and fruit-trees by the 
 flames and smoke of the fire and of the torches lighted 
 at its glowing embers, would drive away evil influences. 
 That this idea in fact enters into some of the celebra- 
 tions is clear, if not expressly affirmed by those who 
 indulge in them. But it by no means accounts for all 
 ^ Frazer, G. B. iii. 244^ 270, 305, 314. 
 
lOO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the rites. It seems that on the whole the explanation 
 of the fires given by Mannhardt and Frazer is the 
 true one, namely, "that they are sun-charms or 
 magical ceremonies intended to secure a proper supply 
 of sunshine for men, animals and plants." Such fires 
 are mimetic rites. The power ascribed to them of 
 bringing about the occurrence which they mimic, 
 namely, the supply of sunshine, would, by a confusion 
 of thought common to magic, be extended and identified 
 with the power of the sun itself. Contact with them, 
 therefore, or with the smoke or embers, or with torches 
 kindled at them, would produce the same effect as 
 exposure to the rays of the sun. We have seen that 
 the sun is believed to fertilise not merely the fields 
 but human beings also, and that marriage rites and 
 not improbably puberty ceremonies have reference 
 to this belief — a belief, moreover, of which expression 
 is found in many of the stories. We accordingly 
 conclude that these fires are believed to have a direct 
 and immediate influence on fecundity, whether of the 
 fields and fruit-trees or of women, similar to that 
 ascribed to the sun, 
 
 A corresponding question arises as to the exact 
 operation of a famous Roman rite. The festival of the 
 Lupercal has been elaborately discussed by Mannhardt 
 and more recently with great care by Mr. Warde 
 Fowler. "On February 15," says the latter, "the 
 celebrants of this ancient rite met at the cave called the 
 Lupercal, at the foot of the steep south-western corner 
 of the Palatine Hill — the spot where, according to the 
 tradition, the flooded Tiber had deposited the twin 
 children at the foot of the sacred fig-tree, and where 
 they were nourished by the she-wolf." There, after a 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN loi 
 
 sacrifice of goats and a dog, and the offering of sacred 
 cakes made by the Vestals from the first ears of the 
 last harvest, " two youths of high rank, belonging, we 
 may suppose one to each of the two collegia of Luperci, 
 . . . were brought forward ; these had their foreheads 
 smeared with the knife bloody from the slaughter of 
 the victims, and then wiped with wool dipped in milk. 
 As soon as this was done they were obliged to laugh." 
 The Luperci then " girt themselves with the skins of the 
 slaughtered goats, and feasted luxuriously ; after which 
 they ran round the base of the Palatine Hill, or at 
 least a large part of its circuit, apparently in two 
 companies one led by each of the two youths. As they 
 ran they struck at all the women who came near them 
 or offered themselves to their blows, with strips of skin 
 cut from the hides of the same victims " with which 
 they were girt. The course taken up by the runners, 
 has not been completely described; but their object 
 was apparently a /2/;5'/?^^/z'^ of the Palatine city. It is 
 aptly compared by Mr. Fowler with the old English 
 custom of beating the bounds of the parish, "when 
 the minister," says Bourne as quoted by Brand, 
 " accompanied by his churchwardens and parishioners, 
 [was] wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a 
 blessing on the fruits of the earth and preserve the rights 
 and properties of the parish." ^ The women were struck 
 according to Juvenal on the open hand, according to 
 Ovid on the back. The object was beyond doubt to 
 fertilise them. The only dispute is whether that 
 fertilisation was accomplished by purification, by 
 driving out the demon of sterility, or directly by the 
 touch of the sacred thongs. 
 
 ^ Fowler, 310 sqq Brand, i. 168, 
 
I02 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Mannhardt has collected a long series of examples, 
 chiefly from ancient and modern Europe, of the ritual 
 use of blows/ Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough has 
 added a considerable number from various other parts 
 of the world.^ The conclusion at which the former 
 arrived was that they all belong to a cycle of related 
 customs, of which some have preserved one morsel of 
 old tradition and others have preserved others, and 
 that the object of ail alike was the expulsion of the 
 demons of sickness and sterility from mankind and 
 from plants. This conclusion has been strengthened 
 by Dr. Frazer's collection. Yet I am by no means 
 persuaded that it is entirely accurate for all the cases 
 cited. There is a great temptation to interpret in the 
 same way customs which assume a similar, even if not 
 quite the same, form. The possibility, however, of the 
 conflation of two or more rites originally distinct, and 
 the alternative possibility of one rite's being influenced 
 in its form by a rite perfectly distinct in purpose 
 though similar in expression, must never be omitted 
 from our calculations. The practice of throwing a 
 stone or a stick upon a cairn of stones, or of tying a 
 piece of rag from one's clothing on a bush above a 
 sacred well, or throwing a pin into the well itself is 
 very widespread. When in Sweden a piece of money 
 is thrown upon a cairn, instead of a stick or a stone ; 
 or when the Scottish peasant hammers a bawbee, 
 instead of a nail, into the withered trunk of the Wish- 
 ing Tree of Loch Maree ; the ceremony has obviously 
 
 1 Mannhardt, BK. 251 sqq. ; Id., Myth. Forsch. 113 sqq. 
 
 2 Frazer, G. B. iii. 129, 215, 217. Probably the worshippers of 
 Demeter at the Greek festival of the Thesmophoria were beaten for 
 the purpose of increasing their productiveness ; but we do not know 
 of what wood the rods were made (Farnell, iii. 104). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN lo^; 
 
 o 
 
 undergone some change of this kind. Whatever may 
 have been the Intention in adding a stone to a cairn, 
 or hammering a nail into a sacred tree, we cannot 
 doubt the analogy in form between this act and the 
 much less archaic gift of money at a shrine has struck 
 the peasant's mind and caused a substitution of the 
 more valuable for the less valuable object bestowed. 
 So it seems to me that the rite of beating a patient in 
 order to drive the demon of sickness or some other 
 evil being out of him has been confounded with the 
 similar rite of striking to cause some good to enter 
 him. These two distinct rites have in fact undergone 
 conflation, the same act which drives out the demon 
 being held to induce the desired good. 
 
 M. Salomon Reinach has objected to Mannhardt's 
 interpretation that the latter has overlooked the 
 importance of striking with the branches of certain 
 definite trees or plants, or with thongs made from 
 the hides of certain animals.^ It may be replied that 
 certain plants are endowed in the popular belief with 
 the property of drawing away or keeping at a distance, 
 witches and devils. This must be admitted. But 
 here again arises the difficulty, of disentangling notions 
 which have grown together for ages. The difficulty, 
 however, does not attach with the same persistence to 
 all. At Hildesheim the women and girls are struck at 
 Shrovetide with a small fir-tree or a stalk of rosemary.^ 
 In Altmark at the same period a band of men-servants 
 ofoes from farm to farm with music and beats with 
 birch-twigs first the mistress, then her daughters, and 
 lastly the servant-maids.^ These are only samples of 
 
 ^ VAnthrop. xv. 52. 
 
 '^ Mannhardt, BK. 254. ^ Ibid. 256. 
 
I04 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the use of three different plants, of which more are 
 recorded in Mannhardt's pages. We have already 
 seen that rosemary is prescribed for barrenness. The 
 fir is a symbol of fertility. In North Germany brides 
 and bridegrooms often carry fir-branches with lighted 
 tapers. At Weimar and in Courland firs are planted 
 before the house where the wedding takes place.^ 
 The ceremonies concerning the fir practised at a 
 wedding by the Little Russians at Volhynia are 
 specially instructive. When the wedding procession 
 returning from the church draws nigh to the bride- 
 groom's house, a loaf of bread and a branch of fir or 
 pine are adorned with mountain-elder, white blossoms 
 and ears of corn and oats, and carried thence by the 
 boyarin or master of the ceremonies into the bride's 
 house. At the appearance of the fir the bride must 
 modestly lay her face upon the table and carefully hide 
 it. The bridegroom goes thrice round the table, 
 takes a cloth, lifts up the bride's head, kisses her and 
 places himself again at her side. The fir and the loaf 
 are set on the middle of the table opposite the bridal 
 pair. The bride's mother showers nuts and oats over 
 her new son-in-law, and sprinkles him with holy water. 
 Ears of corn are then fastened by the bridesmaids on 
 all present, beginning with the bridegroom.^ Save for 
 the use of holy water, which is an intrusive element, 
 the whole object here is directly to produce fertility. 
 In particular, that this is the purpose of the introduc- 
 tion of the fir is strikingly shown by the ritual modesty 
 of the bride. The same interpretation is to be put 
 upon the use of the birch-twigs in the custom, practised 
 
 ^ De Gubernatis, Myth. Plant, ii. ZZZ- 
 ^ Mannhardt, BK. 222. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 105 
 
 about Roding in the Upper Palatinate, of beating the 
 bride as she walks up from the church-door to her seat 
 opposite the bridegroom/ There would be no sense 
 in expelling demons at that moment and in that place. 
 Moreover, the various uses of the birch exhibited by 
 Mannhardt, and especially its connection with the 
 Mayday or Whitsuntide festival, seem unmistakably to 
 prove that, like the rosemary and the fir, its virtue is 
 not really that of exorcism but of fertilisation. 
 
 From these examples it is clear that M. Reinach is 
 right in insisting upon the need of paying attention to 
 the material with which the blows are struck, in order 
 correctly to interpret their meaning. At the Lupercal 
 the blows were struck with thono-s made of the hides 
 of the sacrificed goats. The Luperci, clothing them- 
 selves with the hides, cut strips from them for the 
 purpose. The custom by which the officiant at a 
 sacrifice, or the person on whose behalf the sacrifice is 
 offered, puts on the skin of the victim, is widely 
 spread. Its object is to identify the worshipper with 
 the victim, to obtain for him its sacred character, to 
 impart to him, as Robertson Smith says, "the sacred 
 virtue of its life." Thus the Luperci by clothing them- 
 selves in the skins were identified with the victims, 
 were indued with their qualities, furnished with 
 their sacred virtue. Striking others with those skins, 
 they were able to impart to them something of the 
 same qualities. Here is no element of purgation or of 
 exorcism : the object is direct and immediate fertilis- 
 ation. The story told by Ovid to explain the rite 
 confirms this interpretation. It is to the effect that 
 after the Rape of the Sabines the wives acquired by 
 ^ Mannhardt, BK. 299. 
 
ro6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the Romans remained barren. Juno, having been 
 consulted in her sacred grove on the Esquiline, 
 replied : "■ Italidas matres sacer hircus inito !'' An augur 
 recently banished from Etruria (the Etruscans were 
 famous for augury) interpreted the oracle. He offered a 
 goat in sacrifice, and by his command the women exposed 
 their backs to blows from thong's cut from the hide. 
 The happiest results followed ; the women became 
 mothers, and Rome was saved from extinction.^ It is 
 perfectly true that this is an setiological tale, invented 
 long afterwards to account for a rite the origin of 
 which was unknown. It is only cited here to show 
 that the ancients attached no purgative quality to the 
 blows : they understood their purpose to be no less 
 and no more than that of fecundating the childless 
 women who submitted to them. 
 
 The same direct action is to be attributed to the 
 blows bestowed in the county of Bekes, in Hungary, 
 on sterile women. They are struck with a stick 
 which has been first used to separate pairing dogs. In 
 the county of Bacs a barren woman is fumigated with 
 the hairs of pairing dogs, or with Christmas crumbs. 
 In the same county a Serb woman, who has already 
 borne and is therefore endowed with fecundity, will 
 communicate it to a barren friend by spanning her 
 v/aist at Christmas with a doughy hand. Among the 
 Schokaz the unfruitful woman sleeps on a cloth where- 
 with she has touched two pairing dogs. The Slovaks 
 in county Gomor beat her with the material in which 
 the midwife has wrapped a child at birth ; and we 
 are expressly told that they believe that by this means 
 she becomes pregnant.^ 
 
 ^ Ovid, FasH^ ii. 429. - Temesvary, 8. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 107 
 
 Mannhardt has noted that in many of the periodical 
 ceremonies he has recorded the blov/s are specially 
 aimed at women and girls. Thus, in addition to the 
 instances already mentioned, in Shaumburg the men- 
 servants at Shrovetide strike the maids and married 
 women on the calves so vigorously that the blood often 
 flows. The next night, however, the maids have their 
 turn, and doubtless repay with Interest what they have 
 received/ In Ukrainia on Palm Sunday, scarcely 
 have the people left the church when the boys 
 brandish the willow-rods recently borne in the pro- 
 cession and lay them about the backs of all who are 
 near them, but preferably on the women and girls.^ 
 The " Easter-smack" which Is given in many parts of 
 Germany and Austria Is often bestowed only on the 
 women.^ In some parts of Voigtland the girls are 
 whipped by the lads with nosegays.* In Voigtland 
 and the whole of the Saxon Erzoreblrore the lads on 
 Boxing Day beat the women and girls, if possible while 
 they are still abed, with birchen twigs which have 
 already sprouted, bound together with red ribbons, or 
 with something else that is green, such as rosemary- 
 stalks or juniper-twigs.^ From a police regulation in 
 the archives of Plassenburg dated In the year 1599 we 
 learn that it was then the custom at Christmas for 
 strong men-servants to penetrate into the houses, strip 
 
 1 Mannhardt, BK. 254. 
 
 2 Ibid. 256. So in some parts of Greece people beat one 
 another with pahii-branches on coming out of Church on Palm 
 Sunday [Revue Arcbeologique, 1907, 55), Surely no devils can with- 
 stand the Palm Sunday service in the Greek church, and need to be 
 exorcised in this way ! 
 
 3 Mannhardt, op. cit. 261. 
 
 * Ibid. 264. 5 Ibid. 265. 
 
io8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the girls and women and beat them with switches or 
 rods.' 
 
 Other examples might be added ; but without 
 lengthening the European list, let us compare these 
 with one from the utmost East. The Makura no 
 Soshi, a Japanese work written about the year looo a.d., 
 tells us that it was the custom, at the festival held 
 in honour of the Sahe no Kami, or phallic deities, on 
 the first full moon in every year, for the boys in the 
 Imperial Palace to go about striking the younger 
 women with the potsticks used for making gruel on the 
 occasion. This was supposed to ensure fertility. 
 Probably the practice was by no means confined to 
 the boys in the palace, for "the Japanese novelist and 
 antiquary Kioden, writing about a century ago, informs 
 us that a similar custom was at that time still practised 
 in the province of Echigo. He gives a drawing of the 
 sticks used for the purpose, of the phallic character of 
 which" in Mr. Aston's opinion "there can be no 
 doubt." The figure reproduced by Mr. Aston would 
 certainly seem to bear out his opinion.^ Here the occa- 
 sion, the form of the instrument and the effect attributed 
 to the blows are strikingly similar to those we have been 
 examining, and confirm the interpretation I have 
 ventured to place upon the European customs. 
 
 Certain marriage ceremonies have the same object. 
 At Athens the a;gis of Athene was taken by the 
 priestess to the houses of newly married women. ^ 
 
 1 Mannhardt, op. cit. 267. Compare with the above the custom 
 in the Bohemian Riesengebirge and the rhymes uttered as the 
 various limbs and organs are struck {Zeits. des Vet-etns, x. 332). 
 
 2 Aston, Shinto, 190. Compare the use of similar instruments 
 in Bulgaria at Carnival {Arch. Religionsw. xi. 408). 
 
 3 Farnell, i. 100. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 109 
 
 The aegis was a goat-skin, and we can hardly doubt 
 that it was brought into contact with the bride for 
 the purpose of rendering her fruitful. The ceremony, 
 it would seem, was not performed actually on the 
 wedding-day ; but many such ceremonies are. The 
 custom observed from India to the Atlantic Ocean 
 of throwing grain and seeds of one sort or another, 
 over a bride, and apparently that of flinging old shoes, 
 are intended to secure fecundity. The wandering 
 Gipsies of Transylvania are said to throw old shoes 
 and boots on a newly married pair when they enter 
 their tent, expressly to enhance the fertility of the 
 union. In Germany, pieces of cake are thrust against 
 the bride's body.^ At a certain stage in the wedding 
 ceremony of the German Jews, the friends who stand 
 round throw wheat on the couple and say, " Be fruit- 
 ful and multiply.'"^ The same object is visible in the 
 custom of the Berads in Bombay, by which the bride 
 is made to stand in a basket of millet.^ The Oraons 
 require the bridegroom to perform the essential cere- 
 mony of marking the bride with red lead, while both 
 are standing on a curry-stone, under which a sheaf of 
 corn lies upon a plough-yoke.* An equivalent rite is 
 found very generally in Northern India, and its 
 meaning cannot be doubtful. So, among the people 
 of Great Russia the nuptial couch is made with great 
 
 1 Ploss, JVeib, i. 445; Grimm, Teuf. Myth. 1794. In Zennor 
 and adjacent parishes in Cornwall, it was the custom to flog a newly 
 married couple to bed with " cords, sheep-spans, or anything handy 
 for the purpose," as a fecundity-charm. But it is obvious that the 
 custom described was in the last stage of decay ; and it has now 
 come to an end. No certain conclusion can therefore be drawn 
 from the miscellaneous character of the implements made use of 
 (F. L.Journ. v. 216). ^ Andree, Volksk. Jud. 144. 
 
 3 F. L. xiii. 235. * Dalton, 252. 
 
no PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 ceremony of forty sheaves of rye, over which the 
 sheets are spread. Barrels full of wheat and barley 
 are set round it, and at night the wedding torches are 
 stuck in them.-^ 
 
 Among the Masai of German East Africa many 
 women, especially women hitherto barren, take part 
 in the festival at the circumcision of the youths. The 
 barren women come in order to be pelted by the 
 youths with fresh cow-dung, for by the universal belief 
 of the Masai they will thereby be rendered fruitful.^ 
 Possibly the same may be the meaning of a curious 
 rite performed by the Australian blackfellows in 
 Victoria when a girl attains the age of puberty. She 
 is rubbed all over with charcoal and spotted with 
 white clay. " As soon as the painting is finished she 
 is made to stand on a log, and a small branch, stripped 
 of every leaf and bud, is placed in her right hand, 
 having on the tip of each bare twig a very small piece 
 of some farinaceous food. Young men, perhaps to 
 the number of twenty, slowly approach her one by 
 one ; each throws a small bare stick at her, and bites 
 off the food from the tip of one of the twigs, and spits 
 it into the fire, and, returning from the fire, stamps, 
 leaps and raves, as in a corrobboree." The sticks are 
 afterwards buried to prevent sorcerers from taking 
 
 1 Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 355. The same chapter is rich in 
 illustrations of the custom of throwing grain and seeds of various 
 kinds over a bride, and of decking her with ears of corn and so 
 forth, and abundantly justifies Mannhardt's observation that " the 
 custom undeniably takes its rise from the feeling of a sympathetic 
 connection between mankind and seed-bearing grasses and the 
 comparison between the fruit of the body and of corn." 
 
 2 Merker,6i. Their neighbours the Nandi apparently consider the 
 mere presence of a barren woman at a certain part of the boys' circum- 
 cision ceremonies enough to cause pregnancy (Hollis, ?hindi, 55, 68). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN iii 
 
 away the girls' kidney-fat, and the branch is burnt. 
 " The young men who threw the twigs and bit off the 
 food are understood to have covenanted with her not 
 to assault her, and further to protect her until she shall 
 be given away to her betrothed ; but the agreement 
 extends no further ; she may entertain any of them of 
 her own free Vv'ill as a lover." ^ The agreement may 
 extend no further. A youth who has taken part in a 
 solemn ceremony performed for the benefit of the girl 
 may by tribal law be under a special obligation not 
 to offer her violence. But that this is the purport of 
 the ceremony we must take leave to doubt. It does 
 not explain the details. The connection with the 
 puberty rites, the ritual spitting out of the food into 
 the fire by the youths, the intimate relation created 
 between the sticks and the girl's body and the conse- 
 quent fear of magical influence through them, and the 
 right of the girl afterwards to entertain any of the 
 youths as a lover, all alike negative the establishment 
 of any fraternal bond between her and the youths, 
 such as would be implied by a covenant of the kind 
 indicated ; all alike point to some effect to be wrought 
 upon her ; and that effect can only be a strengthening 
 for the duties of adult life, among which the bearing 
 of children occupies by far the most prominent place. 
 But we require to know a little more about the circum- 
 stances, and in particular how the youths are selected, 
 and what if any preparation they undergo, to pro- 
 nounce definitely on the question. 
 
 ^ Brough Smyth, i. 6i. It is said that in New Caledonia the 
 ground is thrashed by boys with sticks, with the idea of making it 
 fruitful; but the fact does not rest on direct evidence (J. J. 
 Atkinson, in F. L. xiv. 256). 
 
112 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 We have seen that in the stories a woman is some- 
 times said to conceive by the foot. An Asturian 
 ballad ascribes to the borage the power to affect any 
 woman treading on it as it affected the unfortunate 
 Princess Alexandra.^ In Brunswick a maiden who 
 treads on an egg-shell will become pregnant in 
 the same year.^ This is a case in which magic has 
 weathered down to augury : originally we may presume 
 the maiden was believed to become pregnant at once 
 by the act of treading on an egg-shell. In Auvergne 
 a woman or girl becomes pregnant by setting foot on 
 a hedgehog in the fields, and at the end of nine months 
 gives birth to a large litter of hedgehogs. The village 
 gossips even yet speak of girls who have suffered from 
 this misfortune. In the Haute-Loire it is enough for 
 a woman at her monthly period to pass over a hedge- 
 hog hidden under the leaves to cause her to litter six 
 weeks later a whole basketful of young hedgehogs. 
 Probably, as M. Sebillot observes, to this superstition 
 must be traced the term of abuse Jane d'eurson 
 (hedgehog brat) applied to children in the neighbour- 
 hood of Metz.'' The mode of revenge adopted by a 
 rejected lover among the Sulka of new Pomerania is 
 to take a certain fruit and cut it open or bore a hole in 
 it and insert some lime over which an incantation has 
 been pronounced. Then he throws the fruit on a path 
 over which the woman will pass, generally dashing it 
 upon a hard object so that it will fall to pieces. If the 
 woman thereafter walking along the path happen to 
 
 1 De Charencey, 230. 
 
 2 Andree, Braunschw. Volksk. 291. On the other hand in Japan 
 women must not tread on egg-shells, otherwise child-birth will be 
 difficult, or they will get leucorrhoea (H. ten Kate, Globus, xc. 129). 
 
 3 Rev. Trad. Pop. xii. 547 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, iii. 15. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 113 
 
 tread on a piece of the fruit she will become pregnant, 
 and the pregnancy will be repeated so frequently that 
 she will die of it/ 
 
 Among the Kara Kirghiz a solitary apple-tree is 
 often regarded as sacred. Rolling or wallowing 
 beneath it in prayer seems a method approved among 
 the women for obtaining pregnancy.^ In Japan it is 
 enough to squat down on the spot where a birth has 
 just taken place, ^ A Kwakiutl woman in British 
 Columbia is delivered sitting on the lap of a friend 
 over a pit or hole in the ground, into which the child 
 falls. When twins are thus born all the young women 
 go to the pit "and squat over it leaning on their 
 knuckles, because it is believed that after doing so 
 they will be sure to bear children."^ In Saxony 
 about Chemnitz a table-cloth acquires prolific virtue by 
 serving at a first-christening-dinner ; and it is some- 
 times cast over a barren wife.^ In the same way in 
 Italy a childless woman will borrow from a friend her 
 shift and wear it at the moment of coition. Dr. 
 
 1 Father Rascher, Arch. Anthrop. N.S. i. 219. In a variant 
 ceremony when a girl who is undergoing her seclusion previous to 
 marriage is concerned, the man waits by the house in the first 
 quarter of the moon until she comes out of doors for recreation in 
 the moonlight. He then takes some lime, steps up to her and 
 blows it against her mouth. The result will be that after her 
 marriage she will bring forth monstrous births or become so often 
 pregnant that at last she will die. 
 
 2 Radloif, V. 2. The apple-tree is a well-known symbol and 
 therefore cause of fecundity. Among the Southern Slavs the bride 
 is unveiled beneath an apple-tree and the veil is sometimes hung on 
 the tree (Krauss, Sitte und Branch., 450). In some parts of 
 England a fretful child is said to have come from under a crab-tree 
 (Addy, 144). 2 H. ten Kate, Globus, xv. 129. 
 
 4 Boas, B. A. Rep. 1896, 575, 
 ^ Grimm, Tetit. Myth. 1795. 
 
 I H 
 
114 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Zanetti who reports this superstition also states that 
 some persons wear sacred vestments on such an 
 occasion ; but whether those persons are men or 
 women does not appear. Near Gubbio a barren 
 woman is frequently advised to draw off the first milk 
 of a goat, before the newborn kid is allowed to suck, 
 to make a cheese of it, and to wear the cheese tied up 
 in a rag continually under her clothes/ In all these 
 .cases prolific virtue is communicated by contact. 
 
 It is sometimes enough if not the woman herself but 
 
 some article of her clothing be placed in contact with 
 
 the fruitful object, as in a Bosnian custom by which a 
 
 childless woman seeks for a plant called apijun, cuts 
 
 its roots small, and steeps them in foam she has caught 
 
 from a millwheel, afterwards drinking of the liquid. 
 
 She then winds her wedding-girdle round a newly 
 
 grafted fruit-tree, when, if the graft prosper, she also 
 
 will bear. A still more complex rite is recommended 
 
 when a woman has been married for upwards of 
 
 eleven years without having had issue. A lady friend 
 
 who is so fortunate as to be in that state in which 
 
 ^' women wish to be who love their lords " must 
 
 endeavour to find a stone lying in a pear-tree, as 
 
 sometimes happens when it is thrown at the ripening 
 
 fruit and caught by one of the branches. She must 
 
 then shake the tree until the stone fall. This she 
 
 must catch in her hands ere it reach the ground, carry 
 
 it in the left skirt of her dress to the brook, put it 
 
 into a pitcher, fill the pitcher from the brook so far as 
 
 to cover the stone, and carry it home. Next, she 
 
 gathers dewy grass (it is not stated what she does with 
 
 it), and speaks into the pitcher and into the water the 
 
 1 Zanetti, 104, 103. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CFIILDREN 115 
 
 conjuring formula : " So-and-so shall conceive." After 
 that, she brings the pitcher with the water to the barren 
 woman to drink, and windinof the weddinsf-Sfarment 
 (it does not appear what portion of the dress is meant) 
 of the latter about her own body, wears it for three 
 months or longer, until the woman for whom the 
 ceremony is performed shall feel that her desire has 
 been accomplished. The friend, however, must not 
 eat even a morsel of bread in the patient's house/ 
 
 In this performance as in the former two distinct 
 rites are employed, in the hope that one will be 
 successful if the other fail. The potion carries us back 
 to the fertilising means discussed earlier in the chapter. 
 The stone shaken down from the tree can hardly be 
 understood to represent anything but a pear ; and 
 inasmuch as the patient cannot eat the stone, its 
 virtues as fruit (enhanced by its being plucked by a 
 woman already pregnant) are transmitted to the water 
 which is oiven her to drink, the intention beinof made 
 effectual by the utterance of the command, " So-and-so 
 shall conceive." In the second rite, included alike in 
 both customs, the quasi-permanent contact of the fruitful 
 tree or the pregnant woman with the barren woman's 
 clothing though detached from her body is sufficient, 
 by a magical doctrine which I have considered else- 
 where, to secure the transmission of prolific virtue to 
 her. Arab women attempt the more direct method of 
 transmission by borrowing the robe of a friend who 
 has already proved her fecundity.'-^ So Egede, the 
 Danish missionary to Greenland, tells us of the 
 Eskimo that " to render barren women fertile or 
 
 1 Dr. Krauss, in Am Urquell, iii. 276. Cf. the variant rites 
 practised by the Schokaz, supra, p. 60. 2 Jaussen, 35. 
 
ii6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 teeming they take old pieces of our shoes to hang about 
 them ; for, as they take our nation to be more fertile 
 and of a stronger disposition of body than theirs, they 
 fancy the virtue of our body communicates itself to our 
 clothing."^ This virtue, however, is often looked 
 upon as transferred by the same means from one body 
 to another, to the detriment of the former. Such 
 appears to be the danger contemplated by the supersti- 
 tion in the Erzgebirge that a bride must not give away 
 the first shoes she casts off, lest she become unlucky.^ 
 That is to say, her luck (by which fertility was doubt- 
 less originally meant, and in which it is still the chief 
 element) would be given away with the shoes. We 
 shall meet with further examples of transfer in the 
 next chapter. 
 
 The virtue of sacred vestments is derived from 
 contact with persons either personally or ritually holy. 
 One in that condition, as the tales abundantly witness, 
 has the power of fecundating barren women. The 
 relics of Lha-tsiin, the patron saint of Sikhim, are 
 celebrated as a certain cure for barrenness. They 
 consist of his full-dress robes, including hat and boots, 
 his hand-drum, bell and dorje, or Buddhist sceptre 
 typical of the thunderbolt, and a miraculous dagger 
 
 1 Egede, A Description of Greenland (London, 1818), 198. The 
 first edition of the Danish original was published in 1 741. Compare 
 the custom of flinging old shoes at a bride [supra, p. 109). The 
 wearing of a garment belonging to a prolific friend may be com- 
 pared with a custom among the Besisi of Selangor in the Malay 
 Peninsula. In the course of a ceremony for the purpose of 
 promoting the fertility of a mangostin, the fruit-tree is decorated with 
 festoons of palm-leaves and they are allowed to remain upon it 
 (Skeat and Blagden, ii. 302). The analogy is perhaps ev^n closer 
 with the practices of simulation by means of a living child Dr a doll 
 described on a later page. ^ Wuttke, 376. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 117 
 
 for stabbing- the demons, and are kept at Pemiongchi 
 monastery. Couples who desire children and can 
 afford the necessary expense, have a preliminary 
 worship conducted in the chapel of the monastery 
 lasting one or two days. " Then the box containing 
 the holy relics is brought forth and ceremoniously 
 opened, and each article is placed on the heads of the 
 suppliant pair, the officiating priest repeating mean- 
 while the charm of his own tutelary deity. Of the 
 marvellous efficacy of this procedure, numerous stories 
 are told." And should two sons result, one of them 
 would certainly be dedicated to the Church.^ Here 
 the husband shares the rite. The Blackfeet, in 
 common with other North American tribes, attribute a 
 mystic power to the small whirlwinds which frequently 
 arise on the plains ; and with this belief the moth is 
 associated as the depositary or as the origin of the 
 power. " The medicine-men claim to use the power 
 of the moth in making childbirth easy, producing 
 abortion, preventing conception, &c. Sometimes if a 
 medicine-man wishes a woman to have children, he 
 prays to the power of the moth and slyly sits upon the 
 woman's blanket." Thus by his powerful touch he 
 evidently communicates impregnating virtue to her 
 clothing. While I am mentioning the Blackfeet, I 
 may add an example of their practices recalling 
 another mode of causing conception familiar in the 
 stories. "The image of a moth," we are told, "is 
 sometimes worn on the head of a man in the belief 
 
 1 Waddell, 51. A slipper of one of the goddesses worshipped 
 by Chinese women in the province of Kan-su to obtain children is 
 borrowed by the suppliant from her shrine and returned after 
 delivery. Presumably it is worn as an amulet, but the account I 
 cite is not explicit on this point (^Anihwpos, iii. 763). 
 
ii8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 that the power [of the moth] will pass into any woman 
 the wearer may fix his mind upon, and cause her to 
 become pregnant." ^ So the Lucky Fool wished the 
 princess to become pregnant, and it was done. 
 
 I have mentioned some articles of clothing which 
 are obviously worn as amulets. Amulets, in fact, are 
 believed to play a great part in procuring offspring. 
 A few examples will suffice to illustrate a superstition 
 of very wide extent. In the Gironde women carried 
 away "in order to facilitate childbirth" pieces of a 
 stone which formerly existed at Avensan." Among 
 Bavarian women, to carry about under the left arm a 
 certain small bone of a stag was a prophylactic against 
 sterility.^ Hungarian Gipsy women carry a little snail- 
 shaped object ; and if within three years this is not 
 effectual they give up hope.^ The ancient Hindu 
 -women wore a bracelet to ensure conception. The 
 spell preserved in the Atharva- Veda for use in 
 connection with this bracelet addresses it, praying it 
 not merely to open up the womb that the embryo be 
 put into it, but also to furnish a son and it would seem 
 bring him into the womb. In the commentary on 
 another spell of the same collection we learn that 
 while reciting it an arrow is broken to pieces over the 
 woman's head and a fragment is fastened upon her as 
 an amulet. Milk of a cow which has a calf of the same 
 colour as herself is then poured into a cup made from a 
 plough ; rice, barley, and leaves from certain other 
 plants are mashed up in it, and it is put up the woman's 
 
 ^ Journ. Am. F. L. xviii. 260. 
 
 ^ Sebillot, Am. Anthrop. N.S. iv. 92, citing Daleau. 
 
 ^ Lammert, 157. 
 
 ^ Temesvnry, 7. The object in question is perhaps phallic. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 119 
 
 right nostril with the officiant's right thumb. This rite 
 is an amalgam. The recited spell, the amulet and 
 the mixture conveyed into the woman's nose are 
 doubtless all separately potent : their combined effect 
 ought to be decisive.^ In Persia the mandrake is 
 said to be worn as an amulet. The women of Mecca 
 commonly wear a magical girdle to yield them fertility.^ 
 A Chukchi female shaman showed a recent scientific 
 traveller a stone of peculiar shape, which she called 
 her husband. She said she loved it more than her 
 living mate, and averred that most of her children were 
 conceived from it.^ Similarly on the Banks' Islands 
 women take certain stones to bed with them to become 
 fruitful.* By the Australian women of Tully River in 
 Northern Queensland twins or triplets are often ac- 
 counted for as a punishment inflicted by a mother-in- 
 law for neglect. The process is simple. The old lady 
 plants two or three pebbles underneath her daughter- 
 in-law's sleeping-place and the result is assured.^ 
 
 From north to south of the African continent 
 amulets are prominent among the means of obtaining 
 offspring. A porcupine's foot is a favourite talisman 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, xlii. 96, 356. In a note on a previous page I 
 have mentioned a third spell (p. 61) to ensure male issue from a 
 women already pregnant. Strabo (xv. i, 60) mentions on the 
 authority of Megasthenes that among the Garmanes the physicians 
 can cause people to produce numerous offspring and to have either 
 male or female cliildren by means of charms. Among the bunches 
 of charms worn by Korean women are " curious little twin Josses 
 which are supposed to insure the wearer becoming a mother of sons " 
 {J. A. I. xxiv. 311). Here it may be the sex rather than the mere 
 production of the offspring which is intended to be insured. 
 
 2 Ploss, Wcib, i. 437, 439. 
 
 ^ Bogoras, Jcsiip Exped. vii. 344. 
 
 ^ Codrington, 184. \ • 
 
 6 Roth, N. O. Eihnog. Bull. v. 25 (par. 92). 
 
I20 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 among the Moorish women of Morocco/ On the 
 Upper Niger the women of certain tribes wear about 
 their loins a score or so of leathern strings, whence are 
 suspended small figures, cast in copper and represent- 
 ing tortoises, lizards or horses. These are amulets 
 which, it is said, have the virtue of giving many 
 children.^ In German territory on the other side of 
 the continent the Masai women hold a solemn festival 
 of prayer for children. They assemble with a wizard 
 or medicine-man, and each receives from him an 
 amulet to hang from the girdle of her skin-apron. 
 Then he sprinkles them on head and shoulders with a 
 medicine composed of milk, honey-beer, and another 
 secret ingredient, in return for which he is rewarded 
 with a payment in sheep. The rest of the day is 
 spent in dancing and singing, the burden of the songs 
 being a prayer for children. Another amulet believed 
 'lo promote conception is also worn by Masai women 
 round the neck.^ The Warundi, who, like the Masai, 
 inhabit German territory, are prolific and anxious to 
 have children. They too make use of amulets ; these 
 are of various kinds of native wood, but how prepared 
 we are not told.'* Among the Baganda every woman 
 who wishes for a large family wears a musisi, or 
 multiplier. It consists of a ball of white clay with a 
 piece of tanned hide sewed round it.^ The Awemba 
 jvomen between Lakes Tanganyika and Bangweolo 
 
 ^ Ploss, Weiby i, 437. 
 
 ^ Binger, i. 250. ^ Merker, 201, 202. 
 
 * van der Burgt, 85 (art. Mariage). 
 
 ^ Cunningham, 253. Men soro.etimes wear this amulet because 
 it gives courage. Another amulet called magalo " facilitated the 
 begetting of children." It seems also to have been used for 
 divination (^Ibid. 255). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 121 
 
 wear an amulet called the mapingo composed of two 
 tiny horns of duiker, in the hope that they may bear 
 children.^ Among the Kaffirs of South Africa an 
 amulet to remove the reproach of a childless woman is 
 made by the medicine-man of the clan from the tail- 
 hairs of a heifer. The heifer must be oriven to the 
 husband by one of the wife's kinsmen for the purpose ; 
 and the charm when made Is hung- round the wife's 
 neck." The intention here seems to be to transfer the 
 fertility of the animal to the woman. On the other 
 hand the Northern Basuto of the Transvaal lay the 
 fault of childlessness on the husband. He has done 
 to death by witchcraft one of his kin, or committed 
 some other wrong towards the dead man, who is there- 
 fore angry. After consulting a wizard and ascertain- 
 ing to whom the evil is to be ascribed, he goes to the 
 grave, acknowledges his fault, prays to the dead for 
 forgiveness, and takes back from the tomb a stone, a 
 twig, or some other object, which he carries about, or 
 deposits in his courtyard, as a fetish or an amulet. If 
 he duly honour it, it will restore the good understand- 
 ing between the deceased and himself, and give him 
 the benefit he desires.'* 
 
 Phallic images have special importance as amulets. 
 In the interior of Western Africa, over the border 
 of Angola, on the way from Malange, barren women 
 have been found wearing on a string round the body 
 two little carved ivory figures representing the two 
 sexes.* The phalli worn by Italian women are 
 
 ^ /. A. I. xxxvi. 154. 
 
 2 Theal, 201. The Barotse have also amulets to obtain children 
 (Beguin, 124). In fact the custom is universal in Africa. 
 ' PIoss, JVeib. i. 439. * Floss, loc. cit. 
 
122 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 familiar to every student of folklore ; and the images 
 made of boy-root and worn by Danubian Gipsies, have 
 already been mentioned/ Similar figures in wood are 
 worn in some districts of Bavaria by newly married 
 women among their beads, or depending from the 
 strings of their bodices. They are amulets against 
 barrenness." 
 
 The practices of what is called phallic worship have 
 been described at sufficient, if not more than sufficient, 
 length in the pages of Dulaure and other writers, 
 many of whom have been inclined to see in what is 
 often no more than a magical rite something like the 
 foundation of all religions. The truth is that phallic 
 worship strictly speaking — the worship of a deity of 
 fertility under sexual emblems — is by no means an 
 early or a universal cult. It can only become promi- 
 nent in a population having a settled abode and 
 cultivating the soil ; its orgiastic developments are 
 sporadic. So Intimately however is sexual emotion 
 mingled with the emotions we group together under 
 the name of religion, that it is anything but surprising 
 to find linked with religious worship both sexual ideas 
 and practices and attempts to secure in other than the 
 normal manner the blessing of offspring. We have 
 already discussed some phallic practices connected 
 more or less remotely with religion ; and it will be 
 needless to pursue the subject into much detail here. 
 But any treatment of the superstitious beliefs and 
 practices under consideration, would be incomplete 
 and misleading without some reference to it. 
 
 The worship of the linga is a favourite with Hindu 
 women. The representation is sometimes carved and 
 ■^ Supra, p. 46. ^ Lammert, 156. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 123 
 
 painted red, at other times a mere rough upright stone. 
 Such idols are to be seen everywhere in India; and 
 their pious worshippers may often be observed decking 
 them with flowers, red cloth or gilt paper, like the 
 Madonna in Roman Catholic churches. Siva himself, 
 the third in the modern Hindu Trimurti, is represented 
 under this form ; and under this form — softened down 
 by Southey in his finest poem from the grotesque 
 obscenity of the original story — he appeared when 
 
 Brahma and Vishnu wild with rage contended, 
 And Siva in his might their dread contention ended. 
 
 Many of the incidents of the cult of Siva and similar 
 gods have been described from travellers' reports 
 by Dulaure, to whose sixth chapter I refer the reader. 
 A cannon, old and useless and neglected, belonging 
 to the Dutch Government, lay in a field at Batavia, 
 on the island of Java. It was taken by the native 
 women for a linga. Dressed in their best, and adorned 
 with flowers, they used to worship this piece of sense- 
 less iron, presented it with offerings of rice and fruits, 
 miniature sunshades, and coppers, and completed the 
 performance by sitting astride upon it as a certain 
 method of winning children. At length an order 
 arrived from the Government to remove it as lumber ; 
 and removed it was, to the great dismay of the priests, 
 who had pocketed the coppers and had manufactured 
 and sold the sunshades — probably also to the dismay 
 of the ladies who depended upon its miraculous 
 power — but at all events, it is satisfactory to know, 
 without injuriously affecting the increase of the 
 population.^ 
 
 1 J. A. I. vi. 359. 
 
124 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 At Roman weddings one of the ceremonies was the 
 culminating rite so dear to these Batavian women. 
 The idol of Priapus or Tutunus, used on this and other 
 occasions by women desirous of offspring was more or 
 less in human form ; and there can be no question as 
 to the object of the rite.^ Among the gods to whom 
 similar powers are ascribed in India, and with whose 
 statues similar ceremonies are practised, is Hanuman- 
 "In Bombay women sometimes go to his temple in 
 the early morning, strip themselves naked and embrace 
 the god." ^ Nor is it merely stones shaped by art 
 that have been taken for this purpose. Rude stone 
 monuments, monoliths natural or bearing traces of no 
 more than the most rudimentary chippings by the 
 hand of man, have by virtue of their form been re- 
 garded as phalli and subjected to contact by women 
 who desire offspring. We are not informed whether 
 this is the case with the Greased Stones of Madagascar, 
 to which women seeking children certainly resort.^ 
 But among some of the Northern Maidu of California 
 contact is practised by barren women with a certain 
 rock which bears some resemblance to a woman with 
 child. By touching it they are thought sure to 
 conceive.* 
 
 ^ Augustine, Civ. Dei, vi. 9 ; Arnob. Adv. Gen. iv. 7 ; Tertul. 
 Ad Nat. ii. 11 ; Ploss, Weib, i. 435, quoting Thomas Bartholinus. 
 
 ^ Crooke, F. L. N. Ind. i. 87 ; See also Dulaure, loc. cit. The 
 rite in India when performed by brides involves a sacrifice of 
 virginity. 
 
 ^ Mondain, 12, 44 [cf. the Male Stones mentioned p. 13, the 
 cult of which has perhaps, though not very probably, been 
 abandoned). Arab women in the land of Moab made resort to a 
 rock called 'Umm Gedei'ah, to rub themselves against it and to sleep 
 in its shadow, in order to procure children (Jaussen, 303). 
 
 * Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 230. Cf. the stone on 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 125 
 
 In various parts of France contact is practised both 
 with statues and with unshapen stones. A few cases 
 may be mentioned out of a large number. I have 
 already referred to the rites of Saint Guerlichon.^ 
 Formerly in a chapel near Pleubian, on the day of the 
 annual celebration commonly called in Brittany the 
 Pardon, a worm-eaten figure of Saint Nicholas hung 
 at the end of a cord from a beam. The peasant 
 women in turn used to take up their skirts and rub 
 their bare abdomens ao-ainst the fertilisine fetish.^ In 
 the Pyrenees near Bourg d'Oueil is a rough stone 
 figure of a man about five feet high on which barren 
 women rub themselves, embracing and kissing it.^ 
 At Brignolles in Provence is a sacred well on the 
 northern wall of which is a stele with a coarsely carven 
 figure of a man, now half-effaced by time and wear. 
 This figure is known by the name of Saint Sumian ; 
 and a small circular cup-marking two centimetres in 
 diameter near the appropriate position is called the 
 saint's navel. Sterile women who desire children and 
 young people who want to be married embrace the 
 saint's navel, and thereby attain their wishes.* In 
 order to become mothers women ceremonially go three 
 times round a pillar in the chapel of Orcival in Puy de 
 Dome and then rub themselves against it,^ At the 
 Cathedral of Mende is the clapper of a bell 2.30 metres 
 in height and i.io in circumference. It was formerly 
 
 which if a Hupa woman sits she will be cured of barrenness 
 (Goddard, Hupa Texts, 280). Here nothing is said of the shape of 
 the stone. 
 
 ^ Supra, p. 63, ^ Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 169. 
 
 3 Ploss, Weib, i. 444 ; Cuzacq, in. 
 
 * Berenger-Feraud, Superst. i. 413. 
 
 5 Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 158. 
 
126 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in the big bell. When the Protestant chief Mathieu 
 de Merle seized the town in 1580 it is said he melted 
 the bell to cast cannon, but the clapper could not be 
 melted, and it was set up near the left door of the 
 cathedral. Down to the present day women desiring 
 children come and rub their abdomens against it 
 praying to the Virgin the while.^ In the early years 
 of the last century sterile women used to go to the 
 abbey of Brantome in Perigord, or to the chapel of 
 Saint Robert or to that of Saint Leonard near the 
 villasre of Touvens and there attend mass. After the 
 ceremony they went and worked the bolt of the door 
 to and fro, until their husbands came and led them 
 home by the hand with the customary formality.^ 
 Elsewhere there is not even a pretence of human 
 workmanship on the object of the cult. At the 
 entrance of the valley of Aspe (Hautes Pyrenees) there 
 is a natural rock of conical form on which barren 
 women rub their abdomens.^ This is but one of 
 several examples of the use of rocks and stones in the 
 Pyrenees ; and there are as many in Brittany, besides 
 others in various parts of France. 
 
 It may be thought that the rites at these places are 
 purely magical. There is however a considerable 
 body of evidence showing that the rocks and stones in 
 question are regarded with religious veneration. The 
 clergy of the Roman Catholic Church up to the 
 Revolution at least countenanced the sacred character 
 of many of the menhirs and dolmens by solemn 
 processions and the performance of religious rites. 
 
 '^ van Gennep, ap. Dulaure, 326 note. 
 
 ^ Sebillot, op, cit. 139 ; Rev. Trad. Pop. xii. 665. 
 
 ^ Cuzacq, 112. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 127 
 
 Singing and dancing are, or have within quite recent 
 times been, periodically performed and prayers offered 
 by the peasants around both prehistoric stone monu- 
 ments and natural rocks. These facts are only 
 explicable on the supposition that they were the object 
 of a very ancient cult, too deeply rooted in the 
 popular affections to be wholly supplanted by the 
 Church. Newly wedded pairs went afoot to the 
 menhir of Plouarzel, the largest in the department, 
 which has on two opposite sides a round knob about 
 a metre's height above the ground. Partly undressed, 
 the woman on one side and the man on the other 
 rubbed their abdomens against the knob. By this 
 the husband hoped to get sons rather than daughters, 
 and the wife not merely to get fecundity but the 
 whip-hand of her husband. Near Rennes the newly 
 married go, the first Sunday of Lent, to jump on a 
 stone called the Bride-stone [Pier7''e des Epousdes), 
 singing the while a special song. In Eure-et- 
 Loire young women desiring children rubbed their 
 abdomens against a rough place on the Pierre de 
 Chantecoq. Less than thirty years ago a menhir not 
 far from Carnac was the scene of a ceremony performed 
 by married pairs who after a union of several years 
 were still without children. While their relatives kept 
 watch at a distance lest they should be disturbed by 
 intruders they stripped and the wife ran round the 
 stone, striving to escape her husband's pursuit, but 
 ending of course by letting him catch her.^ Young 
 couples who desire children go on pilgrimage to Sainte 
 Baume in Provence. On entering the adjacent forest 
 
 1 Sebillot, Amer. Anfhrop. N.S. iv. 83 ; Id. F. L. France^ iv. 56, 
 61 ; Berenger-Feraud, Traditions, 200. 
 
128 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 husband and wife, mentally praying to Saint Magdalen, 
 embrace the first big oak-tree they find. It is said 
 there is only one tree in the forest capable of receiving 
 their prayers efficaciously : hence if their desires are 
 not granted it is easy to explain why — they have 
 mistaken the tree. At Poligny in the Jura there is a 
 standing stone significantly said to be the petrified form 
 of a giant who attempted to ravish a girl. Young 
 women go and embrace it in order to obtain children.^ 
 These are a few only of many examples of the super- 
 stition recorded in France. If we might add to them 
 the cases in which girls perform similar rites to obtain 
 husbands (as to which we may suspect the original 
 object of the rite to have been the same) the list might 
 be greatly lengthened. Often both reasons are alleged 
 for the practice, married women following it for the 
 one and unmarried women for the other.^ A striking 
 analogy to the rite at Sainte Baume is performed by 
 the Maori women of the Tuho tribe. Certain trees 
 are associated in the popular mind with the navel- 
 strings of mythical ancestors. The power of making 
 women fruitful is ascribed to them and until lately the 
 navel-strings of all newborn children were hung on 
 their branches. Barren women embrace them and 
 according to whether they clasp them from the east 
 or the west side they conceive boys or girls. ^ 
 
 A variant ceremony of sliding down the stone 
 
 ^ Berenger-Feraudj Superst. ii. 182, 190. 
 
 2 See Sebillot, F. L. France, iv., the chapters entitled Cultes et 
 Observances Megaliihiques and Les £gHses. It should be added that 
 similar rites are performed for the cure of various diseases. 
 
 ^ W. Foy, Arch. Religionsw. x. 557, citing an article by W. H. 
 Goldie, on Maori Medical Lore in the Transactions of the New 
 Zealand Institute, 1904, 95. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 129 
 
 obviously depends on the position of the stone and its 
 angle of inclination. At Bauduen, near Draguignan, 
 on the day of the feast of the patron saint, girls who 
 want to marry, or women who desire children, go and 
 slide in a sitting posture down a rock, situated behind 
 the church, and one part of which forms an inclined 
 plane. The surface of the rock has been polished by 
 this exercise. A similar practice obtains near the 
 village of Saint Ours, in the Basses Alpes, on the 
 corresponding day. The stone there is called the 
 Millstone.^ In the neio"hbourhood of Collobrieres, also 
 in Provence, an ancient chestnut-tree stands on the 
 side of the road called the Lovers' Walk. Just below 
 one of the principal branches, which has been broken 
 off, two round excrescences give it a phallic appearance. 
 Girls who desire husbands and young married women 
 who want children go and slide at certain times down 
 certain of the roots which rise above the soil.^ 
 
 It will be remembered that women who wanted to 
 drink of Saint Maughold's well in the Isle of Man were 
 required to sit in the saint's chair. Beneath a chair in 
 Finchale priory church in the county of Durham "is 
 shown a seat said to have the virtue of removing steri- 
 lity and procuring issue for any woman who, having 
 performed certain ceremonies, sat down therein and 
 devoutly wished for a child." The seat, which is of 
 stone, appears much worn. At Jarrow church brides on 
 the completion of the marriage service seat themselves 
 
 1 Berenger-Feraud, Superst. ii. 342 ; Amer. Anthrop. iv. N.S. 79. 
 
 2 Berenger-Feraud, Ibid. 177. For further illustrations of 
 these and other even more suggestive practices in France, the reader 
 is referred to the works already cited, and to Rev. Trad. Pop. xii. 
 665 ; xiii. 267 ; Sebillot, F. L. France, i. 334 sqq. ; iii. 425 ; Id, 
 Trad, et Sup. i. 48 aqq. 
 
 I I 
 
I30 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in Bede's chair, still preserved in the church.^ Near 
 Verdun in Luxemburg Saint Lucia's armchair is to be 
 seen in the living rock. There also childless women 
 sit and pray, afterwards awaitmg with confidence the 
 fulfilment of their petitions. At Athens there is a rock 
 near the Callirrhoe whereon women who wish to be 
 made fruitful rub themselves, calling on the Moirai to 
 be gracious to them. And Bernhardt Schmidt writing 
 on the subject recalls that not far from that very spot the 
 heaven'y Aphrodite was honoured in ancient times as 
 the Eldest of the Fates.^ At the foot of another hill 
 is a seat cut in the rock on the banks of a stream. 
 There the Athenian women were wont to sit and let 
 themselves slip on the back into the brook, calling on 
 Apollo for an easy delivery. The stone is black and 
 polished with the constant repetition of these invoca- 
 tions ; for still on a clear moonlight night young 
 women steal silently to the spot to indulge in the same 
 exercise, though we may presume their invocations 
 are nominally addressed to some other divinity.^ 
 
 At Tunis the Marabout of Sidi Fathallah is the scene 
 of similar or even more complex performances. For 
 it is necessary for a woman who desires children to 
 slide no fewer than twenty-five times down a stone five 
 or six metres long which is held to be the saint's grave, 
 namely, five times on her face, five times on her back, 
 
 1 Denham Tracts, i. 109, no. Cf. the chair of Saint Fiacre and 
 the stone of Saint Nicholas mentioned by M. Sebillot, F. L. France, 
 iv. 159. " Ploss, Weib, i. 436, 
 
 3 Berenger-Feraud, Trad. 201, quoting Yemenier in the Revue du 
 Lyonnais, 1842. Some of the exercises at stones and other sacred 
 objects in France are said to have for object an easy dehvery. The 
 connection between this and the prayer for children is too obvious 
 to be insisted on. As to the rites practised on the island of Cyprus, 
 secHogarih,^ Wandering Scholar in the Levant {l^ondon, 1896), 179. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 131 
 
 five times on each side and five times head foremost. 
 To ensure success, it seems, that a barren woman 
 must repeat her devotions in this way from time to 
 time for two years : only in the third will her wish be 
 gratified. Kabyle women frequent many mosques 
 to be delivered from sterility, particularly the tomb of 
 another saint, Sidi Abi Thaleb. There they flourish 
 the saint's stick vigorously in all directions in a hole 
 contrived in the centre of the mosque.^ These two 
 are of course by no means the only Moslem saints 
 famous for the gift of fecundity. In Egypt the soul of 
 the holy man Sheikh Haridy has passed into a serpent 
 that is to be seen in the little mosque of the mountain 
 called after his name. Under that form he shows 
 himself to his worshippers and allows them to touch 
 him for the cure of their ailments. Among the powers 
 with which he is still thought to be endowed is that of 
 conferring fertility on women. ^ I have already 
 mentioned the hot springs frequented by women in 
 Palestine for this purpose. It may be added that 
 some of these springs are believed to owe their virtue 
 not to the jinn but to a dead saint. When the hot air 
 steams up over the bodies of childless women they 
 really believe they are visited and impregnated by the 
 saint himself^ 
 
 A curious rite used until the Reformation to be 
 performed at the shrine of Saint Edmund at Bury St. 
 Edmund's. A white bull was kept in the fields of the 
 
 ^ Berenger-Feraud, Siiperst. ii. 198. 
 
 ^ E. Amelineau, Rev. Hist. Rel. li. 341. 
 
 3 Curtiss, 116. One example only is here mentioned — the 
 spring of Abu Rabah at the Baths of Solomon. The shrines of 
 St. George all over the country enjoy the same reputation among 
 Moslems as well as Christians. Cf. Jaussen, 360. 
 
132 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 manor of Habyrdon, and never yoked to the plough 
 nor baited at the stake. When a married woman 
 wished for offspring he was "led in procession through 
 the principal streets of the town to the principal gate 
 of the monastery, attended by all the monks singing, 
 and a shouting crowd ; the woman walking by him and 
 stroking his milk-white sides and pendant dewlaps- 
 The bull being then dismissed, the woman entered the 
 church and paid her vows at the altar of Saint 
 Edmund, kissing the stone and entreating with tears 
 the blessing of a child." The rite is obviously one of 
 that large class taken over by the Church from local 
 paganism, often as in this instance for very material 
 reasons. The bull was kept and provided for the 
 purpose under covenants with the monastery by the 
 tenant of the manor. More than one of the leases 
 were extant in the seventeenth century. One of them, 
 perhaps the last that was granted, is dated in 1533. 
 They contemplate a 7nulier generosa as the most likely 
 suppliant. Few others could afford such a ceremony 
 as is described above, or " make the oblations of the 
 said white bull." ^ Contact here takes place both with 
 the sacred stone and the sacred animal. In the pre- 
 ceding pages we have found animal substances eaten for 
 the purpose of obtaining offspring ; we have found amu- 
 lets made of animal substances and ritual contact with 
 portions of sacred animals employed for the same intent. 
 An ancient Aryan marriage custom still practised by the 
 Hindus is to make the bride sit down on a bull's hide. 
 This is also found among the Esthonians and the 
 
 1 Cowity F. L. Suffolk, 124; Gent. Mag. Lib. Topography, xi. 
 208, both quoting Corolla Varia, by the Rev. W. Hawkins (1634), 
 and leases by the monastery of the manor referred to. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 133 
 
 Russians/ It is probably traceable to the same reason. 
 The probability is favoured by the substitution in 
 Nurmekond (Estlionia) of a man's coat, which having 
 been worn by a man would, on the principles of 
 reasoning in the lower culture, have absorbed his 
 qualities and thus be eminently calculated to promote 
 the bride's fertility. The Roman bride was made to 
 sit on a sheepskin. These customs strengthen the 
 prttsumption already mentioned that the jegis taken at 
 Athens to the bride's house was brougrht into contact 
 with her. 
 
 I referred just now to the Pierre des Epous^es near 
 Rennes. The bridal custom of jumping on or over a 
 stoae has been so fully examined by Mr. William 
 Crooke,^ that it need not be further discussed here. 
 In a note to his paper he alludes to the story of 
 Arianrod the daughter of Don in the Mabinogion.^ 
 In that story the maiden was made to step over a 
 magical wand, with the result that two boys were 
 born. The wand possessed fertilising power, though 
 the incident seems to be regarded as a test of chastity 
 Whether or no the story-teller misunderstood it is not 
 clear ; but a similar power is found ascribed in some- 
 what more than a jocular fashion to a broomstick in 
 some parts of England. Mr. Addy, speaking ap 
 parently of Yorkshire and the adjacent country, says 
 " If a girl strides over a besom-handle, she will be 
 mother before she is a wife. If an unmarried woman 
 has a child people say ' She's jumped o'er t'besom, 
 
 ^ Schroeder, 89. In a Finnish story bride and bridegroom 
 placed on a whale's hide (Castren, Vorles. 323). 
 ^ F. L. xiii. 226. 
 3 Y Llyvyr Coch, 68 ; Mabinogion, 421 : Nutt's Ed 66 
 
134 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 or ' She jumped o'er t'besom before she went to 
 t'church.' Mothers used to be particularly anxious 
 that their daughters should not stride over a broom, 
 and mischievous boys have been known to leave 
 brooms on doorsteps and such-like places, so that 
 girls might accidentally stride over them." He adds 
 that at Sheffield a woman of loose habits is called a 
 besom.^ The broomstick is an obvious symbol, such 
 as would exactly fit the purposes of mimetic magic. 
 A Manchu bride on reaching the bridegroom's house 
 is required to step over a miniature saddle and fre- 
 quently also an apple, placed on the threshold. Step- 
 ping over the former is said to be a sign that she will 
 never marry a second husband, for the Manchus have 
 a saying, "Just as a good horse will not carry two 
 saddles, a chaste maiden will not marry two husbands."^ 
 But though that may be the meaning now assigned to 
 the custom, it is too artificial to be primitive. More- 
 over, comparison of other customs shows that it cannot 
 have been the original intention, and the addition of 
 the apple makes this clear. 
 
 In Westward parish, Cumberland, it used to be the 
 custom on the day after a christening for the new 
 mother to entertain her married friends of her own sex. 
 When the husbands came to fetch their wives home, a 
 milk- or other pail was placed on the door-sill, and over 
 it each wife had to jump. From the manner in 
 which they severally passed the obstacle their own 
 condition was divined, for it was considered that a 
 pregnant woman would stumble or put her foot in the 
 pail.^ Here as elsewhere, we may suspect at an 
 
 i Addy, I02. 2 F. L. i. 487, 491. 
 
 ^ AK and Q.^th ser. vi 24. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 135 
 
 earlier stage the rite was held to cause what it is 
 taken at last only to discover : another example of 
 mag-ic dwindlinor into divination. Mr. Crooke also 
 refers to the Ahir legend of Lorik, localised in 
 the Mirzapur District, and related in his Folklore 
 of Northern India. In that legend, the hero tests 
 his still maiden-wife's chastity by stretching a loin- 
 cloth across the entrance to his camp. Other women 
 stepped over it, but her delicacy was so excessive that 
 she refused — to her husband's satisfaction.^ We have 
 already learned something of the virtue of loin-cloths 
 in putting an end to barrenness. 
 
 To recur for a moment to the ceremonies at sacred 
 stones : on the islands of Ambon and Uliase, in the 
 East Indies, barren women often place offerings on the 
 sacred stone of the commune and afterwards, for they 
 are supposed to be Christians, go to the church to 
 pray.^ There is a miraculous stone on the sacred hill 
 of Nikko in Japan at which women who want to 
 become mothers throw stones, sure of having their 
 ambition gratified if they succeed in striking it. A 
 traveller recording the custom says maliciously they 
 seem very clever at the game. In the Uyeno Park at 
 Tokio is a seated statue of Buddha. Whoso succeeds 
 in flinging a stone upon the sacred knees attains the 
 same result. At Whitchurch, near Cardiff, in the 
 eighteenth century, a woman animated by the wish for 
 children would go on Easter Monday to the parish 
 churchyard, armed with two dozen tennis-balls, half of 
 them covered with white leather and the other half 
 with black, and would throw them over the church. 
 As they fell on the other side the villagers — no doubt 
 ^ Crooke, F. L. N. hid. ii. i6i. 2 Riedel, 75. 
 
136 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 children — would struggle for them. The operation was 
 to be repeated every year until the woman's wish was 
 accomplished/ This might perhaps depend on the 
 children's success in picking up the balls, which in 
 passing over the church would have probably acquired 
 magical power. Closely allied with this are some 
 forms of divination and rites to assure marriage. In 
 France young girls, to learn whether they will be 
 married during the year, throw a sou through the 
 doorway of a little chapel at Echemire dedicated to 
 the Virgin. If the coin rest on the altar the girl who 
 has thrown it obtains a favourable omen ; if it fall 
 back she will have to wait as many years as there are 
 paving-stones between the piece of money and the 
 altar. Similar divination is practised at the chapel of 
 Saint Goustan at Croisic by throwing a pin through 
 the hole in a window-shutter. At Jodoigne a very 
 old statue now in a chapel was formerly in a niche 
 fastened on an ancient tree. About five metres from 
 the ground the principal branches of this tree formed 
 another niche into which girls tried to toss stones. If 
 the stone remained in the niche the thrower's hopes 
 were gratified ; but if it fell back she would have to 
 wait awhile for a lover.^ At the top of Mount Rustup 
 in Russian Armenia is the tomb of a holy hermit visited 
 by numerous pilgrims every year on the eighth of July. 
 The women seek fecundity at the spring which rises 
 near the tomb. One of the stones of the mausoleum 
 is pierced with a number of cup-markings in which 
 the youths and maidens play at a game of divination 
 with small stones. If a stone thrown by any one 
 
 ^ Mel. vi. 154, 258, quoting Byegones. 
 ^ Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 139. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 137 
 
 remains in the cup, it prognosticates marriage in the 
 course of the year.^ All these, it may be suspected, 
 were first of all fertilising rites. 
 
 Among the votive offerings in Roman Catholic 
 Churches on the continent of Europe, the waxen 
 baby is a constant spectacle. In the Tirol there are 
 miraculous imagres beside which little waxen figures in 
 the shape of toads are hung. These figures are called 
 Miiettern. It is believed that every woman has 
 inside her a creature in this form — a belief due to 
 symptoms of hysteria common among women. Many 
 a mother has gone to sleep with her mouth open 
 and the ?nuetter has crept out and gone to bathe in 
 the nearest water. If she dots not close her mouth, 
 tht; muetter by-and-by gets back safely, and the woman, 
 previously sick, is restored to health. But if she close 
 her mouth, she dies. Unfruitful women offer these 
 waxen figures to images of the Madonna, or of the 
 Pieta.^ On the Gold Coast, Bassamese women who 
 are possessed by a demon of barrenness meet at the 
 fetish hut and deposit consecrated vases and figures 
 of clay representing mothers nursing, while they 
 present to the fetish offerings of tobacco and hand- 
 kerchiefs. The demons are frightened away by the 
 noise of fire-arms, drums, and the blowing of horns. 
 The officiatinor chief makes an offering: of orold-dust, 
 and then spirts a mouthful of rum over the belly of 
 every woman who desires issue. An improvised 
 
 ^ VAnthrop. viii. 482. 
 
 2 Zingerle, Sitten, 26. Ploss {Weib, i. 444) reproduces a photo- 
 graph of one of these votive figures bought by the author in a wax- 
 chandler's shop at Salzburg as recently as 1890. Another form of 
 the muetter is that of a ball stuck with spikes, of which an account 
 is given by Dr. Wilhelm Hein, Zeits. dcs Vereins, x. 420. 
 
138 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 banquet brings the solemnity to a close/ Votive 
 figures of the kind mentioned, as well as the ruder 
 offerings of pins, rags and stones found over the 
 greater part of the world, are not merely intended to 
 keep the divinity in mind of the suppliant and of her 
 desire. They also act (as I have argued elsewhere) in 
 the capacity of conductor between the divinity and 
 the suppliant, so that the influence of the immediate 
 presence of the former, surrounding and enfolding 
 the votive figure or other offering, surrounds and 
 enfolds likewise the person represented or on whose 
 behalf the offering is dedicated. Moreover the figures 
 may also officiate as symbolic dedications of mother 
 or child to the supernatural being whose aid is 
 invoked. 
 
 Nor is the deposit of a votive offering indispensable. 
 Religious faith often imputes to its object the power to 
 work the miracle desired, if only that power be suffi- 
 ciently excited by the votary's prayers or promises. 
 The dedication of oneself, or as in the case of Hannah 
 the vow to dedicate the child, achieves the result. 
 Stories of this kind are too familiar to need mention ; 
 and doubtless the belief still exists in Europe and 
 other civilised lands. On the Slave Coast of Guinea 
 an Otchi Negress will devote herself in the same way 
 to a fetish (that is, to a particular god in the pantheon) 
 conditionally on its giving her children. If a child be 
 born, it is a fetish-child and is considered to belong to 
 the fetish, just as Samuel belonged to Yahve, or as in 
 many of the tales the child is given by an ogre upon 
 the stipulation that it shall belong to him and be 
 fetched away, either when he pleases or at a fixed 
 ^ Featherman, Nigrifians, 139, quoting Hecquard. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 139 
 
 period.^ In this case there does not seem to be a 
 deposit of any votive figure. Further, when recourse 
 is had to a sorcerer instead of a divinity such deposit 
 is indeed inappropriate. On the Equatorial Nile 
 Ledju, the hereditary Chief Rainmaker of the Bari 
 tribe, includes in his professional duties that of " in- 
 ducing- women to bringf forth laro-e families." His 
 manner of procedure is original. He has an iron rod 
 about three feet long and about an inch in diameter, 
 armed at either end with a hollow iron bulb enclosing 
 bits of stone. When the husband brings a would-be 
 mother to him the sorcerer grasps the instrument in 
 the centre with the right hand and shakes it over and 
 around her, at the same time mutterino- an incantation. 
 It is possible that this is an exorcism. The offerings 
 are of course of that substantial character which the 
 sorcerer's rank and reputation demand.^ 
 
 A very common magical process takes the form 
 of simulating the result intended. As applied to the 
 purpose of procuring children religious worship is 
 often combined with the magical proceeding. When 
 a woman on the Babar islands in the Malay Archi- 
 pelago desires a child a man who has many children 
 is first called In to pray to Upulero. To that end her 
 husband collects fifty or sixty old and young kalapa- 
 fruits, while bhe prepares a doll about twenty inches 
 long of red cotton. On the appointed day the man 
 goes to the wife's hut, puts the husband and wife 
 
 1 Ploss, Weib, i. 439. 
 
 2 Jotirn. Afr. Soc. v. 2 1. The Lillooet Indians of British Columbia 
 have shamans who can make barren women bear children or make 
 women have male or female children as they may desire. But what 
 the process is we are not informed (Teit, Jesup Expcd. ii. 287). 
 The pretension is, it need hardly be said, very widespread. 
 
I40 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 to sit together, and sets before them a platter con- 
 taining sirih-pinang and a young kalapa-fruit. The 
 woman holds the doll in her hands as if she were 
 suckling it. The kalapa-fruit is opened, and both 
 husband and wife are sprinkled with the juice. The 
 assistant then takes a fowl, holds its feet against the 
 woman's head and prays, apparently in her name : 
 " O Upulero ! make use of this fowl, let fall a man, 
 let him descend, I pray thee, I implore thee, let fall a 
 man, let him descend into my hands and on my lap.'' 
 He asks the woman: "Is the child come?" She 
 answers : " Yes, it is already sucking." Then he 
 touches the husband's head with the fowl's feet and 
 mutters certain formulae. Thereupon the fowl is put 
 to death by a blow against the posts of the hut, 
 opened, and the veins about the heart are examined 
 for the purpose of augury. Whatever augury may be 
 drawn from them, the fowl is laid on the platter with 
 the sirih-pinang and put on the domestic altar. The 
 news is spread in the village that the woman is preg- 
 nant, and every one comes to wish her joy and receives 
 in return one of the dried kalapa- fruits. The husband 
 borrows a cradle, in which the doll is placed, and for 
 seven days it is treated as a new-born child.^ Here 
 in addition to the prayer and sacrifice, which might 
 be found anywhere, the Babar islander pretends that 
 the prayer has been granted, and acts accordingly. 
 It might be a question whether some of the methods 
 
 ^ Riedel, 353. Note that the man who performs the rite is 
 already rich in children, and therefore in that very quality which is 
 sought. This must be a powerful magical influence tending to the 
 success of the rite. Since the above was written an account has 
 been published of a similar ceremony in Ceylon (VV. L. Hildburgh, 
 7. A. I. xxxviii. 184). 
 
ICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 141 
 
 of procuring children recounted in the foregoing paj^es 
 had not sprung from the elementary therapeutics of 
 the lower culture, and were not intended to act 
 mechanically or as a drug upon the body of wife 
 or husband, so as to remove a physical incapacity 
 or ailment which prevented the bearing or begetting 
 of children. Simulation does not admit of any such 
 explanation : it is simply magic. Although therefore 
 it is not one of the causes prominent in the stories of 
 supernatural birth it deserves notice as strengthening 
 the general argument that conception in early stages 
 of culture is held to be procured by other than natural 
 means. 
 
 A frequent form of simulation for the purpose of 
 obtaining children is found in the custom of putting 
 a boy to sit on the bride's lap at a wedding. The 
 ceremony was usual among the ancient Aryans]and is 
 prescribed in the Apastamba} It is still followed in'the 
 east of Europe and elsewhere.'^ In Sweden on the 
 night preceding her nuptials the bride should have a 
 boy-baby to sleep with her, in which case her first-born 
 will be a son.^ Among the Hindus of the Panjab at 
 the first menstruation of a woman after the marriage 
 has been consummated, she is shut up in a dark room 
 under a strict taboo. She must not use milk, oil or 
 meat. On a day chosen as auspicious by a Brahman, 
 and while she is still impure, all her female relatives 
 assemble and wash her head with gondkana. Then 
 after she has bathed five cakes of flour, walnuts and 
 pomegranates are put in her lap with a pretty child, 
 that she too may bear a child. Looking into its face 
 
 ^ Winternitz, 23, 75; Schroeder, 123. 
 
 ^ Mannhardt, Myth. Forsch. 357. * Lloyd, 85. 
 
142 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 she gives It money and cakes, and then the family 
 priest makes her worship Ganpati. The women 
 spend the night in singing ; and the priest receives a 
 fee in money as well as the things offered to the 
 aoddess.^ At Salem in Massachusetts it is said that 
 
 o 
 
 if a baby, the first time it is taken visiting, be laid on 
 a married couple's bed there will be a baby for that 
 couple.^ In England to rock an empty cradle is to 
 rock a new baby into it ; and the superstition has been 
 carried by settlers to New England, where people 
 say : " Rock a cradle empty, Babies will be plenty," ^ 
 Barren women very generally among the Negroes 
 and Bantu carry dolls which they treat as children. 
 Thus, an Agni or Gau-ne of the Ivory Coast will 
 carry a wooden doll on her back as she would carry a 
 real babe.* A woman of the Wapogoro makes a doll 
 out of a calabash with a bunch of short string's at its 
 upper end fastened to a dried wild-banana core ; and 
 the more tenderly she cuddles and caresses the doll 
 the sooner she will have a child.^ Dolls carried and 
 hugged by Kaffir women in South Africa are to be 
 seen in many museums : they are not to be mistaken 
 for idols. The museum of the London Missionary 
 Society used to possess a Bechuana doll used for this 
 purpose. It consisted " of a long calabash like a 
 
 1 H. A. Rose. /. A. I. xxxv. 271. A similar ceremony is 
 practised by brides in South Roumania (Globus, xciv. 318). 
 
 2 Bergen, Curr. Super st. 25. 
 
 3 Ibid. 24, 25. In some parts of England it is said to be un- 
 lucky to rock an empty cradle (Addy, 98). This perhaps refers to 
 the convers-e superstition current in New York that to rock a cradle 
 when the baby is not in it will kill the baby (Bergen, loc. cit.). 
 
 * Binger, ii. 230 ; Delafosse, UAnthrop. iv. 444. 
 ^ Dr. H. Fabry, Globus, xci. 219. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 143 
 
 bottle, wound round with strings of beads." ^ The 
 Museum at Bloemfontein contains a doll of a most 
 elaborate character, made of seeds and beads, and 
 stated to be carried by a childless woman in some 
 tribe unspecified in the Transvaal, The Museum at 
 Pretoria contains wooden figures said to be used by 
 barren Magwamba women, who nurse and play with 
 them as a means of obtaining children.^ Among the 
 sacred legends of the Batutsi of Ruanda is one which 
 appears to ascribe this practice to the direct institution 
 of the "Creator." In the early days mankind dwelt 
 in the sky with him. There was a married woman 
 who was sterile. So she went with a gift of honey 
 pombe milk butter and skins into the "Creator's" 
 presence and prayed him for a child. On condition of 
 secrecy he granted her prayer. Taking some clay he 
 moistened it with his saliva, kneaded and fashioned 
 it into a small human figure. Giving it to the woman 
 he directed her to place it in a jar and to fill the jar 
 during nine months night and morning with milk ; 
 when its limbs were developed she might take it out, 
 and it would be her child. She followed the directions 
 implicitly until she heard it crying within the jar, when 
 she took it out and presented it to her husband as her 
 newborn child. The application to the "Creator" 
 was repeated until she had in this way two sons and a 
 daughter. Her sister also was barren and determined 
 to extort the secret from her. Over some pombe she 
 
 1 J. A. I. xvi. 179 ; Tylor, E. Hist. 109. 
 
 2 These dolls are in human form elaborately carved. One re- 
 presents a full-grown man wearing the chaplet only accorded to 
 warriors and distinguished men iifter attaining a ripe age. Mr. 
 Gottschling, missionary to the Bavenda, who visited the museum 
 with me, suggested that their real use was in the puberty ceremonies. 
 
144 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 unfortunately succeeded only too well. The enraged 
 " Creator " cast the three children down to the earth, 
 where they became the progenitors of the Batutsi.^ 
 
 At Butha-Buthe in the north of Basutoland there is 
 a piece of swampy ground called the Khapong, which 
 we are told is regarded as " sacred to the spirit of 
 maternity." A woman who has no children makes a 
 wooden or clay doll, straps it on her back and bears it 
 about like a living child for six months, after which it 
 is laid in the Khapong as an offering to the spirit, 
 together with bangles, beads or even money. If no 
 child be born the woman has not yet found favour 
 with the spirit ; so she removes the doll from the 
 Khapong and straps it on her back again, until the 
 spirit is satisfied and the child is born. The lady to 
 whose report we owe the mention of this practice knew 
 of one woman who carried the doll for five years before 
 her wish was granted.'^ Casalis, writing about fifty 
 years ago, speaks of these dolls as rude effigies of clay, 
 and says that " the name of some tutelary deity " 
 (apparently some deceased ancestor) is given to them. 
 The women " entreat the divinity to whom they have 
 consecrated them, to give them the power of concep- 
 tion. They may often be seen all out of breath running 
 from one village to another, to have dances performed 
 in honour of their patron." ^ Here also simulation is 
 
 1 Fath. Loupias, Anthropos, iii. 2. 
 
 2 Martin, Basutoland, 18, 93. Some further inquiries should be 
 made about this "spirit of maternity": the Basuto are ancestor- 
 worshippers. Compare, however, the Zulu belief (doubtless 
 common to other tribes) that mankind came out of a bed of reeds 
 (Callaway, Rel. Syst. passim). 
 
 3 Casalis, 265 (Eng. Ed. 251). A figure of the doll is given. 
 These dolls are worn from the time the bride-price is settled until 
 pregnancy (Endemann, Zeits. f. Ethtiol, vi. 39). 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 145 
 
 combined with worship. Another account describes the 
 doll as made either with a gourd or with clay and 
 adorned with beads. A name is given to it, and it is 
 carried and cared for as if it were a real child. Barren 
 women perform a ceremony in connection with it, 
 lasting two or three days. First a band of women go 
 to a neiofhbourinCT villaofe to steal a lesokwana, or 
 wooden spatula with which the Basuto women stir 
 their porridge. When this is accomplished they 
 return orarlanded with green herbs, sinojingr and invoking- 
 Ntidi, the famous cripple mentioned on an earlier page, 
 to succour the barren women. The latter are then 
 scarified and scarred behind the shoulders, as in a Zulu 
 tale the pigeons scarified the heroine on the loins 
 to render her pregnant.^ Native beer is prepared to 
 be ready against the appointed day. When the day 
 arrives all the women of the village go to the mountain ; 
 and when Ntidi was living the barren women borehitn 
 on their backs and were assisted from time to time by 
 their companions. They enter a cave, where they 
 remain all night singing the same song as after stealing 
 the lesokwaiia, but they remain without food until the 
 men find them. The next mornino- the men set out in 
 search of them. Sometimes they do not find them 
 that day ; search is then renewed on a second. When 
 the women are found, they are brought back crowned 
 with herbs as when they went to steal the lesokwana ; 
 but they refuse to enter the village until they are 
 conciliated with the present of an ox. The young 
 girls, who alone have remained at home, then bring 
 them food. The husbands of the barren women kill 
 cattle in their honour and a grand feast is held. The 
 ^ Callaway, Taks^ 67 
 
 1 K 
 
146 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 barren women are smeared with red ochre antimony 
 and white clay ; and they wear the apron of women 
 who have just given birth. They are presented to the 
 assembly with their doll-babes. Men and women all 
 sing and weep together, in a song lamenting the 
 misfortune of those who have no children. During 
 Ntidi's life he was passed from one to another of the 
 women. Perched on their shoulders he too sang a 
 song of lamentation. When the singing is ended the 
 two fore-quarters of each of the animals slain is taken 
 to the home of the maternal uncle of the woman for 
 whom it was killed, as a formal announcement to him 
 of what has taken place. The "mother" sleeps with 
 the doll as if it were a real child ; and she ceases not 
 to carry it about until her real child is born. The 
 latter then receives the name given to the doll, if of 
 the same sex as the doll is supposed to be ; otherwise 
 another name is chosen. Since Ntidi's death a young 
 unmarried man is chosen to accompany the women on 
 their excursion to the mountain. Although, however, 
 he supplies to some extent the place of Ntidi he does 
 not ride on their shoulders as the cripple did. The 
 cult of Ntidi is said to be disappearing : the medicine- 
 men now cure sterility by their "medicines." ^ 
 
 A similar fusion of magic and religion has been 
 found among the Huichol of Mexico. A woman 
 desirous of children deposits in a cave near Santa 
 Catarina sacred to a female divinity " a doll made of 
 cotton-cloth, representing the baby wanted. After 
 
 ^ K. Jacottet, Bull, Soc. Nenchat. ix. 137. As to Ntidi, see 
 supra, p. 88 Kc seems to have died in a great famine consequent 
 upon an invasion by Fingoes in the year 182 1. As to the doll, see 
 also/oMr;f. Afr. Soc. v. 366. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 147 
 
 awhile she goes back to the cave, puts the doll under 
 her girdle, and shortly afterwards is supposed to be 
 pregnant."^ About Behring Strait a barren Eskimo 
 woman consults a shaman who makes or gets the 
 husband to make a small doll, over which he performs 
 certain secret rites, and the woman is directed to sleep 
 with it under her pillow.-^ On the other side of the 
 strait Chukchi girls play with dolls. Some of these 
 dolls are charms to procure fertility for their owners. 
 They " pass from mother to daughter, and are kept 
 carefully patched and mended so as to last for an 
 indefinite time. The bride brinos this doll to her new 
 house and keeps it in her bag. In due time she gives 
 it to her oldest daughter to play with and to keep. 
 When other daughters are born a little stuffing is 
 taken out of the hereditary doll and put into a new one, 
 which is then supposed to possess all the qualities of 
 the first doll. Dolls of this kind are usually shaped 
 like new-born babies. Incantations are recited over 
 them by each generation, so that their force is supposed 
 to increase continually."^ In Japan when a marriage 
 is unfruitful a ceremony called kasedori is performed. 
 The old women of the neighbourhood come to the 
 house on the festival of Sahe no Kami, the phallic 
 god, which is held on the first full moon of the year, 
 and there gfo through the form of deliverinw- the wife 
 of a child. The infant is represented by a doll,* 
 A Chinese woman goes further : she adopts a little 
 girl to produce conception — a practice for which an 
 
 1 Lumholtz, Mem. Am. Mtts. N. H. Anthrop. ii. 52. 
 
 2 Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 435. There is said to be a similar 
 practice in New Caledonia (Saintyves, Les Vierges Meres, 61). 
 
 ^ Bogoras, Jesitp Exped. vii. 367. * Aston, Shinto, 331. 
 
148 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 elaborate reason is assigned. In the invisible world, 
 it is said, every woman is represented by a tree which 
 bears as many flowers as she is fated to bear children. 
 If the tree bear no flowers she will be naturally sterile ; 
 and then just as a fruit-tree is grafted with the shoot 
 of another tree to make it bring forth fruit, so by 
 adopting a child the childless woman hopes to produce 
 on her tree in the spiritland the germination of flowers, 
 and thus to become herself fruitful/ Among the Thai 
 of Tonkin it is customary when a man has no children 
 to adopt a son from another family, though no father 
 can be found to part with a son save in the direst 
 misery. A child thus adopted is regarded as a bringer 
 of luck ; and he is believed often as among the Chinese 
 to procure fertility for his adoptive mother.^ 
 
 Fertilisation may also take place by the eye, as in 
 some of the stories. Dulaure cites a certain Saint 
 Arnaud whose phallic statue, more decent than those 
 of some other saints, was clothed with an apron- 
 Only in favour of sterile women who came to pray for 
 offspring was the apron lifted ; and the sight disclosed 
 was enough, with faith, to work miracles.^ The belief 
 in the Evil Eye has not wholly disappeared in this 
 country. The power of causing conception by a fixed 
 gaze or glare of the eyes seems to be credited to 
 foreigners. At least one instance of this kind has been 
 
 ^ Doolittle, i. 113. The practices discussed above raise the 
 suspicion that our own children's dolls may have originated in the 
 same kind of magic. Another European practice appears referable 
 to it. In the Prattigau valley of Eastern Switzerland at the time of 
 vintage women make little dolls of rags and stealthily seek to attach 
 them to one another's clothing (Hoffmann-Krayer, Schweizerisches 
 ArcMv fur Vo!kskunde, xi. Basel, 1907, 268). 
 
 ^ Antoine Bourlet, Anthropos, ii. 364, 365. 
 
 ^ Dulaure, 210. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 149 
 
 related in recent years by a woman, who believed her 
 sister to have been thus acted on. When the gaze 
 "has caused the girl to feel helpless and motionless, 
 the man sends his hot breath over her face, and if she 
 possesses no power of resistance the harm is done." 
 The man in the case referred to was a foreigner, " an 
 Italian, or something like that," very dark, with black 
 eyes and hair. The victim was said to have seen him 
 only on that one occasion ; and the story was told as a 
 warning against letting girls, especially fair girls, have 
 any acquaintance with foreigners.'^ 
 
 Reviewing the rites and beliefs here brought together, 
 it will be seen that no mention has been made, as in some 
 of the tales, of the power of the wind as the source of 
 fecundity in women, or of the sense of smell or hearing 
 as the channel of that fecundity. It was, however, held 
 in classic times that partridges were impregnated in 
 some such way ; for Pliny tells us that if the female only 
 stood opposite to the male, and the wind blew from 
 him towards her, or if he simply flew over her head, 
 or very often if she merely heard his voice, it would 
 be enough.^ The belief was equally common, and not 
 merely used for a poetical ornament by Vergil, but re- 
 peated without question as a literal fact by men of 
 lofty intellect and wide attainments like Pliny and 
 Augustine, that mares were, in Lusitania, as the 
 former asserts, or in Cappadocia, according to the 
 latter, fertilised by wind.^ Mohammedan tradition 
 
 1 F. L. ix. 83. 
 
 * Pliny, X.51. He is only echoing Aristotle, ///s/. Aniir,. v. 4. 
 Athenaeus {Deipnos. ix. 42) improves upon the statement by saying 
 that sight of the cock is enough. It appears that in France the belief 
 lasted into the sixteenth century (Sebillot, F. L. France^ iii. 169). 
 
 ' Pliny, viii. 67 ; Aug. Civ. Dei. xxi. 5. 
 
150 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 spoke of a preadamite race consisting entire ly of 
 women who conceived (daughters only) by the v ind, 
 and as I have already said of an Isle of Women thus 
 peopled.^ If the inhabitants of the district of Lampong, 
 in the island of Sumatra, be not maligned, they at the 
 beginning of the present century believed all the popu- 
 lation on the neio-hbourinor island of Eng-ano to be 
 females who were impregnated in the same manner.^ 
 The Arunta of Central Australia still hold that a storm 
 from the west sometimes brings evil ratapa, or child- 
 germs, that seek to enter women. As the storm 
 approaches, the women with a loud cry hasten to 
 huddle themselves up in the shelter of their rudi- 
 mentary huts ; for if they become thus impregnated 
 twins will be the result, and they will die shortly after 
 delivery. The first-born twin is the evil ratapa. 
 This belief is adduced to justify the murder of twins. ^ 
 The ancient nations of the Mediterranean basin, 
 accomplished as they were in the arts of life, had 
 imbibed very little of the true scientific spirit that 
 searches out the facts of nature, whether in immediate 
 relati' n to themselves or not. They were (individual 
 exceptions apart) content to accept a wonder upon 
 authority without inquiring into the evidence, the 
 antecedent improbability awakening hardly more 
 doubts in their minds than in those of savages or 
 medic-eval monks. The statements just cited of the 
 sexual intercourse of partridges and the fertilisation of 
 Lusitanian mares are of a piece with other beliefs 
 which they took no pains to verify. They would not 
 
 1 UAbrege des Merveilles, 17, 71. 
 
 2' Marsden, 297. Yule, Marco Polo, ii. 340, cites other cases. 
 
 ^ Strehlow, 14. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 151 
 
 have questioned the tale repeated in the previous 
 chapter of the impregnation of a fish by the mouth, 
 for they held that that was the normal method among 
 fishes.^ Moreover, yElian reports Egyptian gossip as 
 declaring that the ibis effected coition and laid its eggs 
 by the same channel ; nor on this particular statement 
 has the rhetorician any qualms, though he boggles 
 at the exaggerations of the embalmers concerning the 
 enormous length of the sacred bird's intestines.^ The 
 lizard or crocodile which appears upon Minerva's 
 breast on certain gems is said to be explained by the 
 belief that this animal, like the Virgin Mary in the 
 hymn already cited, conceived by the ear, though 
 unlike her it brought forth by the mouth. ^ Pliny 
 indeed ventured to question the existence of the 
 phoenix ; but it seems to have been commonly accepted 
 that the female vulture had no intercourse with the 
 male — a belief to which Origen appeals in the support 
 of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.* 
 
 Such credulity still lingers among semi-civilised 
 peoples, as well as among the uneducated classes 
 of Europe. The Annamites declare that the rabbit 
 breeds by the mouth, ^ In Cambodia it is said that 
 peacocks do not couple like other birds : when they 
 erect their tails they drop the semen on the ground, 
 and the peahens are fecundated by picking it up." 
 I have found a similar belief among the peasantry 
 of Gloucestershire, where I am writino^. It is known 
 in Anglesey, and is probably general throughout the 
 
 1 Herod, ii. 93 ; ^lian, Nat. Anim. ix. 63. 
 
 2 yElian, Nat. Anim. x. 29. 3 King, Gnostics, 107. 
 
 * Origen, Contra Ccls. i, 37. ^ Rev. Trad, Pop. xii. 419. 
 
 * Ayraonier, Excursions, xvi. 150. 
 
152 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 country. In Yorkshire and Norfolk the same thing 
 is said of turkeys ; and it is reported from somewhere 
 in Siberia of the capercailzie/ No doubt it is a 
 widespread belief, founded upon a superficial observa- 
 tion of some of the habits of different species of 
 animals. 
 
 As I have already pointed out, it cannot be asserted 
 that in every instance of the practices collected in the 
 present chapter pregnancy is believed to be caused, as 
 in the tales, by the means prescribed apart from sexual 
 intercourse. It is obvious however that even where 
 we cannot make this assertion the practices are in- 
 tended to have some effect. They must have origi- 
 nated at an early stage of culture when no clear notion 
 of cause and effect was possible, and when the distinc- 
 tion between naturdl and supernatural was hardly 
 drawn. At that stage man attributed to every object 
 in his environment, v/hether human or non-human, a 
 mystic potentiality, an atmosphere, which was greater 
 or less not always according to the actual qualities of 
 the object but according to his ignorance of it and his 
 hopes his fears his fancies concerning it. Hence his 
 relations with many of the non-human objects and 
 probably in some degree with all or nearly all of them 
 would be best described as religious or magical : they 
 would depend upon the performance of ceremonies and 
 the observance of ritual prohibitions and regulations. 
 We must not wonder therefore if we find ascribed to 
 many objects thaumaturgic powers and qualities we 
 now know to be impossible, and if to obtain the benefit 
 of those qualities and powers rites and observances 
 meaningless to us are deemed necessary. Among the 
 ^ F. L. viii. 375 ; ix. 82. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 153 
 
 purposes for which these objects would be employed 
 that of acting on the human organism would often 
 hold a prominent place. Until magic and religion are 
 differentiated from medicine the rites and observances 
 connected with their employment are vague and 
 indeterminate in their aspect, and the exact operation 
 of the objects employed is not even questioned. We 
 need not here discuss the relation between mag-ic and 
 religion : it is at all events beyond doubt that they 
 have been intim.ately connected from the earliest times. 
 A very superficial examination of the history of 
 medicine suffices to show how tardy was the process of 
 its differentiation from both. To refer here only to 
 magic, medical treatises right down to the close of the 
 Middle Ages teem with prescriptions not merely value- 
 less in themselves for therapeutic action, but obviously 
 of magical origin. Nor are such prescriptions by any 
 means absent from medical treatises composed long 
 since the Revival of Learning ; while the repertory 
 of the peasant-doctor abounds with them even yet. 
 Many of the practices recorded in the foregoing pages 
 belong to this class, and we must not be surprised if 
 they wear more or less of a medicinal aspect. Theymust 
 not however, be considered alone. Their medicinal 
 aspect is delusive. Their true connections are with a 
 much larger number of practices directed to the same 
 end and bearing no therapeutic interpretation. They 
 must be correlated with these, and not with these only 
 but with the stories of supernatural birth in which the 
 same or analogous means are employed for the same 
 purpose and are spoken of as the direct cause of birth 
 independent of the union of the sexes. Nor is this all. 
 These practices and stories must also be compared 
 
154 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 with puberty and marriage rites having fecundation for 
 their object, avowed or inferential, with the prohibitions 
 at puberty and on other occasions for the purpose of 
 avoiding irregular fecundation, and lastly with the 
 positive beliefs current among various peoples as to the 
 fecundation of certain of the lower animals and even of 
 women by other than the natural means/ All are of 
 the same origin : stories practices and beliefs are all 
 inexplicably interwoven into one pattern. From their 
 consideration we are justified in concluding that it 
 was a widespread belief in early times that pregnancy 
 was caused otherwise than by sexual intercourse. 
 
 Such a conclusion would be startling if the belief 
 we suppose had arisen in the midst of a civilised 
 society. It originated in an intellectual atmosphere 
 very different from that of modern civilisation. But the 
 difference of the intellectual atmosphere is not alone 
 sufficient to account for it: a difference of social 
 environment is also required. The general result of 
 anthropological evidence is to lead to the conviction 
 that mankind has evolved from a state socially as well 
 as mentally more backward than that of the lowest 
 savages now extant. To form an opinion on the 
 social conditions in which the belief in conception, and 
 consequently birth, by other than the natural cause 
 originated, it is necessary to undertake an inquiry 
 into certain social regulations and practices in the 
 lower culture. 
 
 1 Of all these we have given examples. The argument would 
 have been strengthened if space had permitted a consideration of 
 agricultural rites. Fields and fruit-trees are often treated in a 
 manner analogous to the treatment of barren women. The treat- 
 ment of many of the lower animals by similar methods has been 
 noticed incidentally. 
 
PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 155 
 
 But as a preliminary to this inquiry we must com- 
 plete our study of the stories, beliefs and practices in 
 reference to birth by an examination of those in which 
 birth is represented as a return of creatures, human or 
 non-human, who have previously lived and died. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 TRANSFORMATION AND METEMPSYCHOSIS 
 
 Birth is often a new manifestation of a previously 
 existing personage. Ballads and stories in which the 
 dead manifest themselves as trees. Corresponding be- 
 liefs and practices. Transformation after death into 
 brute-form. The converse. Transformation of brutes 
 and vegetables into human beings by birth. Buddhist 
 doctrine of Transmigration. Celtic doctrine. New birth 
 of human beings. Belief in multiple souls. Rites to 
 ascertain which of the ancestors has returned. Naming 
 a child after a deceased member of the family. Rites to 
 secure a transfer of life. Australian beliefs in re-birth. 
 Warehouse of children. Relation between Transforma- 
 tion and Transmigration. 
 
 The hero of many tales of Supernatural Birth is not a 
 new personage ; he is simply a new manifestation. 
 He had previously existed in other shapes, and by 
 undergoing birth (preceded sometimes, but not always, 
 by death) he was entering on a new career, he was 
 ascending a new stage of being. In the Egyptian tale 
 the persea-trees are expressly identified with the 
 murdered Bata ; and when they are cut down a 
 splinter flies into the heroine's mouth rendering her 
 pregnant — of Bata once more. Yehl, the Thlinkit hero, 
 repeatedly became the son of ladies who were beguiled 
 into swallowing a pebble, a blade of grass or even a 
 drop of water, which was no other than the demi-god 
 
 156 
 
TRANSFORMATION 157 
 
 in disguise. What is expressly asserted in stories like 
 these may be inferred from others. In the most widely 
 diffused modern type of mdrchen belonging to the cycle 
 of Perseus, a fish being caught directs that its flesh 
 shall be given to the fisherman's wife, while the bones 
 and the scales and other offal are to be oiven to the 
 mare and the bitch or otherwise disposed of. The 
 woman becomes pregnant of the flesh, the mare and 
 bitch of the bones scales, and so forth. We can only 
 interpret the careful directions given by the fish as to 
 how it was to be cooked and eaten and how its re- 
 mains were to be disposed of, the exact correspondence 
 of the twins or triplets who are born of the woman 
 and their horses dogs and other property with these 
 directions when they are duly followed, and the mystic 
 connection between the offspring, as evidence that 
 they are a new birth of the fish. Nor are these 
 inferences to be confined to the stories. The belief 
 in birth as a new manifestation of a previously existent 
 personage appears from the practices, detailed in the 
 last chapter, in which portions of corpses are utilised to 
 promote conception. The subject is so important not 
 merely in the general study of savage ideas, but in 
 relation to the belief that conception is due to other 
 than the natural cause that it is necessary to discuss it 
 further. 
 
 In so doing I do not propose to consider mdrchen. 
 Interesting as these are we must for reasons of space 
 pass them by. The reader will doubtless be willing to 
 assume their existence and wide difiusion. I shall 
 confine myself as far as possible to evidence of belief, 
 using even sagas as sparingly as possible. 
 
 But we must begin with sagas and ballads. A 
 
158 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 favourite theme in Western folksong is that of the 
 lovers brought, like Tristram and I soke, to a tragic end, 
 from whose graves two trees grow and intertwine their 
 branches as if they were joined in a lasting embrace. 
 In this country the incident is perhaps most frequently 
 associated with the name of the ballad of Fair 
 Margaret and Siveet William ; but it is also found 
 in several others/ There is hardly a country on the 1 
 continent of Europe in which it does not occur. It 
 has even been recorded among the traditions of the 
 Schluh in the south of Morocco ; the Kurds and 
 Afghans repeat it ; and it is familiar as far away as 
 China. It is obvious that the trees are merely the lovers 
 transformed. A Lesbian ballad says in so many 
 words that the bride poisoned by her mother-in-law 
 became a lemon-tree and her bridegroom who died 
 for love a cypress, and that every Easter, every Sunday 
 and feast-day the two lovers embraced. Another also 
 expressly identifies a reed growing from the bride- 
 groom's grave and a cypress growing from the bride's 
 with the unhappy lovers themselves. They wished to 
 embrace while living ; they do so now that they are 
 dead.^ 
 
 Moreover the kind of tree thus growing from a 
 grave is often held to be an index of the character 
 of the deceased. Indeed among the Kirghiz every one 
 on whose grave a tree grows spontaneously is deemed 
 a saint.^ In Iceland the mountain-ash is regarded 
 as sacred. A story localised in two places is told of a 
 
 1 Child, Ballads, i. 96, and under the headings of the various 
 ballads there mentioned. 
 
 2 Georgeakis et Pineau, 208, 220. 
 ^ Featherman, Tur. 269. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 159 
 
 tenderly attached brother and sister accused of incest 
 and in spite of their denials condemned to capital punish- 
 ment and executed. Before death they earnestly with 
 tears prayed, beseeching the almighty and all-knowing 
 God to make their innocence manifest and desiring 
 their friends and kindred to procure them to be buried 
 in the same grave. They were buried one on either 
 side of the church ; and a mountain-ash grew out of 
 each of their graves, meeting above the roof of the 
 church and uniting their branches so closely that they 
 could hardly be separated. This was regarded as 
 a siofn of their innocence and their desire to rest 
 together in the same grave. ^ Among the peasantry 
 of the Riviera thorns or nettles growing on the grave 
 are a sign of the damnation of the dead ; if other 
 plants grow he is happy ; if a mixture he is in purga- 
 tory.^ Similar superstitions and stories illustrative of 
 them are found throughout Europe. In the game 
 of " Old Roger is dead," a favourite among children 
 in England, we probably have a last echo of them. 
 The story chanted in the game runs substantially 
 as follows : 
 
 Old Roger is dead and lies in his grave ; 
 There grew a fine apple-tree over his head ; 
 The apples are ripe and ready to drop ; 
 There came an old woman apicking them up ; 
 Old Roger jumped up and he gave her a knock ; 
 He made the old woman go hippity-hop. 
 
 Some of the versions speak of the tree as being 
 planted; and Mrs. Gomme in commenting on the 
 game aptly refers to Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme, 
 
 1 V. Ain Urquell, 120. 
 
 2 J. B. Andrews, Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. 117. 
 
i6o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 where the old antiquary reports concerning the parish 
 of Ockley, in Surrey, a custom of planting roses at the 
 grave of a deceased lover, adding as a conclusion of 
 his own " they planted a tree or a flower on the grave 
 of their friend, and they thought the soul of the party 
 deceased went into the tree or plant> " ^ Aubrey's 
 conclusion is doubtless correct, if not for his own 
 time, for one not many generations off; but it presents 
 a development of the original conception, his friend 
 Mrs. Smyth's " notion of men being metamorphosed 
 into trees and flowers," which he damns as " ingeniose," 
 being much nearer the truth than he seems to 
 imagine. 
 
 In India the legend of Krishna relates that his wife 
 Rukmini died in his absence. Her body was burnt 
 and the ashes buried in a new earthenware jar ac- 
 cording to the prescribed ritual. When Krishna 
 returned and was shown the burial-place a tulsi-plant 
 had grown upon it. This plant was Rukmini in a new 
 form ; and hence the tulsi is regarded as sacred.^ In 
 the Molucca Islands there is a tree which bears during- 
 the night from sunset to sunrise a rapid succession of 
 fragrant white flowers. To account for this pheno- 
 menon the inhabitants of Ternate have a tradition 
 that there was once a beautiful woman who was 
 beloved by the Sun, and who, being deserted by her 
 fickle lover, slew herself Her body was, in accordance 
 with the custom of the country, burnt ; and from her 
 ashes arose the tree, called by the early Portuguese 
 
 1 Mrs. Gomme, ii. i6 ; Aubrey, Remaines, 155. According to 
 the Book of Ballymote an apple-tree grew up through the grave of 
 Aiilem, daughter of Lughaid, King of Leinster, who died of shame 
 on being ravished away by Cremh [Silva Gad. ii. 531). 
 
 2 Anthropos, ii. 276. 
 
TRANSFORMATION i6r 
 
 voyagers the Tree of Sorrow/ East and west, 
 literally " from China to Peru " as well as in the 
 Pacific islands, a similar origin has been attributed to 
 a large number of trees, particularly to those like the 
 cocoa-tree, the areca-palm, and the coca-tree, which 
 are useful to mankind. In Borneo Sir Hugh Low 
 was once walking in the jungle with a Land Dyak from 
 a neighbouring village when a large snake crossed 
 their path. The Dyak drew his parang and raised 
 his arm to strike, but suddenly stopped. Sir Hugh 
 asked him the reason, and he said that the bamboo- 
 bush opposite to which they were standing had been 
 a man and one of his relations who, dying about ten 
 years previously, had appeared in a dream to his 
 widow and informed her that he had become that 
 bamboo-tree, and the ground about it and everything 
 on it were sacred on that account. He went on to 
 say that in spite of that warning a man had once had 
 the hardihood to cut a branch from the tree, in conse- 
 quence of which he soon after died— a punishment for 
 his sacrilegious act. A small bamboo altar was erected 
 before the bush, and Sir Hugh Low noted that upon 
 it were the remnants of offerings presented, though 
 not recently, to the spirit of the tree.^ 
 
 The belief that a tree growing on a grave Is thus a 
 transformation of the dead man within has led to the 
 planting of trees for the purpose of providing a new 
 body for the deceased. Aubrey in a passage already 
 quoted referred to the planting of roses in England. 
 
 ^ Rev. Trad. Pop. ix. 75, quoting Argensola, Histoire de hf. 
 Conquete des Isles Mohiqiies (Amsterdam, 1706). A Creole story 
 from Louisiana attributes a similar origin to the ash-tree ; hence its 
 name (Alcee Fortier, /o?/r;7. Aw. F. L. xix. 126). 
 
 2 Roth, Sarawak, i. 265, quoting Low. 
 
 I L 
 
i62 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 A Chinese anecdote gives expression in very pointed 
 form to the belief which prompts the practice. " On 
 Mount Poh-mang there is the grave of the chaste 
 woman Li. Her husband having departed this life 
 she buried him and planted a couple of cypresses in 
 front of the tomb. After a while a cow bit off five inches 
 from the top of the left tree ; and when the woman 
 was informed of this she exclaimed : * The left one 
 [i.e., that on the principal side] is my husband,' and' 
 she ran to the grave. Wailing so bitterly that it was 
 painful to behold, she caressed the cypress, and ere 
 the night was gone it had grown up again as high as 
 the tree on the right hand side. After her death she 
 was buried in the same grave." In another story two 
 chestnut-trees planted on the grave of husband and 
 wife intertwine their branches, " a proof in the eyes of 
 the people that the souls of husband and wife . . . 
 had assimilated themselves each with one of those 
 trees." -^ In Fiji, if a family lose three young children 
 successively a banana is planted on the tomb of the 
 last buried.^ The missionary who reports this custom 
 suggests that the banana is a sacrifice to the ancestral 
 manes who came to eat the children. It is more 
 likely to be attributable to the belief we are dis- 
 cussing. On the island of Ceram the wives of the 
 deceased plant a tree (usually the Pavetta Indicd) 
 on the grave, probably for the same reason.^ Among 
 the Gallas of Abyssinia aloe is planted upon the 
 grave ; and if it grow it is taken as a sign that 
 the dead man is happy.^ A German practice is 
 
 ^ De Groot, op. cit. ii. 469, 467. ^ Anthropos, ii. 74. 
 
 ^ Bastian, Indonesien, i, 149. 
 
 * Krapf, Reisen in Osi-Afrika {^ivXig2LXt, 1858), i. 102. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 163 
 
 manifestly a relic of a belief similar to that re- 
 corded in the foregoing tales and superstitions. If 
 a farmer have several times a foal or calf diej. 
 he buries one of them in the garden, planting a 
 young willow in its mouth. When the tree grows 
 up it is never polled or lopped, but is allowed 
 to grow its own way, and is believed to guard 
 the farm from future casualties of the same kind.^ 
 The meaning of this practice can hardly be better 
 illustrated than by a Kaffir custom. Among some 
 tribes of Kaffirs when twins are born they are examined, 
 and the one appearing the more delicate is suffocated 
 by placing a clod of earth in its mouth. When dead 
 it is buried near the doorway of the hut, and a dwarf 
 aloe is planted over the grave. " The aloe is regarded 
 in some way as the living representative of the dead 
 infant ; its spirit or shade is supposed to be in it, or to 
 be hovering about it. When it is planted its spines 
 are carefully cut away, that the survivor may play 
 about it and drag himself up by it and make himself 
 
 ^ Grimm, Tent. Myth. 1811. The following are perhaps trace- 
 able to the same idea ; but they are too doubtful to record in the 
 text : "In Derbyshire, when cattle, such as horses and cows, die, 
 it is usual to bury them under fruit-bearing trees in the orchard " 
 (Addy, 132). In the sixteenth century it was believed in France 
 that a dead dog or other carrion buried at the foot of a tree which 
 had lost its vigour would restore it; and the same property is 
 attributed to a dead cat (Se billot, F. L. France^ iii. 377). A 
 Sicilian mdrchen speaks with a less uncertain voice. The hero 
 having won the king's daughter by the performance of a ploughing 
 task with the help of a magical ox, the ox is killed by his own 
 directions for the marriage-feast, and its bones are buried in the 
 newly prepared land, except one leg which is put under the pillows 
 of the bridal bed. The bride dreams of fruit, awakes and plucks it. 
 The field where the bones are buried is found full of all sorts of 
 fruit-trees, laden with fruit (Pitre, B'lbl. iv. 243). Here the fruit is 
 clearly the magical ox in a new manifestation. 
 
i64 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 strong, as he would have done with his fellow-twin 
 had he been permitted to live." ^ 
 
 Concerninof the belief of the Dieri tribe of South 
 Australia we are told : " There are places covered by 
 trees which are held very sacred, the larger ones being 
 supposed to be the remains of their fathers meta- 
 morphosed. The natives never hew them, and should 
 the settlers require to cut them down, they earnestly 
 protest against it, asserting they would have no luck 
 and themselves might be punished for not protecting 
 their ancestors."^ Further to the north in Central 
 Australia it is a common belief that where their 
 mythical ancestors " went into the ground " a stone or 
 a tree arose to mark the spot. "In the Arunta tribe 
 every individual has his or her Nanja tree or rock at 
 the spot where the old ancestor left his spirit-part 
 when he went down into the around, . . . This rock 
 or tree and its immediate surroundings are sacred, and 
 no plant or animal found there may be killed or eaten 
 by the individual who is thus associated with the spot. 
 In all essential features, but with variation in details, 
 the same idea is found in the beliefs of the Kaitish 
 and Unmatjera tribes." * Such a tree or rock is be- 
 yond all doubt a transformation of the totem-ancestor. 
 The sagas identify it over and over again ; and the 
 only dispute among modern observers who record the 
 facts is whether the tree, the rock, the churinga, or 
 whatever the object may be, is a transformation of the 
 totem-ancestor himself or merely of his " spirit-part." * 
 
 ^ CaXhyf a.y, Journ. Anthr. Soc. iv. cxxxviii. 
 
 * Gason, The Dieyerie Tribe, quoted Brough Smyth, i, 426 note. 
 ' S. and G. North. Tribes, 448. 
 
 * Strehlow, i. Preface, and passim; Globus, xci. 288. See post, 
 p. 241 note. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 165 
 
 The distinction for our present purpose is not vital. 
 The Warramunga have a tradition of a man named 
 Murtu-Murtu, or Bullroarer, who lived in mythical 
 times and was torn to pieces by two wild dogs. 
 These had been excited by the continual noise he 
 made, like that of a bullroarer. They threv/ the 
 pieces of his flesh about in all directions. As these 
 pieces flew through the air they made the sound of 
 the bullroarer, and trees called nanantha sprang up 
 where they fell on the earth. Out of such trees 
 the natives now make their bullroarers. The dogs 
 ran about biting the trees, in the hope that they would 
 thus be able to kill the spirit of the man which had 
 gone into them.^ The trees were thus a transforma- 
 tion of the unfortunate Murtu-murtu. Dowed and, 
 Abmddam,the forefather and foremother of theLarrakia 
 tribe near Port Darwin, when they died turned into 
 trees, which a few years ago were said to be stilL 
 in existence and much reverenced.'^ 
 
 The Wanyamwezi of East Africa *' declare that their 
 patriarchal ancestor became after death the first tree 
 and afforded shade to his children and descendants." ^ 
 The Bushmen say that "girls who have been taken 
 away by the water [that is, drowned] become like a 
 beautiful water-flower which will not allow itself to be 
 plucked and disappears when approached. Such 
 flowers," we are wisely told, " must be let alone." ^ The 
 
 1 S. and G. North. Tribes, 434. 
 
 2 Curr, i. 253 ; /. A. I. xxiv. 391. 
 
 3 Burton, Lake Regions, ii. 4. Burton goes on to say that 
 " according to the Arabs the people still perform pilgrimage to a 
 holy tree, and believe that the penalty of sacrilege in cutting off a 
 twig would be visited by sudden and mysterious death." But it 
 does not appear that this is the tree in question. 
 
 * Lloyd, Rep. 25. 
 
i66 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Maidu inhabiting the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada 
 in California hold that " bad people " are changed into 
 rocks and bushes/ A similar belief is obvious in the 
 Bavarian sagfa concerninsf three women who led an 
 abandoned life in a castle in the forest near Nuremberg, 
 to which they enticed strangers and then plundered 
 and put them to death. Their dwelling was even- 
 tually struck by lightning ; they perished wiih it ; but 
 their souls entered three great trees. I f one of the trees 
 be cut down the soul passes over into another. After 
 the bell for evening prayer has sounded a passer-by 
 may hear from the tree-tops in the gloom soft voices 
 calling him, or a mischievous titter ; and he will think 
 he catches sight of a beckoning form not obscurely 
 between the branches.^ 
 
 As in the case of trees so also plants of smaller 
 growth have been referred to transformations of sacred 
 or mysterious personages. The various American 
 legends of the origin of maize are too well known to 
 need repetition. The Brazilian legend of the manioc 
 is similar. It was a maiden born to a chiefs daughter 
 who had never known man. She grew to maturity in. 
 a year, died without any disease and was buried in her 
 mother's house. The grave was watered every day 
 according to the ancient custom of the tribe, and in due 
 course a plant grew up from it, flourished and bore 
 fruit. It is called manioc, Mani's house or trans- 
 formation.'^ The calabash- tree and the tobacco-plant 
 
 1 R, Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 261. 
 
 2 Mannhardt, BK. 41, citing Panzer. Frazer, G. B. i. 178, cites 
 other cases of souls passing into trees which it is unnecessary to 
 reproduce here. 
 
 ^ Granada, 216, citing Magalhaes. See also Dorman, 293, citing 
 m th's Brasil; von den Steinen, 369 ; Jonrn. Am. F. L. xx. 147. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 167 
 
 are the subject of a similar legend among the Aztecs 
 or Pipiles of Central America/ A scene portrayed on 
 the walls of a chamber in the great temple of Isis at 
 Philae represents the dead body of Osiris with stalks 
 of corn springing from it while a priest waters the 
 stalks from a pitcher in his hand. This representation 
 suggests that the sacred legend of Osiris was much to 
 the same effect. It was probably only one of sev^eral 
 such myths, for a manuscript in the Louvre refers to 
 the cedar as sprung from him ; his soul is elsewhere 
 represented as inhabiting the tamarisk ; he is spoken of 
 as " the solitary one in the acaciaj" ; on the monuments 
 he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree 
 or with plants, and trees are represented as growing 
 from his grave. ^ 
 
 In classical legends we meet everywhere cases of 
 transformation, either before or after death, of men and 
 women into trees or plants or into some of the lower 
 animals. Indeed, Ovid's poetical compendium of 
 mythical history derives its name and substance 
 from the number and variety of these cases. One of 
 the most famous is that of Attis, whose worship, 
 together with that of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, 
 was introduced from Phrygia to Rome in the year B.C. 
 204. We have already seen that the god's birth was 
 caused by pomegranate-fruit which his mother laid in 
 her bosom. He died, according to one account, by the 
 attack of a boar ; according to another, by loss of 
 blood from self-mutilation in an access of frenzy. In 
 
 ^ C. V. Hartman, /oi^r;/. Am. F. L. xx. 144. 
 
 2 Frazer, Adonis. 323, 342, citing and discussing several 
 authorities. The adventures of Osiris as Bata have already been 
 referred to, supra, p. 14. 
 
i68 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 either case he was believed to have been changed after 
 death into a pine-tree/ Dr. Frazer has marshalled a 
 number of arguments whence it is probable that Attis 
 was originally a tree-spirit. Perhaps we may go one 
 step further back and suggest that the worship was at 
 first that of a sacred tree, and that the connection of 
 this tree with a human being or an anthropomorphic 
 divinity was a subsequent development." Be that as 
 it may, the legend as we have it, the worship as it is 
 recorded for us, implied a belief in metamorphosis as a 
 possible and actual occurrence consequent upon death. 
 This belief must have descended to classic times from 
 savagery. 
 
 Already we have seen that the belief in metamor- 
 phosis of this kind arises in savagery. Like many 
 another belief equally baseless it survives under re- 
 ligious associations into higher stages of culture. 
 Of the belief and its survival I proceed to give a few 
 more illustrations, selected from an endless number 
 found all over the world. Nor shall I distinguish 
 between metamorphosis and metempsychosis. Before 
 this branch of the inquiry is closed I shall consider the 
 relation between such cases ; in the meantime we may 
 treat them as equivalent. 
 
 The pious yEneas, beholding the gorgeous snake 
 
 that crept from his father's tomb and tasted his 
 
 offering, was at a loss whether to recognise in the 
 
 reature the genius of the place or an attendant on his 
 
 ^ Frazer, Adonis, 163 sgg. ; the authorities are there collected and 
 discussed. 
 
 2 So the sacred trees of many countries are believed to be dwelt 
 in by spirits, sometimes non-human, sometimes human. Annamite 
 sacred trees include examples of both {Anthropos, ii. 959). They 
 were probably sacred before they were thus haunted. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 169 
 
 father in the other world. ^ The Zulu, not less pious, 
 has no doubts. A chief after death turns into an imamba 
 (a poisonous snake), a woman or an ordinary man 
 turns into a thin brown whip-snake called umhlwazi^ a 
 very old woman into a mabibini, or little black snake. 
 Such snakes are treated with respect when they visit 
 the kraal. They are praised and offerings are made 
 to them.' Other forms may also be assumed. That 
 of dead queens is the tree-iguana ; some men become 
 wasps.^ All the Bantu peoples indeed believe that the 
 dead may become animals of various kinds, from 
 elephants lions and hippopotami downwards ; but the 
 snake is the form most commonly ascribed to them.* 
 Whether the animal, whatever it may be, reincorporates 
 the soul of the deceased or is on the other hand a new 
 manifestation of the body, the soul undergoing mean- 
 while a distinct and separate destiny, does not appear 
 without doubt. The reincorporation of the soul is 
 affirmed so circumstantially and by so many authors who 
 have had opportunities of ascertaining the belief of the 
 peoples of which they speak, that it is impossible to 
 reject their testimony. Yet we have some evidence 
 equally positive, that the animal manifestation is 
 neither to be confounded with the soul nor is a re- 
 incorporation of it. Thus a recent writer says : 
 " Both the Angoni and the Achewa believe in reincar- 
 
 1 Vergil, ^H. V, 84. In Greece the Hero was frequently 
 honoured under the form of a snake : Harrison, 325. 
 
 ^ S. A. F. L. Journ. ii. loi ; Callaway, Rel. Syst. 140, 196, 199. 
 
 3 Leslie, 213 ; Callaway, op. cit. 200. 
 
 * Thomas, Eleven Years, 2S0 ; J. A. I. xxi. 377 ; xxxvi. 50, 281, 
 291 ; Miss Werner, 64, 85 ; H. Trilles, Biiil. Soc. Neuchat. Geog. 
 xvi, 64 ; and many other authorities, some of which are enumerated 
 by Dr. Frazer, Adonis, 73. 
 
I70 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 nation, some saying they turn into the object from 
 which they derive their name, as their fathers and 
 relations have before them ; others, again, into some 
 other animal not their totem-animal. . . . This idea 
 of reincarnation does not appear consistent with the 
 well-known fact that all these tribes are manes- 
 worshippers ; and neither is it, if one associates the 
 idea of transformation of the body with that of trans- 
 migration of the soul. The soul, vizinni, does not 
 enter into the animal ; and the animal which is lociked 
 upon as the reincarnation of the dead relation does 
 not have any human attribute whatever, and does not 
 concern the native in any way. He does not pro- 
 pitiate it or appeal to it at any time, as he does to the 
 mzinni or spirit which comes back to live in the hut 
 in which it had its abode when alive ; only he will not 
 willingly eat it or destroy it."^ So we are told 
 concerning the rites on the death of a king of the 
 Bahima, a Bantu people though by no means of pure 
 blood, that the body is taken to Ensanzi the burial- 
 place of the kings, where it lies in state until it swells 
 and bursts. Ensanzi is a forest inhabited by sacred 
 lions " said to be possessed by the spirits of former 
 kings of Ankole." "In the forest is a temple; and 
 attached to it are a number of priests whose duties are 
 to feed and care for the lions, and to hold communi- 
 cations with the former kings when necessary." 
 While the body is lying in state the priest " has to 
 find a young cub to present to the people, because the, 
 swelling and collapse of the corpse represent pregnancy 
 and the birth of the lion-king. Directly the collapse 
 takes place a lion-cub is produced and the priest 
 1 Raffray, 178, 198. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 171 
 
 announces that the kino- has brouorht forth a Hon. 
 He presents the cub to the people and proceeds to 
 feed it with milk. For some days the people remain 
 until the cub has gained strength and begins to eat 
 meat. All the interest and anxiety now centre in the 
 cub ; the corpse receives an ordinary burial and is 
 forgotten ; the king lives in the cub. When the cub 
 grows up it is released and allowed to wander in the 
 forest with the other lions,, It is thus by no means 
 fully tame ; still it is less fierce than the ordinary wild 
 lions, and it is accustomed to seek its food in a certain 
 place from the hands of the priests." In a similar way 
 the corpse of a queen gives birth to a leopard in 
 another belt of the same forest, and those of dead 
 princes and princesses to snakes.^ Whether these 
 proceedings can be properly described as transmigration 
 of the souls of the deceased seems more than doubt- 
 ful. In any case the animal is a new manifestation of 
 the departed. 
 
 As the tale of The Two Brothers has prepared us to 
 believe, the Egyptians held that the dead " were 
 able," in Dr. Budofe's words, "at will to assume the 
 form of any animal or bird or plant or living thing 
 which they pleased ; and one of the greatest delights 
 to which a man looked forward was the possession of 
 that power." ^ The Book of the Dead provides the 
 deceased with a number of formulae necessary to en- 
 able him to effect such transformation, or even to 
 assume any form he chose. The belief seems, in 
 fact, universal in Africa. The Masai, a Piamitic 
 people with Bantu admixture, do not as a rule bury 
 
 ^ Rev. J. Roscoe, /. A. I. xxxvii. loi*. 
 ^ Budge, Egyptian Magic, 230. 
 
172 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 their dead. The common people are left to be eaten 
 by hyenas and, it is believed, there is an end of them. 
 But medicine-m,en, chiefs and persons of wealth are 
 buried, and their souls become snakes which haunt 
 their children's kraals and are regarded as sacred.-^ 
 On the Slave Coast the Yoruba think the souls of the 
 dead are sometimes born again in animals, most 
 commonly the hyena or the solitary yellow monkey 
 called oloyo, or (though more rarely) in plants.^ The 
 Brames of Senegal believe that the soul of the dead 
 passes into the body of an animal not used for food. 
 At the funeral the body is exposed to fire until the 
 epidermis is easily rubbed off. This is done to 
 facilitate passage into the body of the animal chosen 
 by the deceased.^ Among the Ewhe the noli, or in- 
 dwelling spirit of a man, often enters the body of one 
 of the lower animals, sometimes friendly, sometimes 
 hostile? to mankind. In the neighbourhood of Whydah 
 the friendly noli frequently takes up its abode in the 
 body of an iguana, " whence these reptiles are allowed 
 to run about the house, and are regarded almost as 
 tutelary deities, the death of one being considered a 
 calamity."^ Similar beliefs are reported from the 
 Gold Coast and the Niger.^ The Banyang in Northern 
 
 ^ HoUis, 304, 307; Merker, 192, 202. According to the latter 
 the clan of the El Kiboron bury all their married men and believe 
 that their bones change into snakes. See also Johnston, Uganda, ii. 
 
 832. 
 
 ^ EUis, Yoruba, 133, 134. Compare the Djagga belief that their 
 ancestors inhabit the bodies of colobus monkeys {J. A. I. xxi. 377). 
 
 3 Leprince, VAnthrop. xvi. 61, 62. ■* Ellis, Ewe, 164. 
 
 * C. H. Harper, J. A. I. xxxvi. 184, 186. Here it seems that 
 the form of the sacred (totem) animal is or was usually believed to 
 betaken. J, Parkinson, Ibid. 314, 319; Leonard, 142, 185, 188, 
 217. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 173 
 
 Cameroon do not kill certain birds, believing that they 
 are dead persons.^ In Madagascar we are told the 
 same of the Sakalava and the Betsileo. A Betsileo 
 noble becomes a crocodile ; the souls of common 
 people lodge in certain eels named lo7ia} Some 
 unspecified tribes hold the kingfisher and the death's 
 head sphinx to be men who have changed into these 
 forms after death. A great number of Malagasy are 
 said to take these creatures for ancestors, and to hold 
 them in consequent respect." 
 
 The Ansairee, or Nasaree, of Tarsus in Asia Minor, 
 though outwardly conforming to Islam, practise a 
 religion combining many heterogeneous elements. 
 They call their supreme god Ali. The Kalazians, one of 
 their sects, are moon-worshippers, that is to say, they 
 believe that Ali dwells in the moon, which is conse- 
 quently the object of numerous rites. A few years 
 ago the chief of this sect was Sheikh Hassan, one of 
 the richest men at Tarsus. They believe that at his 
 death he will become a star. Other men less holy or 
 fortunate will eo through various transformations. 
 With this people, says Mr. Theodore Bent, " metem- 
 psychosis partakes strongly of the ridiculous : bad men 
 put on ' low envelopes,' or kafiiees, in the next world ; 
 Mussulmans become jackals, and Jewish Rabbis apes ; 
 a man may be punished by becoming a woman, but a 
 good woman may be rewarded in the next life by 
 becoming a man." ^ 
 
 In the East Indies when a woman dies in child- 
 
 i Hutter, 297. 
 
 * van Gennep, Tabou, 271, 283, 291, 322, 323 
 
 * Ferrand, Conies Pop. Malg. 139, translating Dahle. 
 
 * B, A. Rep. (1890), 544. 
 
174 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 birth on the islands of Ambon and Uliase thorns or 
 
 pins are stuck between the joints of the fingers and 
 
 toes, in the knees shoulders and elbows, eggs of hens 
 
 or ducks are laid under the chin and the armpits, 
 
 and a portion of her hair is brought outwards and 
 
 nailed fast between the coffin and its lid. The object 
 
 of this is to prevent her from getting out of the coffin 
 
 and flying away in the form of a bird. Even if she 
 
 should succeed in this, it is believed she could not 
 
 forsake the eggs. Were these precautions not taken 
 
 she would be able to plague men and pregnant 
 
 women. On the Tanembar or Timorlao Islands the 
 
 matmate or ancestral spirits are worshipped. They 
 
 take the form of various animals — opossums birds 
 
 hogs turtles dugongs snakes crocodiles and sharks. 
 
 In the Babar Archipelago small offerings are thrown to a 
 
 snake seen lurking about a house, because it is believed 
 
 that a woman who has died in childbirth has made 
 
 use of it as a means to enter the village.-^ In certain 
 
 districts of the south-east of Borneo a Dyak who dies 
 
 by accident, as by drowning, is not buried, but carried 
 
 into the forest and simply laid down there. It is 
 
 believed that his soul enters a tree a fish or some 
 
 other brute. Accordingly certain kinds of fish are not 
 
 eaten, and certain kinds of wood are not used, because 
 
 they willingly harbour souls. On the other hand, the 
 
 soul of a man over whom all proper funeral rites have 
 
 been performed enters the Town of Souls. But it cannot 
 
 abide there for ever. After a life seven times as long as 
 
 on the earth it dies and returns to this world, where it 
 
 enters a mushroom a fruit or a leaf, in the hope that it 
 ^ Riedel, 8i, 281, 338. Similar beliefs in other East Indian 
 islands, Kruyt, 181, 187, &c. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 175 
 
 may be eaten by a human bein£^ or one of the lower 
 animals. In such case the deceased is born again in the 
 next offspring of the living creature which has eaten 
 it ; if such creature be one of the lower animals the soui 
 still has a chance of being born again as a human being, 
 provided the animal be eaten by a man or woman. 
 But if the animal the fruit, or whatever it may be, be 
 not thus eaten the soul comes to an end/ The Dyaks, as 
 is well known, are addicted to the observation of omens 
 from birds. " They suppose that these birds are their 
 ancestors who have been transmigrated in order to watch 
 over the welfare of their tribe, and who are still interested 
 in everything connected with it. None but the brave 
 are thus distinguished. Every household has certain 
 birds which it follows and other birds which are of ill 
 omen, that is, which warn of approaching danger. Once> 
 it is said, when an unusually brave man was fighting, 
 the enemy cut off his cJiawat (loin-cloth) behind ; he 
 died and became a bird without a tail."^ ''The 
 Malanaus believe that after a long life in the next 
 world they again die, but afterwards live as worms or 
 caterpillars in the forest." ^ Among the Kayans '* when 
 the soul separates from the body, it may take the form 
 of an animal or a bird, and as an instance of this belief, 
 
 ^ F. Grabowsky, Int. Arch. ii. i8i, 187 ; Kruyt, 383. See 
 further as to the belief of the peoples of Java, Sumatra and neigh- 
 bouring islands,. Kruyt, 271, 335, 348, 375, 418, 419; as to the 
 specific belief of the Karo-bataks of Sumatra and the Madurese of 
 Java in reincarnation as human beings, Ibid. 8, 11. 
 
 2 Ling Roth, Sarawak, i. 224, quoting Rev. W. Crosland. These 
 Dyaks seem to be Land Dyaks. From another source we learn that 
 the omen-birds are directly addressed as ancestors and prayed to 
 avert rain, darkness, storms, swords and other dangers [Ibid. 226, 
 quoting Rev. W. Chalmers). 
 
 ^ De Crespigny, y. ^3. /. v. 35. 
 
176 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 should a deer be seen feeding- near a man's grave his 
 relatives would probably conclude that his soul had 
 taken the form of a deer, and the whole family would 
 abstain from eating venison for fear of annoying the 
 deceased."^ 
 
 The Bahau of Central Borneo ascribe not merely to 
 human beings but to all things living and not-living 
 the possession of a soul called bruwa. This soul at 
 death escapes in the shape of a fish a bird or a snake, 
 a,nd makes its way to Apu Kesio, the land of the dead. 
 But human beings, their domestic animals and some 
 others have a second soul called ton liiiva, which only ^ 
 forsak-es the corpse after death, and remains at the 
 grave until it becomes an evil spirit. The ton luwa 
 however, may appear in the form of a goat or a grey 
 monkey, and stories are told showing that it is able to 
 sojourn in such animals ; wherefore the Bahau are 
 loth to eat them.^ The inhabitants of Nias believe 
 that the soul divides into two or three parts according 
 a.s the deceased was rich or poor. One part, after the 
 performance of all the funeral rites, goes to the village 
 of souls, where it passes through many successive lives. 
 Often it takes brute form. Thus men who have been 
 murdered become grasshoppers, those who die with- 
 out male issue become night-flying moths, old men 
 assume the form of bior hog-s, and children become 
 earthworms. Another part, called the ehdha, or 
 hereditary soul, must be received in a purse if there 
 be no direct heir ; otherwise the soul of the dying man 
 must receive it in his mouth from the mouth of the 
 
 1 Hose,/. A. I. xxiii. 165. 
 
 2 Arch. Religionsw. ix. 263, summarising Nieuwenhuis, Qucr 
 durch Borneo. - 
 
TRANSFORMATION 177 
 
 latter in order to be recognised as heir. When this is 
 done, however, a small part of the soul stiil remains 
 and lingers about the body, transformed into a small 
 four-footed animal. For this animal formal search is 
 made, and when found it is safely conveyed into a 
 statuette representing the deceased/ 
 
 In the Malay Peninsula the Eastern Semang 
 believe that the soul of a U Han (priest chief and 
 magician) enters after death into the body of some 
 wild animal, such as an elephant tiger or rhinoceros. 
 In this embodiment it remains until tlie beast dies, 
 when it is admitted into the Upper Heaven, that of 
 Fruits. The Besisi of Selangor hold that the souls of 
 their chiefs find a resting-place in the bodies of tigers 
 deer pigs and crocodiles. The Benua of Johor 
 suppose the soul of a magician to enter into a tiger. 
 The Jakun tell a story of a king whose soul migrated 
 into a white cock. The Jakun of Sungei Ujong relate 
 that a king having died and been buried, when the 
 mourners visited the tomb seven days later they were 
 astonished to find no trace of the deceased save his 
 clothing and his shroud ; but a sia77iang (a species of 
 ape) was swinging from branch to branch of the great 
 tree that overshadowed the o-rave. Their efforts to 
 drive away the animal failed, and they concluded it 
 could be nothing else than the deceased king : an 
 opinion confirmed by a subsequent prodigy. For 
 when wounded once by the dart from a blowpipe the 
 siamang transformed himself for a moment into a tiger 
 striking such terror into his assailant that the latter 
 
 1 Modigliani, 292, 277, 290, 293, 479. Is it too much to sav 
 that the Greek custom whereby the nearest relative received the 
 dying breath in a kiss probably originated in a similar intention ? 
 
 I M 
 
178 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 expired not long afterwards. The white siamang is 
 also one of the forms taken by the soul of a deceased 
 chieftain among the Sakai. Other Jakun hold that 
 phosphorescent jelly-fishes in the sea are wandering 
 souls of men awaiting the impending birth of a child 
 in order to try and enter its body. Moreover among 
 the Eastern Semang not merely human beings have 
 souls but also the lower animals. Fish-souls come 
 from grasses, bird-souls from fruits which are eaten by 
 the mother-bird. Each kind of animal has its corre- 
 sponding soul-plant. The tigress-milk- fungus contains 
 the soul of an unborn tiger-cub ; the tiger eats the 
 fungus and thus the soul is conveyed. Souls of beasts 
 noxious to men are conveyed by poisonous, and those 
 of harmless beasts by non-poisonous fungi. Phos- 
 phorescent fungi convey souls of night-beasts. In a 
 Mantra saga the hero having died and been buried 
 reappears as a skink, or grass-lizard. The hero's 
 brother throws his jungle-knife at it and cuts off its 
 tail, whereupon the dead man comes to life again, 
 leaves his grave and returns to his own house.^ 
 Pakhangba, the ancestor of one of the clans of 
 Meitheis of the state of Manipur, still sometimes 
 appears to men, but always, like a Zulu, in the form of 
 a snake.^ 
 
 Among the traditions preserved in the Nihongi or 
 Chronicles of Japan is one concerning the prince 
 Yamato-dake, of whom it is said that when he died 
 and was buried, taking the shape of a white bird he 
 came forth from the niisasagi or tumulus and flew 
 
 1 Skeat and Blagden, ii. 194, 221, 223, 227, 305, 351 note, 365, 
 290, 190, 23, 216, 336. 
 ^ Hodson, 100. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 179 
 
 towards the land of Yamato. The coffin was opened, 
 and nothing but empty clothing was found remaining 
 within. Messenorers were sent to follow the bird, 
 which rested in two places, where tumuli were subse- 
 quently erected in memory of the event, and it then- 
 soared aloft to heaven/ Another tradition preserved 
 in the same work relates to a noble named Tamichi, 
 who being sent to quell a rebellion was worsted by the 
 rebels and slain. He was buried, but the rebels after- 
 wards dug up his tomb, v^^hereupon "a great serpent 
 started up with glaring eyes and came out of the tomb." 
 It bit the rebels who had violated the tomb so that 
 nearly all of them died. "Therefore the men of that 
 time said : ' Althouo^h dead, Tamichi at last had his 
 revenge. How can it be said that the dead have no 
 knowledcre ? ' " ^ 
 
 The Gilyaks of the island of Sakhalin hold that a man 
 has two souls, the one diffused throughout his entire 
 body, the other small like an ^^'g which during life goes 
 forth in dreams but after death becomes the double of 
 the deceased. For awhile it inhabits his favourite dog, 
 v/hich is tied to his former sleeping-place and treated 
 with the best of food. After some months the dop" is 
 
 o 
 
 sold, for the double is believed to have quitted it on his 
 journey to the other world. In the other world the 
 soul lives much as here, save that conditions are 
 altered so that the rich become poor and the poor rich. 
 
 1 Aston, Nihongi, i. 210, It is interesting to note that although 
 this account gives the occurrence beyond doubt as a bodily change, 
 his son (who became Emperor) is represented under a later date in 
 the annals as saying of his father : " His divine spirit became 
 changed into a white bird and ascended to Heaven." Ibid. 217. 
 But see Mr. Aston's observations, quoted infra, p. 248. 
 
 2 Ibid. 296. 
 
i8o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 But it does not remain there for ever. Again it dies 
 and enters a third world, and so on three times more, 
 until it diminishes in size and is changed into ever 
 smaller beings, into a bird, a midge, and finally dust. 
 Sometimes, however, it is born again into our world 
 and undergoes an endless series of transformations. 
 This is the lot especially of women.^ In a Chukchi 
 tale the black bear is a wife who was forsaken by her 
 husband for another woman. " The mountain sheep 
 is also a woman forsaken by her husband. She threw 
 herself from a steep rock and was dashed against the 
 stones, thus becoming a sheep. Her braided hair was 
 turned into horns." ^ 
 
 In China the belief that the dead change into 
 animals, though never taken up seriously into Chinese 
 philosophy, is current. Dr. De Groot has collected a 
 number of stories expressive of this belief, in which 
 we find men changing into asses cows birds of various 
 kinds fish and even insects. Often only the soul is 
 spoken of as manifested in such a shape. But other 
 stories appear to present the bodies as undergoing 
 metamorphosis. Thus a writer in the third century 
 A.D. lays it down that persons who are drowned in the 
 sea change into wei, probably a kind of sturgeon : a 
 superstition current no doubt in his day and in that 
 changeless country still entertained.^ Similarly " it is 
 generally believed by Hindus that a person who dies 
 from snake-bite is born a snake in the next life." An 
 Indian gentleman relates that after an uncle of his 
 
 1 Sternberg, Arch. Religionsw. viii. 470. 
 ^ Bogoras, y«5M/ Exped. vii. 329. 
 
 3 De Groot, iv. 157, 207, 208, 225, 227, 230, 231, 234, 238, 
 245- 
 
TRANSFORMATION i8i 
 
 own had died in this way he was constantly worried 
 by the old ladies of the harem, whenever they saw a 
 snake in the house, to take measures to free the 
 deceased from his life as a snake. So he consulted an 
 expert, and the following rules were prescribed : He 
 was directed to have a snake with five hoods made of 
 silver gold wood or clay, to represent Vdsuki Ndga 
 the lord of snakes. He v/as to fast, and on the 
 Ndgpanchmi, or feast of the dragon, in the month of 
 Bhadon he was before eating to w^orship this image 
 with an offering of milk flowers oleander lotus-flowers 
 sandal-wood-powder and sweetmeats. Then he was to 
 feed a Brahman with jaur, or rice boiled with milk 
 and sugar, ghi and a laddu sweetmeat. Then making 
 a libation of washed rice and white sandal-wood- 
 powder in honour of the image, he was to pray the 
 lord of snakes to free that member of his family who 
 had been born in the race of snakes, owing to his 
 death from the bite of one of them. " This remedy," 
 he goes on to say, "in the opinion of my mother has 
 proved effectual ; and now whenever she sees a snake 
 and I ask her if it is my uncle who still appears in 
 that shape she says : ' No ; this is not your uncle. It 
 is a messenger from Shesha Naga who is prowling 
 about to discover what the world is doing and to kill 
 some evil-doer. ' " ^ The Majhwars, an aboriginal 
 tribe of South Mirzapur, " believe that the souls of 
 departed ancestors are embodied in certain animals." 
 If after a death a calf be dropped and it refuse to 
 drink milk, the Ojhd, or exorcisor, is called in. He 
 very often declares : *' Your father has been reborn in 
 this calf." Such a calf is therefore taken ofreat care of 
 ^ N. Ind. N. and Q. iv. 130 (par. 295). 
 
i82 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 and not worked in the plough.^ The Paharias of the 
 Rajmahal Hills hold that for the spirits of the suicide 
 and the murderer there is no hope. They are con- 
 demned to wander up and down in the nether world 
 v^ithout rest. Other spirits, however, after awhile are 
 born again. Those who have done good are born in 
 a better position than before. Those who have mis- 
 used their opportunities or abused their position in 
 former days will be born again in a lower grade. 
 This process of reincarnation may be repeated again 
 and again until the good man reaches the highest 
 position, and the wicked man ceases to be born of a 
 woman and joins the ranks of the inferior animals.^ 
 So in a much higher grade of civilisation the Laws of 
 Man-u declare that for disloyalty to her husband a wife 
 is censured in this world, and after death she is born 
 again from the womb of a jackal and is tormented by 
 diseases, the punishment of her sin.^ 
 
 An old Dutch traveller tells us that the Cinghalese 
 are persuaded that the souls of men pass into domestic 
 buffaloes, rather than into other animals. Accordingly 
 they will not kill these creatures lest they kill or injure 
 their relations or friends.^ The Chingpaw of Upper 
 Burmah hold that the souls of such as have behaved 
 well on earth live in the air or are born again as 
 chieftains ; the wicked on the other hand turn into 
 lower animals and insects.^ The natives of Ugi in the 
 Solomon Islands believe that the souls of the dead 
 
 ^ N. Ind. N. and Q.'i. 129 (par. 817); Crooke, Tribes and Castes^ 
 iii. 434. The Pataris referred to in these authorities are a branch 
 of the Majhwars now occupying the status of their family priests. 
 
 2 Bradley-Birt, 309. 
 
 3 Sacred Books, xxv. 197, 332. ■* Schouten, ii. 24. 
 fi Dr. Wehrli, Int. Arch. xvi. Suppl. 52. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 183 
 
 pass' into fireflies/ On Ulawa, another of the same 
 group of islands, "a man of much influence not long 
 ago Jorbade the eating of the banana after his death, 
 saying that the banana would represent him, that he 
 would be in the banana." This is stated to be the 
 origin of a taboo recently laid on bananas. " The 
 practice at Ulawa is illustrated by what is common 
 at Saa, in Malanta. A man before his death will say 
 that after he dies he will be a shark. When he is dead 
 the people will look out for the appearance of some re- 
 markable shark " and identify it with the deceased. 
 Certain food, cocoa-nuts for example, will be reserved 
 to feed it.^ A story of the islanders of Mabuiag in 
 Torres Straits presents a metamorphosis comparable 
 to some of Ovid's. Certain men being- clubbed to 
 death were transformed into flying foxes (that is, fruit- 
 eating bats) and flew away. They were however 
 afterwards retransformed by being caught and their 
 heads bitten off", as in European nursery tales the 
 transformed hero is frequently delivered from his 
 enchantment by having his head cut off.^ In the 
 Murray Islands " the ghost of one about to die or of a 
 recently deceased person usually appeared to the living 
 in the form of some animal. A kingfisher may appear 
 for any one, but there are certain animals that appear 
 at the death of members of particular groups of indi- 
 viduals, the idea evidently being that the ghost of a 
 
 1 Guppy, 54. 
 
 2 Codrington, /. A. I. xviii. 310. In the Karesau Islands off the 
 coast of Dutch New Guinea a dying man not long ago said he would 
 come back as a star with a bird of paradise on his head. The 
 fulfilment of the promise was apparently a comet (W. Schmidt, 
 Anihropos. ii. 1051 note). 
 
 Haddon Torres Sir. Exped. v. 90. 
 
i84 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 person takes the form of the animal to which it is akin 
 and in that guise appears to the survivors. Usually it 
 is the eponymous animal of a group with an animal 
 name that appears on the death of a male member. 
 Women are represented by flying animals, bats and 
 birds, but no relation was indicated between groups of 
 women and particular birds." ^ In Raiatea, one of the 
 Society Islands, the destiny of the soul was deter- 
 mined by various circumstances. The souls of ship- 
 wrecked persons enter trepang-fish. Those who fall 
 in battle take the shape of sea-birds and frighten the 
 living by their nightly cries. ^ On the continent of 
 Australia some of the blackfellows of the Namoi and 
 Barwon rivers in New South Wales " say that human 
 beings on dying pass into the form of the turuwiin, 
 a little bird with a very cheerful note." ^ Among the 
 Kurnai " the birds bullazvang, yeering and djeetgun are 
 said to be three of the leen muk-kurnai (real Kurnai 
 ancestors)."^ The Euahlayi hold that the spirits of 
 dead women return in the form of the little honey-eater 
 bird which they call durrooee.^ The spirit of Eerin, 
 a man who was a very light sleeper, is in the little grey 
 owl. The bird is called Eerin too, and by its cries it 
 ever warns its old tribe at night of any danger threat- 
 ening them.® The Narrinyeri suppose nearly all 
 animals to have been originally men who performed 
 great prodigies and at last transformed themselves ; 
 
 ^ Haddon, Tylor Essays, 178. 
 
 2 Arch. Religionsw. x. 534, citing Huguenin, Bull. Soc. Neuchat. 
 Ge'og. XV. 
 
 3 Ridley,/. A. I. ii. 269. 
 
 * Howitt, /. A. I. xiv. 304 note. As to the Muk-Kurnai, see 
 Howitt, 487. 
 
 Mrs. Parker, 85. ^ Mrs. Parker, Tales, ii. 98. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 185 
 
 and they tell the same story of many large stones and 
 some stars. ^ 
 
 The Moquis of North America " are firm belit-vers 
 in metempsychosis, and say when they die they will 
 dissolve into their oriofinal forms and become bears 
 deer, &c., again." ^ "Sorcerers will occasionally 
 leave their graves in the form of bull snakes. Bull 
 snakes are often seen coming out of certain graves 
 still wound in the yucca-leaves with which a corpse 
 was tied up when laid away. If such a bull snake 
 in which a sorcerer is supposed to have entered 
 happens to be killed the soul of the sorcerer living 
 in it is set free and then goes to the Skeleton House," 
 that is to say, the abode of the dead.^ In California 
 the Tachi Yokuts believe that the dead dwell on an 
 island in a river. The island is joined to the mainland 
 by " a rising and falling bridge," over which it it 
 necessary to pass. In doing so the dead are liable 
 to be frightened by a large bird ; then they fall off 
 the bridge and are changed into fish. Every two 
 days the island becomes full. Then the chief of the 
 dead gathers the people and tells them to bathe. In 
 the course of bathing the bird frightens them, and 
 some turn to fish, others to ducks, only a few coming 
 out of the water again in their proper shape. In this 
 way room is made when the island is too full.* 
 Among the Gallinomero bad men were thought to 
 return in the shape of coyotes, just as the Buddhist 
 
 ^ Taplin, Narrinyeri^ 45, 46, 43. 
 
 2 McLennan, Studies, ii. 357, quoting Schoolcraft. The beliaf 
 seems here as in several other of the cases cited to be connected 
 with totemism, but the question cannot be discussed now. 
 
 ^ Voth, Field Columb. Mus. Pub. Anthrop. viii. 109 {cf. 114). 
 
 * A. L. Kroeber, Univ. Cal. Pub. Amer. Arch. iv. 217, 218. 
 
i86 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 population at Ladak hold that a malicious person 
 is reincarnated as a marmot/ Among the Haida 
 of the Queen Charlotte Islands some souls are sent 
 back to earth to be born again in human form, others 
 enter the bodies of animals and fish. " Sometimes 
 the soul enters the body of a fin-back whale, and 
 consequently fin-back whales are much honoured and 
 at the same time feared. On no account could an 
 Indian a few years ago be persuaded to shoot one." ^ 
 An old Jesuit Father reports of the Hurons on informa- 
 tion from one of their chief men that many believe 
 we have two souls, both divisible and material and 
 yet both rational ; one leaves the body at death, 
 but remains in the cemetery until the Feast 
 of the Dead, after which it is either changed into 
 a turtle-dove, or according to the more general belief 
 it goes immediately to the village of souls. The 
 other soul remains with the corpse, never quitting it 
 unless to be born again. ^ The medicine-men and 
 women of the Sioux, it was believed, might be 
 changed after death into wild beasts.* "In two of 
 the buffalo gentes of the Omaha there is a belief that 
 the spirits of deceased members of those gentes return 
 to the buffaloes."^ The Southern Cheyenne hold the 
 opossum to be a dead man.^ 
 
 In South America the Abipones were reported by 
 Dobrizhoffer as calling little ducks, which flew about 
 
 1 Powers, 182 ; Knight, 109. The Caribs are stated to hold a 
 similar doctrine ; but see the question discussed, Muller, Am. Urrel. 
 207 sqq. 2 y, _^, /, xxi. 20. 
 
 3 Jesuit Rel x. (1636), 286. 
 
 * Bourke, Rep. Bur. Etlm. ix. 479, quoting Schultze in Smiths. 
 Rep. (1867). s J. O, Dorsey, Ibid. xi. 542. 
 
 « H. L. Scott, Amer. Anthr. N.S. ix. 560. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 187 
 
 in flocks at night uttering a mournful hiss, the shades 
 of the dead.^ The Isanna think that the souls of the 
 brave enter beautiful birds and enjoy good fruits, 
 but cowards become reptiles." The common fate of a 
 Boror6 of Central Brazil, whether man or woman, is to 
 become after death a red bird called arara. The 
 red araras are Bororo ; indeed the Boror6 go further 
 and say : "We are araras." Consequently they never 
 eat araras ; they only kill wild ones to obtain their 
 feathers for personal ornament. They never kill the 
 tame ones which they keep for the same purpose ; 
 but on the other hand when a tame bird dies they 
 mourn for it. The dead of other peoples are believed 
 to become other birds. The baris, or medicine-men, 
 however change after their death into such animals 
 as are reckoned the best game — certain kinds of large 
 fish capivaras tapirs and caymans. When one of 
 these is caught it has to be subjected to a process 
 which is called by Dr. von den Steinen consecration 
 {einsegnung\ but which from his description is rather 
 a desacralisation or driving-out of the bari-soul.^ 
 
 Even from Europe, civilised and Christian as we 
 are pleased to think it, the belief in transformation has 
 by no means yet disappeared. Both in England and 
 in Ireland butterflies or moths are looked upon as 
 souls of deceased persons.* In Cornwall, King 
 Arthur was up to the latter years of the eighteenth 
 century, if not later, thought to be still living in the 
 form of a raven or a chough. In Nidderdale the 
 country people say that nightjars embody the souls of 
 
 ^ Dobrizhoffer, ii. 270. 2 /^^/_ Arch. xiii. Suppl. 127. 
 
 ^ von den Steinen, 511, 492. 
 
 * Choice Notes, Folklore, 61 ; TV. and O. 5 th ser. vii. 284. 
 
i88 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 unbaptized infants/ On certain parts of the east coast 
 of England many of the old fishermen believe that 
 they turn into gulls when they die. Writing on the 
 subject a few years since Mr. P. H. Emerson remarks : 
 " It was with great difficulty I first found out that this 
 strange belief in a post-mortem transformation existed 
 at all, but once having learned it, I found to my as- 
 tonishment that the belief was common, but was spoken 
 of with much reserve." Children, it seems become 
 kitti wakes, but women '* don't come back no more, they 
 have seen trouble enough."^ A story is told at Brad- 
 well, in the Peak of Derbyshire, concerning a child 
 who had been murdered and whose ghost could not 
 be appeased. Recourse was had to a wise man. He 
 pronounced the words : " In the name of the Father, 
 Son and Holy Ghost, why troublest thou me ? " and 
 turned the ghost into a fish, which thenceforth haunted 
 Lumley Pool and terrified people who came to draw 
 water from the wells there on Christmas Day.^ In 
 Poland about Dobromil it was believed that every 
 member of the Herburt family changed after death 
 into an eagle. In a Polish manuscript of the year 
 1526 it is stated that the first-born daughters of the 
 mighty house of Pilecki, if they die unmarried, change 
 into doves, or, if married, into nocturnal birds, and 
 that to every member of their family they announce 
 
 1 Swainson, 98, citing Macquoid, About Yorkshire. Numerous 
 cases are on record in which on the occasion of a death a 
 mysterious bird appears, flutters about and flies away, or disappears. 
 The most commonly cited example is that of the Oxenham family 
 recorded by Howell (see Gent. Mag. Lib. Pop. Sup. 212). These 
 are perhaps traceable to the same belief. 
 
 2 F. L. xiv. 64, quoting English Idyls, by P. H. Emerson 
 (2nd ed. 1889). ^ Addy, Househ. Tales, 60. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 189 
 
 his death by a bite.^ In Burgundy the Baroness de 
 Montfort wanders for her cruelties under the form of a 
 she-wolf that nobody can kill.^ These are a few 
 specimens of a considerable body of European folklore 
 representing the dead under animal form. 
 
 But if human beings can be changed by means of 
 death and a fresh birth into brute and vegetable form, 
 brutes and vegetables may equally be changed by the 
 same process into human beings. As I have already 
 pointed out at the commencement of this chapter a 
 large cycle of mdrchen displays this power. In the 
 light of the transmutations we have now passed in 
 review it is abundantly clear that the fisherman's sons 
 their horses dogs life-tokens and so forth are nothing 
 more or less than the ancestor-fish in new moulds. 
 Probably at one time this was explicitly stated in the 
 tale. A Pawnee saga states that before the heroine's 
 birth her father had killed a bear, and the bear's spirit 
 had entered the child : this accounted for her 
 mysterious ways.^ A story from the island of Saibai 
 in Torres Straits reports that the hero got inside a 
 certain small shell called ui found in mangrove 
 swamps. It was gathered and swallowed by a 
 wo.man, from whom the hero was quickly born again 
 in consequence.* Not very long ago an Efik and his 
 wife were charged at Duke Town on the Calabar River 
 with murdering their child. It appeared that the child 
 was sickly from birth. Their story was that he 
 crawled about long after he ought to have been able to 
 
 1 Woycicki, 7 note. 
 
 2 Sebillot, F. L. France, iv. 209. Other cases noted by the same 
 author, Paganisme, 196. 
 
 3 Dorsey, Pawnee Myth. i. 346 (Story No. 91). 
 * Haddon, v. Rep. Torres Sir. Exped. 32. 
 
19® PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 walk and when his parents were lying down to sleep 
 he used to lick them like a snake. So they consulted 
 a witch-doctor, who told them that the child was in 
 reality a water-serpent, and advised them to take him 
 to the waterside and put him into the water when he 
 would resume his natural shape. They determined to 
 do so, and when they took him to the water there in 
 their presence the boy changed himself into a serpent 
 and rolled into the river. ^ Major Leonard who relates 
 the incident argues, and doubtless with justice, for the 
 entire o-ood faith of the defendants, on the grround that 
 the child was a boy and therefore of value to the 
 family both on its human and spiritual sides, and that 
 the explanation of his inability to walk and his habits 
 given by the local diviner was in harmony with all the 
 convictions and traditions of his parents, and contri- 
 buted materially to their delusions. Parallel beliefs 
 are found in British Columbia. The Kwakiutl and 
 other peoples hold that twins were salmon before their 
 birth and have the power to become salmon again ; "^ 
 and the Lillooet say that twins are grisly bears in 
 human form, and that when a twin dies his soul goes 
 back to the grisly bears and becomes one of them.^ 
 
 In previous chapters we have examined tales in 
 which men and women deceased have reappeared as 
 human babes without undergoing any intermediate 
 change into lower forms ; and we have others yet to 
 examine. What is expressly affirmed where pregnancy 
 is caused by tasting the ashes of a corpse, what is 
 implicit in the disgusting superstitions that lead women 
 to swallow portions of dead human bodies or to bathe 
 
 ^ Leonard, 194. ^ Boas, Ind. Sag. 209, 219, 174. 
 
 ^ Teit, Jesup Exped. ii. 263. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 191 
 
 in human blood, must also be understood in the 
 parallel cases where fishes and fruit are eaten and 
 result in the production of children. Here then we 
 have the real meaning of many of the tales and super- 
 stitions we have been considering^. At their root lies 
 the belief in Transformation. Flowers fruit and other 
 vegetables eggs fishes spiders worms and even 
 stones are all capable of becoming human beings. 
 They only await absorption in the shape of food or in 
 some other appropriate manner into the body of a 
 woman to enable the metamorphosis to be accom- 
 plished. It would be going too far to attribute this 
 meaning to every story of supernatural birth and to 
 all the practices detailed in the last chapter. Where 
 drugs and other compounds are used, where water or 
 a sunbeam is the fructifying power, credit for the birth 
 is given to a vague divine or magical virtue. It 
 matters little, however, whether such a belief was or 
 was not primary. Enough evidence remains that the 
 belief in Transformation was equally original. It is 
 intimately bound up with the savage theory of the 
 universe. In that theory no strict line of cleavage 
 runs across Nature. All things may change their 
 shape, some at will (for they are all endowed with 
 personality and will), others on the fulfilment of certain 
 conditions, whereof death as applying to all animal 
 and vegetable life is perhaps the most usual. Our 
 farther illustrations of the doctrine of Transformation 
 are intended to emphasise the widespread distribution 
 in the lower culture of the belief that dead men and 
 women may reappear in human form and live a new 
 human life. The dead are not lost : they have only 
 departed for awhile, to come back by means of birth 
 
192 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 or in some other way to human society. In The 
 Golden Bough Dr. Frazer has admirably expounded 
 certain aspects of this belief. These I shall for the 
 most part avoid, desiring to concentrate attention upon 
 the general belief rather than upon particular applica- 
 tions of it. And if to some extent I travel over the 
 ground occupied a generation since by Professor Tylor 
 in the second volume of his great work on Primitive 
 Culture, it will be to explore certain territory beyond, 
 into which his argument did not require him to 
 penetrate. 
 
 Buddhism as popularly understood in the East is 
 founded on the doctrine of Transmigration. Not that 
 this was the teaching of the great Sakyamuni, but the 
 common people of India, the tribes of Tibet and the 
 practical Chinese, it is safe to say, never assimilated 
 the subtle doctrines of Karma and the Skandhas. It 
 is indeed more than doubtful whether these philo- 
 sophical speculations have penetrated the intellects of 
 even the grreatest doctors of the Northern Church. 
 The current belief is that at death the soul trans- 
 migrates and is born again in some other body. 
 Whether that body will be desirable or not depends 
 on the actions in the present life. At death a man's 
 good and bad actions are weighed against each other. 
 If the good preponderate he rises in the scale of being, 
 if the bad he sinks. An adaptation of this doctrine is 
 exemplified in the successive incarnations that provide 
 a perpetual succession of Grand Lamas at Lhasa and 
 of skooshoks for minor monasteries. In these cases 
 the soul is believed always to flit into some unknown 
 infant who is about to be born. While as to the 
 Southern Church we are not dependent for our 
 
TRANSFORMATION 193 
 
 assumption upon the folklore and the general culture of 
 the Cingalese and the peoples of Further India. In 
 the Jatakas, or parables attributed to Gautama, we 
 have irrefragable witness of the teachinof current from an 
 early period of Buddhist history. They are apologues, 
 most of them probably of much older date, which have 
 acquired sacredness by being fitted to alleged events 
 in the ministry of the Buddha. The master is repre- 
 sented as taking occasion from some remark made by 
 his disciples upon a passing occurrence to declare that 
 in a former birth the same things had happened to 
 them ; and in proof of his assertion he tells the tale. 
 The following may stand for a typical conclusion or 
 application. It is that of the cruel crane outwitted by 
 the crab : " When the Teacher had finished this dis- 
 course showing that ' Not now only, O mendicants, 
 has this man been outwitted by the country robe- 
 maker, long ago he was outwitted in the same way,' he 
 established the connection and summed up the Jdtaka 
 by saying, ' At that time he [the crane] was the 
 Jetavana robe-maker, the crab was the country robe- 
 maker, but the Genius of the Tree was I myself.' " ^ 
 To the personages of the tale is thus ascribed complete 
 identity with the Buddha and his contemporaries. 
 Transmigration, in short, as conceived in popular 
 Buddhism, was no product of the subtleties of Hindu 
 metaphysics. It was no refined philosophical doctrine. 
 It is undiscoverable in the Rig-Veda, the earliest 
 sacred book of the Sanskrit-speaking settlers in the 
 valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Its ethical value 
 even, if we may judge from the Jatakas, was of the 
 
 1 Jdtaka, i. 95 (No. 38) ; Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories, 
 
 315- 
 
 I N 
 
194 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 smallest. Such as it was, Transmigration was a direct 
 evolution of the more savage belief in Transformation, 
 as we have seen that belief exemplified in the present 
 chapter. 
 
 Far in the west the Celts are reported to have held 
 the dogma of Transmigration of Souls. This report, 
 comincf to us from writers imbued with Greco- Roman 
 philosophy, who interpreted according to the wont of 
 classical antiquity the religions of barbarous races in 
 the terms of their own, has been understood to imply 
 an elaborate philosophical system such as those of 
 Pythngoras and Buddha. Indeed more than one of the 
 writers in question expressly identifies the teaching of 
 the Druids about the soul with that of Pythagoras. 
 That the Celts had imbibed Buddhist theories we 
 cannot suppose. The doctrines of the Samian 
 philosopher may have penetrated into Gaul by com- 
 mercial routes or by contact with Greek colonies. But 
 no classical author ventures to ascribe such an origin 
 to the Druidic teaching. On the contrary, it is derived 
 by Caisar from Britain, where it was furthest removed 
 from foreign influences. Our direct information con- 
 cerning Driiidlsm supplied from classical sources is 
 of the most meagre and fragmentary description. 
 Supplemented by modern archaeological investigation of 
 prehistoric burial mounds, it leads to the conclusion 
 that the relio^ion of the ancient Britons and Gauls was 
 of the same general character as other barbarous cults. 
 The belief in Transmigration was held concurrently 
 with the belief in another world, a world of the dead 
 where debts incurred in this world were paid and 
 where those who sacrificed themselves on the funeral 
 piles of their relatives lived with them just as they had 
 
TRANSFORMATION 195 
 
 lived with them in this world. The arms and the 
 wealth which were buried or burned with the deceased 
 chieftain, the slaves and retainers who were offered at 
 his obsequies constituted his splendour and contributed 
 to his power in the next world. Arising thus from 
 the common ground of savagery, no more incon- 
 sistency would have been perceived in these two 
 beliefs than the Zulu perceives who holds that his 
 deceased father lives underground in a village, like 
 that which he inhabited in his lifetime, wealthy in 
 cattle and wives, yet that he may be the snake that 
 lurks about the kraal or comes to visit his descendants 
 in their huts. Neither Celtic mythology nor Celtic 
 folklore, as reported by mediaeval and modern writers, 
 warrants us in supposing that metempsychosis in any 
 philosophical sense was part of the ancient Celtic 
 creed. ^ 
 
 Before turning to rites and superstitious beliefs, we 
 may notice the legend of Oankoitupeh, son of the Red 
 Cloud, the hero of the North American Maidu. A 
 maiden sees a beautiful red cloud and hears sweet 
 music. The next day while picking grass-seed pinole 
 she finds an arrow trimmed with yellow-hammer 
 feathers ; and suddenly a man is standing beside her, 
 who is none other than the red cloud she had seen the 
 day before. The resplendent stranger declares his 
 love, and the maiden replies: "If you love me, take 
 
 1 I have no space to discuss the question at length. The 
 literary evidence as to the Celtic behef in the life after death has 
 been examined in recent years by several writers, most fully and 
 conclusively by Mr. Alfred Nutt in The Voyage of Bran (2 vols. 
 London, 1895-7). The archaeological evidence is scattered through 
 the\ transactions of numerous learned societies in the United 
 Kingdom and France. 
 
196 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 and eat this basket of grass-seed pinole." Retouches 
 the basket and its contents vanish. Thereupon the 
 girl swoons. When she returns to consciousness, 
 behold ! she has already given birth to a son. The 
 Red Cloud tells her : " You love me now ; that is my 
 boy, but he is not of this world. . . . He shall be 
 greater than all men ; he shall have power over all, 
 and not fear any that live. Therefore shall his name 
 be Oan-koi-tu-peh (the Invmcible). Whenever you 
 see him, think of me. This boy has no life apart from 
 me ; he is myself." ^ Compare with this the statement 
 concerning Cuchulainn, one of the mythological heroes 
 of Ireland, and himself a new birth of the god Lug. 
 The great epic cycles took final shape after the wars 
 with the Danes in the eleventh century. A manu- 
 script of that period relates that the men of Ulster 
 took counsel about Cuchulainn, because they were 
 troubled and afraid he would perish early, "so for that 
 reason they wished to give him a wife that he might 
 leave an heir, for they knew that his re-birth would be 
 of himself."^ 
 
 These pas?ages, though related of more than 
 common men, point to a belief shared by the ancient 
 Irish with the Maidu of California that the son is in 
 some sense identical with his father — a new birth, a 
 new manifestation of the same person. This curious 
 belief, implicit throughout the laws and philosophy of 
 the Indian Aryans, finds categorical expression in the 
 great Brahman compilation known as the Laws of 
 
 1 Powers, Tribes of California, Contrib. N. Amer. Ethn. iii. 299. 
 The Haida tell of a mythological hero whom they identify with the 
 moon, that he married a woman "from whom he was presently re- 
 born in the form of a woman " (Swanton, Jesup Exped. v. 204). 
 
 ^ Kuno Meyer, The Wooing of Emer, Arch. Rev. i. 70. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 197 
 
 Manu. There we are told : " I'he husband, after 
 conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is 
 born again of her."^ Corresponding with this de- 
 claration the ritual prescribes, among other ceremonies 
 when a boy is born, that the husband should address 
 the babe thus : " From limb by limb thou art pro- 
 duced ; and of the heart thou art born. Thou art 
 indeed the self {atmmi) called son ; so live a hundred 
 autumns." In the same words he addresses the boy 
 every time he himself returns from a journey, 
 embracing^ his head and kissing- him thrice.^ 
 
 There is reason to think that this doctrine was held 
 by the ancient Egyptians, as applicable at all events 
 to the gods, and if to gods then probably in earlier 
 times to human beings. Each temple was dedicated 
 to a single god, but he usually had companion deities 
 who formed with him a cycle. This cycle was in 
 most cases composed of father mother and son. 
 "The son was the counterpart of the father, and 
 destined to replace him when he should grow old and 
 die, according to that law of nature to which even the 
 gods were subject. Thus the son became the father, 
 and the Egyptian texts could speak of the gods as 
 
 1 Sacred Books, xxv. 2>'^<^ ; cf. 352. Cf. also Sacred Books, xii. 
 334 ; passages from the Aitareya Brahmana cited by von Negelein, 
 Arch. Religionsw. vi. 320 ; and the remarks by Mr. Justice Markby in 
 reference to modern Hindu lawyers, quoted Hearne, 165 note. 
 
 ^ Grihya-Sutra of Hiranyakesin, Sacred Books, xxx. 211; G.-S. of 
 Asvalayana, Ibid. xxix. 183. To this theory may perhaps be traced 
 the idea that a first-born son is peculiarly dangerous to his father's 
 life. A tradition concerning the rajahs of Bashahr in the Panjab 
 relates that for sixty-one generations each rajah had only one son, 
 " and it used to be the custom for the boy to be sent away to a 
 village and not be seen by his father until his hair was cut for the 
 first time," which was done with solemn rites in his sixth year 
 (Rose, Census of Ind. 1901, xvii. 141). 
 
198 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 eternal ; for so soon as the elder god vanished he 
 would be succeeded by a divine personality precisely 
 similar. In this sense also the god was self-begotten, 
 being father to the son who was as himself; and he 
 was ' the husband of his mother,' in that after the 
 death of his father he had entered upon all rights as 
 regards the goddess of the triad, and was in his turn 
 by her the father of the new divine son who should 
 one day replace him."^ An illustration of this belief 
 is found in the Book of the Dead, where allusion is 
 made to a period "when Horus came to light in his 
 own children."^ In south-eastern Australia, among 
 the Kulin tribe the line of descent runs through males. 
 So far have the natives got on the road from mother- 
 right (in which descent is traced exclusively through 
 females) that they regard the woman as little more 
 than the nurse of the child. Mr. Howitt even records 
 the exclamation of an old man to his son, with whom 
 he was vexed : " Listen to me ! I am here, and there 
 you stand with my body." ^ It would hardly be fair 
 
 1 Wiedemann, 103. 
 
 2 Book of the Dead, c. 112, translated by Le Page Renouf, in 
 Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xvii. 8. 
 
 3 Howitt, 255 ; /. A. I. xiv. 145. Among the Dieri a man 
 speaking calls his son or his brother's son Athamurani, a word 
 interpreted by Mr. Howitt as meaning a revival of myself {Ato, I, 
 mura, new). Here it is to be observed that the Dieri still trace 
 descent through the mother only, and the interpretation is merely a 
 philological conjecture which wants confirmation (Curr, i. 124 note). 
 Coming nearer home it would seem that the ancient Scandinavians 
 held the opinion that the son was in some sense a reincarnation of 
 the soul of the father. They appear to have thought that a man 
 possessed more than one soul. A family soul {cettarfylgja) is 
 spoken of in opposition to the individual soul [mannsfylgja). It is 
 the cettarfylgja which passes from a man to be reincarnated in his 
 son. Strictly speaking, we are told, it is not an undivided collective 
 
TRANSFORMATION 199 
 
 to build upon a solitary phrase of a single man the 
 affirmation that the Kulin tribe had reached the creed 
 implied in the Hindu ceremony ; but, as we shall see 
 hereafter, some at any rate of the Australian peoples 
 were familiar with the theory that children were new 
 manifestations of the dead. 
 
 Traces of the notion that a child is neither more nor 
 less than the reappearance of an ancestor are found 
 almost all over the world. It seems to be a general 
 opinion among the Negroes of the western coast of 
 Africa that the ghostly self of a dead man enters the 
 body of a new-born babe belonging to the same family. 
 In Guinea, as well as among the Wanika, a Bantu tribe 
 of the eastern side of the continent, the resemblance, 
 physical or mental, borne by a child to its father is 
 attributed to this cause. The Yorubas inquire of 
 their family god which of the deceased ancestors has 
 returned, in order to name the child accordingly ; and 
 they greet its birth with the words " Thou art come ! " 
 as if addressinrr some one who has returned.^ Some 
 hold that the soul of a dead person comes back in the 
 next-born child ; while others think it necessary to 
 ascertain by divination who it is. Miss Kingsley has 
 given an amusing account of the divination, which 
 
 soul common to the members of a single family; it is rather a 
 " support " for the patronymic which is transmitted from father to 
 son [Rev. Hist. Rel. xlix. 374, citing and reviewing Chantepie do la 
 Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons., translated by Vos). Compare a 
 speculation by Mr. A. B. Cook, as to the reincarnation of the manes . 
 of the old Italian clans {F. L. xvi. 293). 
 
 ^ Tylor, Prim. Cut. ii. 4, citing several authorities ; Ploss, Kind, i. 
 259, citing Bastian. Ellis {Yoruba, 128) says the inquiry is made 
 of a priest of Ifa, the god of divination. See also Dennett, Black 
 Man's Mind, 268, quoting Yoruha Heathenism, by Bishop James 
 Johnson. 
 
200 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 resembles that used to identify the new Dalai Lama 
 and consists in placing before the child various articles 
 belonging to deceased members of the family who are 
 still absent, in order to see which of them he will 
 appear to claim. ^ In the French Soudan the Mossi 
 and Gourounsi are convinced that the souls of the 
 dead go to certain villages — actual earthly villages — 
 where they seem to live in the same condition as 
 before death. After awhile they become Kinkirse 
 (pi. q{ Kinkiriga, an indefinable being, material, some- 
 what evil-disposed and of variable power) and in- 
 habit the bush that surrounds the villages, hiding in 
 the thickets. Such thickets are therefore respected, 
 from fear that their suppression would entail sterility 
 on the part of the women. For these Kinkirse are 
 potential human beings. When a birth takes place it 
 is one of them that returns to life ; and the newborn 
 child is always considered a Kinkiriga? The Malinkes 
 say that when a married man dies, if any of his wives 
 be pregnant the soul of the deceased husband passes 
 into the child in the womb and remains there until 
 a name has been given to the child. The name given 
 is always that of the deceased husband. If the child 
 prove to be a daughter the feminine form of the name 
 is taken. ^ On the Gold Coast parents who have lost 
 several children sometimes cast into the bush the 
 body of the infant who last died. They believe the 
 next-born to be the same child returned ; and if it have 
 any congenital deformity or defect, that is attributed 
 
 1 Winwoode Reade, 539 ; Kingsley, Trav. 493 ; W. A. Studies, 
 145. Another form of divination is mentioned as used by the 
 Bulloms and Timmanees, Winterbottom, i. 227, 
 
 ^ E. Ruelle, VAnthrop. xv. 687. 
 
 2 Father Brun, Anthropos. ii. 727. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 201 
 
 to injuries received from wild beasts or other evil 
 influences in the jungle.-^ Among the Ewhe of Togo- 
 land, if a newborn child show a likeness to any of his 
 dead brethren or relations, he is named Dogba or 
 Degboe, meaning "the returner."'^ Among some of 
 the Ewhe it is sufficient for a priest to certify which of 
 the deceased members of the family has returned.^ 
 The opinion that a subsequently born child was a 
 previously deceased child who had returned was 
 current among the people of Old Calabar ; * and the 
 Ibani, when a first-born son dies and a second is after- 
 wards born, call him Di-ibo, or born again. ^ Nor is 
 the belief, with which we are now concerned confined 
 to the Negroes proper. It is found among the Bantu 
 of West Africa, though some of the latter appear to 
 hold the possibility of re-birth either into the family 
 of the deceased " or into any other family, or even 
 into a beast." ® 
 
 Among many of the Negroes and Bantu of West 
 Africa, however, a human soul is believed to be not a 
 unity but composite. The Tshi-speaking peoples of 
 the Gold Coast and the Ewhe-speaking tribes of the 
 Slave Coast draw a distinction between the ghostly 
 self that continues a man's existence after death in the 
 spirit- world, and his kra or noli, whicli is capable of 
 being born again in a new human body. In the 
 
 1 Burton, Wanderings, ii. 174. Cf. a Winnebago tale, Journ. 
 Am. F. L. ix. 52. 
 
 ^ Globus, Ixxix. 350; Arch. Religionsw. viii. no. 
 
 ^ Zeits. f. Ethnol. xxxviii. 42. 
 
 * Burton, Wit and Wisd. 376. 
 
 6 Leonard, 549. As to the general belief in Southern Nigeria 
 that a deceased person is born again into the same family, see Ibid. 
 141, 150, 207. • Featherman, Nigricans, 447 ; Nassau, 237. 
 
202 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 eastern Ewhe districts and in Dahome the soul is 
 indeed, by either an inconsistency or a subtlety, 
 believed to remain in the land of the dead and to 
 animate some new child of the family at one and the 
 same time ; but it never animates an embryo in a 
 strange family.^ This is attributed by Sir A. B. Ellis 
 to contact with the Yoruba who do not hold the 
 doctrine of the multiple soul. Among them, "as the 
 births at least equal in number the deaths, and the 
 process of being re-born is supposed to have gone on 
 'from the beginning,' logically there ought to be few, 
 if any, departed souls in Deadland ; but the natives do 
 not critically examine such questions as this, and they 
 imagine Deadland to be thickly populated, and at the 
 same time every newborn child, or almost every one, 
 to be a re-born ehost." ^ But other tribes hold that a 
 human being possesses as many as four souls. These 
 are differently enumerated by different authorities, 
 possibly speaking of different peoples, but perhaps 
 trying to interpret the vagueness and reconcile the 
 inconsistencies natural to men in the lower culture who 
 have not thought out the perplexing problems of 
 psychology awakened by their experiences and their 
 
 ^ Ellis, Tshi, 149; Ewe. 114; Burton, Gelele, ii. 158; Wander- 
 ings, ii. 173; Seidel, Globus, Ixxii, 21; Westermann, Arch. 
 Religionsw. Vixi. no. 
 
 2 Ellis, Ewe, I.e. ; Yoruba, 129, The Bahuana, a Bantu tribe on 
 one of the tributaries of the Congo, speak of a soul called bun and 
 a double called doshi. The former (which is only possessed by 
 adults), if the deceased had been properly provided with fetishes, 
 enters the body of some large animal, such as an elephant hippo- 
 potamus buffalo or leopard, and an animal so possessed is re- 
 cognised by its ferocity. The doshi remains to visit its friends, 
 haunt its enemies and to persecute its relatives if the body have not 
 received a proper funeral (Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxvi. 290). 
 
TRANSFORMATION 203 
 
 slowly advancing civilisation.^ We need not discuss 
 the question at length, for it is clear that among these 
 souls there is one which is destined to reincorporation 
 in some member of the family. It is called by the 
 Tshi kra, and by the Ewhe during lifetime luwho and 
 while awaiting reincorporation noli. It has been com- 
 pared to the guardian spirit familiar to ecclesiastical 
 speculation in Europe ; and in some aspects it resem- 
 bles it, being treated with reverence and often even 
 with a kind of worship.^ 
 
 This division of the soul into various entities has 
 been held by numerous and very widely sundered 
 peoples. We have already seen reason to believe that 
 the ancient Egyptians were not strangers to the belief 
 in Transformation by death. Their official doctrine, 
 however, taught that man was a compound being, con- 
 sisting of the body [kka), the double {ka)^ the name 
 {ren), the heart {ab), the soul {ba), the self [saku), the 
 shadow {khaib\ the Shining One {k/m), the power 
 {sekkem)y the Osiris, and other parts. Of these the ka 
 the sakil and the Osiris are practically indistinguish- 
 able ; and we are told that " it would seem that in these 
 cases we have to do with the different conceptions of 
 an immortal soul which had arisen in separate places 
 and prehistoric times, and were ultimately combined 
 into one doctrine, the Egyptians not daring to set any 
 aside for fear it should prove to be the true one."' 
 None of these was immaterial ; and which of them it 
 was that reappeared in human or brute form we need 
 not now decide. 
 
 ^ Kingsley, W. A. Studies, 200 ; Nassau, 53, 64. 
 
 2 Ellis, Ewe, 102 ; Tshi, 149; Nassau, 55. 
 
 3 Wiedemann, 234 sqq. 
 
204 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 It would draw us too far away from our present 
 subject to consider the speculations of mankind on 
 the multiplicity of the human soul. Suffice it to say 
 that such speculations have been recorded of nations 
 in almost every part of the globe. They may be 
 traced with probability to the conflict of opinion 
 inevitably arising when men who have fled from their 
 dead friends, or comfortably deposited them in sub- 
 stantial graves with all precautions against their return, 
 continue to be haunted by them in dreams or in 
 the phenomena of " possession," or trace their linea- 
 ments in the corporeal form and mental characteristics 
 of their descendants. The earliest efforts to solve the 
 riddle of another life were necessarily crude material- 
 istic and limited by the experiences of this life. As 
 those experiences gradually widened and higher planes 
 of civilisation were painfully won, fresh aspects of 
 the problem presented themselves, different solutions 
 of the riddle were reached. When these came into 
 contact more or less conscious attempts to synthesise 
 them would be made. The fresh contradictions that 
 resulted, as soon as they emerged into consciousness 
 (often a very long process), had to be reconciled 
 as best they could. One of these appears to be 
 preserved in the Egyptian doctrine, as indicated by 
 Professor Wiedemann in the sentence just quoted. 
 The West African Negroes and other peoples in a 
 lower stage of culture than that of the Egyptian 
 official classes, travelling in a similar direction to find 
 the key to the puzzle, have arrived at a similar but far 
 less complex scheme. Indeed in Egypt itself there 
 seems to have lain beneath the official doctrine a 
 more primitive folk-belief differing as much from that 
 
TRANSFORMATION 205 
 
 recorded in the monuments as the folk-belief of 
 modern Europe differs from the creed of Christian 
 theologians concerning the soul. The current Egyp- 
 tian belief, if correctly reported by Herodotus, was 
 in his time that at death of the body "the soul enters 
 into another creature which chances then to be cominof 
 to the birth, and when it has gone the round of all the 
 creatures of land and sea and of the air, it enters 
 again into a human body as it comes to the birth, 
 and that it makes this round in a period of three 
 thousand years." ^ This belief excited the historian's 
 scorn. It is very different from the official Osirian 
 doctrine, and has evidently been elaborated from that 
 exhibited in the story of the Two Brothers. We 
 have already seen that a belief equally wide of the 
 official doctrine certainly existed with regard to the 
 gods, according to which they were born, like Lug, of 
 themselves. It is safe to think that what was pre- 
 dicated of the gods, was in earlier ages by all classes, 
 and probably by the backward classes down to the 
 very end of Egyptian paganism, held concerning 
 human beings, though it may have been held con- 
 currently with other solutions of the problem. 
 
 We may therefore proceed with our investigation of 
 the belief in the reappearance of a deceased ancestor 
 in the person of a child without concerning ourselves 
 with the subtle divisions of the soul, which we have 
 previously met and shall again meet with in the course 
 of the inquiry. Turning next to the aboriginal tribes 
 of India, we find among the Khonds of Orissa the same 
 belief. Anthropologists have often quoted Macpher- 
 son's description of the divination for determining 
 ^ Herod, ii. 123. I quote Macaulay's translation. 
 
2o6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 a child's name. The priest drops grains of rice into 
 a cup of water, naming with each grain adeceased 
 ancestor. From the movements of the seed in the 
 fluid and from observ ations made on the infant's 
 person, he pronounces which of the progenitors has 
 reappeared in it ; and the babe is usually named 
 accordingly. Khond psychology endows every one 
 with four souls. Out of such a company there is no 
 difficulty in arranging that one of them shall be 
 attached to some tribe and perpetually born again into 
 it. This in fact is what is believed to happen.^ The 
 Kols, a Dravidian people found in considerable 
 numbers along the Vindhya Kaimur plateau, also 
 practise this divination ; and the child is generally 
 named after some deceased ancestor, who has thus 
 returned from the region of the dead." 
 
 Among the Korwa, a Dravidian tribe inhabiting the 
 part of Mirzapur south of the river Son and along the 
 frontier of Sarguja, "the child is named by the father 
 or grandfather, and is generally called after some 
 deceased ancestor, who is understood from a dream to 
 be re-born in the baby." " The Bhuiyars say that the 
 dead man's soul is first judged by Paramesar. If he 
 be pronounced good, he is born again as a boy or girl 
 in the same family. Similar beliefs are held by the 
 Kharwars and Pankas.^ The Patdris hold that the 
 
 1 Macpherson, Memorials, 72, 92, 134. 
 
 2 Crooke, Tribes and Castes, lii. 308 ; Hahn, Kolsmission, 72, 
 105. According to Dalton the Kols of Bengal perform a similar 
 ceremony without the same belief (Dalton, 295). But the belief 
 as the origin of the ceremony must be inferred. See below (p. 207) 
 as to the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush. 
 
 ^ Crooke, op. cit. 330. 
 
 * N. Ind. N. and Q. \. 70 (par. 482). 
 
TRANSFORMATION 207 
 
 souls of the departed are embodied in certain animals. 
 If after a death a calf is born and refuses to drink 
 milk, it is often declared to represent the spirit of the 
 deceased. In the same way, when a baby refuses to 
 suck a ceremony is performed, "The mother sits 
 down and the father names each of his departed 
 ancestors — father mother grandfather, and so on. 
 At whichever name the baby takes the breast, that 
 ancestor is supposed to have been re-born in the 
 family, and the child is henceforth treated with special 
 care. The Ghasiyas similarly believe that deceased 
 ancestors are from time to time re-born in the family," ^ 
 Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush " the instant an 
 infant is born it is given to the mother to suckle, while 
 an old woman runs rapidly over the names of the 
 baby's ancestors or ancestresses, as the case may be, 
 and stops the instant the infant begins to feed. The 
 name on the reciter's lips when that event occurs 
 becomes the name by which the child will thenceforth 
 be known during its life." The analogy of other cases 
 leads to the conclusion that here too the ancestor must 
 be thought to be born ao^ain. Sir George Robertson 
 who reports the custom indeed adds that as a conse- 
 quence, it not unfrequently happens that " several 
 members of a family are compelled to bear the same 
 name," and are " distinguished from one another in 
 conversation by the prefix senior or junior, as the case 
 may be,"" This of course may happen also among 
 peoples who, we are definitely informed, practise 
 similar divination in order to ascertain what ancestor 
 has returned. How their philosophy settles the 
 question of identity when such duplication occurs we 
 1 N. hid. N.and O. 129 (par. 817). * Robertson, Kafirs, 596. 
 
2o8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 are not told. By the same belief Mr. Crooke explains 
 one of the marriage rites of the Deshashth Brahmans 
 of Dharwar. " Among them," he says, " the couple 
 first walk thrice round the sacred fire. A stone called 
 the Askmd, or spirit stone, that which is used at the 
 funeral rites of the tribe, and into which . . . the 
 spirit of the dead man is supposed to enter, is kept 
 near the fire, and at each circuit, as the bride followed 
 by the bridegroom approaches this stone, she stands 
 on it till the priest finishes reciting a hymn. Here it 
 seems clear that the idea underlying the rite is that 
 the spirit of one of the tribal or family ancestors 
 occupying the stone becomes reincarnated in her, and 
 so she becomes ' a joyful mother of children.' For 
 it must be remembered that accordingr to Indian 
 popular belief all conception is . . . the result of a 
 process of this kind, one of the ancestors becoming 
 reborn in each successive generation." ^ 
 
 In the foregoing examples it appears that any 
 ancestor may return. It will be remembered that the 
 Laws of Mami specifically taught that the husband 
 was born again of his wife. Mr. Rose points out that 
 as a consequence of this the father was supposed to 
 die and in certain sections of the Khatrisof the Panjdb 
 (for instance, the Kochhar) his funeral rites are 
 actually performed in the fifth month of the mother's 
 pregnancy. He adds: "Probably herein lies an 
 explanation of the dev-kdj, or divine nuptials, a cere- 
 mony which consists in the formal remarriage of the 
 parents after the birth of their first son. The wife 
 leaves her husband's house, and goes not to her 
 parents' house but to the house of a relative, whence 
 ^ F. L. xiii. 236. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 209 
 
 she is brought back as a bride. This custom prevails 
 among the Khanna, Kapur, Malhotra, Kakar and 
 Chopra, the highest sections of the Khatris, These 
 ideas are an almost logical outcome of the doctrine of 
 the metempsychosis, and it as inevitably results that if 
 the first-born be a girl, she is peculiarly ill-omened, so 
 that among the Khatris of Multan she used to be put 
 to death." ^ 
 
 1 cited some pages back a custom of the Gold Coast, 
 from which it appears that children dying young are 
 apt to return to their parents in the next pregnancy. 
 The phenomenon appears also in India. In Bengal, 
 if " a woman g-ive birth to several stillborn children in 
 succession, the popular belief is that the same child 
 reappears on each occasion. So, to frustrate the 
 designs of the evil spirit that has taken possession of 
 the child, the nose or a portion of the ear is cut off 
 and the body is cast on a dunghill." ^ In the Panjab, 
 Hindu women who lose a female child during infancy, 
 or while it still sucks milk, take it into the jungle and 
 put it in a sitting position under a tree. Sugar is put 
 into its mouth and a corded roll of cotton between its 
 fingers. Then the mother says in Panjdbi : 
 
 Eat the sugar ; spin the cotton ; 
 Don't come back, but send a brother. 
 
 If on the following day it be found that the dogs or 
 
 ^ Census of India, 1901, xvii. 215. So the Bakairl of Brazil are 
 said to call a child, whether boy or girl, "little father," as though a 
 new birth of the father; and among the Tupi the father after the 
 birth of each new son took a new name. The Bakairi reckon 
 kinship through the mother; but there are indications of transition 
 to reckoning through the father (von den Steinen, 337). 
 
 2 Crooke, F. L. N. hid. ii. 67. 
 1 o 
 
2IO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 jackals have dragged the body towards the mother's 
 house, she considers it a bad omen, saying : " Ah ! 
 she is coming back — that means another girl." But if 
 it be dragged away from the home, she is glad, saying : 
 "The brother will come." ^ Among the Andaman 
 Islanders every child conceived has had a prior 
 existence ; and " if a woman who has lost a baby be 
 about to become a mother, the name borne by the 
 deceased is bestowed on the fcetus in the expectation 
 that it will prove to be the same child again. Should 
 the infant at birth prove to be of the same sex as the 
 one who had died, the identity would be considered 
 sufficiently established." ^ 
 
 The belief with which we are now concerned is 
 common in China, and stories are found in the liter- 
 ature of that country, of children who have remembered 
 and related incidents of their previous life ; and on 
 inquiry made the truth of their statements is said to 
 have been proved. " A dissolute son squandering the 
 possessions of his family and disgracing it by a licentious 
 and criminal Hie is often taken for a man who, being 
 wronged by the father or by some ancestor, had him- 
 self re-born as that son, thus to have his cruel ven- 
 geance. Conversely, an excellent child, which is the 
 glory of its family, generally passes for a reincarnation 
 of some grateful spirit." A tale is told of a father who, 
 while engaged in drowning a second unwelcome little 
 daughter, heard a voice from the water-tub exclaim : 
 " This is the second time you drown me ; but now it 
 is" my turn to destroy both you and your sons." In a 
 
 • ^ Mrs. Steel, Panjab N. and Q. i. 51. 
 2 Sir R. C. Temple, Census of Ind. 1901, iii. 63 ; E. H. Man, 
 /. A. I. xii. 155. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 211 
 
 short time he died from anguish, and within a month 
 his two sons were killed by a catastrophe.^ 
 
 The Chinese often think that a child who falls ill 
 and dies is a hateful demon which has come to tor- 
 ment the mother. Precautions must therefore be 
 taken against its return. For fear it may be re-born 
 of her she sometimes blackens the face of the dying or 
 just dead child, that it may not be able to find its way 
 back. Or a hand or merely a finger is cut off, appar- 
 ently in the belief that should it succeed in being 
 re-born, it would be recognised.^ The Ainu say that 
 people are sometimes re-born into this world. Women 
 "should therefore carefully examine a baby's ears as 
 soon as it is born, to see whether they have been bored. 
 If they have, it is a certain sign that a departed 
 ancestor has come back, and if this be the case, he has 
 returned for some very good reason." It would seem 
 that he has some message from the other world. ^ 
 Among the Chukchi the new-born child is believed to 
 be some ancestor come back to earth. Its name is 
 found by divining with an object such as a divining- 
 stone, or some part of the mother's or child's dress 
 such as a boot or cap, held suspended by the mother 
 while she pronounces in turn the names of all deceased 
 relatives and says after each one : " This has come.'' 
 When the suspended object begins to swing the name 
 is selected. The idea of the return of the dead is so 
 strong in the Chukchi mind that half of the proper 
 names have relation to it. Children are called by such 
 
 1 De Groot, iv. 143, 452, 459. 
 
 2 Miss Mary Lattimore, of Soochow, in Records of Women's 
 Conference on the Home Life of Chinese Women, Shanghai, 1900, 9. 
 
 '^ Batchelor, Ainu F. L. 237. 
 
212 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 names as Returned, T he-former-one-rising, Rising-on- 
 the-field, and so forth. ^ The Koryak hold that the 
 souls of the dead go to the house of The-One-on-High. 
 He hangs them up there on posts and beams. When 
 the time comes for a soul to be born once more 
 he sends it for that purpose to a relative of the 
 deceased. As soon as the child is born the father 
 divines what relative has returned, using a divining- 
 stone much in the way it is used by the Chukchi. 
 Sometimes the divination is by means of the child 
 himself. The names of dead relatives are enumerated. 
 When the child cries the name is not the right one ; 
 when he stops crying or begins to smile his identity is 
 ascertained. As soon as the name is given the father 
 carries the child out to his people and says : "A 
 relative has come." Mr. Jochelson relates that during 
 his stay in the village of Kamenskoye a child was 
 named after its mother's father. The husband lifted 
 his child and said to the mother : " Here, thy father 
 has come."^ In Assam the Mikirs give to children 
 born after the death of relatives the names of the 
 deceased and say that the dead have come back ; " but 
 they believe that the spirit is with J dm [the Lord of 
 Spirits, in the abode of the dead] all the same." The 
 solution of this apparent contradiction seems to be 
 that the dead go for awhile to " J 6m Recho's city," 
 but that they return to be born again ; and this goes 
 on indefinitely.^ 
 
 In New Zealand the priest, after certain ceremonies, 
 first recited to the child the following stave : 
 
 ^ Bogoras, y^5«/> Exped. vii. 512 ; Am. Anthr. N. S. iv. 635. 
 2 Jochelson, Jesitp Exped. vi. 26, 100 ; cf. 203, 237, 274. 
 ^ Stack, 29. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 213 
 
 Wait till I pronounce your name. 
 What is your name ? 
 Listen to your name, 
 This is your name — 
 
 Then followed strings of ancestral names, until the 
 babe sneezed. The name being uttered at the moment 
 of the sneeze was the one chosen.^ We are not ex- 
 pressly told that the object of this rite was to identify 
 the child with one of his forefathers ; but it can hardly 
 be doubted. It was difficult, if, indeed, we may not 
 use a stronger expression, to distinguish between ances- 
 tors and gods among the Maori. The worship of the 
 kindred inhabitants of Samoa was, there can be little 
 doubt, of a similar character. During the mother's 
 labour, first the household god of the father's family 
 and then that of the mother's family was invoked. 
 The god being invoked at the instant of birth was 
 looked upon as the child's special aitu (Maori, atua) 
 or god ; and its incarnation was " duly acknowledged 
 throughout the future life of the child." During 
 infancy the child was called and actually named 
 '■'■ nierda of Tongo," or "of Satia," or whatever other 
 divinity it might be, though later in life a special name 
 was given. " Occasionally a chief bore the name of 
 one of the gods superior."^ In the island of Aurora, 
 New Hebrides, where the people are Melanesians, 
 women often speak of a child as the nutm, or echo, of 
 some dead person. Dr. Codrington says : " It is not 
 a notion of metempsychosis, as if the soul of the dead 
 person returned in the new-born child ; but it is 
 thought that there is so close a connection that the 
 infant takes the place of the deceased."^ 
 
 1 Taylor, 184. 
 
 2 Turner, Samoa, 17, 78, 81. ^ /. A. I. xviii. 311. 
 
214 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 We may set this explanation beside the statement 
 quoted by Dr. Tylor from Charlevoix that "some 
 North- American Indians were observed to set the child 
 in place of the last owner of its name, so that a man 
 would treat as his grandfather a child who might have 
 been his grandson."^ It may also be compared with 
 the belief of the Eskimo. Dr. Tylor cites from Crantz 
 the assertion that a helpless widow would seek to 
 persuade some father that the soul of a dead child of 
 his had passed into a living child of hers, or vice versa, 
 thus gaining to herself a new relative and protector. 
 Dr. Rink on the other hand considers that the de- 
 ceased person whose name a child bore was only 
 looked upon as a kind of guardian spirit. His state- 
 ment, however, that the child when grown up was 
 bound to brave the influences that caused his name- 
 sake's death — for instance, if the namesake had 
 perished at sea, his successor had all the greater 
 inducement to become a skilful kayaker — points to 
 more than this ; while numerous stories in Rink's 
 collection indicate nothing less than identity ; nay, one 
 of them at least definitely asserts it.^ Like Crantz^ 
 
 ^ Tylor, Prim. Cul. ii. 4. 
 
 2 Tylor, Prim. Cul, ii. 3; Crantz, i. 200 {cf. 161); Rink, 44, 
 54, 64, 434, 450. Compare the belief of the Baganda. Speaking 
 of the custom of naming a child Mr. Roscoe says : " With royalty 
 the name of the great-grandfather is given to the eldest son ; 
 peasants do not follow this custom, but take the name of some 
 renowned relative. The spirit of the deceased relative enters the 
 child and assists him through life " (/. A. I. xxxii. 32). Among the 
 Awemba the diviner after consulting the lots gives a new-born child 
 " the name of some dead chief, declaring that the spirit will look after 
 his namesake " (J. H. W. Sheane, /. A. I. xxxvi. 155). Comparison 
 of such cases as these enables us to surmise the stages through which 
 the belief in the identity of the child with the deceased has decayed. 
 Compare the Roman Catholic custom cited in a note, infra, p. 223. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 215 
 
 Dr. Rink writes of the Eskimo of Greenland. The 
 stories of those of Baffin Land witness to the same 
 belief. " There is one tradition in which it is told how 
 the soul of a woman passed through the bodies of a 
 great many animals, until finally it was born again as 
 an infant." Dr. Boas, however, who records this and 
 other tales, states that the Eskimo in question believe 
 that a man has two souls, of which at death one goes 
 to " one of the lands of the souls ; " the other stays with 
 the body, and when a child is named after the deceased 
 enters its body and remains there about four months. 
 "It is said that the soul enters the body because it is 
 in want of a drink." This seems inconsistent with 
 what follows: *' It is believed that its presence 
 strengthens the child's soul, which is very light, and 
 apt to escape from the body. After leaving the body 
 of the infant, the soul of the departed stays near by, 
 that it may re-enter the infant in case of need." ^ 
 
 The practice of naming a child after a deceased 
 person obtains also among the Eskimo of Bering 
 Strait ; but here it appears in a connection entirely 
 different. "The first child born in a village after a 
 person dies is given the dead one's name, and must 
 represent that person in subsequent festivals which 
 are given in his honour. This is the case if a child is 
 born in the village between the time of the death and 
 the next festival to the dead. If there be no child 
 born, then one of the persons who helped [to] prepare 
 the grave-box for the deceased is given his name and 
 abandons his own for the purpose. When the festival 
 
 1 Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. xv. 132, 130. As to the Eskimo of. 
 Davis Strait, see Boas, Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 612. The practice pt 
 naming seems the same, but no reason is assigned. 
 
2i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 to the dead is given in which the relatives of the dead 
 person wish to make offerings to the shade, the latter 
 is invited to attend by means of songs of invitation 
 and by putting up sticks with the totem-marks of the 
 deceased upon them." The shade is supposed to obey 
 the summons. In company with other shades in the 
 fire-pit under the floor of the kashwt, or assembly- 
 house, "it receives the offerings of food water and 
 clothing that are cast on the floor. Then is rendered 
 the song that announces the presence of the namesake, 
 at which the shade enters the form of that person. 
 The feast-giver then removes the new suit of clothing 
 he wears for the purpose and places it upon the name- 
 sake, and in doing this the shade becomes newly 
 clothed ; the food- offerings given to the namesake 
 during this festival are in the same way believed to be 
 really given to the dead. When this ceremony is 
 finished the shade is dismissed back to the land of the 
 dead." ^ 
 
 A comparison of these customs and beliefs suggests 
 that the interpretation reported to us from Greenland 
 and Baffin's Bay, and the rites observed by the Eskimo 
 of Bering Strait are alike of more recent origin than the 
 practice of naming children after the dead which is 
 common to all Eskimo. The Eskimo of Bering Strait 
 are in direct contact with the Athapascans and other 
 
 ^ Nelson, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 289, 424. For further details 
 see Ibid. 364, 365, 371, 377. So far is the identification of the 
 living representative with the deceased carried that during the Doll 
 Festival " the namesakes of men dead are paired with namesakes of 
 their deceased wives without regard to age, and during this period 
 the men or the boys bring their temporary partners firewood, and 
 the latter prepare food for them, thus symbolising the former union 
 of the dead" {Ibid. 379). This is surely much more than 
 symbolism. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 217 
 
 American Indian peoples. Their culture in various 
 ways shows traces of this contact. It is possible (but 
 this is no more than a conjecture) that among them 
 the representation of the dead at the festival by a 
 living person is derived from analogous customs of 
 some of their neighbours. Such customs are at all 
 events practised by many of the North American 
 tribes. That the union of the deceased with his 
 representative is permanent is clear. The name is 
 retained until old aoe, when it is sometimes chanofed 
 in the hope of obtaining an extension of life. In such 
 a case the new name is not that of another person, but 
 one usually indicative of some personal peculiarity ; 
 and after the change is made it is considered improper 
 to mention the former name."^ The object is of course 
 to conceal the identity and so escape the fate allotted 
 to the bearer of the old name. On the other hand, 
 belief in a merely temporary occupation of an infant by 
 the spirit of the dead is probably due to a developing 
 psychology. In an earlier stage it would seem that 
 the deceased was reincarnate in the child, and not 
 simply a kind of guardian spirit. To this the tra- 
 ditional tales and the obligation in Greenland to 
 submit to the same dangers which had caused the 
 death of the previous owner of the name indubitably 
 witness. The probability is confirmed by what is 
 related of the Eskimo of Angmagsalik on the eastern 
 coast of Greenland. They say that man consists of 
 three parts, the body, the soul and the name iatekatd). 
 The last enters the child when after its birth a sort of 
 baptism is performed by rubbing water on its mouth 
 and naming the name of the dead after whom the 
 1 Nelson, op. cit. 289. 
 
2i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 child is to be called. When a man dies the atekata 
 remains with the body in the water or (where it is 
 buried) in the earth until a child is named after him. 
 It goes then into the child and there continues its 
 existence.-^ Moreover, of the Eskimo on the west 
 coast of Hudson's Bay, Captain Comer reports that the 
 souls of the dead, if they so choose, may return and 
 be born again. He adduces two recent cases where 
 this was believed to have occurred. " An old man who 
 died in 1896 said at his death that he would be born 
 again by a certain woman. Soon after this the 
 woman gave birth to a girl, who it was believed," in 
 spite be it observed of the difference of sex, "to be 
 the old man returned. Another man who died in 
 1885 said that he would be born again as a child of 
 his own daughter. The latter had one son ; and soon 
 another son was born, who was looked upon as the 
 dead one returned." - 
 
 Whatever may be the fact as regards the Melane- 
 sians and the Eskimo it is certain that in North 
 America the new birth of the dead was widely believed 
 in. Among the Thompson Indians of British 
 Columbia this opinion is now said to be confined to the 
 cases of children dying in infancy. If such a child be 
 succeeded by another of the same sex they say it is the 
 same child come back again. " They do not believe 
 that the soul of an elderly person can be re- born, nor 
 that the soul of a male infant can be born again in a 
 female infant, nor that the soul can return in an infant 
 having a different mother." Formerly, we are told 
 however, " this belief was more general than it is 
 
 ^ von Andrian, Wortaber. 20, citing Holm, Ethnologisk Skisze. 
 2 Bull. Amer. Miis. Nat. Hist. xv. 146. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 219 
 
 now." ^ And still " there seems to be a vasfue belief 
 with some that adults^ if they so desire, may also be 
 re-born on earth ; but this seldom happens." ^ Among 
 the Haida '' belief in reincarnation was so e^eneral that 
 a large proportion of the children were named in 
 accordance with this idea. When the shaman an- 
 nounced what ancestor was reincarnated that ancestor's 
 name was of course sfiven to the child. A man was 
 always re-born into his own clan and generally into his 
 own tamily." According to one opinion a man might 
 return in this way four times from the Land of Souls. 
 Ultimately he became a blue fly ; what happened after 
 that does not appear.^ Among the Thlinkit, if a 
 pregnant woman dreamed of a dead man it was said 
 that the ghost had taken up its abode in her body ; 
 and if a newborn child had the least resemblance to a 
 deceased relative, the latter was believed to have 
 returned and the child was called by his name.^ 
 
 On this side of the Rocky Mountains the Hareskins, 
 a branch of the Dene or Athapascan stock, roam over 
 
 ^ Teit, Mem. Am. Miis. N. H. Anthrop. i. 359. The last state- 
 ment is not unambiguous. I understand it to mean that the belief 
 was formerly more general in its terms. It is likely that the cases 
 mentioned would survive in the tribal opinion as cases of re-birth 
 when others had been given up. 
 
 ^ Id. Jesup Exped. ii. 287, 277. 
 
 ^ Swanton, Jesup Exped. v. 117, 35. A story of a man who 
 remembered his sojourn among the dead and his new birth, Ibid. 
 36. Rev. C. Harrison (/. A. I. xxi. 20) gives a similar account of 
 Haida belief, but unquestionably coloured in some of its details by 
 Christian ideas. 
 
 ^ Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 392; Bancroft, iii. 517. See a saga 
 of a man who remembered his experiences, Brit. Ass. Rep. (1889), 
 844; cf. Id. (1888), 241. Similar beliefs and stories of other 
 British Columbian tribes, Id. (1890), 580, 611, 614; Boas, Ind. 
 Sag. 322. 
 
220 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the steppes and stunted forests of the great North-West. 
 Of them it is told that sometimes men die to be re-born 
 almost immediately without going to the land of the 
 dead. When these souls have chosen a woman for 
 their mother they go to her and are reincarnated in 
 her womb. Such migrations are recognised by several 
 signs, as when the child is born with two teeth in the 
 upper and two in the lower jaw, or when it is born 
 immediately after a death, or when it remembers what 
 it has been during its previous life, or when it re- 
 sembles trait for trait a person defunct.^ The Tacullies, 
 or Carriers, also an Athapascan tribe, assist the soul's 
 decision as to the child in which it will become 
 reincarnate. They inquire of the dead if they will 
 return to life or not. The shaman inspects the naked 
 breast of the corpse, and if satisfied on the point he 
 blows the soul into the air, that it may seek a new 
 body, or puts his hands on one of the mourners, thereby 
 conveying the spirit into him, to be embodied in his 
 next offspring. The relation thus favoured, we are 
 told, added the name of the deceased to his own.^ ^ 
 
 Like the Thompson Indians, the Iroquois held 
 that it was chiefly the souls of children to which 
 the privilege of a new birth was granted.^ Huron 
 philosophy posited the existence of two souls in a 
 
 ^ Petitot, Traditions, 275, The author gives one other sign 
 which I do not understand : " Lorsqu'elles \sc. the women] cessent 
 d'avoir leurs regies au temps prescrit par la nature dans notre pays.' 
 
 ^ Bancroft, iii. 517. Tylor (o/>. «V. 3), citing Waitz, states that 
 it was the child who bore not only the name but the rank of the 
 deceased. I have preferred to cite Bancroft both because the state- 
 ment is second-hand instead of third -hand (I have no access to the 
 original), and because it tells somewhat less strongly in favour of the 
 argument. See also Boyle, Archaeological Report, Ontario (1898), 142. 
 
 ' Featherman, op. cit. 31. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 221 
 
 man. One was chano-ed at death into a turtle-dove 
 or went to the village of souls. The other remained 
 attached to the body, never to leave it " unless some 
 one gave birth to it again." The striking resemblance 
 which some persons bear to others who are dead was 
 adduced to the Jesuit father who records this belief, 
 in proof of its truth. The Hurons called the bones of 
 the dead Atisken, or the souls. Babes who died 
 under one or two months of age were not placed, like 
 older persons, in sepulchres of bark raised on stakes, 
 but buried in the road, in order that they might enter 
 secretly into the wombs of passing women and be 
 born again. The Jesuit father quaintly adds : " I doubt 
 that the good Nicodemus would have found much 
 difficulty here, although he only objected concerning old 
 men Quomodo potest homo nasci cum sit senex?"^ I 
 shall have to recur to this practice. The Dakota held 
 that a man had four souls. Some Sioux however 
 speak of a fifth " which enters the body of some animal 
 or child after death ; " and they "go so far as to aver 
 that they have distinct recollections of a former state 
 of existence and of the passage into this." But it does 
 not appear that the belief is general.^ It is said that 
 the medicine-men and women of the Sioux might 
 "be transformed after death into wild beasts," but 
 that the Dakota believed that their medicine-men and 
 women ran their career four times in human shape and 
 then were annihilated.^ Some Siouan medicine-men 
 
 1 Relations des Jesniies, x. (1636), 286, 272 ; Rep. Bur. Ethn. v. 
 1 14, III. 
 
 ^ Dorsey, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 484. 
 
 ^ Bourke, Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 470, quoting Schultze, Fetichism 
 (New York, 1888). Some of them begin life as winged seeds, and 
 after preparation and instruction by the divinities go forth and 
 
222 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 however "profess to tell of what occurred to them 
 in bodies previously inhabited for at least six genera- 
 tions back."^ Twins are a mystery to the Teton, who 
 believe that they are of superhuman origin and must 
 come from Twin-land. They may die ; but they are 
 sure to be born again into separate families, and will 
 then be able to recognise one another though others 
 are unable to do so. Medicine-men often found their \ 
 claims to supernatural power on having had a previous ; 
 existence as twins.^ A tale belonging to the cycle f 
 of Orpheus and Eurydice told by a member of the 
 Teuktcan-si tribe in California relates that the bereaved 
 husband when in the other world saw a long line of 
 little babies moving silently back across the bridge 
 that spanned the furious river between the living and 
 the dead. "They were coming here to our women." ^ 
 In Peru, if we may trust Garcilaso dela Vega, the 
 Cavinna, one of the tribes to the south of Cuzco 
 subdued by the Inca Manco Capac, claimed to be 
 descended from parents who came out of a certain 
 lake, and believed that the souls of those who died 
 entered the lake and thence returned again to animate 
 other bodies.* 
 
 The custom of calling a child by the name of one of 
 its forefathers or other previously deceased relations is 
 so common that it is useless to adduce instances, 
 unless there be some concomitant like that of 
 divination or a dream for connecting it with the belief 
 
 selecting their mothers are born into human society (Ibt'd. 494, 
 quoting Pond in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes). 
 ^ Dorsey, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 493. 
 
 * Dorsey, op. cit. 482, quoting MS. by Dr. J. M. Woodburn in 
 possession of the Bur. Ethn. ^ Journ. Am. F. L. xv. 105. 
 
 * Garcilaso, Bk. i. c. xx ; Markham's trsln., i. 80. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 223 
 
 in re-birth. It may notwithstanding be observed that 
 it is a common behef in the lower cuhure that a name 
 is an essential part of its owner. It is much more than 
 a mere label : it is looked upon as having a real 
 objective existence. The knowledge of the name gives 
 power over the person or thing designated. This is 
 the origin of innumerable magical practices. It 
 accounts for the reluctance of savages to tell their 
 names, for their propensity to adopt by-names by which 
 they may usually be called without disclosing their 
 true and proper names, and for the very general 
 taboo of the names of the dead. Although therefore 
 we are unable to discover any existing belief in the re- 
 birth of an ancestor in many cases where the practice 
 exists of giving an ancestral name to a child, still that 
 belief may have been in earlier times at the root of the 
 custom. Such a belief is quite likely to have faded 
 with the advancing dawn of civilisation into the belief 
 attributed to some of the Eskimo that the deceased 
 whose name is thus appropriated becomes ipso facto a 
 kind of guardian spirit to its new bearer, or into 
 the analogous reason adduced by the Bontoc Igorot of 
 northern Luzon for their invariable practice of giving a 
 child the name of some dead ancestor. They allege 
 that by so doing they will secure for the child the 
 protection of the anito, or manes, of the ancestor in 
 question. "If the child does not prosper or has 
 accidents or ill health, the parents will seek a more 
 careful or more benevolent proctector in the anito of 
 some other ancestor ; " and the child is thereafter 
 known by the name of the latter.^ 
 
 1 Jenks, 62. Compare the belief in Belgium, and probably other 
 Roman Catholic countries, that to give a child the name of a saint 
 
224 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 A different reason however for a change of name 
 in such a case is given by the Lapps. It was 
 believed that when a woman was near child-bed, one 
 of the ancestors appeared in a dream to her and 
 instructed her what name was to be given to her 
 child ; and ordinarily the ancestor in question was the 
 one who was about to be born again in the person of 
 the child. Failing any such intimation the name was 
 ascertained by divination. But if the babe sickened 
 or cried after baptism, it was deemed that the ancestor 
 had not been rightly identified. As it was necessary 
 to discover him in order to give his name to the child, 
 resort was had to a fresh baptism to correct the effects 
 of the previous one.^ In Norway, if a pregnant woman | 
 dream of one who is dead, the child must be named 
 after him. If the dream be of a man, and a P"irl bei 
 born, the man's name must be feminised, and vice versd.\ 
 If she dream of more than one person, the names of all* 
 must be given. ^ This perhaps resulted from the un- 
 certainty as to which of the dead who appeared was to 
 be identified with the coming stranger. The same 
 practice of giving a new-born babe the name of a 
 deceased person is to be traced back in the old Ice- 
 landic sagas, where a dying person often appeals to 
 is to " place him under the invocation " of that saint. The name 
 of Ghislain preserves the child from convulsions, that of Hubert 
 from hydrophobia and from toothache, and so forth {Bull. F. L. ii. 
 150). Compare also the African customs cited above, p. 214, note. 
 
 1 Rhys, Celtic F. L. 658, where he has tracked to its source in an 
 old Scandinavian writer, whom he quotes. Prof. Tylor's authority for 
 the statement given by him {op. cit. 4) from Klemm's Culturgeschichte. 
 He adds from another Scandinavian writer of the eighteenth century 
 the reason for change of name. 
 
 ^ Liebrecht, 311. Compare the Irish legend of the birth of 
 Cuchulainn, D'Arbois de Jubainville, Ep. Celt. 37 ; Rev. Celt. ix. 12. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 225 
 
 another to name a future child after him, because he 
 expected advantage from it.^ It is no far-fetched 
 inference to suppose that he thereby expected to 
 secure a new birth. In the Romagna it is usual to 
 give the names of p^randfathers uncles and other 
 relatives to children, but not ihe names of relatives 
 who are living, lest their death be accelerated — a 
 vague reminiscence probably of the real reason.^ In 
 the Valdelsa the name by constant custom is that of 
 the last person in the family who has died.^ If a child 
 die among the christianised Indians of Sonora, Mexico, 
 the next that is born takes the name of the departed.* 
 The reverse is the case in the province of Posen 
 (Polish Prussia) and in the north of England, where a 
 subsequent child must not be named after one that is 
 
 1 Zeits. des Vereins, v. 99. Maurer cites on the authority of 
 Vigfusson a curious tale of an Icelandic peasant who lived at the 
 end of the sixteenth century, and to whose wife when pregnant the 
 Devil himself appeared and desired that his name should be given 
 to the child about to be born When the parents however came 
 to the baptism the priest refused to baptize the boy by the name of 
 Satan, and called him Natan. He grew up a clever man and a 
 renowned physician, but was guilty of all sorts of crimes and 
 ultimately came to a violent end (Maurer, 193). 
 
 2 Placucci, 78, 23. The reason, however, may be derived from 
 the belief that to bestow the name is to bestow a part of the life and 
 personality of the original owner of the name, who would thus lose 
 it. Even if this be so, the bestowal of the name of one who is dead 
 would be in some sense at any rate to revive him. How far the 
 present belief in Italy definitely regards a baby as a dead relative 
 returned is doubtful (see Pigorini-Beri, 283, Leland, £■//-. Rom. Rem. 
 200) ; though witches are thought to be born again (Leland. op. cit. 
 1 99). The opposite result to that expected in the Romagna is 
 looked for at Chemnitz when the first children take their parents' 
 names. In such a case the children die before the parents (Grimm, 
 Teut. Myth. 1778). 
 
 ■^ Archivio, xv. 50. 
 
 * Anier. Anthrop^ N. S. vi. 79 note. 
 
 1 P 
 
226 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 dead, lest It also die/ The Andamanese, who as we 
 have seen -definitely believe in re-birth, name "a 
 second child after a previous dead one, because the 
 spirit of the former babe has been transferred to the 
 present one." ^ In certain districts of Papua children 
 are often named after living" relatives who indeed 
 sometimes offer their names ; but frequently a child is 
 named after some one who is dead and whose soul, as 
 the expression runs, it is desired to retain. '^ It is 
 significant too, as Kohler has pointed out, that among 
 the Marshall Islanders, a blood feud arising from a 
 death is more easily settled after the birth of a new 
 child in the injured family. In such a case the slayer 
 takes advantage of the fact to pray for reconciliation in 
 the name of the new-born infant.^ 
 
 Sometimes special measures are taken to secure the 
 return of children dying young. Such is the Huron 
 custom already mentioned of burying children in the 
 road where they would enter the wombs of passing 
 women and be born again. The Musquakie bury 
 children in the path to the river, in order that the 
 mother as she passes to and fro may absorb the soul 
 of her little one and have it born again of her body ; 
 whereas old people are buried at a distance on the hill- 
 tops.^ A practice followed in many parts of the world 
 
 1 Zeits. f. Volksk. iii. 233; Addy, 94; Denham Tracts, ii. 49. 
 This looks like complete identification, unless it be attributable to 
 some evil influence in the name itself. But of course the real origin 
 of the superstition is now forgotten. 
 
 2 Census of Ind. (1901), iii. 63. 
 ^ Zeits. Vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 359, quoting Vetter. 
 * Ibid. 447, quoting Jung, 
 5 Owen, F. L. Mnsq. 86, 22. In the Delta of the Niger a 
 
 similar practice prevails, but the reason given is different. It is 
 " that mothers, either on the way to or from the spring, may keep 
 
TRANSFORMATION 227 
 
 is that of burying a dead child within or immediately 
 outside the hut where it died. It can hardly be 
 doubted that the object here is the same. This is the 
 usage of the Fans in West Africa.^ The Kavirondo of 
 British East Africa bury the child near the door of its 
 mother's hut.^ The Jaiswaras of the Panjab bury 
 under the threshold all children who die within fifteen 
 days after birth. The reason assigned is that " in 
 constantly stepping over [the grave] the parents would 
 run no risk of losing any subsequent children." ^ This, 
 however, is probably not the original reason. So about 
 Sirhali in the Panjab the custom prevailed of burying 
 the female children, when killed, under the door. The 
 belief was that by this means subsequent children 
 (sons it was hoped) would be born in their place : that 
 is to say, the children buried would be born again of 
 the more desired sex. Mr. Rose suggests with proba- 
 bility that the general Hindu practice of burying 
 instead of burning the bodies of young children is 
 explained in a similar manner.* In Java a child who 
 has died before receivino- a name is buried without 
 ceremony behind or near the house. Among the 
 Karo-bataks a premature birth or a child under four 
 days old is buried under the house.^ The Andamanese, 
 whose belief and practice of naming have already been 
 referred to, bury babies under the floor of their parents' 
 
 in touch with the departed spirit ; and women who were especially 
 attached to these infants during their life will frequently go and 
 keep up an imaginary conversation with them for quite a long 
 time " (Leonard, 191). But is this the real, or the original reason ? 
 They believe in reincarnation (See ante, p. 201 note). 
 
 1 Roche, 91. ^ Johnston, Uganda, ii. 749. 
 
 3 Panjab N. and O. i. 123 (par. 925). 
 
 * Census of India, 1901, xvii. 214. ^ Kruyt, 72, 242. 
 
228 - PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 hut.^ In Russia the peasants bury a still-born child 
 under the floor.^ The Chinese of the province of 
 Kan-su cut it in pieces and bury it, in the belief that 
 a boy will be born in a month afterwards.^ The 
 Southern Slavs in burying a babe lift the little coffin 
 thrice out of the grave and lay it down again. The 
 cover of the coffin is never fastened at the head and 
 feet of the corpse, because it is believed that if it were 
 the mother would never bear again, or if she did the 
 next birth would be very difficult.'* This alternative is 
 probably late ; and both the former alternative and the 
 ceremony of lifting the coffin thrice from the grave 
 point to a belief in the child's return. The ancient 
 Italians like the peoples of India forbore to burn the 
 dead bodies of young children. They were buried 
 under the eaves of the house.^ Recent excavations in 
 Palestine have discovered beneath the floors of temples 
 numerous remains of newborn children buried in large 
 jars. Dr. Frazer has probably with justice interpreted 
 these not as the remains of sacrifice, but as deposits in 
 the precincts of a god regarded as above all the source 
 of fertility, laid there " in the hope that quickened by 
 divine power they might enter again into the mother's 
 womb and again be born into the world." * Among 
 the northern Maidu of California a stillborn child must 
 not be buried face downwards, else the mother will 
 
 1 Census of India, 1901, iii. 65. ^ Ralston, Songs, 136. 
 
 3 Anthropos, iii. 764. 
 
 * Krauss, Sitte iind Branch, 545. 
 
 ^ Pliny, vii. 15. See also Dieterich's observations. Mutter 
 Erde, 2 i . 
 
 8 Frazer, Adonis, 82. A similar custom to that under discussion 
 probably accounts for the absence of children's remains in prehistoric 
 burial-places that has puzzled the veteran antiquary Canon Greenwell 
 [Archoeologia, Ix. 306). 
 
TRANSFORMATION 229 
 
 tver afterwards be barren/ In the legend of the 
 manioc already cited the maiden from whose grave the 
 manioc sprouted was buried in her parents' house. In 
 1 variant it is the maiden's infant child who is thus 
 buried ; and we are told that he was thus buried 
 according to ancient custom." 
 
 Among; the rites for obtaining;' children referred to in 
 the last chapter were attempts by women in India and 
 elsewhere to possess themselves of the life of a little 
 infant, or of an executed criminal or other corpse, in the 
 hope that the life thus obtained would be born again 
 of them.^ The subject was postponed for fuller discus- 
 sion in connection with the subject of Transformation. 
 Directing our attention first to the practice at Bombay 
 of cutting off the end of a fruitful woman's robe, it might 
 be thought that the object was merely to share, by a 
 well-known magical process illustrated in practices 
 elsewhere, in the fertility of the woman who owned the 
 robe. That this is not so is shown by the requirement 
 that in Guzerat the woman whose skirt is detached 
 must be one pregnant for the first time, and the belief 
 that she will thus be caused a miscarriage, while the 
 woman who takes the skirt will bear a child.* Similarly 
 
 1 Dixon, BiiIL Am. Mus. N. H. xvii. 230. 
 
 2 Carl Teschauer, ^M^/jro/os. i. 742. Many peoples bury adults 
 in their huts. The hut is then usually abandoned, but by no means 
 always : among tribes in various parts of the world it continues to 
 be occupied. The question whether in such cases the burial has 
 any relation to the beUef in a fresh birth of the deceased requires 
 examination for which I have had no opportunity. But even if the 
 burial have no relation to the belief in question a considerable 
 volume of evidence remains, of which examples are given above, that 
 children are buried under or in close proximity to the parental hut 
 for the purpose of being born again. 
 
 ' Supra, pp. 69, 71, 75-77. * Daya, 90. 
 
230 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 we are told that among the Mohammedans in Oudh if 
 a barren woman on a Sunday or a Tuesday tear off and 
 swallow a piece of the wrapper of a fruitful woman it will 
 cause her to conceive, but the other woman "considers 
 the act as an ill omen " for herself/ In Guzerat it is 
 clear that the intention is to transfer the child from one 
 womb to the other ; and although the practice in 
 Oudh is described more vaguely we must interpret it to 
 the same effect. This view is strengthened by the belief 
 that when a child's shirt was steeped in water and the 
 water drunk by a barren woman the child would die 
 and be born again from the woman who had drunk the 
 water, and by the general requirement in India that 
 when, as often happens, a child is put to death for the 
 purpose of securing offspring to a barren woman, that 
 child must be a boy. " In the reported cases," says Mr. 
 Rose, " there is only one in which the victim was a girl, 
 and in that the parties concerned were Mohammedan 
 fakirs.^ The child's vitality is usually tested by torture 
 previously to the final blow. Branding with hot metal 
 is the favourite process ; and having regard to the 
 attitude taken by English magistrates to this ritual 
 murder, the secret branding of a child unable to speak, 
 and therefore to betray the torturer, is often held to 
 satisfy the necessities of the case without murder.^ 
 
 1 N. Ind. N. and Q. iii. 215 (par. 467) ; iv. 161 (par. 373). 
 
 2 Census of Ind. (1901), xvii. 214. 
 
 3 N. Ind. N. and Q. i. 148 (par. 911) ; Daya, 90. I think the 
 interpretation I have given of the torture is correct, though both 
 that and the requirement of a bronze knife for actual despatch 
 mentioned by Mr. Rose may point to confusion with the idea of a 
 sacrifice. In any case, one kind of ritual murder, probably of 
 late development, is the offering of human sacrifices to the gods for 
 offspring. Professor Westermarck has collected a number of 
 instances from various parts of the world which raise the suspicion 
 
TRANSFORMATION 231 
 
 Murder, or a ritual survival of murder, is however 
 by no means always necessary to obtain the child. 
 We have found advantage taken of the death of one 
 of special powers, as a saint, or of otherwise un- 
 exhausted powers, as an unmarried man or an executed 
 criminal, to endeavour to secure a transfer to a barren 
 woman of the departed life that she may reproduce it in a 
 child. With these practices we must connect the 
 stories attributing pregnancy to the absorption of a 
 portion of a dead man's body, all of which point to a 
 belief in the possibility of fertilisation by such means 
 without sexual intercourse. Often in the stories the 
 identity of the child with the deceased is expressly 
 affirmed. The customs we have just been studying, 
 are in complete concord with this affirmation. It may 
 be further suggested that here we have one at least of 
 the causes which have concurred to produce so widely 
 extended a custom as that which I have studied else- 
 where of eating the corpses of the kin.-^ When we are 
 told, for instance, of the Botocudos of South America 
 that mothers ate their dead children as a mark of affec- 
 
 (though he does not express it) that the sacrificed life was expected 
 to pass into the barren woman and be re-born. In the story he 
 cites of King Somaka from the Mahdbhdrata, when the king's only 
 son was sacrificed, we are expressly told that the king's one 
 hundred wives all smelt the smell of the burnt offering and became 
 pregnant of sons, the eldest of whom was the sacrificed son born 
 again of his former mother (Westermarck, Moral Ideas, i. 457 sqq.). 
 
 The Paraiyans, or Pariahs, of Madras bury children in the ordinary 
 burial-ground, unless the child be a first-born and a boy. It is • 
 then buried by the house or even within the house. The reason ; 
 alleged is " that the corpse may not be carried off by a witch or 
 sorcerer, as the body of a first-born child is supposed to possess 
 special virtues" (^Madras Govt. Mits. Bull. v. 82). There can be' 
 little doubt as to the real meaning of this. 
 
 ^ Leg. Pets. ii. 278, sqq. 
 
232 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 tion/ we cannot help thinking of the common practice 
 of burying children in their mother's hur, and of the 
 analogous measures of the Hurons and Musquakie to 
 obtain a return of the departed infant ; and we ask 
 whether the affection entertained by the Botocudo 
 mother did not centre in the hope that by eating the 
 body of the child she would get it back again in a new 
 birth. 
 
 The North American tribes, less oppressed by 
 external nature, had reached a higher plane of culture 
 than the Botocudos. Long before the seventeenth 
 century, when their doings are first recorded, the 
 Hurons had abandoned such crude means of recover- 
 ing their children, if they had ever made use of them. 
 They and the other Indians of the plains and the 
 Atlantic shores had arrived at a conception of per- 
 sonality based upon a subtler identity. It was this 
 identity which they strove to retain in ways exemplified 
 above, not only by Huron and Musquakie practices 
 but also by those of the Tacullies. Their view of 
 life was thus much nearer to metempsychosis, though 
 metamorphosis was not wholly outgrown : it had 
 still its place in their philosophy. We have observed 
 the same phenomenon in the Old World ; it has 
 been frequently illustrated in the preceding pages. 
 The Danakil on tiie southern shore of the lower end 
 of the Red Sea hold in spite of Islam that the souls, 
 especially of their sorcerers and priests, seek new 
 bodies, and that those who are most active in assistance 
 during the last few days or hours of a dying sorcerer 
 receive his powerful spirit in their first male offspring. 
 Accordingly there is a busy coming and going 
 1 Featherman, Chiapo-Mar. 355. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 233 
 
 around the bed of a sorcerer sick unto death, people 
 incessantly offering gifts and endeavouring to make 
 themselves useful/ In the same spirit one of the 
 prescriptions of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers directs a 
 woman who has miscarried to 2:0 to the barrow of a 
 deceased man and step thrice over it with certain 
 w^ords conjuring the effects of the miscarriage.^ The 
 Gipsy women in Hungary however require a material 
 vehicle for the transfer of the life they seek, when at 
 waxing moon they eat grass from, the grave of a 
 pregnant woman. ^ So among the Southern Slavs the 
 woman goes to a pregnant woman's grave, calls upon 
 her by name, bites some of the grass off the grave, 
 calls upon her again, conjuring her to give her her 
 child, and then taking some earth from the grave 
 
 ^ Paulitschke, ii. 28. In a later passage merely the gift of sooth- 
 saying is spoken of as thus obtained for the first-born among the 
 children of these busy-bodies {Ibid. 6i) ; but the passage cited above 
 expressly connects the practice with the belief in Seelenwanderung, 
 and speaks of receiving the sorcerer's mcichtigen Geist. It is not 
 clear whether the people referred to are men. If so, there has 
 probably been a transfer of function from women similar to that in 
 the case of mdrchen influenced by Islam, where the magical fruit is 
 sometimes eaten by the husband and not by the wife {Leg. Perseus, 
 i. 79). The Mohammedanism of these tribes is, however, somewhat 
 superficial. 
 
 Many of the Nilotic tribes bury the dead outside the door of the 
 hut in which they had lived. The Soudanese soldiers employed in 
 Uganda have been required to abandon this practice in favour of 
 burial in a cemetery. They have " more or less accepted the order," 
 save in the case of children, "who are often buried just outside the 
 hut of their parents ; and whenever Soudanese lines have been 
 moved from one place to another " a number of these little graves 
 has generally been discovered (Major Meldon, Journ. Afr. Soc. vii. 
 
 127). 
 
 ^ Sax. Leechd. iii. 66. 
 
 ' Ploss, Weib. i. 439, citing von VVlislocki. 
 
234 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 binds it in her girdle.^ These practices require no 
 comment. 
 
 There remains the Australian evidence, which is 
 important, because the aboriginal population of that 
 continent is on the lowest stage of culture now extant, 
 and it has been until the early part of the last century 
 wholly cut off, as far as we know, from intercourse 
 with other peoples. Prior to recent investigations 
 it was known that the Australian natives believed in a 
 posthumous existence in flesh and blood. Members 
 of various tribes had repeatedly recognised white men 
 as departed relations and acquaintances who had 
 found their way back. This is the " Jump up White- 
 fellow " belief which has been so often discussed since 
 the time when the experiences of William Buckley 
 were made public. He was a convict who escaped 
 from the penal settlement at Port Phillip Bay in the 
 year 1803, ^^^ "^'^^ found by some of the Wudthaurung 
 tribe carrying a piece of a broken spear. The frag- 
 ment in question had been placed on the grave of one 
 Murrangurk according to tribal custom by his kindred ; 
 and by this means Buckley was identified with the de- 
 ceased. He lived with the natives for more than thirty 
 years and married a native wife.^ Since his time other 
 white men have been similarly identified by natives 
 in various parts of Australia as old friends and former 
 members of their tribes ; and the belief has been 
 reported from the most widely sundered localities. 
 
 It is indeed by no means confined to Australia. It 
 
 " may be traced northward," as Prof. Tylor says, 
 
 "by the Torres Islands to New Caledonia, where the 
 
 natives thought the white men to be spirits of the 
 
 1 Krauss, Volksgl. 136. ^ Dawson, no; Howitt, 442 
 
TRANSFORMATION 235 
 
 dead, who bring sickness, and assigned ihis reason 
 for wishing to kill white men." The Bari of the 
 White Nile thought the first white people they saw 
 were departed spirits thus come back ; and the same 
 theory is entertained both by Negroes and Bantu along 
 the coast of West Africa. In 1861 a missionary was 
 recognised by a native of Corisco Island in the Gulf 
 of Guinea as his brother, who had died at such a time 
 and had gone to White Man's Land. A chief on 
 the island of Fernando Po who died in 1898 announced 
 that he would reappear in the person of a ship- 
 captain. A short time after his death a European 
 geologist went to study the rocks of the valley where 
 the chief had dwelt, and was taken for an embodiment 
 of the deceased coming to look once more upon his 
 lands.^ Among^ the Bavili of French Conoro it is 
 apparently held that the dead man does not necessarily 
 return white. Mr. Dennett relates the case of a 
 woman whom he knew, who had died and was buried. 
 "When she rose from the dead she found herself 
 a slave and married to a white man in Boma. She lived 
 with him until he went to Europe, when he freed her." 
 After various adventures she succeeded in getting 
 
 1 Tylor, op, cit. 5 ; Howitt, I.e. ; J. A. I. xvi. 342 ; Mathews, 
 Eihnol. Notes, 147; Journ. Am. F. L. ix. 200; Curr, i. 339; 
 Nassau, 57 ; Mgr. Armengo Coll, Anthropos, ii. 390. In one 
 Australian case the natives of the Brisbane district, in spite of his 
 denials, recognised in a runaway convict named Baker a deceased 
 member of the tribe, and, we are told, " allotted to him as his own 
 property the portion of land that had belonged to " the deceased 
 (Lang, Oueenslayid, 336). As the natives have strictly speaking no 
 property in land, this can mean no more than that they assigned 
 him exclusive hunting rights. But even so it is convincing proof of 
 the strength of their belief See as to the belief in North Queensland, 
 Roth, Bitll. v. ss. 63, 64. 
 
236 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 back to her native town. " Her parents were rejoiced 
 to see her again ; but they will not believe that she is 
 a human beings and continue to treat her as the 
 departed spirit [chiinbindi) of their daughter." ^ The 
 Andamanese recognise all natives of India and the 
 Far East as chauga, or persons endowed with the spirits 
 of their ancestors.^ The belief thus widely diffused 
 does not involve new birth. But although the per- 
 sons returned are recognised by bodily features and 
 peculiarities, even by scars received in their previous 
 existence, it does involve Transformation after death, 
 or Transmigration into a new body, since the original 
 body has been under the eyes of the relatives not 
 merely buried (in which event resurrection may have 
 taken place) but frequently burnt or dismembered ac- 
 cording to custom. 
 
 During the last decade of the nineteenth century 
 and since important discoveries have however been 
 made, especially of the ceremonies and beliefs of the 
 natives inhabiting the central, northern and north- 
 eastern districts of the Australian continent. Chief 
 among those to whom we are indebted for accessions 
 to our knowledge so great as almost to revolutionise 
 our view of the aboriginal culture, are Professor 
 Baldwin Spencer and Mr. F. J. Gillen, who have 
 published the results of their joint inquiries in two 
 elaborate volumes. The information thus obtained, 
 so far as it relates to the subject under immediate 
 consideration here, is to the following effect. The 
 central tribes are all divided, like those in other parts 
 of the continent, into totem-clans. Every tribe is also 
 divided into two exogamous intermarrying classes ; 
 
 1 Dennett, F. L. Fjort, ii. ^ Ind. Census, 1901, iii. 63. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 237 
 
 and these again are subdivided so as further to regulate 
 sexual relations. But the birth of a child is not 
 ascribed to sexual intercourse. That intercourse at 
 most plays an accessory part. The child may come 
 without it. Intercourse " merely as it were prepares 
 the mother for the reception and birth also of an 
 already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the 
 local totem centres."^ On this point the explorers' 
 evidence is emphatic and was confirmed by further 
 inquiries made on their third journey. The Ura- 
 bunna, the most southerly of the central Tribes, 
 reckon descent in the female line only. Far in the 
 past each of the totem-clans originated from a com- 
 paratively small number of individuals, who were half- 
 human and half-animal or half-plant, after which the 
 clan is named. They were possessed of more than 
 human powers, and they deposited in the ground at 
 certain spots where they performed sacred ceremonies 
 a number of spirit-individuals, some of whom became 
 men and women and formed the first series of totem- 
 groups or clans. Since that time these spirit-individuals 
 have been continually undergoing reincarnation. 
 When one incarnation dies his spirit returns to the 
 spot where the original deposit was made, and there 
 awaits reincarnation. He chooses, subject to certain 
 conditions with which we need not concern ourselves, 
 the woman whom he will enter.^ 
 
 ^ S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 265. It may be noted, in con- 
 firmation of the statement that these tribes do not ascribe the birth 
 of a child to sexual intercourse, that among several of thera at any 
 rate (and, it may be suspected, now or at one time among all) the 
 mother uses a different word from that employed by her husband to 
 indicate the relationship of a son or daughter to the speaker (S. 
 and G. Cent. Tribes, 76 sqq., North. Tribes, 78 sgq.). 
 
 2 S. and G. North. Tribes, 145, sqq. 
 
238 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Going northward, the next tribe met with is that of 
 the Arunta. According to them the origin of the 
 various totem-groups was somewhat similar. Their 
 totemic ancestors were formed by two individuals 
 called Ungambikula out of incomplete transformations 
 of animals and plants, which they shaped into human 
 beings. These newly formed men and women 
 wandered in bands across the country, carrying objects 
 called Churinga (a kind of bullroarer, usually of stone 
 elaborately marked), every one of which was associated 
 with the spirit-part of an individual. Sometimes each 
 ancestor carried more than one of these churinga. 
 At the various places where these ancestors ultimately 
 " went into the ground," they left behind the churinga 
 they were carrying. The period when these things 
 happened is called the Alcheringa, a term not very 
 happily rendered by " Dream-time," seeing that the 
 Arunta believe the events to have actually occurred in 
 an indefinite but far past period. " There are thus at 
 the present day, dotted about all over the Arunta 
 country, a very large number of places associated with 
 these Alcheringa spirits, one group of whom will be 
 Kangaroo, another Emu, another Hakea plant, and so 
 on. When a woman conceives, it simply means that one 
 of these spirits has gone inside her and, knowing where 
 she first became aware that she was pregnant, the child 
 when born is regarded as the reincarnation of one of 
 the spirit-ancestors associated with that spot, and 
 therefore it belongs to that totemic group." Thus 
 every individual Arunta is a reincarnation of a mythical 
 ancestor,^ 
 
 Further still to the north the Warramunga hold all 
 ^ S. and G. op. cit. 150. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 239 
 
 the members of a totemic group to be reincarnations of 
 a number of spirits, the emanations from the body of 
 a single ancestor half-human, half-beast or plant. This 
 belief, which is similar to that of the Urabunna, though 
 not held by the Arunta, is found among the more 
 northerly tribes, with one exception, right through to 
 the Gulf of Carpentaria. The exception is that of the 
 Gnanji, a wild and somewhat isolated people. For 
 them this doctrine of reincarnation (in other respects 
 identical) is limited by the denial of a spirit-part to 
 women. "They were quite definite," we are told, 
 *' on this point. There are large numbers of spirit 
 female-children, but they never undergo reincarnation."^ 
 Whence come the baby-girls we are not informed. 
 The Warramunga and Urabunna on the other hand, 
 believe that the sexes alternate with each successive 
 incarnation.^ 
 
 In the territory of all these tribes, therefore, there 
 are certain spots where disembodied spirits were 
 originally deposited, and where they congregate 
 during the intervals of incarnation, ready to pounce 
 on any suitable woman who may come near. Among 
 the Arunta these spirits are associated with churmga, 
 which they leave behind when they enter the womb. 
 Search is made for the churinga ; by it the spirit thus 
 reincarnated is identified, and the child is named 
 accordingly. The totem of the child is thus not 
 reckoned by natural descent. The totems have 
 become localised, and the totemic group to which the 
 child belongs is determined by the place at which the 
 mother first becomes aware of her condition, and by 
 the churinga found there. In some of the more 
 1 S. and G. op. cit. 161, 170. ^ Ibid. 358 note, 530. 
 
240 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 northern tribes however the totems descend strictly in 
 the paternal line, and it is believed that a spirit seek- 
 ing reincarnation will in general refuse to enter a 
 woman other than the wife of a man of the proper 
 totem. -^ It is possible by ma_o^ic to cause a spirit to 
 enter into a woman. About fifteen miles from Alice 
 Springs in the territory of the Arunta there is a rounded 
 stone projecting about three feet above the ground. 
 It is called Erathipa, meaning child. On one side of it 
 is *' a round hole through which the spirit-children 
 are supposed to be on the look-out for women who 
 may chance to pass near, and it is firmly believed that 
 visiting the stone will result in conception. . . . Not 
 only may the women become pregnant by visiting the 
 stone, but it is believed that by performing a very 
 simple ceremony a malicious man may cause women 
 even children who are at a distance to become so. . . . 
 Or again, if a man and his wife both wish for a child, 
 the man ties his hair girdle round the stone, rubs it 
 and mutters : * The woman my wife you (think) not 
 good, look.' " Similar stones exist at other places.^ 
 Although an ancestor is thus reincarnated the natives 
 have no hesitation about putting an inconvenient child 
 to death as soon as it is born. " They believe that the 
 spirit-part of the child goes back at once to the 
 particular spot from whence it came, and can be born 
 again at some subsequent time, even of the same 
 woman." ^ 
 
 1 S. and G. op. cit. 169, 175, 176, 273; Cent. Tribes, 124, 132,. 
 138, 300. 
 
 2 S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 3363 North. Tribes, 271, 331, 
 
 450- 
 
 ^ S. and G. Cent. Tribes, 51. As to the Kaitish and Unmatjera, 
 see S. and G. North. Tribes, 506. As to the theory of multiple soul& 
 
TRANSFORMATION 241 
 
 The question presents itself whether the belief in 
 reincarnation is found among other Australian tribes. 
 The answer must be that it is found, but our know- 
 ledge of the tribes is too limited to enable us to say- 
 definitely that all of them have held it. Only among 
 a few of the tribes have systematic and prolonged in- 
 vestigations taken place by persons whose attention 
 has been directed to the point, and by them only 
 within recent years ; and the information we have is 
 in all cases imperfect. In the west of Victoria the 
 tribes from Avoca River to the boundary of South 
 Australia and from the Murray River to the Main 
 
 held by these tribes and the Arunta, see Cent. Tribes, 513 ; North. 
 Tribes, 450. 
 
 It is right to say that a somewhat different account from that 
 outhned above of the philosophy of all these tribes is given by 
 Mr. Strehlow, a German missionary who has lived for some years 
 among the Arunta. He seems to have had his attention first called 
 to the matter by inquiries addressed to him in consequence of the 
 works just cited. He therefore prosecuted researches among the 
 Arunta and Loritja, and has recently published the results through 
 the Municipal Museum of Frankfort on the Main. Space does not 
 allow me to examine these results at length. To some extent they 
 confirm the statements of Spencer and Gillen. The sexual relations 
 of men and women have nothing to do with birth. In some cases 
 birth may be the voluntary reincarnation of a primeval ancestor. It 
 is more usually the incarnation of a child-germ emanating from one 
 of such primeval ancestors and not previously born (Strehlow, i. 15 ; 
 ii. 51 sqq.). Reincarnation is a common feature of the belief of 
 peoples in the lower culture, and is as we shall see widely held in 
 Australia. Moreover the account given by Spencer and Gillen has 
 been confirmed by independent inquiry among the Arunta and 
 neighbouring tribes (Mathews, Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, xl. 107, 
 sqq. ; xli. 147). Accordingly on the whole there seems little doubt 
 that it may be safely trusted. Mr. Strehlow's report, however, 
 agrees in some particulars with the beliefs of other tribes {infra 
 p. 242) ; and it may very likely represent the opinions of a section 
 of the Arunta and Loritja. 
 
 I Q 
 
242 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Range are reported to believe that every totem-clan 
 has its own spirit-land called 7ni-ytir, home or final 
 resting-place, to which the souls of members of the 
 clan go after death. There they congregate ; and 
 thence from time to time they emerge, and are born 
 again in human shape. The tribes inhabiting the 
 country from Beaufort towards Hexham and Wickliffe 
 have only one spirit-land for all their clans. It is an 
 island a short distance off the coast called by the 
 natives Dhinmar, but know^n on the map as Lady 
 Julia Percy Island. Thither every disembodied spirit 
 makes its way, and there it remains until reincarnated.^ 
 The report I cite gives no further details as to the 
 method of reincarnation ; but presumably the spirits 
 are born again into their own respective tribes and 
 clans. In South Australia the tribe (now extinct) 
 about Adelaide held that the spirits of the dead went 
 to Pindi, the western land. At some period they re- 
 turned from Pindi to be re-born, and in the interval took 
 up their abode in trees.^ The Nimbaldi tribe, about 
 Mount Freeling, believe in "a spirit called Muree, 
 which may be either a male or a female," and which 
 meets a woman and throws a small waddy called weetchu 
 under her thumb-nail or great toe-nail, and so enters her 
 body. In due time she then gives birth to a child.^ 
 The Euahlayi, whose country is the border between 
 New South Wales and Queensland, hold that babies 
 and children who die young without passing through 
 
 ^ Mathews, Ethnol. Notes, 91, 95. 
 
 2 N. W. Thomas, Man (1904), 99 (par. 68), citing Tasmanian 
 Jotirn. i. 64. 
 
 3 Mathews, op. cit. 148, citing Taplin, F. L. &c. of S. Aitstr. 
 Abor. (Adelaide, 1879), 88. Compare the Arunta belief according 
 to Strehlow, ii. 53. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 243 
 
 the puberty rites are born again, either of their own 
 mother or, if they prefer, of another woman. In the 
 former case the child is called niillanboo (the same 
 again). A reason sometimes given for the marriage 
 which often takes place of young men to old women is 
 "that these young men were on earth before and loved 
 these same women but died before their initiation, so 
 could not marry until now in their reincarnation." 
 Other babies seemed to be manufactured ad hoc. The 
 process will be considered hereafter.^ On the other 
 side of the continent, near York in Western Australia, 
 there is a stone inhabited by the spirits of children ; 
 and if a woman oro " near that stone she will oret one 
 of these children. Sometimes they enter her through 
 her mouth, sometimes through other parts of her body, 
 but," says the lady who reports this, " so far as I 
 have investigated [the natives] did not believe that 
 procreation had anything to do with conception."^ 
 This belief seems similar to that of the Arunta. 
 
 It thus appears that in Australia there is a wide- 
 spread belief in the reincarnation of the dead. We had 
 already learnt that the belief in transformation, both 
 into animal and vegetable forms, was found there. 
 Beyond this however the Australian natives have 
 developed the doctrine of the soul, or double, which 
 after release by death may enter again into a woman 
 and take flesh as a new child. And the testimony is 
 express that sexual intercourse is not, at least among 
 some tribes, held necessary for conception, but that it 
 
 ^ Mrs. Parker, 50, 56, 73, 89. As to the theory of multiple 
 spirits see 35, 27, 29. 
 
 2 Mrs. Bates, in a letter to Mr. Andrew Lang, quoted by him in 
 Man (1906), 180 (par. 112). 
 
244 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 is caused by the mere will of such a soul to return to 
 human society. Even where, as among the tribes of 
 North Queensland, we have no evidence of the belief 
 in reincarnation of ancestors, sexual intercourse is 
 excluded as a necessary condition of birth. These 
 facts, occurring as they do among a race in a stage of 
 culture lower than any other now upon the surface of 
 the globe, materially assist the conclusion that preg- 
 nancy was widely held in early times to be caused by 
 other than what we regard as the natural means. 
 
 The notion of a factory or warehouse of children 
 whence they are sent forth to find mothers is shared 
 by some of the Australian tribes with peoples in other 
 continents. The Hidatsa of North America have a 
 cavern near Knife River called Makadistati, the house 
 of infants. It was supposed to extend far into the 
 earth, but the entrance was only a span wide. " It was 
 resorted to by the childless husband or the barren 
 wife. There are those among them who imagine that 
 in some way or other their children come from the 
 Makadistati ; and marks of contusion on an infant, 
 arising from tight swaddling or other causes, are 
 gravely attributed to kicks received from his former 
 comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean 
 home." Another account which appears to refer to 
 the same place only mentions squaws as resorting to 
 it and receiving from it "prolific virtue."^ Precisely 
 parallel to this cavern is a hill on the Daly River in 
 the Northern Territory of Australia. It is called 
 by the natives Alalk-yinga, the place of children. 
 They believe that the children hereafter to be born 
 are kept shut up there under the care of one old man 
 ^ Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 516. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 245 
 
 whose duty it is to prevent them from escaping and to 
 supply them with water. The latter he does by means 
 of an underground communication with the river, about 
 a mile away. " When a child is to be born this old 
 man sees to the business." ^ 
 
 The question where this baby-factory was was solved 
 by the ancient Mexicans in favour of the kingdom of the 
 dead. Accordingly an epithet for that realm was tlaca- 
 pillachiualoya, the place where the children of men 
 are produced, or engendered.' The same solution has 
 been reached by the Santals of the Rajmahal Hills, 
 in India. Every Santal who bears the sika, or tribal 
 mark, on his left forearm, after death enters the 
 kingdom of the gods, and is employed by them "in 
 grinding the bones of past generations with a pestle 
 made of the wood of the castor-oil-tree in order to 
 provide the gods with a good supply of material to 
 produce the children yet unborn." This is the 
 continual occupation to which a Santal looks forward 
 in the next life, interrupted only by a periodical festival 
 similar to those he loved on earth, or by a momentary 
 
 1 Mathews, Proc. R. Soc. N.SW. xl. 113; Ethnol. Notes^ 148, 
 citing Trans. R. Soc. S. Austr. xvii. 262. 
 
 ^ Preuss, Arch. Religionsw. vii. 234. Compare a tradition by 
 which the origin of the present race of mankind was attributed to a 
 bone of a previous race, fetched from Hell and sprinkled with the 
 blood of sixteen hundred supernatural heroes. A boy and then a 
 girl are thus formed from it; and they become the ancestors of 
 all nations (Southey, Commonpl. Bk. iv. 142, quoting some authority 
 not indicated). The Maidu of California in a cosmogonic legend 
 speak of an Earthmaker who forms figures in shape like men, but 
 barely as big as a tiny seed. These he plants by pairs in the earth, 
 at different places to grow into men and women. At the appointed- 
 time they come forth ; the earlier races are all killed or transformed^ 
 and are supplanted by the pairs who have risen from the earth and 
 their children (Dixon, yowrw. Am. F. L. xvi. 33). 
 
246 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 pause to prepare his tobacco-quid, or if a woman who 
 has borne children to give suck to the child at her 
 breast/ Similar material is believed by the peoples 
 of Togoland in West Africa to be required for the 
 production of new human beings. The underjaws of 
 slaughtered enemies are consequently in Kunya 
 brought by the Guan and dedicated to the fetish 
 Kombi, an undergod of the great goddess Sia, by 
 whom they are applied to this purpose.^ 
 
 I hope that I have now made it plain that stories of 
 metamorphosis, such as those we have found in the 
 examination of the theme of Supernatural Birth, are 
 founded upon the serious belief that at death men are 
 not annihilated, but pass into fresh forms, sometimes 
 appearing as plants and trees, sometimes as animals of 
 the lower creation, and sometimes as men and women 
 born again into their own kindred or among strangers. 
 This is a creed held so widely that — though subject 
 perhaps to varying stress according to the degree and 
 direction of the evolving civilisation — it may yet be 
 regarded as practically universal. 
 
 The relation between Transformation and Trans- 
 migration calls for some remark. In the examples I 
 have set before the reader I have treated them as for 
 our purpose equivalent. In many cases it is probable 
 that our evidence is inaccurate, and that what the 
 observer set down as metempsychosis really presented 
 itself under a simpler conception to the people of whom 
 he is speaking. Personality as conceived by savage 
 thought is not bound to one definite, individual, 
 relatively invariable form. The form may change, yet 
 the personality remain. Tales soberly credited in all 
 ■*■ Bradley-Birt, 285. - Globus, Ixxxix. 12. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 247 
 
 but the highest culture are full of" shape-shifting. It 
 would be as vain to attempt to persuade a peasant 
 in remote parts of our own country that some poor 
 old woman was not a witch capable of turning herself 
 upon occasion into a hare, and in fact known to do so, 
 as to persuade a Wiradjuri in New South Wales that 
 a bitgi7i, or medicine-man, was not able to turn himself 
 at will into an animal, or even the stump of a tree or 
 other inanimate object. 
 
 If such a change may take place in a living person 
 still more freely may it take place by means of death. 
 It is quite clear that in many of the instances mentioned 
 in the foregoing pages the change is regarded as a direct 
 bodily change and not a reincarnation of the soul ; and 
 these might be paralleled without any difficulty from all 
 parts of the world. Let it suffice to refer to the Welsh 
 tale of Math ab Mathonwy. I n that tale we are told of a 
 hero named Llew Llawgyffes who could not be slain 
 except when dressing after a bath. The bath must be 
 arranged by the side of a river ; it must be well roofed 
 over ; a buck must be brought and put beside the 
 caldron ; then if the hero put one foot on the edge of 
 the caldron and the other on the buck's back, in that 
 attitude whoever struck him would cause his death. 
 His treacherous wife Blodeuwedd concerts measures 
 with her paramour Gronw Pebyr and succeeds in 
 fulfilling the conditions. Gronw flung a poisoned dart 
 and struck him on the side, so that the head of the 
 dart remained in the wound. Llew Llawgyffes flew up 
 in the form of an eagle and disappeared. He was 
 afterwards traced by Gwydion, son ot Don, and found 
 in a miserable condition with his flesh putrefying from 
 the wound. By means of incantations Gwydion got 
 
248 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 possession of the bird and with the help of his magic 
 wand restored him to his proper shape. Blodeuwedd 
 was turned into an owl ; " and for this reason is the owl 
 hateful unto all birds. And even now the owl is called 
 Blodeuwedd."^ Sir John Rhys commenting on this 
 and other Celtic stories draws attention to the fact that 
 " none of these stories of shape-shifting and of being 
 born again make any allusion to a soul." It is evident 
 that the eagle in whose form Llew Llawgyffes flew 
 away cannot be regarded as his soul. The decayed 
 state of its body, the festering of the wound and the 
 retransformation into a man are conclusive on this 
 point. Yet the fatal wounding of the hero was foretold 
 as his death and is treated in the story as his death. 
 The story reaches us in a late form and only in a 
 single manuscript of the fourteenth century. But its 
 form is probably not later than the eleventh century ; 
 its substance is much earlier. It has undergone, as 
 Sir John Rhys has unanswerably shown, in the process 
 of transmission some misunderstanding as to the 
 metamorphoses, which appears to have resulted in 
 tampering with the original plot. But the aim of that 
 tampering was to obscure the fact of Llew's death, not 
 to blink his transformation. 
 
 Mr. Aston observes on the stories given above from 
 \S\t. Nihongi : "The modern name for ghost testifies 
 to the prevalence of this conception [that of bodily 
 metamorphosis at death] in Japan. It is bake-monOy 
 or ' transformation,' and is applied to foxes which 
 change into human form as well as to the ghosts of 
 the dead and to hobgoblins of uncertain origin. . . . 
 
 1 Llyvyr Coch, 75; Mabinogion, 427; Nutt's ed. 74; Rhys, 
 Celtic F. L. 609. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 249 
 
 There are no proper ghosts in the Kojiki or Niho?tgi, 
 although the writers of these works were fond of 
 recordino- strange and miraculous occurrences. The 
 
 o o 
 
 metamorphosed appearances mentioned in them are 
 never phantoms with a resemblance to the human 
 form, and possess no spiritual qualities. Even now 
 the bake-mono, though differing little from our ghost, 
 is quite distinct from the human mitama or tamashi'i 
 (soul)."^ We may remind ourselves that a similar 
 distinction is drawn by the Angoni and the Achewa in 
 Central Africa between the animal or plant regarded 
 as the reincorporation of a dead man and the mzimti, 
 or spirit. With the former the surviving relatives do 
 not concern themselves, except that they will not 
 destroy or eat it ; the latter is the object of a cult.^ 
 
 In cases like these there is no second birth: the 
 metamorphosis is direct. Nor is the evidence less 
 cogent where the deceased is born again. When 
 Bata in bull-form was slain two drops of his blood fell 
 upon the door-posts and forthwith grew up into trees. 
 When the trees were cut down a splinter entered the 
 king's mistress' mouth and rendered her pregnant — of 
 Bata once more. When an Ainu mother looks to see 
 whether her baby's ears are already pierced there is 
 no question of a soul taking flesh in a new body : it is 
 a new birth of the old body of an ancestor. It is true 
 that the Mongolian tale of Sheduir Van speaks of his 
 soul as entering the empress' womb. Sheduir Van 
 was a Khotogait prince executed for conspiracy against 
 the Emperor of China. After his death the empress 
 gave birth to a child ; and the wise men declared that 
 
 * Aston, Shinto, 49. See supra, p. 178. 
 
 * Supra, p. 169. 
 
250 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the soul of Sheduir Van had, as he had foretold, 
 entered her womb. How was the babe identified as 
 the beheaded prince ? By the cicatrice on its neck ; 
 thus showing, in spite of Buddhist contamination, that 
 the idea underlying the incident is that of a new birth 
 of the old body/ The far-spread story of the lovers, 
 from whose grave two trees grew up and united their 
 branches, is a story of Transformation and not of 
 Metempsychosis. If I am right in the conclusion I 
 have drawn that the stories of fish fruit worms 
 stones and other objects entering the bodies of women 
 as food or otherwise and rendering them pregnant 
 present those various objects not merely as vehicles of 
 fertilisation but as becoming human beings by the 
 process of pregnancy and birth, then here we have 
 once more examples of metamorphosis. 
 
 The truth is that the foundation of savage philo- 
 sophy lies far down below Animism. The lines we 
 draw between the lower animals and the vegetable and 
 mineral kingdoms on the one hand and human beings 
 on the other hand are not drawn in the lower culture. 
 Man, interpreting all objects in the terms of his own 
 consciousness, first endowed them with personality, 
 but a personality such as I have described, vague and 
 imperfectly crystallised, sufficiently fluid to run first in 
 one mould and then in another, and even to divide 
 into parts, without loss of identity. As experience 
 q^radually widened, the conception of personality 
 became modified to bring it into harmony with 
 observed phenomena. In the evolution which resulted 
 dreams and trances played a prominent part. The 
 doctrine of a soul or double, an inner, a separable and 
 1 Gardner, F. L. Journ. iv. 30. 
 
TRANSFORMATION 251 
 
 a more elusive self, emerged and like the prior con- 
 ception of personality was applied not alone to human 
 beings but also to the lower animals trees rocks and 
 indeed to all external objects. But it must not be 
 supposed that the soul was conceived as immaterial. 
 Long ages elapsed before civilised thinkers arrived at 
 this ; and the difficulties of such a concept are so great 
 that even the highest religions, though paying lip- 
 service to it, fall back in their rites their legends their 
 promises and their threats on grosser and more 
 material implications. The distinction between spirit 
 and matter is unknown in the lower culture. The 
 African, whether Negro or Bantu, as Miss Kingsley 
 says, "does not believe in anything being soulless; 
 he regards even matter itself as a low form of soul, 
 because not lively ; " ^ in his mind, that is to say, the 
 confusion is complete. The same confusion appears 
 in the ideas of peoples the most widely sundered in 
 space and civilisation. To the savage as to our own 
 forefathers and to \h.Q folk of all civilised countries still 
 the idea of an incorporeal soul wanting every attribute 
 of physical existence, such as a more refined philosophy 
 demands, is incomprehensible. A man may not be 
 able to see the soul, he may not be able to handle it, 
 when it is united with the body that normally possesses 
 it. But this kernel, this inner self of friend or foe, 
 comes to him in dreams ; he beholds it in the snake or 
 the toad the insect or the dove that haunts the tomb 
 of one who was dear to him, or in the rose-bush or the 
 lily growing upon the grave ; or he fetches it back in 
 the shape of a white stone to his child who has 
 sickened from its absence and is like to die. Finally, 
 ^ Kingsley, Studies, 199. 
 
252 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 it is this that entering the body of a woman may of its 
 own potentiality cause pregnancy, so that the babe she 
 brings forth will be no other than the new manifesta- 
 tion of a pre-existing person. Thus though conceived 
 as material its materiality is thin and subtle : it may 
 animate any form and yet remain essentially the same. 
 Its identity becomes the real identity of the man, pervad- 
 ing his entire being and transmissible from form to form. 
 The idea of soul in this more evolved philosophy has 
 in fact appropriated most of the attributes of the older 
 and ruder idea of personality without entirely super- 
 seding it. Hence the distinction between Transforma- 
 tion and Transmigration is frequently so faint and 
 indefinable. Transmigration is a natural development 
 of Transformation, imperceptible because gradual, and 
 dependent for its complete disclosure upon the degree 
 of development of the doctrine of the soul. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MOTHERRIGHT 
 
 Ignorance in the lower culture on the physiology of birth. 
 Such ignorance was once greater and more widespread 
 than now. For many ages the social organisation of man- 
 kind would not have necessitated the concentration of 
 thought on the problem of paternity. Descent was and 
 by many peoples still is reckoned exclusively through the 
 mother. The social organisation implied by motherright. 
 Kinship is founded on a community of blood actual or 
 imputed. The Blood-Covenant. The father not recog- 
 nised in motherright as belonging to the kin. His alien 
 position and its consequences. The Nayars. Combat 
 between father and son. The Blood-feud. Children the 
 property of the kin. The potesias in motherright. Evo- 
 lution of the family. The mutual rights and duties of 
 the children and their mother's brother. Father a wholly 
 subordinate person. The origin of motherright not to be 
 found in uncertainty of paternity. Paternity in patrilineal 
 societies. 
 
 Ix^has been shown in previous chapters that : 
 
 1. Stories of birth from other than what we now know 
 as the only natural cause are told and believed 
 all over the world. 
 
 2. The means to which in these stories birth is 
 attributed are or have been actually adopted for 
 the production of children. 
 
 3. It is also widely believed that birth is merely 
 a new manifestation of a previously existing 
 creature, either human or one of the lower animals 
 
 253 
 
254 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 or even vegetables ; and conversely that a human 
 
 being may after death take form by birth as one 
 
 of the lower animals, or may grow up as a plant 
 
 or tree. 
 
 4. The birth of a previously existing creature may 
 
 result from the action of that creature, without 
 
 procreation by masculine aid. 
 
 Put in another way these beliefs may be summed 
 
 up by saying that in the contemplation of peoples 
 
 in the lower culture birth is a phenomenon independent 
 
 of the union of the sexes. By this it is not meant 
 
 that at the present time everywhere among such 
 
 peoples physiological knowledge is still in so backward 
 
 a condition that the co-operation of the sexes is 
 
 regarded as a matter of indifference in the production 
 
 of children. That would be to contradict the facts. 
 
 Today the vast majority of savage and barbarous 
 
 nations are aware that sexual union is ordinarily 
 
 a condition precedent to birth. Even among such 
 
 peoples, however, exceptions are admitted without 
 
 difficulty ; and there are peoples like certain Australian 
 
 tribes who do not yet understand it. Their state 
 
 of ignorance was probably once the state of other 
 
 races and indeed of all humanity. The history of 
 
 mankind so far as we can trace it, whether in written 
 
 records or by the less direct but not less certain 
 
 methods of scientific investigation, exhibits the slow 
 
 and orradual encroachments of knowledge on the 
 
 confines of almost boundless ignorance. That such 
 
 ignorance should once have touched the hidden springs 
 
 of life itself is no more incredible than that it should 
 
 have extended to the cause of death. There are 
 
 plenty of races who even yet attribute a death by 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 255 
 
 anything else than violence to the machinations of an 
 evil-disposed person or spirit, no matter how old 
 or enfeebled by privation or hardship the deceased 
 may have been. Nor do they omit anything which 
 may render their ignorance on this point unambiguous ; 
 they proceed to discover and punish the sorcerer ; 
 they expel the malicious spirit ; they appease the 
 enraged or arbitrary divinity. 
 
 Death has a character mysterious and awful, of 
 which no familiarity has been able to divest it, and 
 which not even the latest researches of physiologists 
 have been able to dispel. Ignorance of the real cause 
 of birth, it might be thought, on the other hand would 
 not long survive the habitual commerce of men and 
 women and the continual reproduction of the species. 
 It would not, in our stao-e of civilisation and with 
 our social regulations. But the theory of the evolu- 
 tion of civilisation postulates the evolution of man, 
 mentally and morally as well as physically. At the 
 moment when the anthropoid became entitled to be 
 properly denominated man his intellectual capacity 
 was not that of a Shakspeare a Newton a Darwin, or 
 even of an average Eno-lishman of the twentieth 
 century. He was only endowed with potentialities 
 which, after an unknown series of generations and thanks 
 to what we in our nescience variously dub a fortunate 
 combination of circumstances or an over-ruling Provi- 
 dence, issued in that supreme result. The savage who 
 has not been thus favoured is still by comparison 
 undeveloped. His intellectual faculties are chiefly 
 employed in winning material subsistence, in gratifying 
 his passions, in fighting with his fellow-man and with the 
 wild beasts, often in maintaining a doubtful conflict 
 
256 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 against inclement skies unfruitful earth or tempestuous 
 seas. Many of them, therefore, are dormant, like a bud 
 before it has unfolded. His attention, not habitually 
 directed to the problems of the universe, is easily tired. 
 His knowledge is severely limited; his range of ideas 
 is small. Credulous as a child, he is put off from the 
 solution of a merely speculative question by a tale that 
 chimes with his previous ideas, though it may transcend 
 his actual experience. Hence many a deduction, 
 many an induction, to us plain and obvious has been 
 retarded, or never reached at all : he is still a 
 savage. 
 
 During many ages the social organisation of man- 
 kind would not have necessitated the concentration of 
 thought on the problem of paternity. Descent is still 
 reckoned exclusively through the mother by a number 
 of savage and barbarous peoples. This mode of 
 reckoning descent is called by a useful term of 
 German origin — Motherright. It would be im- 
 possible to undertake an exhaustive enumeration 
 of the peoples among which motherright prevails. 
 The civilised nations of Europe and European origin 
 reckon descent and consequently kinship through both 
 parents. A few others, chiefly more civilised nations 
 like the Chinese and the Arabs, agree with them. 
 Apart from these it may be roughly said that 
 motherright is found in every quarter of the globe. 
 Not that every people is in the stage of motherright : 
 on the contrary many reckon through the father. But 
 even where the latter is the case vestiges of the former 
 are commonly to be traced. And the result of anthro- 
 pological investigations during the past half-century 
 has been to show that motherright everywhere pre- 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 257 
 
 , ceded fatherright and the reckoning of descent in the 
 modern civilised fashion through both parents. 
 
 This past universality of motherright points to a 
 very early origin. It must have taken its rise in a 
 condition of society ruder than any of which we have 
 cognisance. Let us consider what social organisation 
 it implies. Kinship is a sociological term. It is not 
 synonymous with blood-relationship : it does not 
 express a physiological fact. Many savage peoples 
 are organised in totemic clans, each clan bearing 
 usually the name of an animal or plant often supposed 
 to be akin to the human members of the clan. Every 
 member of the clan recognises every other member as 
 of the kin. Inasmuch as these clans extend fre- 
 quently through whole tribes and even to distant 
 parts of a vast continent like North America or 
 Australia, it is practically impossible that the members 
 can be in a physiological sense blood-relations. Not- 
 withstanding this, every member of the totem-clan, 
 wherever he may be found, is entitle d to all the 
 privileges and subject to all the disabilities incident to 
 his status. He is entitled to protection at the hands 
 of his fellow-clansmen. He is liable to be called on 
 to take part in the blood-feud of the clan, and to suffer 
 by an act of vengeance for a wrong committed by 
 some other member of the clan. Foremost among his 
 disabilities is the prohibition to marry or have sexual 
 relations with any woman within the kin. Conse- 
 quently his children must all be children of women 
 belonofino- to a different kin from his own. 
 
 Though kinship, however, is not equivalent to blood- 
 relationship in our sense of the term, it is founded on 
 the idea of common blood which all within the kin 
 
258 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 possess and to which all outside the kin are strangers. 
 A feeling of solidarity runs through the entire kin, so 
 that it may be said without hyperbole that the kin is 
 regarded as one entire life, one body, whereof each 
 unit is more than metaphorically a member, a limb. 
 The same blood runs through them all, and " the blood 
 is the life." Literally they may not all be descended 
 from a common ancestry. Descent is the normal, the 
 typical, cause of kinship and a common blood. It is 
 the legal presupposition : by birth a child enters a kin 
 for good and ill. But kinship may also be acquired ; 
 and when once it is acquired by a stranger he ranks 
 thenceforth for all purposes as one descended from the 
 common ancestor. To acquire kinship a ceremony 
 must be undergone : the blood of the candidate for 
 admission into the kin must be mingled with that of 
 the kin. This ceremony, no less than the words made 
 use of in various lan^^uaoes to describe the members of 
 the kin and their common bond, renders it clear that 
 the bond is the bond of blood. 
 
 The mino-lino; of blood — the Blood-covenant as it is 
 called — is a simple though repulsive rite. It is suffi- 
 cient that an incision be made in the neophyte's arm 
 and the flowing blood sucked from It by one of the 
 clansmen, upon whom the operation is repeated in turn 
 by the neophyte. Originally, perhaps, all the clans- 
 men assembled as witnesses if not as actual participants 
 of the rite ; and even yet participation by more than 
 one representative is frequently required. The exact 
 form is not always the same. Sometimes the blood is 
 dropped into a cup and diluted with some other drink. 
 Sometimes food eaten together is impregnated with the 
 blood. Sometimes a species of inoculation is practised 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 259 
 
 or it is enough to rub the bleeding wounds together, 
 so that the blood of both parties is mixed and smeared 
 upon them both. Among certain tribes of Borneo the 
 drops are allowed to fall upon a leaf, which is then 
 made up into a cigar with tobacco and lighted and 
 smoked alternately by both parties/ But whatever 
 may be the exact form adopted, the essence of the rite 
 is the same, and its range is extraordinarily wide. It is 
 mentioned by classical writers as practised by the Arabs 
 the Scythians the Lydians and Iberians of Asia Minor 
 and apparently the Medes. Many passages of the 
 Bible, many of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, are 
 inexplicable apart from it. Ancient Arab historians 
 are full of allusions to it. Odin and Loki entered 
 into the bond, which means that it was customary 
 among; the Norsemen — as we know in fact from other 
 sources. It is recorded by Giraldus of the Irish of his 
 day ; and it still lingered as lately as two hundred 
 years ago among the western islanders of Scotland. 
 It is related of the Huns or Magyars and of the 
 mediaeval Roumanians. Joinville ascribes it to one of 
 the tribes of the Caucasus ; and the Rabbi Petachia 
 of Ratisbon, who travelled in Ukrainia in the twelfth 
 century, found it there. In modern times every African 
 traveller mentions it ; many of them have had to un- 
 dergo the ceremony. In the neighbouring island of 
 Madagascar it is well known. All over the Eastern 
 Archipelago, in the Malay peninsula, among the 
 Karens, the Siamese, the Dards on the northern 
 border of our Indian empire and many of the 
 aboriginal tribes of Bengal and Central India the 
 wild tribes of China, the Syrians of Lebanon and 
 
 ^ Roth, Saraivak, ii. 206. 
 
26o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 the Bedouins, and among various autochthonous 
 peoples of North and South America, the rite is or has 
 been within recent times in use.^ Nor has it ceased to 
 be practised in Europe by the Gipsies and the 
 Southern Slavs. In the French department of Aube, 
 when a child bleeds he puts a little of his blood on the 
 face or hands of one of his playfellows and says to him : 
 "Thou shalt be my cousin." In like manner in New 
 England, when a school-girl not many years since 
 pricked her finger so that the blood came, one of her 
 companions would say : " Oh ! let me suck the blood ; 
 then we shall be friends." Something more than 
 vestiges of the rite remain among the Italians of the 
 Abruzzi. And the band of the Mala Vita, a society for. 
 criminal purposes in Southern Italy only broken up a 
 few years ago, was a brotherhood formed by the blood- 
 covenant. Indeed many secret societies both civilised 
 and uncivilised have adopted an initiation-rite of which 
 the blood-covenant forms part, either actually or by 
 symbol representing an act once literally performed. 
 
 That the blood-covenant, whereby blood-brother- 
 hood is assumed, is not a primeval rite is obvious from 
 its artificial character. At the same time its barbarism 
 and the wide area over which it is spread point 
 with certainty to its early evolution, and the fact 
 that it is in unison with conceptions essentially and 
 universally human. It has its basis in ideas which 
 must have been pre-existent. Even among races like 
 the Polynesians, and the Turanian inhabitants of 
 
 1 So far as I am aware it is expressly recorded only of the 
 Seminoles in North America (Featherman, Aoneo-Mar. 172), a 
 tribe in Yucatan and a tribe in Brazil (Trumbull, 54, 55. citing 
 authorities) ; but practices in other tribes point to the underlying 
 idea. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 261 
 
 Northern Europe and Asia, where the rite itself may 
 not be recorded, there are unmistakable traces of the 
 influence of those ideas. On the other hand where, 
 as among- some of the peoples included above, it 
 has ceased to be used for the purpose of admission 
 to a clan, the rite or some transparent modifica- 
 tion of it, has continued in use for the reconciliation 
 of ancient foes or the solemnisation of a specially 
 bindino" league/ 
 
 In a society organised by the bond of blood, and 
 where descent is reckoned through females only, the 
 father is not recosfnised as belonoino- to the kin of the 
 children. Among matrilineal peoples exogamy, or 
 marriage outside the kin, is usually if not always 
 compulsory. So far is this carried that the artificial 
 tie of the blood-covenant is a barrier to marriage. 
 When Cuchulainn in the Irish saga of The Wooing of 
 Enter wounded his love, Dervorofil, in the form of a 
 sea-bird with a stone from his sling, he became her 
 blood-brother by sucking from tlie wound the stone 
 with a clot of blood round it. "I cannot wed thee 
 now," he said, " for I have drunk thy blood. But I 
 will give thee to my companion here, Lugaid of the 
 Red Stripes." And so it was done.-^ This tale beyond 
 doubt reflects the custom among the ancient Irish. 
 The islanders of Wetar in the East Indies, to select 
 only one other example, represent even an earlier 
 
 1 There is one doubtful account of its use among the descendants 
 of Genghis Khan for this purpose (see the passage quoted and 
 commented on by M. Rene Basset, Rev. Trad. Pop. x. 176). As 
 to the subject generally, see Robertson Smith {Kinship; and Rel. 
 San.) ; Trumbull, The Blood Covenant (London, 1S87); Strack, Das 
 J5/?^^ (Mlinchen, 1900). 
 
 ^ Eleanor Hull, The Cuchidlin Saga, 82. 
 
262 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 stage in the development of the custom. They live 
 in hamlets the inhabitants of which are usually related 
 to one another, and often at odds with the inhabitants 
 of adjacent hamlets. But sometimes these quarrels 
 are made up and a blood-covenant is entered into, 
 after which no intermarriage can take place.^ 
 
 The alien position of the father with regard to his 
 children, and consequently the small account taken of 
 him, has never been more vividly illustrated than by 
 Miss Kingsleyc She relates that on landing in French 
 Congo she went to comply with the tiresome ad- 
 ministrative regulations by reporting herself and 
 obtaining a permit to reside in the colony. While 
 she was waiting in the office of the Directeur deT 
 Administration a black man was shown in. " He is 
 clad in a blue serge coat, from underneath which float 
 over a pair of blue canvas trousers the tails of a 
 flannel shirt, and on his feet are a pair of ammunition 
 boots that fairly hobble him. His name, the interpreter 
 says, is Joseph. 'Who is your father?' says the 
 official. Clerk interprets into trade English. ' Fader ? ' 
 says Joseph. ' Yes, fader,' says the interpreter. ' My 
 fader?' says Joseph. 'Yes,' says the interpreter; 
 ' who's your fader ? ' ' Who my fader? ' says Joseph. 
 ' Take him away and let him think about it,' says the 
 officer with a sad sardonic smile. Joseph is alarmed and 
 volunteers name of mother ; this is no good ; this sort 
 of information any fool can give ; Government is collect- 
 ins: information of a more recondite and interestinof 
 character. Joseph is removed by Senegal soldiers, 
 boots and all."^ Nobody on the west coast of Africa 
 reckons descent through his father. Whether he knows 
 ^ Riedel, 446. ^ Kingsley, Trav. 109. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 263 
 
 who is his father or not is very oiten of no consequence 
 to his social or legal position. The native law of the 
 Bavili (and the same is true of other tribes) draws no 
 distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. 
 " Birth," we are told by a keen observer who has lived 
 for many years in intimate converse with the natives, 
 '"sanctifies the child :"^ birth alone grives him status 
 as a member of his mother's family. The French 
 cast-iron regulations, made for a different race and a 
 different latitude, puzzled and confounded poor 
 Joseph by the unexpected and absurd questions they 
 required to be put to him. Miss Kingsley sarcastically 
 observes: "As he's going to Boma, in the Congo 
 Free State, it can only be for ethnological purposes 
 that the French Government are taking this trouble 
 to get up his genealogy." Joseph does not understand 
 the French government any more than the French 
 government understands him ; and he has never 
 traced his genealogy along those lines before. 
 
 Joseph was a member of a Bantu tribe ; but the 
 case is the same among- the Neg-roes. The Fanti of 
 the Gold Coast may be taken as typical. Among 
 them, while an intensity of affection, accounted for 
 partly by the fact that the mothers have the exclusive 
 care of the children, is felt for the mother, " the father 
 is hardly known or [is] disregarded," notwithstanding 
 he may be a wealthy and powerful man and the legal 
 husband of the mother." In North America Charle- 
 voix says that among the Algonkin nations the 
 children belonged to and only recognised their mother. 
 The father was always a stranger, "so nevertheless 
 that if he is not regarded as father he is always 
 
 ^ Dennett, /oMr«. Afr. Soc. i. 265. - /. A. I. xxvi. 145. 
 
264 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 respected as the master of the cabin." ^ In Europe 
 among the Transylvanian Gipsies " a man enters the 
 clan of his wife, but does not really belong to it until she 
 has borne a child. He never during his life shows the 
 slightest concern for the welfare of his children, and 
 the mother has to bear the whole burden of their 
 maintenance. Even if the father is living, the son 
 often never knows him, nor even has seen him."" 
 Among the Orang Mamaq of Sumatra the members of 
 a suku, or clan, live together, and the feeling of kin- 
 ship is very strong. As marriage within the clan is 
 forbidden, husband and wife rarely dwell under one 
 roof ; when they do, it is because the husband goes to 
 the wife's home. But he does not become a member 
 of the family, which consists merely of the mother and 
 her children. The latter belong solely to their 
 mother's clan ; the father has no rights over them ; 
 and there is no kinship between him and them. In 
 consequence of the spread of foreign influences the 
 true family has begun to develop in a section of these 
 people inhabiting the district of Tiga Loeroeng, The 
 husband and wife usually live together, but the home 
 is with the wife's clan. Though the husband is 
 considered a member of the family he exercises little 
 power over the children. They belong to their 
 mother's suku, and the. po^esfas, as usual in such cases, 
 is in the hands of her eldest brother.^ 
 
 A corollary of the principle that the father is not 
 akin to his children is that children of the same father 
 by different mothers are not reckoned as brothers and 
 
 1 Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France^ v. 424. 
 ^ Potter, 116, citing von Wlislocki, Vom zvandernde Zigeiiner- 
 volke. 3 Bijdragen, xxxix. 43, 44. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 265 
 
 sisters. This is the rule of the Papuan tribe settled 
 about Mowat on the Daudai coast of British New 
 Guinea,^ and indeed wherever motherright is pure and 
 uncomplicated by rules which prescribe or presume 
 the marriage of two or more sisters respectively to two 
 or more brothers. Such children may accordingly 
 intermarry. This permission however sometimes tends 
 to be restricted, as among the Bayaka, of whom we 
 are told that " marriao-e between children of the same 
 mother is prohibited ; between children of the same 
 father it occurs, but is considered unseemly." " On the 
 other hand it sometimes persists for a time, even a 
 considerable time, among patrilineal peoples. By the 
 laws of Athens children of the same father, but 
 apparently not of the same mother, were allowed to 
 intermarry.^ The same rule prevailed in Japan.* 
 According to Hebrew legend Sarah was the daughter 
 of Abraham's father, but not of his mother. And 
 when Amnon, King David's son, sought to ravish his 
 half-sister Tamar, in the course of her protest and 
 struggles she said : " Now therefore I pray thee, speak 
 unto the kino; ; for he will not withhold me from 
 thee,"^ That is: while she resented the indignity 
 
 1 Haddon, /. A. I. xix. 467. The Yorubas of the Slave Coast of 
 West Africa now reckon descent through the father. They perhaps 
 owe the change to intercourse with the Mohammedan tribes of the 
 interior. Be this as it may, so strong even yet is the influence of 
 uterine kinship that children of the same father by different mothers 
 are by many natives hardly considered true blood -relations (Ellis, 
 Yoruba, 176). 
 
 ^ J. A. I. xxxvi. 45. 
 
 * Maclennan, Studies, i. 223, quoting the Leges Atticcp. 
 
 * Rev. Hist. Rel. 1. 328 note ; Aston, Shinto, 249. Traces are 
 also found among the Slavs (Kovalevsky, 13). 
 
 ^ Gen. XX. 12; 2 Sam. xiii. 1 3. 
 
266 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 offered by her brother out of mere passing lust, 
 marriage with him would have been legitimate and 
 honourable. It is not necessary to contend that these 
 stories are narratives of literal fact. There is no 
 trustworthy evidence that they are. At the same 
 time they are of high antiquity, and must have 
 originated in a social condition where the incidents 
 were not so far removed from daily life as to be 
 incredible or even surprising. In that social condition 
 kinship must have been counted only through the 
 mother, or matrilineal having passed into patrilineal 
 descent certain vestigial customs must have remained 
 over from the prior stage. The incidents cited are 
 therefore justly regarded as among the witnesses 
 preserved to us that before the dawn of history the 
 ancient Hebrews had traversed the stao-e of mother- 
 right. 
 
 Among the inhabitants of Southern India the 
 Nambiitiri Brahmans are the aristocracy. They are a 
 sacerdotal and landowning caste. Next to them in 
 rank are the Nayars whose organisation and customs 
 have often been the subject of discussion by anthro- 
 pologists. They seem^ to have been in former times 
 the military caste of the western coast. They present 
 a typical case of motherright, but one that has been 
 emphasised and preserved for the advantage of the 
 Nambiitiri Brahmans, since their virtual subjugation 
 by that intrusive caste. The Nambiitiris are of 
 Aryan origin. Like all other Indian Aryans they are 
 patrilineal. In order to maintain their supremacy, the 
 Brahmans everywhere follow a custom known as 
 hypergamy, by which a man may marry or have sexual 
 relations with a woman of lower rank, but no man of 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 267 
 
 lower rank may marry into a caste above his own. 
 Among the Nambutiris a further rule obtains by which 
 the eldest son alone enters into lawful wedlock. He, 
 indeed, may have as many as four wives ; but his 
 brothers are in general prohibited from marriage, or 
 at all events their marriages are extremely rare. But 
 this is not to say that younger sons are condemned to 
 a life of celibacy. Their needs are supplied by the 
 Nayars. Before a Niyar maiden attains puberty she 
 is required to be married by the rite of tying the tali, 
 a small golden ornament worn on the neck, and the 
 ordinary badge of marriage among the Dravidian 
 peoples of Southern India. It is not quite clear 
 whethv^r this ceremony confers the rights of a husband 
 on the 7nanavalan, or bridegfroom. Whether it does 
 so or not, on the fourth day he is required to divorce 
 her by cutting in two the cloth which she wears. 
 The ceremonies having all been performed in the 
 house where she and her family reside, the 7nanavalan 
 departs and has no more to do with her. The next 
 business is to get her a real husband. It is arranged 
 by the kdranavan, or head of the family, with the 
 head of the bridegroom's family. No religious form- 
 ality is required, as with the previous rite. All that 
 is necessary is the consent of the bride and bridegroom 
 and of their respective families. In South Malabar 
 husband and wife do not even live together. The 
 wife continues to reside with her own family, and the 
 husband visits her there, in North Malabar a special 
 ceremony is performed, after which the bridegroom is 
 allowed to take the bride to live at his house ; but 
 (and this is important) in case of his death she must 
 leave the house and return to her own home at once, 
 
268 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 before his body is carried out. She has neither part 
 nor lot in the funeral ceremonies, nor in any property 
 of her husband. Both in North and South Malabar 
 either party may terminate the union and contract a 
 new one at pleasure. It is matter of dispute whether 
 a woman may have more than one husband (and 
 consequently whether a husband may have more than 
 one wife) at the same time. The older accounts 
 affirmed it. Nowadays it is fiercely denied, though 
 there is distinct evidence of it at a recent date in 
 Travancore. The probability is that this was the 
 custom, but that it is dying out under modern in- 
 fluences.^ " In consequence of this strange manner 
 of propagating the species," we are told, " no Nair 
 knows his father, and every man looks upon his 
 sister's children as his heirs. He indeed looks upon 
 them with the same fondness that fathers in other 
 parts of the world have for their own children ; and he 
 would be considered an unnatural monster were he to 
 show such signs of grief at the death of a child, which, 
 from long cohabitation and love with its mother, he 
 might suppose to be his own, as he did at the death of 
 a child of his sister. A man's mother manasfes his 
 family ; and after her death his eldest sister assumes 
 the direction. Brothers almost always live under the 
 same roof ; but if one of the family separates from the 
 rest he is always accompanied by his favourite sister. 
 ... A man's movable property after his death is 
 divided amono' the sons and daug-hters of all his 
 sisters. His landed estate is managed by the eldest 
 
 ^ Madras Govt. Mus. Bull. iii. 33, 34, 228 sqq.; hid. Census, 
 1 90 1 (Cochin), XX. 152, 160; (Travancore), xxvi. 327 sqq. ; /, A .1. 
 xii. 288 sqq. ; Thurston, 115 sqq. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 269 
 
 male of the family ; but each individual has a right to 
 a share of the income." ^ 
 
 Now the way in which the Nayars supply the sexual 
 needs of the Nambiitiris is by providing them with 
 consorts who, not being married by Brahman rites, 
 are not regarded as legitimate wives by the Nambiitiris, 
 though the union is quite regular by Nayar custom. 
 The Brahman rule of hypergamy is entirely in harmony 
 with this, for a Brahman may have sexual relations 
 with a woman of any caste. Among many Nayar 
 families the women mate with none but Nambiitiris, 
 and all Nayar women must mate either with Nambiitiris 
 or with Nayars. The children of such unions, whether 
 with Nambiitiris or with Nayars, reckon as Nayars, 
 and belong to the mother's family and clan. A Nambii- 
 tiri father cannot therefore touch his own children 
 by his Nayar consort without pollution, which requires 
 ceremonial bathino- to remove.^ Similar marriag-e 
 customs are followed by other castes in the south 
 of India. ^ 
 
 The fact that the children do not belong to the 
 father's kin leads in extreme cases to father and son's 
 being found in arms against one another. The popu- 
 lation of the Mortlock Islands is divided into stocks 
 or kins. Each kin inhabits a separate district and 
 forms a little state. As the children belong to the 
 mother's stock each of these districts comprises the 
 group of persons exclusively tracing descent from the 
 same maternal ancestor. It also comprises as residents 
 
 ^ Buchanan, Joitrney, ii. 412. Cf. Madras Govt, Mus. Bull. iii. 
 45; Ind. Cens. 1901, xx. 154 sqq. 
 
 2 Madras Govt. Mtts. Bull. iii. 67, 225. 
 
 3 In addition to the authorities cited in previous notes, see 
 Mateer, 172, 82, 87, 103. 
 
270 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 more or less permanent the husbands of women of the 
 stock ; for the rule of exogamy prevails, and the men 
 who are thus married to women of another stock 
 are required to take up their abode with them and 
 cultivate their land. Beside this, however, they do 
 not cease to possess their own land at their own 
 home, the produce of which for the most part they 
 bring to their wives' families. Only elder men and 
 chiefs are allowed to bring their wives and children 
 to live with them ; but such wives and children do not 
 cease to belong to their own home and stock ; the 
 children as they grow up very often visit it ; the sons 
 cultivate property there which belongs to them ; and 
 their allegfiance is due to it. The writer to whom we 
 are indebted for the information states generally of 
 the Caroline Islands (but apparently his statement 
 is to be understood more definitely of the social 
 arrangements of the Mortlock Islanders) that "the 
 children are real children only to the mother ; to the 
 father on the other hand they are strangers not belong- 
 ing to his kin. In case of war between two kins father 
 and son take opposite sides as enemies." ^ The popu- 
 lation of Malekula, one of the islands of the New 
 Hebrides, appears to be similarly organised. Though 
 members of more stocks than one may live mingled in 
 the same village, the villages to which they properly 
 belong are well known, for " in speaking of the men 
 of a village natives never forget to tell you the villages 
 to which the different individuals belong." Descent 
 is reckoned through the mother ; in war the children 
 take the side of her kin, "even although they 
 
 ^ Wilken, Verwantschap, 756, citing an article by Kubary in 
 the Mitt, der geog. Geseltschaft in Hamburg. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 271 
 
 may live in another village." ^ Among the Papuas 
 about Blanche Bay a man's sons follow their maternal 
 uncle, and oppose their father and his kindred in 
 batde.^ 
 
 Many cases of personal combat between father and 
 son have been collected by Mr. Potter in his book on 
 Sohrab and Rusteni from literature and popular 
 tradition in various parts of the world, especially from 
 the older civilised countries of Europe and Southern 
 Asia. The learned author traces them with great 
 probability to the customs involved in the reckoning 
 of matrilineal descent. In most cases, it is true, the 
 antaoronists enoaae one another in io-norance of their 
 relationship. This is natural, since the tales have 
 usually received the form in which they are now told 
 among peoples no longer in the stage of motherright. 
 To such peoples a combat between father and son 
 would seem unnatural, and must be explained away. 
 An archaic custom, to be considered more fully here- 
 after, by which women received transitory lovers, has 
 favoured the prevalent type of explanation. Many of 
 the examples of combat brought forward in Mr. Potter's 
 work, exhibit the combatants as champions on opposite 
 sides in a war between two peoples, and may be 
 referred to customs of the kind just illustrated. There 
 are, however, a certain number defiant of such a classi- 
 fication. Among them is a legend of the Ingush of 
 the Caucasus, not mentioned by Mr. Potter. It 
 relates that a certain Chopa consorted in the forest 
 with a supernatural lady, who bore him two daughters. 
 To put his courage to proof on one occasion she left 
 
 ^ Rep. Australian Ass. iv. 698, 706. 
 
 2 Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 352, quoting Hahl. 
 
272 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 him alone in the forest, warning him that at midnight 
 he would see the Forest-man, another supernatural 
 being who haunted its gloomy depths. Accordingly 
 at midnight he met the monster, and at once fired on 
 him, wounding him fatally. The dying monster re- 
 vealed himself as the brother of the lady with whom 
 Chopa dwelt. She herself afterwards cast it in his 
 teeth that he had murdered her brother. But she did 
 not refuse to continue cohabitation on that account, 
 and a son was born as the result. Fearful that he 
 might avenge his uncle's death, Chopa, as his son grew 
 up, ceased to resort to the forest. His forecast was 
 justified ; for one day he met his son ; a struggle 
 ensued ; and the son left his father, not indeed slain, 
 but wounded and robbed, by way of vengeance for his 
 uncle's death. ^ 
 
 This is no mere story of a battle between contending 
 peoples ; it is an exampl^^ of a much more poignant 
 character. We may disregard the supernatural 
 elements of the tale as not for our present purpose 
 relevant. The tribes of the Caucasus have now long 
 since passed from motherright, but there linger among 
 them more than one relic of the former social condition. 
 The blood-feud is an institution not peculiar to tribes 
 reckoning descent through females ; and it is still in 
 force. By virtue of its requirements every member of 
 a kin, one of whom had suffered at the hands of a 
 member of another kin, was bound to avenge the 
 wrong upon the latter kin. Such is the solidarity 
 between members of a kin that vensfeance mio"ht be 
 taken upon any member of the offending kin, though 
 he might be personally quire innocent. In the 
 
 ^ Darinsky, Zetts, vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 192, citing Achrijeff. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 273 
 
 growth of civilisation vengeance has gradually come to 
 be concentrated upon the offender only. Under 
 motherright relatives through the mother were alone 
 liable to the duty of vengeance ; and where the father 
 or a member of his kin was guilty, he would not be 
 spared in pursuit of the end in view. It may be con- 
 fidently said that a few generations ago an Ingush 
 would not have scrupled — indeed, would have regarded 
 it as his duty — to avenge his kin even upon his own 
 father, just as Chopa's son does, if not in a more extreme 
 fashion. 
 
 The subject of the blood-feud is so important in 
 this connection that it is worth while followinof it 
 further. In so doing we will confine ourselves to 
 some of those cases in which our reports bring out 
 the position of the husband and father in strong con- 
 trast to his wife and her kin, including his children. 
 Starting then from the Caucasus, among the Chechen 
 (a tribe related to the Ingush) the murderer of a son, 
 although he might be subjected to no blood-feud or 
 ransom, was compelled formally to make his peace 
 with the relations of the victim's mother ; and in fact 
 it sometimes happened that the other sons (where 
 there were any) avenged their brother's death on 
 their own father. Among the Kumiks if one murdered 
 his brother by a different mother a blood-feud arose 
 between him and the surviving brothers born of the 
 mother of the murdered man. Blood-feud cannot arise 
 between members of the same kin ; hence if a brother 
 by the same mother were murdered there would 
 of course be none. In southern Daghestan the 
 murderer of a wife was required to pay her kinsmen 
 ransom ; and if she left sons by him they shared 
 
274 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in the sum paid/ If a Chevsur husband murder his 
 wife, he is required to pay blood-money to her brother.^ 
 In our own island among the ancient Welsh, the law 
 declared that when a man was murdered compensation 
 for the personal injury or indignity to him (called 
 saraad) was due as well as the galanas or blood-money, 
 compensation for his value as a member of the stock. 
 Of the saraad or compensation for the personal affront 
 the wife was entitled to a share. In the g-a/anas or 
 compensation to the stock she had no interest : it was 
 divided among his relatives. In the same way if a 
 wife were slain her husband obtained a share of the 
 saraad, but to the galafias he had no claim. And 
 inasmuch as the liability to pay was commensurate 
 with the right to receive gala^ias neither husband nor 
 wife was liable for homicide by the other.^ 
 
 Turning to the African continent we shall find the 
 same rule in even a more startling form, for mother- 
 right is still in full force over a large part of its area, 
 and where that stage has been passed much more than 
 traces linger. The Beni Amer on the shores of the 
 Red Sea and in the Barka valley have accepted Islam, 
 and with it of course a very different method of social 
 organisation from that of motherright, but not without 
 concessions to the older family ties. Thus when a 
 woman is murdered, the duty of revenge falls not on 
 her husband but on her blood-relations.'^ Further 
 to the south, the Kunama have not yet wholly 
 surrendered to the Mohammedan propaganda, and 
 
 ^ Darinsky, Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 196, 197. 
 
 ^ Kovalevsky, U Anthropologic, iv. 273. 
 
 3 Atident Laws and Institutes of Wales, 109, no, 112, 113, 199, 
 226, 253, 342, 364, 398, 554, 555. All the Welsh codes were 
 practically the same in this respect. * Munzinger, 321, 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 275 
 
 even among converts the acceptance of the new faith 
 is superficial. A Kundma husband never avenges his 
 wife's death unless the murder be committed in his 
 presence. That duty falls in the first place on 
 her children, failing them on her brothers by the 
 same mother or on her sister's son. Conversely, neither 
 a man's father nor his children are responsible for him, 
 but his brothers by the same mother or his sister's 
 son ; and they pay or receive as the case may be the 
 price of blood. The father who kills or sells his own 
 child is brought to account by the child's uncle on the 
 mother's side.^ 
 
 On the other side of the continent in Gaboon and 
 in Ashanti we are told that when a woman gets into 
 a "palaver," or lawsuit, her own family and not her 
 husband becomes involved.^ In German South-west 
 Africa the old matrilineal orofanisation of the Herero 
 in oma-anda (pi. of eanda), or clans, is in process of 
 supersession by a corresponding patrilineal organisation 
 in otiizo (pi. of ortczo), which has taken over most of 
 the characteristic rights and duties of the o?na-anda. 
 The blood-feud, however, remains in the eanda, and 
 has not yet passed to the oruzo. Consequently if a 
 father neglect a child so that it dies — nay, apparently if 
 his wife or child die without any fault on his part — he 
 is compelled to pay compensation to his wife's kin.^ 
 Further north, amon;^ the Mundombe the husband on 
 his wife's death, whatever may be the cause of death, 
 pays a blood-fine to her relatives. Among the 
 
 ^ Munzinger, 48S, 490, 499, 503. 
 ' Bowdich, 437, 260. 
 
 ' Dannert, 10; Kohler, Zeits. vergl. Rechisvu. xiv. 307, quoting 
 authorities. 
 
276 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Ganguellas when a woman dies in childbed, her 
 husband pays not only the expense of burial but also 
 compensation to her kin ; if he fail in doing so, he 
 becomes their slave.^ The Wazaramo of the Lake 
 Region also have a custom that the parents of a 
 woman who dies in childbed demand a certain sum from 
 '* the man that killed their daughter." ^ The Baganda 
 attribute death in childbed to adultery. In such a case 
 the woman's relatives fine the husband, because they 
 say they did not marry her to two men, and he has 
 allowed her adultery by negligence. The fine is two 
 women, or two cows two goats two hoes and two bark- 
 cloths.^ The Bambala, inhabiting the Congo State 
 between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu, require a husband 
 "to abstain from his wife for about a year after child- 
 birth, during which time the child is suckled ; nor may 
 he resume intercourse without his father-in-law's 
 permission, which is granted on payment of Kutusa 
 Mwana, a present of two goats. It is believed that 
 an infraction of this rule would prove fatal to the 
 woman, and in the event of her death soon after child- 
 birth the husband is accused of being the cause and 
 heavily fined, or more often compelled to submit to 
 the poison ordeal."^ The permission of the father-in- 
 law is an indication of the decay of strict matrilineal 
 organisation. Among the Basanga on the south-west 
 of Lake Moeru children other than those of slaves 
 belong entirely to the mother and her kin. Conse- 
 quently, if a child were " lost or devoured by wild 
 
 ^ Kohler, loc. cit. citing Serpa Pinto. 
 ^ Burton, Lake Regions, i. 115. 
 ' Rev. J. Roscoe, /. A. I. xxxii. 39. 
 Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxv. 410. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 277 
 
 animals, the father would have to pay its value to his 
 wife's relations." ^ 
 
 The child is regarded by many of the African 
 peoples as so entirely the property of the kin that he 
 is liable to be given in pledge for their debts. Among 
 the Bavili " the mother alone has the right to pawn 
 her child ; but she must first consult the father, so that 
 he may have the chance of giving her goods to save 
 the pledging. The father cannot pledge his child. The 
 brother can pawn the sister, or the uncle his niece, the 
 mother being dead. But the father being alive the 
 uncle must first ^o to him to g-ive him the chance of 
 helping him out of his difficulty by means of a loan of 
 goods. ... A person is never free from being pawned 
 in this way." The father, however, always has the 
 right to ransom the child.^ This is doubtless one stage 
 on the way to fatherright. On the Ivory Coast the 
 Alladians take account only of the maternal descent. 
 As among the Bavili, there is no distinction between 
 legitimate and illegitimate children. The whole 
 organisation is based on uterine parentage. *'The 
 father's authority scarcely exists, and from the civil 
 point of view he is not the parent of his children." 
 Children cannot be sold, but they may be pledged for 
 the debts of their etiocos or kindred. The father 
 cannot pledge them : he is not one of the kin. But 
 the maternal uncle may do so, without any limit of 
 age ; though if he seek to pledge a married niece he 
 must first give her husband the opportunity of making 
 the necessary loan. The father cannot be made 
 responsible for his children's debts ; the mother is 
 
 ^ Arnot, Garenganse, 242. 
 
 2 Dennett, Journ. Afr. Soc. i. 266. 
 
278 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 responsible, and may even be taken in pledge for them. 
 But she cannot pledge them for her debts without the 
 authority of her brother, or other the eldest etioco} 
 Among the Ga of the Gold Coast the uncles or aunts, 
 especially if older than the mother, can take the 
 children away, make use of them, pledge or give them 
 in marriage at their pleasure.^ 
 
 On the other side of the Indian Ocean and en many 
 of the Pacific islands the alien character of liusband 
 and father is as strongly marked as in any African 
 tribe. On Yaluit, one of the Marshall Islands, there is 
 no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate 
 children. On Nauru, another of the same group, 
 although fatherright has begun to develop and has 
 succeeded in excluding illegitimate children from their 
 mother's inheritance, motherright is still so strong that 
 when a man is slain his children are excluded from the 
 weregeld, which falls to his brothers and sisters.^ In 
 the Talauer Islands of the East Indies in case of the 
 wife's adultery compensation is made on the part of the 
 guilty man to her parents. Among the aboriginal 
 tribes of Manipur "on the death of a wife her father 
 demands munda (literally bone-money) from the 
 husband, or if he be dead the late husband's nearest 
 relative. On the death of a child mufida is also 
 demanded by the wife's father."'* In the case of two 
 of these tribes, the Kukis and the Kabul Nagas, the 
 sum payable on a wife's death is the same as that 
 
 ^ Journ. Afr. Soc. \. 411; Clozel and Villamur, 399. The 
 Brignans are a stage nearer to full fatherright. The maternal 
 uncle's right among them does not arise until the father's death 
 {Ibid. 461). 2 Globus, xciv. 137. 
 
 ^ Kohler, Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 423, 422, citing authorities. 
 
 47. A. I. xvi. 138, 355. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 279 
 
 originally paid tor her as bride at the time of marriage/ 
 On the Tami Islands when a child dies the father 
 makes presents to the mother's kin. He calls it 
 " buying the child " ; but obviously, as Dr. Kohler 
 remarks, the father is held responsible for the death, 
 and redeems his liability with a gift.' The Maori 
 father is in a much worse plight, for though descent 
 is reckoned in the paternal line fatherright is hardly 
 yet followed out to its logical consequences. When a 
 child dies or even meets with an accident unattended with 
 fatal results the mother's relatives headed by her brother 
 turn out in force against the father. He must defendhim- 
 self until he is wounded. Blood once drawn the combat 
 ceases ; but the attacking party plunders his house and 
 appropriates everything on which hands can be laid, 
 finally sitting down to a feast provided by the bereaved 
 father.^ The entire clan in fact is held to have been 
 injured because one of its members (as under uterine 
 descent the child would be) has suffered, and his father 
 (who does not belong to the clan) is held responsible 
 and makes in this way compensation. 
 
 1 /. A. I. xxxi. 305. If the parents he dead, the husband has 
 to pay their heirs. 
 
 - Zeits. vcrgl. Rechtsiu. xiv. 351. A similar custom in Fiji, Anthro- 
 pos,\. 93. ^-2 
 
 ^ Old Nevo Zealand, no ; Wilken, Ferivants. 757, citing Bastian. 
 So Mr. Shortland relates that " on a certain occasion when the wife 
 of a young chief had been guilty of infidelity, her father uncles and 
 other relations to the number of nearly one liundred made a descent 
 on the village of her husband and father-in-law, and remained there 
 three days feasting on their pigs, which they caught and killed with- 
 out opposition." The reason they gave for acting in this manner 
 was that the wife had been tempted to commit the fault in order to 
 avenge herself for her husband's neglect (Shortland, 235). The 
 blame of her misconduct was thus laid to his charge and reparation 
 exacted by her insulted relatives. 
 
28o PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 An illustration still more abhorrent to our feelings 
 of the alien character of the father is given by 
 Mr. J. C. Callbreath as occurring within his own 
 experience among the Tahl-tan of British Columbia. 
 " Kinship," he says, "so far as marriage or inheritance 
 of property goes, is with the mother exclusively ; and 
 the father is not considered a relative by blood. At 
 his death his children inherit none of his property, 
 which all goes to the relatives on his mother's side. 
 Even though a man's father or his children may be 
 starving, they would get none of his property at his 
 death. I have known an instance where a rich Indian 
 would not go out, or even contribute to send others 
 out, to search for his aged and blind father who was 
 lost and starvino- in the mountains. Not counting- his 
 father as a relative, he said : ' Let his people go and 
 search for him.' Yet this man was an over-average 
 good Indian."^ The Haida of Queen Charlotte 
 Islands are divided into two strictly exogamic clans, 
 the Raven and the Eagle. Marriage within the clan 
 was viewed " almost as incest is by us. On the other 
 hand, the members of the opposite clan were frequently 
 considered downright enemies. Even husbands and 
 wives did not hesitate to betray each other to death in 
 the interests of their own families. At times it almost 
 appears as if each marriage were an alliance between 
 opposite tribes ; a man begetting offspring rather for 
 his wife than for himself, and being inclined to see his 
 real descendants rather in his sister's children than in 
 his own. They it was who succeeded to his position 
 and carried down his family line."^ 
 
 1 Quoted by Dr. Da.wson, Ann. Rep. Geolog. Survey Canada, 1887, 
 p. 7 of offprint. 2 'S,\{a.nton,JesitpExpeci. v. 62. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 281 
 
 Enough has now been said to exhibit the alien 
 position occupied among" matrilineal peoples by the 
 father in regard to his children. Other aspects of the 
 social oroanisation will come under discussion here- 
 after. Meanwhile, it remains to complete the picture 
 by showing how the duties of head of the family are 
 fulfilled, and in whom the authority — or, according to 
 the technical term, \hQ potestas — is vested. We have 
 seen that among many of the African peoples 
 the mother's brother has o^reater rio^hts over a child 
 than the father, and that the duty of blood-revenge 
 falls to him, even against the father. Wherever 
 progress has been made in the organisation of the 
 family, and motherright is still the basis of organisa- 
 tion, as over perhaps the greater part of the African 
 continent, the supreme power is vested in the mother's 
 brother or maternal uncle. In Loango the uncle is 
 addressed as Tate (father). He exercises paternal 
 authority over his nephew, whom he can even sell- 
 The father has no power ; and if the husband and 
 wife separate the children follow the mother as 
 belonging to her brother. They inherit from their 
 mother ; the father's property on the other hand goes 
 at his death to his brother (by the same mother) or to 
 his sister's sons,-^ 
 
 The customs of the peoples of the Lower Congo are 
 the same. Around the missionary settlement of 
 Wathen a woman is married by means of a bride- 
 price, the bulk of which is paid to her mother's family, 
 though the father receives a portion. But the wife is 
 not bought as a slave is bought. The husband 
 acquires merely the right to her companionship, and 
 ^ 'Stzsimn, Loango-Kiistey'i. i66. 
 
282 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in case of her death to another wife in her place. He 
 has no control over his children by her. They belong 
 to their mother's family ; and as they grow up they go 
 to live with their uncles.^ Among the Igalwas the 
 father's authority over his children is very slight. 
 " The really responsible male relative," says Miss 
 Kingsley, " is the mother's eldest brother. From him 
 must leave to marry be obtained for either girl or hoy ; 
 to him and the mother must the present be taken 
 which is exacted on the marriaoe of a g-irl ; and 
 should the mother die, on him and not on the father, 
 lies the responsibility of rearing the children ; they go 
 to his house, and he treats and regards them as nearer 
 and dearer to himself than his own children, and at 
 his death, after his own brothers by the same mother, 
 they become his heirs." ^ Two kinds of marriage are 
 known amonor the Bambala. The first is child- 
 marriage. " A little boy of his own free will may 
 declare that a certain little girl is his wife ; by this 
 simple act he acquires a prescriptive right to her. He 
 visits his future parents-in-law and takes them insig- 
 nificant presents. When he is of mature age he gives 
 a larger present, of the value of about 2000 djimbii 
 (a small shell of the species Olivella Nana), and then 
 he is allowed to cohabit with her. Their children 
 belong to the eldest maternal uncle. This form of 
 marriage is attended by no special ceremony. If the 
 girl, when of age, is unwilling, he cannot coerce her ; 
 but if she marries another man, the latter must make 
 him a present of several thousand djimbu,'' The 
 other form of marriage is contracted between adults. 
 The man pays a bride-price from 10,000 to 15,000 
 ^ Bentley, ii. 333. - Kingsley, Trav, 224. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 283 
 
 djimbu to the father or maternal uncle of the bride. In 
 this case the children belong to the father ; but " parents 
 have little authority over their children, who leave 
 them at a very early ag"e." " A man's property is 
 inherited by the eldest son of his eldest sister, or in 
 default by his eldest brother." The mother's brother is 
 the guardian of his sister's children. Here, as we 
 have already seen reason to think, fatherright is 
 beofinninof to make inroads on the orioinal orcranisa- 
 tion. This is confirmed by the further statement that 
 " kinship is reckoned very far on the female side," but 
 " in the male line not beyond the uncle and grand- 
 father,"^ indicating that some kinship is now 
 reckoned on the paternal side. The Bayaka, 
 neighbours of the Bambala, and like them a Bantu 
 people, dwell in small villages, often consisting of 
 not more than two or three huts, presided over by a 
 chief. " Each married woman has a separate hut 
 where she lives with her children, and the husband 
 moves from one to the other ; unmarried men live 
 tooether. several in a hut." " A child belongrs to the 
 village of his maternal uncle. ' The inhabitants of a 
 village regard themselves as akin. It is added that 
 " relationship on the female side is considered closer 
 than that on the male side."- Among the Bangala of 
 the Cassange Valley the chieftainship is elective. This 
 is not unusual where female kinship prevails, for 
 primogeniture has not yet developed, and among a 
 band of equal brothers he who has proved himself the 
 most capable is often preferred. Our information 
 as to the Bangala is very defective. We are told : 
 " The chief is chosen from three families in rotation. 
 
 ^ J. A. I. XXXV. 410, 411. '-^ Ibid, xxxvi. 43, 4.5. 
 
284 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 A chief's brother inherits in preference to his son. 
 The sons of a sister belong to her brother ; and he 
 often sells his nephews to pay his debts." ^ It may be 
 said generally that motherright prevails throughout 
 Angola. " The closest relation is that of mother and 
 child, the next that of nephew or niece and uncle or 
 aunt. The uncle owns his nephews and nieces ; he 
 can sell them, and they are his heirs, not only in 
 private property, but also in the chiefship, if he be a 
 chief."" The father has, among the Kimbunda, no 
 power over his children, even when they are young. 
 Only his children by slaves are considered his propert} 
 and can inherit from him.^ 
 
 To avoid further repetition we may leave the fore- 
 going to stand as examples of the organisation of the 
 western Bantu. They exhibit the mother's brother or 
 maternal uncle as the head of the family with almost 
 absolute power over his sister's children, in which the 
 authority of the father is however beginning to make 
 breaches. Among the Nei^^roes I have already referred 
 to the Alladians. It may be added that the eldest of 
 the etiocos, whether man or woman, is the head of the 
 family. Although during the father's lifetime the 
 children reside with their mother in his house, on his 
 death the sons otq to live with their mother's brother, 
 unless he consent to her retaining them while very 
 young ; the daughters remain with her, but under 
 their uncle's tutelage. Polygamy prevails, but the 
 children of the same father by different mothers 
 scarcely consider that there is any tie between them. 
 Marriages are arranged by the etiocos in council ; and 
 
 ^ Livingstone, Miss. Trav. 434. ^ Chatelain, S. 
 
 3 Post, Afr.Jur. i. 23, citing Magyar. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 285 
 
 apparently unless the bride be a mere child the bride- 
 price is paid to them/ The Ewhe-speaking peoples also 
 trace kinship through females, except the upper classes 
 of Dahomey, among which male kinship is the rule. 
 " The eldest brother is the head of the family, and his 
 heir the brother next in age to himself; if he has no 
 brother his heir is the eldest son of his eldest sister . . , 
 Members of a family have a right to be fed and clothed 
 by the family head ; and the latter has in his turn a 
 right to pawn and in some cases to sell them. The 
 family collectively is responsible for all crimes and 
 injuries to person or property committed by any one 
 of its members, and each member is assessable for 
 a share of the compensation to be paid. On the other 
 hand, each member of the family receives a share of 
 the compensation paid to it for any crime or injury 
 committed against the person or property of any of its 
 members. Compensation is always demanded from 
 the family instead of from the individual wrong-doer, 
 and is paid to the family instead of to the individual 
 wronged."^ 
 
 Among the Ewhe of Anglo in Upper Guinea the 
 maternal uncle has more authority over his sister's 
 sons than their father. Since they succeed to him at 
 his death he requires from them labour and support in 
 his lifetime. The nephew accompanies his uncle on 
 trading journeys, carrying provisions cowries and 
 merchandise. Under his uncle's tuition he thusoradu- 
 
 o 
 
 ally learns to trade, besides other useful work such as 
 weaving and so forth. By-and-by he begins to trade 
 
 1 Clozel, 391, 392, 393, 394, 397. As to the Yoruba and the 
 Egbas, see EUis, Yoruba, 176 ; Journ. Afr. Soc. i. 88. 
 ^ Ellis, Ewe, 207, 2o8j 209. 
 
286 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 on behalf of his father or uncle, accounts to him for the 
 proceeds and receives a share of the profit. And at 
 length his father and uncle too-ether neo;otiate a bride 
 for him. The mother has naturally the charge and 
 teaching of her daughter ; but the father is consulted 
 as to her marriage and cheerfully takes his share of the 
 brandy and other gifts furnished by the bridegroom/ 
 The Fanti Customary Laws have been expounded by 
 Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, in an elaborate treatise 
 which throws much light on the present condition of 
 the Fanti family. Without discussing details, many 
 of which are foreign to our present purpose, it may 
 be stated generally that the Fanti are matrilineal. 
 The head of the family is usually (but not always) the 
 eldest male member in the line of descent. He has 
 control over all the members ; he is their natural 
 guardian ; he alone can sue or be sued, as the repre- 
 sentative of the family, respecting claims on the 
 family possessions. Wit) in his compound the head 
 of a family reigns supreme not only over his younger 
 brothers and sisters and the children of the latter but 
 also over his own wives and children. But he cannot 
 pawn his child without the concurrence of the mother's 
 relations ; and children who have left his compound 
 to reside with their maternal uncle are no longer 
 under his power : they are wholly subject to their 
 uncle.^ The Negro has carried these customs in 
 even a more archaic form to South America. The 
 Bush Negro husband in Surinam does not live with 
 his wife and often has wives in several different places. 
 The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family.^ 
 
 ^ Zeits.f. Ethnol. xxxviii. 43. 2 Sarbah, 31, 39, 50, 86, 5, 9.. 
 
 ^ Potter, 115, citing Zeits. vergl. Rechlsw. xi. 420. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 287 
 
 Among- the peoples of the Eastern side of the 
 African continent the Kunama of northern Abyssinia 
 are as we have seen not yet wholly emancipated from 
 the stage of motherright. The father has a right to 
 his son's earnings until the son marries. But his power 
 extends no further : a child's life and liberty belong to 
 the maternal uncle. In case of death the inheritance 
 goes first to the uterine brother, then to the sister's 
 sons by seniority, failing them to the sisters. The 
 Barea and Baze, who are still without doubt matrilineal 
 hold the relationship between a man and his sister's 
 children to be very close, but they entirely disregard 
 that between father and son. It is the more remark- 
 able that they agree in this since the sexual morality of 
 these two tribes is very different. Among the latter 
 the matrimonial tie is very slight, and adultery is not 
 resented ; while among the former the reverse is the 
 case, and adultery is very rare. Both prefer as children 
 daughters to sons ; a woman returns to her mother's 
 house for her first deliverv : her son often receives her 
 brother's or father's name ; her brother can sell her 
 child, but her husband cannot.^ Amono- the Bo^os 
 when a youth comes of age he presents himself before 
 daybreak at the house of his mother's brother, who 
 comes forth, ceremonially shaves his head, gives him 
 his blessing and a gift of a lance and a young cow.* 
 There could hardly be a plainer recognition of the 
 uncle's position as head of the family. In defiance of 
 
 1 Munzinger, 477, 490, 527, 528. See however the Table of 
 Kinship, p. 448, which seems to relate only to the Kunama. 
 
 - Post, A/r. Jur. i. 16, citing Munzinger. Compare Kilhwch's 
 application to his cousin King Arthur to cut his hair and grant him 
 a boon (Y Llyvyr Coch, 102 ; Nutt's Mabinogion, 103). 
 
288 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 Moslem law, to which the Suahili of the east coast 
 have nominally submitted, Suahili children are the 
 property not of the parents but of the mother's brother 
 who can sell any or all of his nephews or nieces. 
 Popular opinion, indeed, compels him to do so, if it be 
 necessary/ Their neighbours, the still heathen 
 Wanyika who occupy the hinterland of Mombasa, 
 follow the same rule. " Children become the property 
 of their mother, or rather of her brother to be disposed 
 of as he pleases : the only one who has no voice in the 
 matter is the putative father."^ 
 
 We have already seen that the Nayars of Southern 
 India are in the stage of motherright. In theory the 
 ancestral property is indivisible, belonging to the 
 entire family, and no one can acquire individual 
 property, except movables and jewels obtained by gift 
 or otherwise. Division however under modern influ- 
 ences is coming more and more into practice, " The 
 family property is enjoyed by all in common as a kind 
 of commonwealth or civil family, administered by a 
 kdranavan, or head of the family — either the maternal 
 uncle or the eldest brother. The common property 
 is vested in him as executive officer or trustee, but 
 without power to make arbitrary alienation. He is 
 authorised to alienate it only to meet necessities, in 
 order to save the property from greater loss, or for 
 some similar purpose." It is the kdranavan who 
 arranges his sister's matrimonial affairs, and subject 
 perhaps to her consent changes her " husband " from 
 time to time. It has been mentioned that the wife 
 has no part in the funeral rites of her husband. The 
 duty of performing funeral rites is always among the 
 ^ Burton, Zanzibar^ i. 437. * Id. ii. 88. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 289 
 
 propertied castes of India as elsewhere connected with 
 the right to succession. "A man's sister's son, and a 
 woman's own son, as their respective nearest blood- 
 relatives, perform (if their age permits) the funeral 
 rites on their decease, and observe mourningf remain- 
 ing one year without shaving or cutting the hair."^ 
 It is accordingly on them that the movables of the 
 deceased devolve. The Malays of the Padang High- 
 lands of Sumatra have institutions bearing many 
 points of similarity. On marriage neither husband 
 nor wife changes abode. The husband merely visits 
 the wife, and the fact of his conjugal relation to her 
 is disclosed only in the form and intimacy of his visits. 
 As in the case of the kindred Orang Mamaq, the 
 husband has no rights over his children, who belong 
 wholly to the wife's S2tku, or clan ; her eldest brother 
 is the head of the family and exercises the rights and 
 duties of a father to her children.^ The husband of a 
 Papuan woman about Blanche Bay has a right to his 
 wife's labour, and wields certain authority over her. 
 But the power over life and limb is vested in her 
 uncle or her brother. It is even her brother, not her 
 husband, who punishes with death her adultery. He 
 makes good to the husband the price he has paid for 
 her and takes his part against the adulterer. She 
 does not wholly leave her family on marriage ; it is to 
 them she looks for nursing in case of sickness. The 
 husband has no rights over any property she may 
 leave. If she die childless it returns to her family ; if 
 there be children, both they and her property go to 
 the owner of the potestas, that is to say, her uncle or 
 
 ^ /. A. I. xii. 292. 
 
 ' Wilken, Verwanlickap, 67S ; BijdragetT, xxxix. 43. 
 I 
 
290 PmMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 brother. Her ordinary oath is by her brother; her 
 husband's is by his brother-in-law. Her sons as we 
 have seen take their uncle's side in war against their 
 own father and his relations. Though the father 
 often names his children the right to do so is also 
 exercised by the maternal uncle. On the Tami Islands 
 the masculine relatives of a woman dispose of her in 
 marriage ; but the decisive word belongs to her 
 brothers. They are called the owners of her children, 
 who though they may reside in their father's village 
 are only regarded as strangers there. In their uncle's 
 village they have rights of inheritance and there alone 
 can they attain the highest positions. Both about 
 Blanche Bay and on the Tami Islands the dignity of 
 chief is inherited by the nephew from his mother's 
 brother.^ 
 
 InMelanesiakindred is reckoned through the mother. 
 On the Gazelle Peninsula of New Pomerania the 
 mother's brother is the head of the family. The father 
 cannot decide anything about his children. He rults 
 his mother and sisters ; but he has the disposal of his 
 wife only when he has paid the bride-price. Even then 
 she can leave him for the most triftino- cause and seek 
 refuge and protection among her own kin. Thus wife 
 and children do not really belong to the husband and 
 father, but to the mother's maternal uncle or brother. 
 Neither the wife nor the children belong to the 
 husband's clan, nor do they inherit from him. At death 
 theproperty of husband or wife goes to the relatives of 
 
 1 Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 34S, 349, 344, 352, 351, 353. 
 Similar customs seem to obtain among the Wedau and Wamira of 
 Bartle Bay ; but our information is not n earl)' so definite (Co/o/v/fi/ 
 Reports, No. 168, Brit. New Guinea, 1896, 40). 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 291 
 
 the deceased ; the male children of a woman succeed 
 10 her brother/ On the island of Efate in the New 
 Hebrides a kindred or family reckoning descent from 
 the same mother in the female line is called nakain- 
 anga. It has no chief, but the older male members 
 exercise " a kind of parental authority over it." '* All 
 the members of a nakainanga in a particular place 
 w^ere to a large extent responsible for the conduct of 
 any one member ; for instance, they had to pay a fine 
 incurred by him, if he could not pay it himself." 
 Hence it was the duty of a man to instruct his sister's 
 son, not his own son, because he was not of the same 
 nakainanga and the father would not be responsible 
 for him. The chief of a village has a right to appoint 
 his successor. He appoints not his own son, "but in 
 preference to all others his sister's son, who by the 
 law of the nakainanga is considered nearer and dearer 
 to him than his own son, and to be his proper heir."^ 
 The claims of a nephew upon his uncle have been 
 carried to extraordinary lengths in some of the 
 Melanesian islands, as in Fiji, where a maternal uncle 
 can hardly deny his nephew anything he chooses to 
 demand. Everywhere the relation of uncle and 
 nephew is more intimate than that of father and son. 
 Speaking generally a man's property at death descends 
 to his sister's children, usually rather to the male 
 children. There is now a tendency, however, t© 
 substitute inheritance from the father.^ In the 
 western islands of Torres Straits motherright has 
 given way to fatherright probably within the last 
 
 1 Father Josef Meier, Anthropos, ii. 380. 
 
 2 Rev. D. Macdonald, in Rep. Atisir. Ass. iv. 722, 723. 
 
 2 Codrington, 34, 59, sqq. ; McLennan, S/W/es_, ii. 222, sqq. 
 
292 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 hundred years. The relation of maternal uncle and 
 nephew still brings with it similar rights and au- 
 thority to those in Fiji, or even in some respects 
 greater. The relation is called ivadwam and is re- 
 ciprocal, no distinction in. privileges being drawn 
 between uncle and nephew. The wadwam was not 
 merely entitled to take anything belonging to the man 
 to whom he stood in this relation ; he might stop a 
 fight in which his wadvjam was concerned. The 
 moivai or guardians of a boy during the initiation 
 ceremonies were his wadwam. "It seemed quite 
 clear," says Dr. Rivers, "that the chief mowai was 
 the eldest brother of the mother and the second mowai 
 was the next in order of seniority either in the family 
 of the mother or in the clan." On the island of 
 Muralug, though under the present patrilineal system 
 the bride's father must give consent to her marriage 
 and reoeives the bride-price, it is her brother who 
 arranges what presents are to be made in return and 
 other details. The bridegroom must supply a bride 
 in exchange ; failing a sister it is the duty of the 
 wadwam to give his daughter. Moreover in paying 
 the bride-price the bridegroom's ivadwa7n made the 
 actual presentation on both Muralug and Mabuiag. 
 These customs point to the mother's brother as 
 wielding the authority in the former matrilineal stage.^ 
 The interference of the bride's brother in the arrange- 
 ments for marriage may perhaps be ascribed to his 
 interest in getting a bride m return. 
 
 Among many of the tribes we have mentioned a 
 true family life has hardly yet arisen. It may be said 
 to be in course of formation ; the consciousness 
 ■^ Rivers, Torres Str. Rep. r. 145, 147, 231. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 293 
 
 of kinship exists, but it has not 3'et become fully 
 organised as we understand it. Relationships are still 
 described by terms which include many others than 
 those we recognise by the names we are obliged to 
 employ as equivalents. Thus the term used by the 
 western islanders of Torres Straits for brother, tukoiab, 
 is not only the reciprocal term used by brothers for 
 one another and by sisters for one another ; it is also 
 used " for all men of the same gfeneration on the 
 father's side, corresponding to first second and third 
 cousins, etc., through the male side, for all men of the 
 same generation in the mother's clan, for all men of 
 the same generation in the father's mother's clan, for 
 the sons of a brother and sister, for the sons of two 
 sisters." ^ The term wadwam had a corresponding 
 extension. It must not be supposed that the con- 
 sciousness of kinship has not outrun these terms. 
 Men are aware that those whom we should describe 
 as their " own brothers " are nearer to them than 
 those whom we call their third cousins. And doubt- 
 less the ritrhts and duties belono-inor to a tukoiab or a 
 wadwam are emphasised in the case of these nearer 
 kin. Still the others are by no means excluded from 
 such rights and duties ; they may claim the former 
 and be called on to perform the latter. Neither the 
 language nor the law has yet succeeded in defining 
 degrees of relationship more closely. We are accord- 
 ingly warranted in believing that both language and 
 law represent a stage in the evolution of society when 
 the consciousness of the kinship was vaguer than it 
 has since become. 
 
 It is always necessary lo bear in mind the differences 
 ^ Rivers, Tu/re^ Str. Rep. v. 130. 
 
294 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 in value l>et\veen our terms for deofrees of kinshio 
 and those of peoples in savagery and barbarism — 
 differences not only of extension but often of exclusion. 
 They are of importance in considering the evolution 
 of kinship. For our present point, however, they 
 are not material : the headship of the kin is vested in 
 some male member whose claims are founded on 
 seniority, on election, or on special qualifications such 
 as wisdom or renown in war. As the family begins to 
 develop within the wider circle of the kin and 
 relationships become more defined, there emerges a 
 head of each inner group owing his position to the 
 same causes and qualifications. The nomenclature 
 of his relations to the female members, whether 
 brother uncle or son, gradually approximates to our 
 conception of those terms, though not precisely coin- 
 ciding with them until a high degree of civilisation is 
 reached. 
 
 Bearing in mind these differences we turn to 
 Australia where the aboriginal population is in a lower 
 degree of savagery than any other race whose institu- 
 tions have been investigated. The family has hardly 
 begun to be distinguishable from the kin in general. 
 The authority of the father, even among those tribes 
 which have advanced to paternal descent, is non-existent 
 after the early years of childhood. When a boy has 
 attained puberty and passed through the rites which make 
 him anadult member of the clan or the tribe he is as a rule 
 subject only to the authority of the elders in whom the 
 oovernment of the tribe is vested. With a sfirl the 
 case is somewhat different : She is always m mamc. 
 Practically, however, the power exercised over her 
 before" marriage seems to be limited to the right of 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 295 
 
 betrothal : after marriage the husband keeps her in 
 subjection. Apart from the father however there Is 
 little concentration of authority. Such as there is 
 tends to the hands of those members of the kin 
 who have a direct interest in its exercise. They are 
 as a rule the brothers of the girl or of her mother, 
 who would be entitled on her marriage to obtain a 
 bride in exchange. Among the Dieri the right of 
 betrothal is exercised by the mother with the con- 
 currence of her brothers. Betrothal often takes 
 place in earliest infancy. When the bridegroom is 
 also an infant it is entered into on his behalf by his 
 mother ; but in any case of difficulty it would seem 
 that her brothers are called in.^ Amonof the Tatathi 
 and Keramin on the Murray River "girls are very 
 frequently promised when children, and when marriage- 
 able are taken to the future husband's camp by the 
 mother or mother's brother."" " In the Wollaroi it is 
 the mother who promises her daughter to some man of 
 her selection, but to this rule there is the exception that 
 brothers also exchanged their sisters without the direct 
 interventions of their mothers. . . In cases of elope- 
 ment with the wife of another man it was the Wollaroi 
 practice for the abductor to stand out before a number 
 of the woman's kindred, who were armed with speirs, 
 he having merely a spear for his protection to turn 
 them aside. "^ Here we are reminded of the duty of 
 the woman's brothers among the Papuans of Blanche 
 Bay to avenge her adultery ; for the word kindred 
 probably means her brothers. The reason for the 
 interference of the brothers is given by Mr. Howitt in 
 his account of the customs of the Wakelbura tribe 
 ^ Howitt, 177, 167. - Id. 195. " Id. 217, 
 
296 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 (now extinct). The Wakelbura mother exercised the 
 right of betrothal as soon as her daughter was born. 
 If the child on growing up consented to the match or 
 had been compelled to it, and afterwards eloped with 
 another man, her brothers "might almost kill her, 
 because they would thereby lose tne woman by whose 
 exchange they would obtain a wife for one of them."^ 
 In none of these cases had the father anything to do 
 with the matter. The growing patria potestas, how- 
 ever, has made itself felt among many of the matri- 
 lineal tribes ; though in most of them the consent of 
 the kindred is required." 
 
 Among the Haida the growth oi patria potestas has 
 been hindered by the custom, similar to that among 
 the peoples of the Lower Congo, by which the children 
 settle and build houses in the town of their mother's 
 brothers, whose successors in the family organisation 
 they are. The term ddgalan, which we translate 
 brothers, as used by a woman, was applied to all men of 
 her clan in her own generation. Each of the two clans 
 into which the tribe was divided was subdivided into 
 families. " The fundamental unit of Haida society 
 was the family, and the family chief was the highest 
 functionary. Generally the family chief was also 
 town chief, . . . but the large places were usually 
 inhabited by several families. In this case the town- 
 chief stood first socially among the family chiefs." 
 War might be declared by the chief of any family, 
 
 1 Howitt, 2 2 2. In the Mukjarawaint tribe the paternal grand- 
 parents had a voice in the disposal of their grand-daughter. But 
 there no doubt the paternal grandfather was the uncle, own or 
 tribal, of the mother, and consequently one of the elder men of 
 the grand-daughter's kin {Id. 243). 
 
 2 Id. 2iOj 216, 227, 243, 251, 260. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 297 
 
 and that " without reference to any council ; but it is 
 quite certain that he must have obtained the acquies- 
 cence of his house-chiefs if he intended the whole 
 family to participate. In fact, the stories speak of 
 meetings en masse to ' talk over ' important questions. 
 For each household into which a family was sub- 
 divided was a family in miniature, over which the 
 house-chiefs power was almost absolute. Once having 
 obtained his position, he was only limited by the other 
 chiefs and the barriers raised by custom. He could call 
 his nephews together to make war on his own account. 
 . . . Success in amassing property generally governed 
 the selection of a new chief of the town the family 
 or the house. It might be the brother, own nephew, 
 or a more distant relation, of the predecessor. Two 
 are known to have succeeded to one position. The 
 election seems to have been a foregone conclusion ; 
 but in so far as any choice was exercised, it appears 
 to have rested in the case of a family or town- 
 chief with the house-chiefs, while the sentiment of a 
 household probably had weight in deciding between 
 claimants to a doubtful position in a single house. 
 Only the town-chief's own family had anything directly 
 to say about his election. A chief's household was 
 made up of those of his own immediate family who 
 had no places for themselves, his nephews his retainers 
 or servants, and the slaves. A man's sisters' sons 
 were his right-hand men^ They, or at least one of 
 them, came to live with him when quite young, were 
 trained by him, and spoke or acted for him in all 
 social matters. The one who it was expected would 
 succeed him was often his son-in-law as well."^ 
 ^ Swanton, y^sM/i Exped. v. 66, 63, 68, 69. 
 
298 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 A large number of the aboriginal peoples on the 
 mainland of North America reckoned descent in the 
 female line. Conspicuous among them were the 
 Iroquois. The Iroquoian gens or kin was ruled by 
 chiefs of two grades distinguished by Morgan as 
 sachem and common chiefs. The sachem was the 
 official head of the gens and was hereditary. The 
 actual occupant of the office was elected by the 
 adult members of the gens, male and female, " an 
 own brother or the son of an own sister being most 
 likely to be preferred." In the same way, when a 
 man died, though all his clansmen seem to have had a 
 legal right to share his effects, in practice those effects 
 were appropriated by his nearest relations within the 
 gens ; that is to say, his own brothers and sisters 
 and maternal uncles divided them. A woman's pro- 
 perty was taken by her children and sisters, to the 
 exclusion of her brothers.^ These rules point to the 
 fact that the family was in course of evolution within 
 the gens. If so, an authority was probably developing 
 within that family distinct from the general authority 
 of the sachem, though doubtless subordinate to it, 
 A report made by an official for Indian affairs and 
 including two of the Iroquoian tribes with tribes 
 belonging to the Hurons and Algonkins states that 
 in marriages the brothers and uncles of the woman 
 on the maternal side are consulted as to the proposed 
 match, "and sometimes the father; but this is only a 
 compliment, as his approbation or opposition is of 
 no avail." ^ Another account, however, attributes the 
 arrangement of the marriage to the mother.^ Morgan 
 
 ^ Morgan, ^7ic. Soc. 64, 71, 76. '^ McLennan, S/w^?Vs,ii. 339. 
 
 ^ Kohler, 60, citing Morgan, League, 321. Morgan says that 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 299 
 
 illustrates the position of the maternal uncle among 
 other tribes from usages of the time at which his 
 inquiries were made. " Amongst the Choctas," he 
 says, " if a boy is to be placed at school his uncle, 
 Instead of his father, takes him to the mission and 
 makes the arrangement. An uncle among the Winne- 
 bagoes may require services of a nephew, or administer 
 correction, which his own father would neither ask 
 nor attempt. In like manner with the lowas and 
 Otoes an uncle may appropriate to his own use his 
 nephew's horse or his gun or other personal property 
 without being questioned, which his father would 
 have no recognised right to do. But over his nieces 
 this same authority Is more significant, from his 
 participation in their marriage contracts, which in 
 many Indian nations are founded upon a consideration 
 in the nature of presents."^ 
 
 The foregoing will suffice to identify the persons in 
 whom the potestas is vested where mother-right is 
 supreme. In the first instance it vests in the elders of 
 the kin at large. As the consciousness of kin becomes 
 gradually more vivid and defined the elders of the 
 inchoate family absorb the headship of their more 
 Immediate kin and administer its concerns. Gradu- 
 ally the headship becomes concentrated in the hands of 
 one man, often chosen by the family from among a 
 small number specially qualified by age experience 
 wisdom or courage, or designated by propinquity of 
 blood to the predecessor in office The way is thus 
 
 the Iroquois recognised " no right in the father to the custody of 
 his children's persons or to their nurture " (McLennan, Studies, 
 i. 271, quoting League, 327). 
 ^ Morgan, Sysi. Consaug. 158. 
 
300 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 prepared for the transition from motherright to father- 
 right. Meanwhile, when the family under motherright 
 emerges the power is found to be wielded not by the 
 husband but by the wife's brothers, or her maternal 
 uncles, a circle constantly narrowing until the definition 
 of these terms approximates to our own, one of whom 
 takes ultimately the lead and appropriates the greater 
 part or sometimes the whole o[ the _poUs/as. Nor does 
 the transition to the reckoning of descent through the 
 father entirely and at once divest him of it. Enough 
 survives in his hands to form very material evidence of 
 the more archaic social organisation which preceded 
 the establishment of fatherright. 
 
 Such being the social organisation of motherright, 
 it is obvious that the father is a wholly subordinate 
 personage, whose identity is- of comparatively small 
 importance. A juridical system, it has grown out of 
 the consciousness of kin. The origin of the conscious- 
 ness of kin it is not my purpose here to investigate. 
 However originated, it was confined to kinship through 
 one parent only : the other parent was disregarded. 
 The assertion has often been made that the reason for 
 reckoning kinship exclusively through the mother is 
 that paternity is uncertain. There is undeniably a 
 distinction between maternity and paternity in this 
 respect. As it has been cynically put, maternity is a 
 question of fact, paternity a question of opinion. 
 This, for example, is the cause assigned by the old 
 Dutch writer Schouten for the rules of inheritance 
 among the Nayars ;^ and since his day it has been 
 assigned for similar rules of many other peoples. 
 
 Uncertainty of fatherhood would be a good reason 
 ^ Schouten, 458, 459. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 301 
 
 for reckoning kinship only through females, and for the 
 disinheritance of a man's children in favour of his sister's 
 children, if only tribes whose conjugal relations were as 
 loose as those of theNayars reckoned kinship in this way. 
 Motherright, however, is the rule of numerous peoples 
 where there is no reasonable doubt of the paternity; 
 Among the coastal tribes of western Africa from the 
 equator to the Congo the husband buys his wives ; they 
 are taken into his dwelling and belong to him. The laws 
 against adultery are very severe. The punishment is 
 death, and it is sometimes carried out, though now gene- 
 rally commuted for a fine. Severe as the law is, it is in- 
 creased in severity by the exceedingly wide definition of 
 the offence. It is " often only a matter of laying your 
 hand, even in self-defence from a virago, on a woman, 
 or brushing against her in the path." ^ In Mayumbe, 
 so jealously are the married women guarded that the 
 husband may even put them to death if any other man 
 so much as touch them unknowingly.' Yet, as we 
 have seen, motherright is the law ; and at the father's 
 death the children obtain nothing of his property, save 
 what he may have previously made over to them. 
 The Ondonga of German South-west Africa also 
 reckon descent through the mother only, and children 
 inherit nothing from the father. On marriage the 
 husband establishes a werft of his own and takes his 
 wife to live there. Polygyny is practised wherever 
 a man has the means to do so, but on the woman's 
 part strict fidelity is required. Contrary to the 
 customs of many savage and barbarous natives, the 
 woman married for the first time is expected to be a 
 
 ^ Kingsley, Trav. 497. 
 
 * Bastian, Loango-Kiiste, i. 168. 
 
302 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 virgin.^ Among the Ondonga therefore in ordinary- 
 cases there can be little doubt on the subject of 
 paternity. 
 
 On the other side of the continent the Wayao and 
 Mang'anja of the Shire Hiofhlands trace descent 
 through the mother. Like other Bantu nations they 
 practise polygyny whenever circumstances permit. 
 But the husband requires strict fidelity on the part of 
 his wife. Adultery is looked upon as a very serious 
 crime ; and where the man is not speared or shot, he 
 is made to pay damages, or is sold into slavery. The 
 wife, says Miss Werner, speaking in general terms but 
 with special reference to these tribes, "is frequently 
 let off with a warning the first time, but for a second 
 offence either killed or divorced and sent back to her 
 relatives, who in such a case must return whatever 
 present was made at the marriage. Sometimes she 
 drinks mwavi \_i.e., submits to the ordeal of poison], 
 and is of course accounted guilty if she dies."^ We 
 have already noted the rarity of adultery among the 
 Barea of northern Abyssinia. How easily broken is 
 the conjugal tie on the Gazelle Peninsula of New 
 Pomerania we also know. Yet while it lasts the 
 husband watches over his wife with jealousy. He has 
 all the more need since there is, owing to the pre- 
 vailing polygamy, a dearth of unmarried women. 
 Men who cannot afford to buy a wife seek other men's 
 wives. They lay constant snares for them, make use 
 of philtres and every sort of enticement. The 
 husband therefore if he wish to preserve his wife's 
 fidelity follows her about and takes every means to 
 
 1 Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt. 328, 335, 330, 332. 
 
 2 Werner, 265. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 303. 
 
 protect her chastity. In case of adultery the punish- 
 ment is severe ; both parties were before the German 
 occupation put to death without more ado. Countless 
 wars have been occasioned by adultery.^ 
 
 Allowance must of course be made for the per- 
 sistence of a juridical system after the reason for it has 
 passed away. If we found motherright wherever 
 there was uncertainty of paternity we might perhaps 
 be right in assuming that when we found it where 
 there was none, it was merely a survival from a stage 
 in which morality was laxer. This, however, is by no 
 means the case. The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush 
 practise the strictest fatherright but that Kafir would 
 be of a highly sporting disposition who ventured to 
 stake much on the authenticity of any child of whom 
 he was legally the father. Sir George Robertson 
 says : " Young women are very immoral, not because 
 their natural disposition is either better or worse than 
 that of women of other tribes and races, but because 
 public opinion is all in favour of what may be called 
 ' o-allantry.' When a woman is discovered in an 
 intrigue a great outcry is made, and the neighbours 
 rush to the scene with much laughter. A goat is sent 
 for on the spot for a peace-making feast between 
 the gallant and the husband. Of course the neigh- 
 bours also partake of the feast ; the husband and wife 
 both look very happy, and so does every one else 
 except the lover, who has to pay for the goat, and 
 who knows that he or his family must also pay the 
 full penalty, sooner or later." The customary penalty 
 is six cows. "There are several households in 
 Kamdesh whose sole property in cows consists of the 
 ^ Father Josef Meier, Anihropos, ii. 380. 
 
304 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 number thus paid." " Divorce is easy," he goes on 
 subsequently to say. " A man sells his wife or sends 
 her away. ... If a woman behaves very badly, and 
 her husband, although he dislikes her, cannot dispose 
 of her, he may send her back to her parents. I 
 remember an instance of this kind. The woman was 
 the prettiest I ever saw in Kafiristan, and would have 
 been considered a beauty anywhere ; but she was so 
 bad and troublesome that no one would take her. 
 She was sent back to her father's house. If any one 
 were found intriguing with her he would have to pay 
 the usual fine to the husband. If a girl were born to 
 her, the woman would keep her ; if a son, the husband 
 would claim him."^ 
 
 In many countries indeed where fatherright is well 
 settled as the juridical system husbands are far from 
 squeamish over what we should call their wives' virtue, 
 or over their children's paternity. As the general 
 subject of marital complacency will be more fully 
 treated in a subsequent chapter we will confine our 
 attention here to a few examples having regard more 
 particularly to the relation between the woman's 
 husband and the children she bears. I pass over the 
 jus primcE noctis, of which examples are to be found in 
 Indian custom.'"* Subject to any uncertainty arising 
 from this cause, the husband might perhaps be able to 
 count upon begetting his wife's children. As a matter 
 of fact he is often quite careless on the subject. 
 The Bawariyas, a hunting and criminal tribe in the 
 
 1 Robertson, Kafirs, 533, 536. 
 
 * The last case I have met with is that of Zikris, an heretical 
 Mohammedan sect in Baluchistan, among whom the Mulla exercises 
 the right, HLs touch is supposed to sanctify and cleanse the bride 
 {Ind. Cens. C901, v. 45). 
 
MOT HER RIGHT 305 
 
 United Provinces (formerly the North-west Province), 
 have a lovv standard of sexual morality. In the 
 Muzaffarnagar district it is extremely rare for a 
 woman to live with her husband. " Almost invariably 
 she lives with another man ; but whoever he may be 
 the official husband is responsible for the children."^ 
 Among the Sumuwars, a cultivatinor tribe of Nepal, in 
 most cases girls are married after they are grown up 
 to men of their own choice ; and sexual intercourse 
 before marriage is tacitly recognised on the under- 
 standing that in the event of pregnancy the girl will 
 be married without delay. Divorce is permitted on 
 the ground of adultery or misconduct on the part of 
 the wife ; and divorced women may marry again in 
 the same manner as widows, that is to say, by simple 
 cohabitation without any ceremony at all. Their 
 children by the second husband are deemed legitimate. 
 In case of divorce the first husband usually keeps 
 his own children ; " but if the divorced wife is allowed 
 to take them with her, as sometimes happens, they 
 are treated as the children of her second husband."^ 
 Among the Reddies of Tinnevelly in Southern 
 India a young woman of sixteen or twenty years of 
 age is frequently married to a boy of five or six years 
 or even younger. She, however, lives with some 
 other man, a relative on the maternal side, perhaps 
 an uncle or cousin, but not with one of her father's 
 relatives. Occasionally it may be the boy-husband's 
 nominal father with whom she cohabits. Any children 
 
 1 V. A. Smith, N. bid N. and O. \. 51 (par. 387). Mr. Vincent 
 Smith describes the Bawariyas as not a tribe but " a specially 
 organised predatory caste." The description in the text is 
 Mr. Crooke's (7>YZ'fs and Castes, i. 228). 
 
 ^ Risley, ii. 282. 
 
 1 U 
 
3o6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 so begotten are affiliated on the boy-husband. When 
 he grows up his wife is old and probably past child- 
 bearlngf. He therefore in his turn cohabits with some 
 other boy's wife in a similar manner and procreates 
 children for him.^ Among the Malaialis of the 
 Salem district " the sons when mere children are 
 married to mature females, and the father-in-law 
 of the bride assumes the performance of the pro- 
 creative function, thus assuring for himself and his 
 son a descendant to take them out of Put. When the 
 putative father comes of age and in their turn his 
 wife's male offspring are married he performs for 
 them the same office which his father did for him. 
 Thus not only is the religious idea involved in the 
 words Putra and Kumaran (both meaning son) carried 
 out, but klso the premature strain on the generative 
 faculties which this tradition entails is avoided." The 
 word putra means one who saves from Put, a hell 
 into which those who have not produced a son fall. 
 The custom described is in fact widespread in the 
 south of India, and as we shall see hereafter is by no 
 means confined to that country." 
 
 More than this, libertinage is practised under the 
 sanction of religion to procure fecundity in women. 
 We need not insist on mythological stories of barren 
 women who have been embraced by gods and thereby 
 obtained issue, nor on the imitation in modern times 
 of these ancient tales by devotees who passing the 
 
 1 Shortt, Trans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. vii. 194, 264 note. It is not 
 clear that this is a case of polyandry, which it is understood the 
 Reddies repudiate. Rather it would seem that the nominal husband 
 and father never cohabits with his " wife " at all. 
 
 ■^ Thurston, 49 sqq., 108; Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N. S. vii. 264; 
 Ind. Cens. 1901, xv. 141, 181. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 307 
 
 nig^ht at such temples as that of Tirupati in the 
 Carnatic beheve that they receive the embraces of 
 Vishnu/ There are other temples where barren women 
 hope to achieve their hearts' desire for children by 
 granting their favours at a yearly festival in the month of 
 January to a fixed number of mortal men in pursuance 
 of a vow previously made.- A Thotigar in fulfilment 
 of certain vows will place his wife during the festival 
 of vSoobramaniya in a solitary hut on the roadside and 
 watching for travellers will beg the first person he 
 meets to go in and have intercourse with her. This is 
 repeated until the number of strangers has been 
 procured, though it necessitate bringing her again and 
 again to the place.^ 
 
 A story from the Jataka relates to one of the higher 
 castes. The righteous king Okkaka, who ruled in the 
 city of Kusavati, had sixteen thousand wives ; but his 
 chief wife Sllavati had neither son nor daughter. As 
 he had no son to perpetuate his race his subjects 
 assembled at the door of his palace and began to 
 complain, in fear lest a stranger should seize the 
 kingdom and destroy it. The king opened his 
 window and parleyed with them. They advised him : 
 '' First of all send out into the streets for a whole week 
 a band of dancing women of low degree — giving the 
 act a religious sanction — and if one of them shall 
 o-ive birth to a son, well and o-ood. Otherwise send 
 out a company of fairly good standing, and finally a 
 band of the highest rank. Surely among so many one 
 woman will be found of sufficient merit to bear a son." 
 These women must have been in some way attached to 
 
 ■*■ Dubois 601. 2 Ihid. 603. 
 
 ^ Trans. Et'nn. Soc. N. S. vii. 264. 
 
3o8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 his court or members of his harem, though it is not 
 explicitly so stated. However, compliance with the 
 advice was not followed by conception on the part of 
 any of them. The king" was in despair, and when the 
 men of the city renewed their reproaches he asked 
 them again what he was to do. " Sire," they answered 
 " these women must be immoral and void of merit. 
 They have not sufficient merit to conceive a son. But 
 because they do not conceive you are not to relax your 
 efforts. The queen-consort, Silavatl, is a virtuous 
 woman. Send her out into the streets. A son will be 
 born to her." The tale avers that "the king readily 
 assented, and proclaimed by beat of drum that on the 
 seventh day from that time the people were to assemble 
 and the king would expose Silavatl — giving the act a 
 religious character. And on the seventh day he had 
 the queen magnificently arrayed and carried down from 
 the palace and exposed in the sreets." But Sakka 
 came from heaven to the rescue disguised as a brahman 
 and with merely a touch of his thumb rendered her 
 pregnant of the Bodhisatta.^ 
 
 If we turn from Buddhist tales to the sacred law of 
 the Hindus we find an unmistakable emphasis laid on 
 the necessity for children, and above all for a male 
 child. A son is an absolute necessity to carry on the 
 ancestral rites. "He only," says the great law-book 
 of Manu, " is a perfect man who consists [of three 
 persons united], his wife, himself, and his offspring." 
 " Immediately on the birth of his first-born a man 
 is [called] the father of a son and is freed from the 
 debt to the manes ; that [son], therefore, is worthy to 
 receive the whole estate. That son alone on whom 
 ^ Jdiaka, v. 141 (Story No. 531). 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 309 
 
 he throws his debt and through whom he obtains 
 immortaHty, is begotten for [the fulfilment of] the 
 law." ^ A son being so important, where a man failed 
 to beget a son on his wife various devices were resorted 
 to in order to supply his place. A daughter might be 
 appointed to bear a son who would fulfil the rites. 
 Or a son of another member of the same caste miorjit 
 be given with certain rites by his parents and adopted 
 by the sonless man. A son so adopted would cease 
 to have any claim on his own father and family and 
 would be deemed instead to be the son of him to 
 whom he had been transferred, would perform his 
 funeral rites and take his estate." But there was still 
 another course which, repugnant though it may be to 
 our moral code, was at least fraught with more regard 
 for the purity of the race than that suggested by the 
 men of Kusavati to their king. After expounding 
 the duty of a husband to guard his wife and to keep 
 her pure, because " offspring, [the due performance of] 
 religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happi- 
 ness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself 
 depend on one's wife alone," and proclaiming that 
 "she who, controlling her thoughts speech and acts, 
 violates not her duty towards her lord, dwells with him 
 [after death] in heaven, and in this world is called 
 by the virtuous a faithful [wife]," Bhrigu is represented 
 as plunging into a grave discussion whether the male 
 issue of a woman belongs to her lord or to the begetter. 
 " Those who, having no property in a field, but 
 possessing seed-corn, sow it in another's soil, do indeed 
 not receive the grain of the crop which may spring 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, xxw. 335, 346. Cf. xiv. 271. 
 2 Id. XXV. 353, 355, 361 
 
3IO PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 up. If [one man's] bull were to beget a hundred 
 calves on another man's cows, they would belong 
 to the owner of the cows. . . . Thus," he decides, 
 "men who have no marital property in women, but 
 sow their seed in the soil of others, benefit the owner 
 of the woman, but the giver of the seed reaps no 
 advantage." This is preliminary to a declaration of 
 the law applicable to women " in times of misfortune," 
 that is to say when there is no male offspring. In 
 spite of the taboo which hedges alike the wife of 
 an elder brother and the wife of a younger brother, the 
 breach of which would make both guilty parties 
 outcasts, "on failure of issue [by her husband] a 
 woman who has been authorised, may obtain [in the] 
 proper [manner prescribed], the desired offspring 
 by [cohabitation with] a brother-in-law or [with some 
 other] sapinda " [of the husband]. She may, it seems, 
 be authorised for this purpose by her husband or after 
 his death by his relatives ; but when once the object 
 is accomplished cohabitation must cease. However, 
 if the son born be not fit to offer the Sraddhas, 
 a second may be begotten. A son so begotten would 
 be deemed the son of the husband, whether such 
 husband was in fact living or dead at the time of his 
 procreation.^ 
 
 This was the law throughout Vedic times. There 
 is reason to think indeed that as formulated by 
 Manu it limited the pre-existing custom. A sapinda 
 is a kinsman within six degrees, that is to say, a 
 descendant of the same great-grandfather. But it is 
 noteworthy in all the early examples of the Niyoga, as 
 the custom of authorisation by the husband was called, 
 
 ^ Sacred Books, xxv. 327-338; cf. ii. 267, 302, 303. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 311 
 
 that a stranger was the person appointed as the agent 
 to beget a child.-^ Moreover the ceremonies which 
 hedged round the acconipHshment of the agent's duties, 
 whether appointed by the relatives after the husband's 
 death, or as it seems by the husband in his Hfetime, 
 display an anxiety to reduce the act itself to a minimum. 
 And later law-books disclose an effort to get rid of it 
 altogether.^ But as the law stands in Manu, not 
 merely sons begotten by an appointed sapinda on 
 a wife or widow are recop-nised as the husband's sons. 
 The illegritimate son of an unmarried girl who 
 afterwards marries, a son born of a bride already 
 pregnant at the time of her marriage, and even a son 
 born of a wife's adultery are also all deemed to be the 
 husband's sons.^ In fact, as a recent commentator on 
 the Hindu law says, it is a law " in which twelve 
 sorts of sons are recognised, the majority of whom 
 have no blood-relationship to their own [nominal] 
 father." * The Chinese also esteem it so important 
 to have children that it is looked upon as somewhat 
 of an infamy to be destitute of them. There are 
 husbands, at least in the province of Fo-Kien and 
 doubtless elsewhere, who for this purpose force their 
 wives to entertain other men and invite or even pay 
 some friend to have intercourse with them. The girls 
 who are not already delivered over to their intended 
 father-in-law's custody at an early age are very dissolute. 
 A law-suit arising out of a claim by a family that a 
 girl on marriage is not found a virgin is no uncommon 
 event ; but money is always deemed a sufficient com- 
 
 ^ iV'ayne, S4. See also McLennan, Pat. Theory\ 269. 
 ^ Sac. Bks. ii. 130. ^ Ibid. xxv. 362, 363. 
 
 ^ Mayne, 73; cf. 81. See also Jolly, 71. 
 
312 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 pensation to enable the bridegroom to accept his 
 bride as if nothing had happened.^ So among the 
 Hill tribes of Northern Aracan sexual intercourse 
 before marriage is unrestricted, " and it is considered 
 rather a good thing," we are told, " to marry a 
 girl in the family- way, even though by another 
 man. ^ 
 
 In the same way in ancient Arabia when a husband 
 ^did a bride-price all the children borne by his wife 
 *vere his, and were reckoned to his kin. This, says 
 Professor Robertson Smith, " is the fundamental 
 doctrine of Mohammedan law : the son is reckoned 
 to the bed on which he is born. But in old Arab law 
 this doctrine is developed with a logical thorough- 
 ness at which our views of property stand aghast." 
 And he shows by an examination of cases that 
 " when a man desired a goodly seed he might call 
 upon his wife to cohabit with another man till she 
 became pregnant by him," and in such a case the 
 child would be the husband's ; that the child of a 
 woman already pregnant by another man at her 
 marriage would belong to the husband ; that when a 
 mother married again after divorce or the death of 
 her previous husband if she were allowed to take her 
 children with her they might become incorporated in 
 her new husband's stock ; that the husband might 
 lead his wife to a guest, or on going a journey 
 might get a friend to supply his place in his absence, 
 or might enter into a partnership of conjugal rights 
 with another man in return for service ; yet in all 
 these cases he would be reckoned the father of her 
 
 1 Father Jaime Masip, j^ntl'.ropos, ii. 716. 
 
 2 /. A. I. ii, 239. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 313 
 
 children/ It is true that at the period referred to (at 
 and before the time of Mohammed) the social organisa- 
 tion was undergoing a revolution : the present system 
 had not yet completely taken the place of motherright. 
 But some of these practices continued into quite 
 modern times, and some, like the hospitality-rite of 
 leading a wife to a guest, are well-known practices 
 among many patrilineal peoples. It is even asserted 
 to have been the custom in the Netherlands in com- 
 paratively modern times. '^ 
 
 Pursuing our inquiries on the continent of Africa 
 we find numerous examples of the indifference of the 
 husband to the actual paternity of the children who 
 are reckoned to him. Only a few can be mentioned 
 here. Among the Dinkas of Bahr-el-Ghazal when a 
 man dies his wives become the wives of his sons, 
 except of course their respective mothers. If a son have 
 children by a wife so inherited they are looked upon as 
 brothers and not as sons : that is, they are reckoned to 
 his father. So, if a beng (sheikh, or head of a village) 
 be " too old to be sexually efficient, he nevertheless 
 continues to take wives, but these cohabit with his 
 sons. Children so beo:otten are regarded as the 
 children of the sheikh and as the brothers of their 
 actual fathers." Adultery indeed is punished with the 
 death of the male offender,^ if caught in the act ; 
 but the definition of adulcery is limited as among 
 many other peoples to sexual relations without the 
 husband's consent. Among the Dinkas in general 
 marriage is concluded by the payment of a bride-price. 
 
 1 Robertson Smith, Kinship, 107, sqq. 
 
 * Ploss, Weib, i. 300. 
 
 * Capt. S. L. Cummins,/. A. I. xxkiv. i^i. 
 
314 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 The dissolution of a marriage may be effected by the 
 repayment of all the cattle given for the bride-price 
 and all their young. On such repayment the marriage 
 is "broken" and the woman returns to her father. 
 When she marries again all the children of her former 
 husband, except such as may have been left with him 
 by arrangement when the marriage was ''broken," 
 are regarded as the children of the second husband. 
 If within two years of a marriage the wife fail to give 
 birth to a child her husband may sue for return of the 
 cattle on the orround that she is unable to conceive. 
 But before doing so he " must have had recourse to 
 the tribal custom of permitting one of his male relations 
 to cohabit with " her, in order to support the allegation 
 of barrenness : that his other wives may have borne is 
 no proof in his favour. It is the duty of a widow to 
 raise up children to her husband by cohabiting with 
 her dead husband's brother or some other of his near 
 relations. Any children born in consequence, or 
 from any other connection, are considered those of 
 the deceased, irrespective of the time that may have 
 elapsed since his death. Even when a man dies 
 childless, leaving only a widow who is past the age of 
 child-bearing, or leaving an only daughter, no sons 
 and no widows capable of bearing, an heir must still 
 be provided. The duty of providing the heir lies upon 
 the widow or daughter as the case may be ; and in 
 default of male relations she holds the property in trust 
 for the future heir. Any children the daughter may 
 have will be reckoned to her husband, not to her 
 father ; and adoption seems to be unknown. The 
 difficulty therefore looks insoluble ; and to us the 
 strangest of all the Dinka customs is that by which 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 315 
 
 the widow or daughter left in this embarrassing posi- 
 tion fulfils her duty. She " marries " in the name of 
 the deceased a girl whom she selects and whose bride- 
 price she pays out of his herds. It is then incumbent on 
 her to arrange for a man to cohabit with the bride in 
 order to produce children, A widow whose husband 
 has left no male relations arrano-es for one of her own 
 to act as husband ; in default of male relations of her 
 own she may appoint any man she pleases. The 
 children resulting from the connection are in name 
 and rights of inheritance those of the deceased, the 
 natural father having no claim on them whatsoever.^ 
 
 This is carrying the custom of raising up seed to 
 the deceased, with which we are familiar in the laws 
 of the Hebrews and the Hindus, further than in any 
 other case with which I am acquainted. In a more 
 restricted form ii is common to many of the African 
 tribes. Among the Wadjagga when a man dies with- 
 out children or unmarried his father if living takes a 
 wife in his name, and any children she bears will 
 count as the sons of the deceased, their actual father 
 being regarded as their grandfather.^ Macheng, a 
 chief of the Bamangwato, was the legal son and 
 successor of Khari. He was not born until some 
 years after Khari's death. Khari had had other sons, 
 but not by the woman whom he had appointed head- 
 wife. Having paid her price in cattle she and her 
 offspring were to be reckoned to him, although the 
 children were not born for a dozen years after his 
 death. Macheng was her son. He had to make good 
 his claim against the powerful chief Sekhome, who 
 
 ^ MS. Collection of Dinka Laws by Capt. Hugh D. E. O'Sullivar 
 
 2 Gutmann, Globus, xcii, 3. 
 
3i6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 was an elder and undoubted son of Khari, but 
 by another wife. "It is not etiquette," says the 
 mssionary who witnessed and who best tells the tale 
 of the contest, "ever to refer to the man who thus 
 raises up seed to another, in connection with such 
 children. They are not his children. They are the 
 children of him who is dead. . . . Even the most ardent 
 friends of Sekhome admit that according to their 
 customs Macheng is the rightful chief." ^ And it was 
 not merely his personal character or the fortunate 
 concatenation of events, but quite as much the legal 
 strength of his title, that gave him ultimate victory 
 over Sekhome. The same custom is reported of the 
 Bahurutsi and of the Bavenda.^ 
 
 Among the Baroswi of Mashonaland there is a 
 recognised practice for an old man with young wives 
 to allow a younger man to raise up children for him.* 
 Among the Bavenda a man will sometimes give one 
 of his wives to a friend ; but any child she may have 
 by that friend belongs to the former husband.* A 
 Mosuto chief inherits his father's wives "as well as 
 his other possessions. These wives, as a rule, each 
 chief distributes amongst his councillors and favourites ; 
 but their children are always called his, thus giving 
 him a considerable source of wealth, as the sons work 
 for him and the daughters bring him large dowries of 
 cattle. Fidelity either from the husband or wife is 
 a virtue rarely to be found amongst the heathen ; but 
 its absence creates no trouble as long as it is not 
 
 ^ Mackenzie, Ten Years, 364. 
 ^ Stow, Races, 525. 
 
 * Journ. Afr. Soc. iv. 315. 
 
 * Rev, E. Gottschling, /. A. I. xxxv. 373. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 317 
 
 discovered."^ This remark by a lady who has resided 
 for some years in Basutoland is probably to be under- 
 stood, so far as regards the wife, by assuming- a 
 general knowledge on the part of the husband of 
 his wife's habits, at which he winks unless open 
 scandal result. Mr. Mabille, an official and the son 
 of a missionary, tells us that " adultery is general : 
 every man has his mistress and every woman her 
 lover." ^ The lady just quoted adds: "In cases 
 where a chief wishes to retain the services of a man, 
 he will bestow one of his wives upon him for the 
 length of time his services are required ; but any 
 children born of this marriage belong to the chief." ^ 
 It is hardly exact to speak of such a connection or of 
 similar relations previously mentioned in the present 
 paragraph, whether among the Bavenda or the 
 Basuto, as a marriage, because in none of the cases 
 would a bride-price have been paid. The wife tem- 
 porarily bestowed upon a follower is in law the chief's 
 wife still ; and for this reason it is that the children 
 she may bear will belong to him.^ What really 
 happens is that the chief lends a wife to a follower, 
 usually a headman, in order to " raise children to 
 the kraal." ^ Nor are we surprised to find that among 
 the Basuto, as among other peoples whom we shall 
 consider hereafter, it is a hospitable duty on the part 
 of a chief when visited by another chief to offer him one 
 of his women during his stay.® Of the coast-tribes 
 parallel customs are recorded. If the pregnancy be the 
 
 1 Martin, 87. 2 jonrn. Af;\ Soc. v. 365. 
 
 3 Martin, loc. cit. 
 
 4 K. Endemann, Zeits. f. Ethn. vi. 40. 
 
 ' Hewat, 108. * Zeits.f. Ethn. vi. n. 
 
7.i8 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 o 
 
 result of adultery the child will belong to the husband!^ 
 As ?.n old writer says, " he is so far from revenging his 
 wife's infidelity upon her that he prefers to accept the 
 bastard child as his own." This however does not 
 prevent his bringing her partner in the offence before 
 the chief for punishment ; and he receives one half of 
 the fine inflicted, which consists of cattle.^ Similar 
 customs may be said to be general among such of the 
 Bantu tribes as are patrilineal. Among the Nilotic 
 tribes the rule of the Kavirondo is that any children of 
 a woman at the time of her marriage, whether they be 
 legitimate or not, become her husband's by virtue of 
 marriage.^ 
 
 Turninor now to the true Neofroes we find in Buna 
 on the Ivory Coast a social condition in which father- 
 right is predominant, but has not yet succeeded in 
 stamping out all vestiges of the more archaic stage. 
 The family is strongly organised, its head being 
 the eldest male, who is absolute master. All the 
 children born during a marriage are the husband's 
 property, even those who are the fruit of adultery. In 
 case of divorce where the wife is known to be pregnant 
 the child subsequently born belongs to the husband ; if, 
 however, her pregnancy be not then known she retains 
 the child. ^ In Seguela parentage runs in the paternal 
 line by preference, and the family is similarly organised. 
 Every child born during the marriage belongs to the 
 husband. In case of lengthened absence of the 
 husband the wife is authorised to live in concubinage 
 
 1 Kidd, 229, 231, 357 ; Post, Afr.Ji'.r. i. 472 ; Cape Rep. Native 
 Laws, Evidence, 136. ^ Alberti, 141. 
 
 ^ G. A. S. Northcote, /. A. I. xxxvii. 62. 
 * Clozel, 308-312. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 319 
 
 with another man, preferably a member of the family* 
 At his return the husband takes her back, together 
 with any children born during his absence/ The 
 Krumen of Sassandra reckon descent on both sides, 
 but we are told that the female side is of little im- 
 portance. The descendants of a common ancestor in 
 the male line d \ ell tooether in the same villaQ-e and 
 form a clan. Since polygamy is here as elsewhere 
 among the Negroes practically unlimited, infidelity to 
 one wife leads to no more serious consequence than 
 little tifi's. Adultery by the wife herself is hardly 
 graver, the French official report tells us ; and every- 
 thing is comfortably arranged, if she only share with 
 her husband the presents she has received from her 
 lover. Some husbands, indeed, especially old chiefs 
 who are inclined to violence, revenge themselves ; but 
 it is rare to find a really jealous husband. Sometimes, 
 but very seldom, the husband demands a divorce when 
 the wife is thoroughly abandoned. Conformably with 
 these easy-going morals the law declares no distinction 
 between legitimate illegitimate and adulterine children. 
 Is pater quern nuptice deinonstrant admits of no excep- 
 tion. The husband is considered the father, even 
 though he has been absent for ten years, of any 
 children his wife may have borne in the meantime.^ 
 The Krumen of Cavally reckon descent only on the male 
 side. There is no distinction between legitimate and 
 illeg-itim.ate children. The children are the wealth of 
 the family and they are always welcome, even when 
 the husband knows he is not the real father. They 
 belong to him in all cases. He may however inflict 
 
 ^ Clozel, 330, 331, Women may inherit in certain cases (Jd. 
 335)- - I<^i- 495> 497, 498- 
 
320 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 corporal punishment on his adulterous wife, or even 
 send her back to her family and obtain repayment of 
 the bride-price. He may also institute a palaver 
 against the adulterer for damages, which may be 
 settled if he so please by an exchange of wives. The 
 patria poiestas vests in the eldest male of the highest 
 generation living, and devolves with the property on 
 his next brother at his death. When there are no 
 brothers the eldest son inherits.^ In the foregoing 
 cases the marriage rites are of the most restricted 
 character. On the other hand, among the Andoni of 
 Southern Nigeria (if I am right in thinking them 
 patrilineal) an elaborate ceremony is performed. Two 
 stout sticks of a certain wood called odiri, about four 
 feet long, are supplied by the Juju priests from the 
 sacred grove. They are sharpened at the end and 
 first laid on the ground in a corner of the bridegroom's 
 house by the priests. The bride and bridegroom are 
 then made to place their feet on them. The priest kills a 
 goat and sprinkles its blood on their feet and on the 
 sticks. The stakes are then driven by their sharpened 
 ends into the ground in the corner of the house, and there 
 they remain until they fall to pieces. From that 
 moment the wife and all the children she may bear, by 
 whomsoever begotten, are the husband's property. 
 The marriage is indissoluble. Even if she leave her 
 husband and have children by chiefs or kings they must 
 be delivered up to him on his demand. When she dies 
 she cannot be buried save by him ; any other person 
 undertaking this important function would incur heavy 
 punishment ; before the days of British rule it was death.^ 
 
 "^ Clozel, 507, 511, 512, 515. 
 
 ^ Journ. Afr. Soc. iv. 4143 Leonard, 414. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 321 
 
 Islam is not necessarily a reliscion of high civilisation. 
 It has made extensive conquests in Africa by reason of 
 its power of adaptation to lower stages of culture. By 
 Mohammedan law kinship is reckoned through both 
 lines ; but such preponderant importance is attached to 
 the paternal side that semi-civilised African popu- 
 lations professing Islam may for our purpose be 
 regarded as patrilineal. Just as among patrilineal 
 peoples where fatherright is carried out to its logical 
 term, great importance is attributed to the purity of 
 Mohammedan women. On the other hand the law, 
 by the aid of the physiological ignorance of the early 
 doctors who framed it, stretches beyond all probability 
 the presumption of legitimacy in its doctrine of the 
 possibility of very lengthened gestations. A famous 
 Maghribin saint named Sidi Nail left his home and 
 went on pilgrimage to Mecca where he abode for two 
 years and a half. At length he returned to find that 
 his wife Cheliha had only a short time before given 
 birth to a son. Even the credulity of the faithful, 
 supported by the law, has had the greatest difficulty 
 in digesting the legitimacy of this child. Yet the 
 saint himself seems to have accepted him, and his son- 
 ship has been duly attested by heaven ; for it is 
 especially among his descendants that the gift of 
 miracles possessed by Sidi Nail has been perpetuated.^ 
 In the same way the Baydzi, an heretical sect of 
 which the bulk of the Arab population of Zanzibar 
 consists, allow legitimacy to children born within two 
 years after the husband's death. The Shafei, another 
 sect, extend the period to four years. ^ Mohammedan 
 law, exaggerated by these heretical sects, seems indeed 
 
 ^ Rev. Hist. Rel. xli. 315. 2 Burton, Zanzibar, i. 403. 
 
322 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 a device for gathering into the husband's kin all the 
 children of his wives to whom any semblance of a claim 
 can be made. Among the Galla of north-eastern 
 Africa, who are Moslem, the illegitimate children of a 
 woman married by the solemn rite of the rakko are 
 legally descendants of the husband.^ 
 
 Customs similar to those prescribed in the ancient 
 Indian law-books have even been in use in Europe. 
 A Spartan law attributed to Lycurgus required an old 
 man who had a young wife to introduce to her a young 
 man whose bodily and mental qualities he approved, 
 that he might beget children on her.- The primary 
 object indeed of this law and of others fathered on the 
 same law-giver was said to be what is called in modern 
 scientific jargon Eugenics. However that may have 
 been as regards the form in which they are reported to 
 us, there can be little doubt that they are formulations 
 of pre-existing custom which enabled the continuance 
 of the husband's family by another man. At all events 
 at Athens a law ascribed to Solon was in force which 
 provided that if the next-of-kin who had in accordance 
 with law successfully claimed an heiress for himself 
 were impotent, his place should be supplied by some 
 of his relatives {cum mariti adgnatis concubito\ This 
 as McLennan points out is identical with the law of 
 Manu cited above. In both cases the object was to 
 
 Paulitschke, ii. 142. As to the rakko see Ibid. 47. I am not 
 aware whether the Boni, a subject people among the Galla and 
 Somali, are Mohammedans, or whether they are, as has been sug- 
 gested, of Galla origin. " There is no divorce among these people, 
 all the children of one woman, by whatever father, are the property 
 of the woman's original husband, if alive ; if dead, of her brother" 
 (Capt. Salkeld, Man (1905), 169 (par. 94). 
 
 2 Xenophon, Rep. Laced, i. 9 ; Plutarch, Lycurgus. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 323 
 
 provide heirs ; and the children took the estate as soon 
 as they were able to perform the duties to their legal 
 ancestors/ The old peasant custumals of Germany, 
 especially of Westphalia, lay it down that an impotent 
 husband shall perform the ceremony of taking his wife 
 on his back over nine fences and then calling a neigh- 
 bour to act as his substitute. If he cannot find one 
 who is able and willino- he is to adorn her with new 
 clothes, hang a purse at her side with money to spend 
 and send her to a kermess, in the hope of finding some 
 one there to help her.^ Grimm, commenting on these 
 curious prescriptions, admits that there is no historical 
 record of any such actual transaction, but observes that 
 they are plainly and seriously prescribed and that 
 their memory lingers in tradition, instancing an old 
 poem on Saint Elizabeth. He suggests that in the 
 custumals all the details are not mentioned, that 
 probably the rite was only performed where serious 
 detriment would result from the want of an heir, and 
 that the husband's choice of a substitute was not 
 unlimited. In any case he holds the custom to be 
 very archaic, though in the records it appears adapted 
 to the circumstances of mediaeval peasant-proprietors. 
 The foregoing examples are all chosen from peoples 
 among whom fatherright is the rule, or who deduce 
 kinship through both parents with preference for the 
 father, as in the highest civilisations. Where these 
 customs are in vogfue the husband cannot be sure of 
 the paternity of the children born of his wife. On the 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Solon; McLennan, Studies, i. 223; Seebohm, Greek 
 Tribal Soc. 23. 
 
 - Grimm, Rechtsalt. 443. The details of the ceremony vary in 
 different places. 
 
324 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 
 
 contrary he is often sure that the children belonging 
 to him, reckoned of his kin and inheriting his property, 
 are not in fact heirs of his body. They may even be 
 born long after his death as the result of inter- 
 course between his wives and other men. The list 
 might be indefinitely lengthened if the customs of 
 peoples among whom fatherright though predominant 
 is imperfectly developed were considered. Thus in 
 Madag-ascar motherric/ht has left much more than 
 traces. The hindrances on marriage of relatives are 
 greater on the mother's side than on the father's. 
 Children of two sisters by the same mother cannot 
 intermarry, nor can their descendants. On the other 
 hand children and grandchildren of a brother and 
 sister by the same mother may intermarry on the 
 performance of a slight ceremony prescribed to remove 
 the disqualification of consanguinity. The royal 
 family and nobles trace their lineage, contrary to the 
 general practice, through the mother and not through 
 the father. Yet so great a calamity is it counted that 
 a man should die without posterity that if an elder 
 brother die childless his next brother must take the 
 widow and raise up seed to the deceased.^ This 
 involves sexual relations only after the husband's death 
 between the widow and his brother. But the 
 Malagasy customs are further-reaching still ; for all 
 the children of a married woman belong to her 
 husband, whoever may beget them. Divorce is a 
 frequent occurrence and for trivial causes. When it 
 takes place, not only are the children previously born 
 retained by the husband, but any whom the wife may 
 afterwards bear to another man belong to the husband 
 ^ Ellis, i. 164; Sibree, 246. 
 
MOTHERRIGHT 325 
 
 who has divorced her. And he hastens to secure 
 them by taking a present to each one as it is born ; a 
 ceremony which appears to constitute a formal claim 
 to them. In the ceremony of divorce the husband's 
 final word to his wife is an injunction to remember 
 that though she is now at liberty to marry any one 
 else, all her future children will belong to him, the 
 husband divorcing her/ 
 
 Motherright then is found not merely where 
 paternity is uncertain, but also where it is practically 
 certain. Fatherright on the other hand is found not 
 merely where paternity is certain, but also where it is 
 uncertain and even where the legal father is known 
 not to have begotten the children. Nay, the institu- 
 tions of fatherright often require provision for, and 
 very generally permit, the procreation by other men of 
 children for the nominal father. It follows therefore 
 that the uncer:ainty of paternity cannot be historically 
 the reason (or the reckoning of descent exclusively 
 through the mother. Some other reason must be 
 discovered. 
 
 ^ Verbal information to me by Rev. T. Rowlands, L.M.S., 
 Missionary to the Betsileo. The information does not agree with 
 that in Ellis, Hist. Mad. i. 173. Possibly the latter refers to (or 
 includes) children of tender age who are necessarily left with their 
 mother for the time. 
 
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