PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 85 



wells and rivers they haunt are therefore much 

 resorted to. Unfruitful women especially believe that 

 by bathing in rivers thus consecrated the desired 

 fertility may be obtained. 1 



In the same way it is precisely while bathing that 

 the women of a certain tribe in Northern Queensland 

 are believed to be impregnated. This is done by a 

 nature-spirit, called Kunya, who makes babies out of 

 pandanus-root and inserts them into women in the 

 water. 2 The population of the Seranglao and Gorong 

 Archipelago between Celebes and New Guinea is 

 Mohammedan, at least in name. Among the cere- 

 monies for the production of children we are vaguely 

 told that infertile men and women are made to bathe 

 in a particular manner. 3 In the partially Christianised 

 Ambon and Uliase Islands persons who have no 

 children take drugs or " bathe in a certain prescribed 

 manner ; " but what that manner is our authority leaves 

 undescribed. 4 In the Archipelagoes of Watubela, 

 Aaru and Sula barren women and their husbands go 

 to the ancestral graves, or if Moslems on Friday to 

 the so-called Kub Karana, or sacred tomb, fo pray 

 together with some old women. They bring offerings, 

 which include water, and a live goat, or if heathen a 

 young pig. The husband prays for a medicine, and 

 promises, if a child be given him, to offer the goat (or 

 pig, if a heathen), or to give it to the people to eat. 

 It is expected that after this the medicine will be 

 prescribed to both husband and wife in dreams. 

 They both wash in the water they have brought, 



1 Paulitschke, ii. 36. 



a Roth, N. Queensland Ethnog. Bull.v. 23,83. 



* Riedel, 176. * Id. 75. 



