WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 26/ 



heavy objects ; either might cause her to abort. Should she happen to 

 see a hunchback, a lame or maimed person, or one with an ugly face 

 or an unusual eye, she was to do no more than glance at him ; a pro- 

 longed look might cause her child to be deformed in the same manner. 

 "One of my sons was born with only one finger on his right hand ; 

 I had looked at a man with such a hand while I was carrying the boy." 

 If a pregnant woman looks at an eclipse through an opening in the 

 roof and simultaneously scratches her body, the child will have a 

 black mark on the corresponding part of its body. "I know a woman 

 who rubbed her eye during an eclipse and thereby caused her child 

 to have a black ring around one eye." Nothing can be done during 

 pregnancy to make a child pretty. "In that respect the child will be 

 born as God wants it to be." 



CHILDBIRTH, AND CARE OF MOTHER AND NEWBORN BABY 



PLACE OF BIRTH, ATTENDANTS, PERSONS PRESENT, AIDS, PROCEDURE, 

 RECORDING THE BIRTH 



The proper place for the birth of a child was the home, that is the 

 toldo, especially in winter. If the birth occurred in the toldo, a corner 

 was curtained off with a blanket, behind which the baby was born. 

 On rare occasions, in summer, birth took place in a shelter erected close 

 to the toldo. An unmarried mother not infrequently delivered her 

 child in an unfrequented place — in a wood, if one was nearby. "Such 

 a woman feared the anger of her father." 



There were no professional midwives. The woman's mother as- 

 sisted with the delivery, unless she was too old or otherwise incapaci- 

 tated, in which case the woman's mother-in-law, or, occasionally, an- 

 other woman who was a close relative did so. In dire necessity a man 

 assisted. One man had done so because there was a fiesta going on, 

 to which everyone else had gone. An unmarried mother was assisted 

 "by some woman whose heart moved her to do so, usually a friend." 



Persons who were present, but who did not assist, were the woman's 

 husband and her father; sometimes the children of the couple were 

 also present, but just as often they were sent out to play. 



In general, women had easy deliveries and took no decoctions to 

 facilitate birth. A 65-year-old woman believed the easy deliveries to 

 be due to a decoction which was given to young girls, "when they 

 were only so tall [about 4 years old]. It was given to them so that 

 they would have no labor pains, once their time came to be mothers." 

 If a woman in labor began to feel weak, "you know it strikes some 

 women in the heart," she was given a stimulating drink made of 



