366 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. XX. 



Nahuatls. If there be any truth in the story told to 

 Solon by the priests of Sais, they are a much more 

 likely people to have invaded the countries around the 

 Mediterranean than the Nahuatls. What seems foreign 

 in the customs and beliefs of the latter appears to have 

 come from the west from China and Japan whilst 

 there are some few points of affinity between the 

 Caribs and the peoples of Europe and Africa. Thus, 

 Mr. Hyde Clarke states that the greater part of Brazil 

 is covered by the Guarani or Tupi languages, which 

 are allied to the Agan of the Nile region, the Aokhass 

 of Caucasia, &c. 



There is one singular custom amongst the Carib races 

 of America, and amongst some ancient peoples in Asia, 

 Europe, and Africa, the existence of which on both sides 

 of the Atlantic cannot, I think, be explained, excepting 

 on the theory that there was a remote intercourse or 

 affinity amongst the peoples who practised it. I allude 

 to the singular custom of the " Couvade," in which the 

 father is put to bed on the birth of a child. I take the 

 following account of this curious practice from Mr. 

 Tylor's philosophical " Early History of Mankind." 



The couvade is developed to the highest degree in 

 South America and the West Indies. The following 

 account is given by Du Tertre of the Carib couvade in 

 the West Indies. When a child is born, the mother 

 goes presently to work, but the father begins to complain, 

 and takes to his hammock, and there he is visited as 

 though he were sick, and undergoes a course of dieting 

 " which would cure of the gout the most replete of 

 Frenchmen.'' The imaginary invalid must repose and 



