The Couvade es: 
West Indian Islands, and of the eastern coast of South 
America, were a warlike, fierce, and enterprising race. Even 
in Columbus’s time they were found making long voyages 
to ravage the villages of the peace-loving 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 
Agaw of the Nile region, the Abkass of Caucasia, etc. 
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 take careful nursing and nourishing food. In Brazil, 
. on the birth of a child, the father was put to bed and fed 
with light food, whilst the mother was unattended to, and 
went about her work. The practice of the couvade was 
universal, in some form or other, amongst the Carib races, 
but was unknown amongst the peoples whom I have called 
the Nahuatls. 
On the other side of the Atlantic the couvade has been 
