LOWER RACES OF MAN. 343 



right liand to the brow, resting the thumb on the nose ; it is asserted 

 that among the Esquimaux it is customary to pull a person's nose as a 

 compliment ; a Chinaman puts on his hat where he should take it off, 

 and among the same curious people a coffin is regarded as a neat and 

 appropriate present for an aged person, especially if in bad health. 



Under these circumstances we cannot wonder that we have very con- 

 tradictory accounts of the character and mental condition of savages. 

 Nevertheless, by comparing together the accounts of different travelers, 

 we can, to a great extent, eliminate these sources of error, and we are 

 much aided in this by the remarkable similarity between very different 

 races. So striking, indeed, is this likeness, that different races, in sim- 

 ilar stages of development, often present more features of resemblance 

 to one another than the same race does to itself in different stages of its 

 history. 



Some ideas, indeed, which seem to us at first inexplicable and fantas- 

 tic, are yet very widely distributed. I will only allude to two. 



Probably every Englishman who had not studied other races, would 

 be astonished to meet with a nation in which, on the birth of a baby, 

 the father and not the mother Avas put to bed and nursed. 



Yet, though this custom seems so ludicrous to use, it prevails very 

 widely. 



Father Dobritzhoffer tells us that among the Abigrones of South 

 America, " no sooner do you hear that a woman has borne a child, than 

 you see the husband lying in bed, huddled up with mats and skins, lest 

 some ruder breath of air should touch him, and for a number of days 

 abstaining religiously from certain viands; you would swear it was he 

 who had had the child. * * * I had read about this in old times, 

 and laughed at it, never thinking I could believe such madness ; and I 

 used to suspect that this barbarous custom was related more in joke than 

 in earnest, but at last I saw it with my own eyes among the Abigrones." 



Other travelers mention the existence of a similar custom in Green- 

 land, in Kamtchatka, in parts of China, in Borneo, in the north of Spain, 

 in Corsica, and in the south of France, where it was called "/aire la 

 convadey 



It is of course evident that a custom so ancient and so widely distri- 

 buted must have its origin in some idea which satisfies the savage 

 mind. 



Several explanations have been suggested. Professor Max Miiller 

 says, "It is clear that the poor husband was at first tyrannized over by 

 his female relations, and afterward frightened into superstition. He 

 then began to make a martyr of himself, till he made himself really ill, 

 or took to his bed in self-defense." 



Lafitau, to whom we are indebted for an excellent work on the manners 

 of the American Indians, regards it as arising from a dim recollection of 

 original sin, rejecting the explanation given by some of the savages 

 themselves, and which I have little doubt is the correct one, that they 

 do it because they believe that if the father is engaged in any rough 

 work, or was careless in his diet, the infant would suffer. 



This idea, namely, that a person imbibes the characteristics of an ani- 

 mal which he eats, is very widely distributed. The Malays at Singapore 

 used to give a large price for the flesh of the tiger, not because they 

 liked it, but because they believed that the man who eats tiger will be- 

 come as wise and powerful as that animal. The Dyaks of Borneo have 

 a prejudice against the flesh of the deer, which the men may not eat, 

 though it is allowed to the women and children. The reason given is that 

 if the men were to eat venison, they would become as timid as deer. 



