DR. PLOSS ON " THE CHILD:' 



243 



with these prenatal fancies, of which it is, in- 

 deed, a continuation, seems plain when we ob- 

 serve that, after the children in question have 

 been born, and the fathers have accordingly en- 

 tered on due course of couvade, the Dyak diets 

 himself on rice and salt, lest other food should 

 hurt the child's digestion ; while the Carib father 

 gives as his reason for not eating sea-cow that if 

 he did the child might grow up like it, with little 

 round eyes. Attempts have been made by eth- 

 nologists to account for the couvade on other 

 grounds, but they break down on wide compari- 

 son of the evidence, while this strengthens the sym- 

 pathetic explanation given by the couvaders them- 

 selves. The details of the couvade are not, in- 

 deed, all accounted for ; as, for instance, it is not 

 clear how even a Carib can think his child to be 

 benefited by himself being, not only half starved, 

 but profusely bled, and having cayenne pepper 

 rubbed into his wounds. But there is abundant 

 evidence to prove the tendency of the pre-scien- 

 tific mind to the main principle of the couvade, 

 that children are sympathetically affected by what 

 happens to persons with whom they are anyhow 

 connected. So well does this fit even with the 

 European peasant's state of thought, that a whole 

 group of superstitions based on it have estab- 

 lished themselves in German folk-lore, which Dr. 

 Ploss (vol. i., p. 141) may well consider analo- 

 gous to those of the couvade-observing savages, 

 who hold that a baby's health may be affected by 

 its father taking a pinch of snuff. These Ger- 

 man superstitions apply to the godparents, whose 

 close social connection with the godchild has led 

 to the popular superstition that it will grow up 

 with their peculiarities, and especially be affected 

 by their conduct at the baptismal ceremony; 

 therefore the godfather must wash himself prop- 

 erly, and the godmother put on a clean shift, or 

 the child will grow up dirty ; the godfather must 

 not look round on his way to church, or the child 

 will be an idle stare-about ; nor must the god- 

 father carry a knife about him, lest the child 

 should be a suicide ; and so on through other 

 provisions, to be found in Dr. Ploss's book, or in 

 the copious collection of German folk-lore whence 

 they are quoted, the enlarged second edition of 

 Prof. Adolf Wuttke's " Deutsche Volksaber- 

 glaube der Gegenwart." In forming an opinion 



as to the history of the couvade, the difficulty lies 

 in deciding whether its appearance in districts of 

 Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, is to be ac- 

 counted for by supposing that it sprang up inde- 

 pendently in several regions ; or whether, having 

 been once invented in some one magic-seeking 

 tribe, it spread thence over the world. The pres- 

 ent reviewer has been unfortunate as to this dis- 

 cussion, his remarks having led first Sir John 

 Lubbock, and now Dr. Ploss, to think that he ven- 

 tured on the utterly rash inference that all peo- 

 ples practising the couvade are thereby proved to 

 be of one and the same race. All that he ever real- 

 ly argued on this line was to make a very modest 

 inference, that the existence of the custom among 

 the old Corsicans mentioned by Diodorus Siculus 

 tended to show that they might be a relic of the 

 same population with the Basques. That tribes 

 in the Chinese hills, or in Asia Minor, or in 

 Navarre, should practise a curious custom like 

 that usual among the wild tribes of Brazil, may 

 be a reason for thinking that the ancestors of the 

 Old World races were once in a stage of culture 

 like that of the Brazilian savages, or that there 

 had been communication between them, but it is 

 hardly a ground of speculation as to blood-rela- 

 tionship between such unlike varieties of our 

 race. At any rate, care will be taken in the next 

 '■ edition of " The Early History of Mankind " to 

 , guard against this misapprehension in future. 

 The ethnological argument respecting the Basques 

 will be upset if the recent assertion of M. Vin- 

 son (" Basque Legends," p. 232) proves true, that 

 Francisque-Michel, Quatrefages, and others, have 

 been mistaken in believing the Basques to be 

 couvaders at all, the practice really belonging 

 only to Romance populations such as the Bear- 

 nais. 



Among corrections desirable in the next edi- 

 tion of Dr. Ploss's valuable work it may be no- 

 ticed that the printer has come to grief conspicu- 

 ously in the Hebrew of vol. i., p. 95, and that it 

 might be wise to drop altogether the mention a* 

 page 21 of the idea that certain crescent-shaped 

 objects found in the Swiss lake-dwellings are 

 proofs of moon- worship. Dr. Ploss asks any 

 who are disposed to help him in his inquiries 

 with new information to write to his address, 

 " An der Pleisse 7, Leipzig." — Academy. 



