560 DESCENT OF PROPERTY. 



and titles of his father, who then holds them only as a 

 guardian or trustee ; so that among this extraordinary people, 

 not the father, but the son, is in reality the head of the family. 

 So also in Australia, the father is called after the son, not the 

 son after the father. At Cape York and in the neighbouring 

 islands the youngest son has a double share.* Among the 

 New Zealanders, Mr. Brown assures us that the youngest son 

 succeeded to the property of the father. -f Among the Wany- 

 ameuzi, property descends not to the legitimate, but to the 

 illegitimate children.^ There are many races in which those 

 holding certain relationships are forbidden to talk to one 

 another, an extraordinary superstition which, as we have seen 

 (p. 463), reaches its climax among the Fijiaus. 



It seems natural to us that after childbirth the woman 

 should keep her bed ; and that as far as possible the husband 

 should relieve her for a time from the labours and cares of 

 life. In this, at least, one might have thought that all nations 

 would be alike. Yet it is not so. Among the Caribs the 

 lather, on the birth of a child, took to his hammock, and 

 placed himself in the hands of the doctor, the mother mean- 

 while going about her work as usual. A similar custom has 

 1 >een observed on the mainland of South America, among the 



o 



Abipones, Mundrucus, Fuegians, etc.; among the Arawaks of 

 Surinam ; in the Chinese province of West Yunnan ; among 

 the Dyaks of Borneo, and the Esquimaux of Greenland. It 

 is mentioned by Xenophon as occurring in Asia Minor, and 

 by Strabo among the Iberians ; is found even in the present 

 day among the Basques, among whom we are told that in some 

 of the valleys the " women rise immediately after childbirth, 

 and attend to the duties of the household, while the husband 

 goes to bed, taking the baby with him, and thus receives the 



* McGillivray, Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, vol. ii. p. 28. 

 t New Zealand and its Aborigines, p. 26. 

 I Burton's Lake Regions of Africa, p. 198. 



