132 EXPEDITION TO THE 



have recourse to a strong medicinal draught ; it is stated, 

 that if it should remain for several days, the husband 

 takes his wife upon his shoulders, and carries her about for 

 some time ; the motion is said to assist in its expulsion. 

 Mothers always nurse their children, and continue to suckle 

 them for a great length of time, in some instances for 

 three, four, or more years, if no subsequent pregnancy oc- 

 cur ; in one case a mother was observed suckling a child 

 twelve years of age. When the mother's milk fails, the 

 child is fed with an extract of sweet maize in boiling water, 

 and medicines are administered to renew the secretion. 

 Metea had never heard of a total failure of a woman's 

 milk while nursing her child; during a temporary in- 

 terruption of it they sometimes commit children to the 

 care of a friend, who acts as a nurse; but this practice 

 is disapproved of. Parturition is seldom fatal : when 

 it proves so, it is attributed to ignorance or carelessness on 

 the part of the midwife ; in women of indolent habit it is 

 said to be painful, in the active it is much less laborious. 

 Sterility is very common, but does not expose women to 

 contempt, though it is frequently the cause of their being 

 cast off by their husbands. The period of gestation varies 

 from eight to nine months, and is seldom attended with 

 sickness or nausea. Menstruation commonly commences 

 at the age of fourteen, and continues until fifty, and in some 

 cases sixty years; it is not uncommon to see a woman 

 with gray hair, whose catamenia has not ceased. Many 

 women become disabled from child-bearing by accidents 

 during their first gestation, although still very young. 

 Menstruation is often irregular with them ; when too 

 abundant, they have remedies which are represented as 

 very successful, but which Metea declined indicating, as it 

 was not usual for them to talk of these things except when 



