§ 3. Contagious Magic

Thus far we have been considering chiefly that branch of sympathetic magic which may be called homoeopathic or imitative. Its leading principle, as we have seen, is that like produces like, or, in other words, that an effect resembles its cause. The other great branch of sympathetic magic, which I have called Contagious Magic, proceeds upon the notion that things which have once been conjoined must remain ever afterwards, even when quite dissevered from each other, in such a sympathetic relation that whatever is done to the one must similarly affect the other.​[630] Thus the logical basis of Contagious Magic, like that of Homoeopathic Magic, is a mistaken association of ideas; its physical basis, if we may speak of such a thing, {p175} like the physical basis of Homoeopathic Magic, is a material medium of some sort which, like the ether of modern physics, is assumed to unite distant objects and to convey impressions from one to the other. The most familiar example of Contagious Magic is the magical sympathy which is supposed to exist between a man and any severed portion of his person, as his hair or nails; so that whoever gets possession of human hair or nails may work his will, at any distance, upon the person from whom they were cut. This superstition is world-wide; instances of it in regard to hair and nails will be noticed later on in this work.​[631] While like other superstitions it has had its absurd and mischievous consequences, it has nevertheless indirectly done much good by furnishing savages with strong, though irrational, motives for observing rules of cleanliness which they might never have adopted on rational grounds. How the superstition has produced this salutary effect will appear from a single instance, which I will give in the words of an experienced observer. Amongst the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain “it is as a rule necessary for the efficiency of a charm that it should contain a part of the person who is to be enchanted (for example, his hair), or a piece of his clothing, or something that stands in some relation to him, such as his excrements, the refuse of his food, his spittle, his footprints, etc. All such objects can be employed as panait, that is, as a medium for a papait or charm, consisting of an incantation or murmuring of a certain formula, together with the blowing into the air of some burnt lime which is held in the hand. It need hardly, therefore, be said that the native removes all such objects as well as he can. Thus the cleanliness which is usual in the houses and consists in sweeping the floor carefully every day, is by no means based on a desire for cleanliness and neatness in themselves, but purely on the effort to put out of the way anything that might serve an ill-wisher as a charm.”​[632] I will now illustrate the principles of Contagious Magic by examples, beginning with its application to various parts of the human body. {p176}

Among the Australian tribes it was a common practice to knock out one or more of a boy’s front teeth at those ceremonies of initiation to which every male member had to submit before he could enjoy the rights and privileges of a full-grown man.​[633] The reason of the practice is obscure; a conjecture on this subject has been hazarded above.​[634] All that concerns us here is the evidence of a belief that a sympathetic relation continued to exist between the lad and his teeth after the latter had been extracted from his gums. Thus among some of the tribes about the river Darling, in New South Wales, the extracted tooth was placed under the bark of a tree near a river or water-hole; if the bark grew over the tooth, or if the tooth fell into the water, all was well; but if it were exposed and the ants ran over it, the natives believed that the boy would suffer from a disease of the mouth.​[635] Among the Murring and other tribes of New South Wales the extracted tooth was at first taken care of by an old man, and then passed from one headman to another, until it had gone all round the community, when it came back to the lad’s father, and finally to the lad himself. But however it was thus conveyed from hand to hand, it might on no account be placed in a bag containing magical substances, for to do so would, they believed, put the owner of the tooth in great danger.​[636] The late Dr. Howitt once acted as custodian of the teeth which had been extracted from some novices at a ceremony of initiation, and the old men earnestly besought him not to carry them in a bag in which they knew that he had some quartz crystals. They declared that if he did so the magic of the crystals would pass into the teeth, and so injure the boys. Nearly a year after Dr. Howitt’s return from the ceremony he was visited by one of the principal men of the Murring tribe, who had travelled some two hundred and fifty miles from his home to fetch back the teeth. This man explained that he had been {p177} sent for them because one of the boys had fallen into ill health, and it was believed that the teeth had received some injury which had affected him. He was assured that the teeth had been kept in a box apart from any substances, like quartz crystals, which could influence them; and he returned home bearing the teeth with him carefully wrapt up and concealed.​[637] In the Dieri tribe of South Australia the teeth knocked out at initiation were bound up in emu feathers, and kept by the boy’s father or his next-of-kin until the mouth had healed, and even for long afterwards. Then the father, accompanied by a few old men, performed a ceremony for the purpose of taking all the supposed life out of the teeth. He made a low rumbling noise without uttering any words, blew two or three times with his mouth, and jerked the teeth through his hand to some little distance. After that he buried them about eighteen inches under ground. The jerking movement was meant to shew that he thereby took all the life out of the teeth. Had he failed to do so, the boy would, in the opinion of the natives, have been liable to an ulcerated and wry mouth, impediment in speech, and ultimately a distorted face.​[638] This ceremony is interesting as a rare instance of an attempt to break the sympathetic link between a man and a severed part of himself by rendering the part insensitive.

The Basutos are careful to conceal their extracted teeth, lest these should fall into the hands of certain mythical beings called baloi, who haunt graves, and could harm the owner of the tooth by working magic on it.​[639] In Sussex some forty years ago a maid-servant remonstrated strongly against the throwing away of children’s cast teeth, affirming that should they be found and gnawed by any animal, the child’s new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth of the animal that had bitten the old one. In proof of this she named old Master Simmons, who had a {p178} very large pig’s tooth in his upper jaw, a personal defect that he always averred was caused by his mother, who threw away one of his cast teeth by accident into the hog’s trough.​[640] A similar belief has led to practices intended, on the principles of homoeopathic magic, to replace old teeth by new and better ones. Thus in many parts of the world it is customary to put extracted teeth in some place where they will be found by a mouse or a rat, in the hope that, through the sympathy which continues to subsist between them and their former owner, his other teeth may acquire the same firmness and excellence as the teeth of these rodents. Thus in Germany it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert it in a mouse’s hole. To do so with a child’s milk-tooth which has fallen out will prevent the child from having toothache. Or you should go behind the stove and throw your tooth backwards over your head, saying, “Mouse, give me your iron tooth; I will give you my bone tooth.” After that your other teeth will remain good. German children say, “Mouse, mouse, come out and bring me out a new tooth”; or “Mouse, I give you a little bone; give me a little stone”; or “Mouse, there is an old tooth for you; make me a new one.” In Bavaria they say that if this ceremony be observed the child’s second teeth will be as white as the teeth of mice.​[641] Amongst the South Slavonians, too, the child is taught to throw his tooth into a dark corner and say, “Mouse, mouse, there is a bone tooth; give me an iron tooth instead.”​[642] Jewish children in South Russia throw their cast teeth on the roof with the same request to the mouse to give them an iron tooth for a tooth of bone.​[643] Far away {p179} from Europe, at Raratonga, in the Pacific, when a child’s tooth was extracted, the following prayer used to be recited:—

Then the tooth was thrown on the thatch of the house, because rats make their nests in the decayed thatch. The reason assigned for invoking the rats on these occasions was that rats’ teeth were the strongest known to the natives.​[644] In the Seranglao and Gorong archipelagoes, between New Guinea and Celebes, when a child loses his first tooth, he must throw it on the roof, saying, “Mouse, I give you my tooth; give me yours instead.”​[645] In Amboyna the custom is the same, and the form of words is, “Take this tooth, thrown on the roof, as the mouse’s share, and give me a better one instead.”​[646] In the Kei Islands, to the south-west of New Guinea, when a child begins to get his second teeth, he is lifted up to the top of the roof in order that he may there deposit, as an offering to the rats, the tooth which has fallen out. At the same time some one cries aloud, “O rats, here you have his tooth; give him a golden one instead.”​[647] Among the Ilocans of Luzon, in the Philippines, when children’s teeth are loose, they are pulled out with a string and put in a place where rats will be likely to find and drag them away.​[648] In ancient Mexico, when a child was getting a new tooth, the father or mother used to put the old one in a mouse’s hole, believing that if this precaution were not taken the new tooth would not issue from the gums.​[649] A different and more barbarous {p180} application of the same principle is the Swabian superstition that when a child is teething you should bite off the head of a living mouse, and hang the head round the child’s neck by a string, taking care, however, to make no knot in the string; then the child will teethe easily.​[650] In Bohemia the treatment prescribed is similar, though there they recommend you to use a red thread and to string three heads of mice on it instead of one.​[651]

But it is not always a mouse or a rat that brings the child a new and stronger tooth. Apparently any strong-toothed animal will serve the purpose. Thus when his or her tooth drops out, a Singhalese will throw it on the roof, saying, “Squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty tooth.”​[652] In Bohemia a child will sometimes throw its cast tooth behind the stove, asking the fox to give him an iron tooth instead of the bone one.​[653] In Berlin the teeth of a fox worn as an amulet round a child’s neck make teething easy for him, and ensure that his teeth will be good and lasting.​[654] Similarly, in order to help a child to cut its teeth, the aborigines of Victoria fastened to its wrist the front tooth of a kangaroo, which the child used as a coral to rub its gums with.​[655] Again, the beaver can gnaw through the hardest wood. Hence among the Cherokee Indians, when the loosened milk tooth of a child has been pulled out or has dropped out of itself, the child runs round the house with it, repeating four times, “Beaver, put a new tooth into my jaw,” after which he throws the tooth on the roof of the house.​[656] In Macedonia, a child carefully keeps for a time its first drawn tooth, and then throws it on the roof with the following invocation to the crow:— {p181}

We can now understand a custom of the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, which the writer who records it is unable to explain. When a child lost its teeth, the father used to take each one as it fell out and to hide it in a piece of raw venison, which he gave to a dog to eat. The animal swallowed the venison and the tooth with it.​[658] Doubtless the custom was intended to ensure that the child’s new teeth should be as strong as those of a dog. In Silesia mothers sometimes swallow their children’s cast teeth in order to save their offspring from toothache. The intention is perhaps to strengthen the weak teeth of the child by the strong teeth of the grown woman.​[659] Amongst the Warramunga of Central Australia, when a girl’s tooth has been knocked out as a solemn ceremony, it is pounded up and the fragments placed in a piece of flesh, which has to be eaten by the girl’s mother. When the same rite has been performed on a man, his pounded tooth must be eaten in a piece of meat by his mother-in-law.​[660] Among the heathen Arabs, when a boy’s tooth fell out, he used to take it between his finger and thumb and throw it towards the sun, saying, “Give me a better for it.” After that his teeth were sure to grow straight, and close, and strong. “The sun,” says Tharafah, “gave the lad from his own nursery-ground a tooth like a hailstone, white and polished.”​[661] Thus the reason for throwing the old teeth towards the sun would seem to have been a notion that the sun sends hail, from which it naturally follows that he can send you a tooth as smooth and white and hard as a hailstone. Among the peasants of the Lebanon, when a child loses a milk tooth, he throws it {p182} towards the sun, saying, “Sun, sun, take the ass’s tooth and give me the deer’s tooth.” They sometimes say jestingly that the child’s tooth has been carried off by a mouse.​[662] An Armenian generally buries his extracted teeth at the edge of the hearth with the prayer: “Grandfather, take a dog’s tooth and give me a golden tooth.”​[663] In the light of the preceding examples, we may conjecture that the grandfather here invoked is not so much the soul of a dead ancestor as a mouse or a rat.

Other parts which are commonly believed to remain in a sympathetic union with the body, after the physical connexion has been severed, are the navel-string and the afterbirth, including the placenta. So intimate, indeed, is the union conceived to be, that the fortunes of the individual for good or evil throughout life are often supposed to be bound up with one or other of these portions of his person, so that if his navel-string or afterbirth is preserved and properly treated, he will be prosperous; whereas if it be injured or lost, he will suffer accordingly. Thus among the Maoris, when the navel-string dropped off, the child was carried to a priest to be solemnly named by him. But before the ceremony of naming began, the navel-string was buried in a sacred place and a young sapling was planted over it. Ever afterwards that tree, as it grew, was a tohu oranga or sign of life for the child.​[664] In the Upper Whakatane valley, in the North Island of New Zealand, there is a famous hinau tree, to which the Maoris used to attach the navel-strings of their children; and barren women were in the habit of embracing the tree in the hope of thereby obtaining offspring.​[665] Again, among the Maoris, “the placenta is named fenua, which word signifies land. It is applied by the natives to the placenta, from their supposing it to be the residence of the child: on being discharged it is immediately buried with {p183} great care, as they have the superstitious idea that the priests, if offended, would procure it; and, by praying over it, occasion the death of both mother and child, by ‘praying them to death,’ to use their own expression.”​[666] Again, some of the natives of South Australia regarded the placenta as sacred and carefully put it away out of reach of the dogs,​[667] doubtless because they thought that harm would come to the child if this part of himself were eaten by the animals. Certain tribes of Western Australia believe that a man swims well or ill, according as his mother at his birth threw the navel-string into water or not.​[668] Among the Arunta of Central Australia the navel-string is swathed in fur-string and made into a necklace, which is placed round the child’s neck. The necklace is supposed to facilitate the growth of the child, to keep it quiet and contented, and to avert illness generally.​[669] In the Kaitish tribe of Central Australia the practice and belief are similar.​[670] In the Warramunga tribe, after the string has hung round the child’s neck for a time, it is given to the wife’s brother, who wears it in his armlet, and who may not see the child till it can walk. In return for the navel-string, the man makes a present of weapons to the infant’s father. When the child can walk, the father gives fur-string to the man, who now comes to the camp, sees the child, and makes another present to the father. After that he keeps the navel-string for some time longer, and finally places it in a hollow tree known only to himself.​[671] Among the natives on the Pennefather river in Queensland it is {p184} believed that a part of the child’s spirit (cho-i) stays in the afterbirth. Hence the grandmother takes the afterbirth away and buries it in the sand. She marks the spot by a number of twigs which she sticks in the ground in a circle, tying their tops together so that the structure resembles a cone. When Anjea, the being who causes conception in women by putting mud babies into their wombs, comes along and sees the place, he takes out the spirit and carries it away to one of his haunts, such as a tree, a hole in a rock, or a lagoon, where it may remain for years. But sometime or other he will put the spirit again into a baby, and it will be born once more into the world.​[672]

In the Yabim tribe of German New Guinea the mother ties the navel-string to the net in which she carries the child, lest any one should use the string to the child’s hurt.​[673] “In some parts of Fiji the navel-string of a male infant is planted together with a cocoanut, or slip of a bread-fruit tree, and the child’s life is supposed to be intimately connected with that of the tree. Moreover, the planting is supposed to have the effect of making the boy a good climber. If the child be a girl, the mother or her sister will take the navel-string to the sea-water when she goes out fishing for the first time after the childbirth, and she will throw it into the sea when the nets are stretched in line. Thus the girl will grow up into a skilful fisherwoman. But the queerest use I ever saw the string put to was at Rotuma. There it has become almost obligatory for a young man, who wants the girls to respect him, to make a voyage in a white man’s vessel; and mothers come alongside ships anchored in the roadstead and fasten their boy’s navel-string to the vessel’s chain-plates. This will make sure of a voyage for the child when it has grown up. This, of course, must be a modern development, but it has all the strength of an ancient custom.”​[674] In Ponape, one of the Caroline Islands, the {p185} navel-string is placed in a shell and then disposed of in such a way as shall best adapt the child for the career which the parents have chosen for him. Thus if they wish to make him a good climber, they will hang the navel-string on a tree.​[675] In the Gilbert Islands the navel-string is wrapt by the child’s father or adoptive father in a pandanus leaf, and then worn by him as a bracelet for several months. After that he keeps it most carefully in the hut, generally hanging under the ridge-beam. The islanders believe that if the navel-string is thus preserved, the child will become a great warrior if it is a boy, or will make a good match if it is a girl. But should the bracelet be lost before the child is grown up, they expect that the boy will prove a coward in war, and that the girl will make an unfortunate marriage. Hence the most anxious search is made for the missing talisman, and if it is not to be found, weeks will pass before the relations resign themselves to its loss. When the boy has grown to be a youth and has distinguished himself for the first time in war, the bracelet containing the navel-string is taken by the villagers, on a day fixed for the purpose, far out to sea; the adoptive father of the lad throws the bracelet overboard, and all the canoes begin to catch as many fish as they can. The first fish caught, whether large or small, is carefully preserved apart from the rest. Meantime the old women at home have been busy preparing a copious banquet for the fishermen. When the little fleet comes to shore, the old woman who helped at the lad’s birth goes to meet it; the first fish caught is handed to her, and she carries it to the hut. The fish is laid on a new mat, the youth and his mother take their places beside it, and they and it are covered up with another mat. Then the old woman goes round the mat, striking the ground with a short club and murmuring a prayer to the lad’s god to help him henceforth in war, that he may be brave and invulnerable, and that he may turn out a skilful fisherman. The navel-string of a girl, as soon as she is grown up, is thrown into the sea with similar ceremonies; and the ceremony on land is the same except that the old woman’s prayer is {p186} naturally different; she asks the girl’s god to grant that she may have a happy marriage and many children. After the mat has been removed, the fish is cooked and eaten by the two; if it is too large to be eaten by them alone, the remainder is consumed by friends and relations. These ceremonies are only observed for the children of wealthy parents, who can defray the cost. In the case of a child of poorer parents the bracelet containing the navel-string simply hangs up till it disappears in one way or another.​[676]

Among the Galelareese, to the west of New Guinea, the mother sometimes keeps the navel-string till the child is old enough to begin to play. Then she gives it as a plaything to the little one, who may take it away; otherwise the child would be idiotic. But others plant the navel-string with a banana-bush or a coco-nut.​[677] The Kei islanders, to the south-west of New Guinea, regard the navel-string as the brother or sister of the child, according as the infant is a boy or a girl. They put it in a pot with ashes, and set it in the branches of a tree, that it may keep a watchful eye on the fortunes of its comrade.​[678] In the Babar Archipelago, between New Guinea and Celebes, the placenta is mixed with ashes and put in a small basket, which seven women, each of them armed with a sword, hang up on a tree of a particular kind (Citrus hystrix). The women carry swords for the purpose of frightening the evil spirits; otherwise these mischievous beings might get hold of the placenta and make the child sick. The navel-string is kept in a little box in the house.​[679] In the Tenimber and Timorlaut islands the placenta is buried in a basket under a sago or coco-nut palm, which then becomes the property of the child. But sometimes it is hidden in the forest, or deposited in a hole under the house with an offering of betel.​[680] In the {p187} Watubela islands the placenta is buried under a coco-nut, mangga, or great fig-tree along with the shell of the coco-nut, of which the pulp had been used to smear the newborn child.​[681] In many of the islands between New Guinea and Celebes the placenta is put in the branches of a tree, often in the top of one of the highest trees in the neighbourhood. Sometimes the navel-string is deposited along with the placenta in the tree, but often it is kept to be used as medicine or an amulet by the child.​[682] Thus in Ceram the child sometimes wears the navel-string round its neck as a charm to avert sickness;​[683] and in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor he carries it as an amulet in war or on a far journey.​[684] We cannot doubt that the intention of putting the placenta in the top of a tall tree is to keep it, and with it the child, out of harm’s way. In the islands of Saparoea, Haroekoe, and Noessa Laut, to the east of Amboyna, the midwife buries the afterbirth and strews flowers over it. Moreover, resin or a lamp is kept burning for seven or three nights over the buried afterbirth, in order that no harm may come to the child. Some people, however, in these islands solemnly cast the afterbirth into the sea. Being placed in a pot and closely covered up with a piece of white cotton, it is taken out to sea in a boat. A hole is knocked in the pot to allow it to sink in the water. The midwife, who is charged with the duty of heaving the pot and its contents overboard, must look straight ahead; if she were to glance to the right or left the child whose afterbirth is in the pot would squint. And the man who rows or steers the boat must make her keep a straight course, otherwise the child would grow up a gad-about. Before the pot is flung into the sea, the midwife disengages the piece of white cotton in which it is wrapt, and this cloth she takes straight back to the house and covers the baby with it. In these islands it is thought that a child born with a caul will enjoy in later years the gift of second sight—that is, that he will be able to see things which are hidden from common eyes, such as devils and evil spirits. But if his parents desire to prevent {p188} him from exercising this uncanny power, they can do so. In that case the midwife must dry the caul in the sun, steep it in water, and then wash the child with the water thrice; further, when the child is a little older, she must grind the caul to powder, and give the child the powder to eat with its pap. Some people keep the caul; and if the child falls ill, it is given water to drink in which the caul has been steeped.​[685] Similarly in the Luang-Sermata islands a child born with a caul is counted lucky, and can perceive and recognise the spirits of his ancestors.​[686] A caul, it may be said, is merely the fœtal membrane which usually forms part of the afterbirth; occasionally a child is born with it wrapt like a hood round its head.

In Parigi, a kingdom on the coast of Central Celebes, the placenta is laid in a cooking-pot, and one of the mother’s female relations carries the pot wrapt in white cotton and hidden under a petticoat (sarong) to a spot beneath the house or elsewhere, and there she buries it. A coco-nut is planted near the place. Going and coming the woman is led by another, and must keep her eyes fast shut, for if she looked right or left the child would squint, “because she is at this time closely united with a part of the child, to wit its older brother, in other words the placenta.” On her return to the house she lies down on her sleeping-mat, still with closed eyes, and draws a petticoat over her head, and another woman sprinkles her with water. After that she may get up and open her eyes. The sprinkling with water is intended to sever her sympathetic connexion with the child and so prevent her from exercising any influence on it.​[687] Among the Tolalaki of Central Celebes turmeric and other spices are put on the placenta, {p189} which is then enclosed in two coco-nut shells that fit one on the other. These are wrapt in bark-cloth and kept in the house. If the child falls ill, the coco-nut shells are opened and the placenta examined. Should there be worms in it, they are removed and fresh spices added. When the child has grown big and strong, the placenta is thrown away.​[688] Among the Toboongkoo of Central Celebes the afterbirth is placed in a rice-pot with various plants, which are intended to preserve it from decay as long as possible; it is then carefully tied up in bark-cloth. A man and a woman of the family carry the placenta away; in doing so they go out and in the house four times, and each time they enter they kiss the child, but they take care not to look to the right or the left, for otherwise the child would squint. Some bury the placenta, others hang it on a tree. If the child is unwell, they dig up the placenta or take it down from the tree, and lay bananas, rice of four sorts, and a lighted taper beside it. Having done so, they hang it up on a tree if it was previously buried; but they bury it if it was formerly hung up.​[689] The Tomori of Central Celebes wash the afterbirth, put it in a rice-pot, and bury it under the house. Great care is taken that no water or spittle falls on the place. For a few days the afterbirth is sometimes fed with rice and eggs, which are laid on the spot where it is buried. Afterwards the people cease to trouble themselves about it.​[690] In southern Celebes they call the navel-string and afterbirth the two brothers or sisters of the child. When the infant happens to be a prince or princess, the navel-string and afterbirth are placed with salt and tamarind in a new rice-pot, which is then enveloped in a fine robe and tightly corded up to prevent the evil spirits from making off with the pair of brothers or sisters. For the same reason a light is kept burning all night, and twice a day rice is rubbed on the edge of the pot, for the purpose, as the people say, of giving the child’s little brothers or sisters something to eat. After a while this feeding, as it is called, takes place at {p190} rarer intervals, and when the mother has been again brought to bed it is discontinued altogether. On the ninth day after the birth a number of coco-nuts are planted, with much ceremony, in a square enclosure, and the water which was used in cleansing the afterbirth and navel-string is poured upon them. These coco-nuts are called the contemporaries of the child and grow up with him. When the planting is done, the rice-pot with the navel-string and afterbirth is carried back and set beside the bed of the young prince or princess, and when his royal highness is carried out to take the air the rice-pot with his two “brothers” goes out with him, swathed in a robe of state and screened from the sun by an umbrella. If the prince or princess should die, the afterbirth and navel-string are buried. Among common people in South Celebes these parts of the infant are generally buried immediately after the birth, or they are sunk in the deep sea, or hung in a rice-pot on a tree.​[691]

In the island of Timor the placenta is called the child’s companion and treated accordingly. The midwife puts it in an earthen pot and covers it with ashes from the hearth. After standing thus three days it is taken away and buried by a person who must observe silence in discharging this duty.​[692] In Savou, a small island to the south-west of Timor, the afterbirth is filled with native herbs, and having been deposited in a new pot, which has never before been used, is buried under the house to keep off evil spirits. Or it is put in a new basket and hung in a high toddy palm to fertilise it, or thrown into the sea to secure a good catch of fish. The person who thus disposes of the afterbirth may not look to the right or the left; he must be joyous and, if possible, go singing on his way. If it is to be hung on a tree, he must climb nimbly up, in order that the child may always be lucky. These islanders ascribe a similar fertilising virtue to a caul. It is dried and carefully kept in a box. When rice-stalks turn black and the ears refuse to set, a man will take the box containing the caul and run several {p191} times round the rice-field, in order that the wind may waft the genial influence of the caul over the rice.​[693] In Rotti, an island to the south of Timor, the navel-string is put in a small satchel made of leaves, and if the father of the child is not himself going on a voyage, he entrusts the bag to one of his seafaring friends and charges him to throw it away in the open sea with the express wish that, when the child grows up and has to sail to other islands, he may escape the perils of the deep. But the business of girls in these islands does not lie in the great waters, and hence their navel-strings receive a different treatment. It is their task to go afishing daily, when the tide is out, on the coral reefs which ring the islands. So when the mother is herself again, she repairs with the little satchel to the reef where she is wont to fish. Acting the part of a priestess she there eats one or two small bagfuls of boiled rice on the spot where she intends to deposit the dried navel-string of her baby daughter, taking care to leave a few grains of rice in the bags. Then she ties the precious satchel and the nearly empty rice-bags to a stick and fastens it among the stones of the reef, generally on its outer edge, within sight and sound of the breaking waves. In doing so she utters a wish that this ceremony may guard her daughter from the perils and dangers that beset her on the reef—for example, that no crocodile may issue from the lagoon and eat her up, and that the sharp corals and broken shells may not wound her feet.​[694]

In the island of Flores the placenta is put in an earthen pot, along with some rice and betel, and buried by the father in the neighbourhood of the house, or else preserved in one of the highest trees.​[695] The natives of Bali, an island to the east of Java, believe firmly that the afterbirth is the child’s brother or sister, and they bury it in the courtyard in the half of a coco-nut from which the kernel has not been {p192} removed. For forty days afterwards a light is burned, and food, water, and betel deposited on the spot,​[696] doubtless in order to feed the baby’s little brother or sister, and to guard him or her from evil spirits. In Java the afterbirth is also called the brother or sister of the infant; it is wrapt in white cotton, put in a new pot or a coco-nut shell, and buried by the father beside the door, outside the house if the child is a boy, but inside the house if the child is a girl. Every evening until the child’s navel has healed a lamp is lit over the spot where the afterbirth is buried. If the afterbirth hangs in a rice-pot in the house, as the practice is with some people, the lamp burns under the place where the rice-pot is suspended. The purpose of the light is to ward off demons, to whose machinations the child and its supposed brother or sister are at this season especially exposed.​[697] If the child is a boy, a piece of paper inscribed with the alphabet is deposited in the pot with his placenta, in order that he may be smart at his learning; if the child is a girl, a needle and thread are deposited in the pot, that she may be a good sempstress, and water with flowers in it is poured on the spot where the placenta is buried, in order that the child may always be healthy; for many Javanese think that if the placenta is not properly honoured, the child will never be well.​[698] Sometimes, however, women in the interior of Java allow the placenta, surrounded with fruits and flowers and illuminated by little lamps, to float down the river in the dusk of the evening as an offering to the crocodiles, or rather to the ancestors whose souls are believed to lodge in these animals.​[699]

In Mandeling, a district on the west coast of Sumatra, the afterbirth is washed and buried under the house or put in an earthenware pot, which is carefully shut up and thrown {p193} into the river. This is done to avert the supposed unfavourable influence of the afterbirth on the child, whose hands or feet, for example, might be chilled by it. When the navel-string drops off, it is preserved to be used as a medicine when its former owner is ill.​[700] In Mandeling, too, the midwife prefers to cut the navel-string with a piece of a flute on which she has first blown, for then the child will be sure to have a fine voice.​[701] Among the Minangkabau people of Sumatra the placenta is put in a new earthenware pot, which is then carefully closed with a banana leaf to prevent the ants and other insects from coming at it; for if they did, the child would be sickly and given to squalling.​[702] In Central Sumatra the placenta is wrapt in white cotton, deposited in a basket or a calabash, and buried in the courtyard before the house or under a rice-barn. The hole is dug by a kinsman or kinswoman according as the baby is a boy or a girl. Over the hole is placed a stone from the hearth, and beside it a wooden spoon is stuck in the ground. Both stone and spoon are sprinkled with the juice of a citron. During the ceremony koemajen is burned and a shot fired. For three evenings afterwards candles are lighted at the spot,​[703] doubtless to keep off demons. Among the Battas of Sumatra, as among so many other peoples of the Indian Archipelago, the placenta passes for the child’s younger brother or sister, the sex being determined by the sex of the child, and it is buried under the house. According to the Battas it is bound up with the child’s welfare, and seems, in fact, to be the seat of the transferable soul, of whose wanderings outside of the body we shall hear something later on.​[704] The Karo Battas even affirm {p194} that of a man’s two souls it is the true soul that lives with the placenta under the house; that is the soul, they say, which begets children.​[705]