CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 157 



delivery. It is commonly performed by a woman, 

 a friend or relative of the labouring woman, who 

 takes in her arms a bundle of cloth, which she 

 handles like a baby while she dances, afterwards 

 putting it into the cradle {kavat) in which a child 

 is carried on the back. An old story relates the 

 origin of this dance as follows. A widow died in 

 childbirth, and the child was given to a woman 

 who happened to be dancing at the time of its birth, 

 and who afterwards became a very influential and 

 prosperous person. 



When the delivery has been normally accom- 

 plished and all goes well, the mother at once nurses 

 the child ; and a woman of the lower class may 

 resume her lighter household duties within twenty- 

 four hours. A woman of the upper class may remain 

 recumbent for the most part of several days or even 

 weeks. For seventeen days the mother wears threads 

 tied round the thumbs and big toes, and during this 

 time she is expected to avoid heavy labour, such 

 as farm-work and the pounding of padi. There 

 seems to be no trace of any such custom as the 

 couvade, though the father observes, like the mother, 

 certain tabus during the early months and years of 

 the child's life, with diminishing strictness as the 

 child grows older. The child also is hedged about 

 with tabus. The general aim of all these tabus 

 seems to be to establish and maintain about the 

 child a certain atmosphere (or, as they say, a certain 

 odour) ^ in which alone it can thrive. Neither father 

 nor mother will eat or touch anything whose pro- 

 perties are thought to be harmful or undesirable for 

 the child, e.g, such things as the skin of the timid 

 deer (see vol. ii. p. 72), or that of the tiger-cat ; and 



^ This notion of an atmosphere or ' ' odour " of virtue attaching to materia! 

 objects pervades the thought and practice of Kayans. As another illustration 

 of it, we may remark that a Kayan will wear for a long time, and will often 

 refuse to wash, a garment which has been worn and afterwards given to him 

 by a European whom he respects. 



