106 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



the Romans remained barren. Juno, having been 

 consulted in her sacred grove on the Esquiline, 

 replied: "Italidas matres sacer hircus inito !" An augur 

 recently banished from Etruria (the Etruscans were 

 famous for augury) interpreted the oracle. He offered a 

 goat in sacrifice, and by his command the women exposed 

 their backs to blows from thongs cut from the hide. 

 The happiest results followed ; the women became 

 mothers, and Rome was saved from extinction. 1 It is 

 perfectly true that this is an setiological tale, invented 

 long afterwards to account for a rite the origin of 

 which was unknown. It is only cited here to show 

 that the ancients attached no purgative quality to the 

 blows : they understood their purpose to be no less 

 and no more than that of fecundating the childless 

 women who submitted to them. 



The same direct action is to be attributed to the 

 blows bestowed in the county of B6kes, in Hungary, 

 on sterile women. They are struck with a stick 

 which has been first used to separate pairing dogs. In 

 the county of Bacs a barren woman is fumigated with 

 the hairs of pairing dogs, or with Christmas crumbs. 

 In the same county a Serb woman, who has already 

 borne and is therefore endowed with fecundity, will 

 communicate it to a barren friend by spanning her 

 waist at Christmas with a doughy hand. Among the 

 Schokaz the unfruitful woman sleeps on a cloth where- 

 with she has touched two pairing dogs. The Slovaks 

 in county Gomor beat her with the material in which 

 the midwife has wrapped a child at birth ; and we 

 are expressly told that they believe that by this means 

 she becomes pregnant. 2 



1 Ovid, Fasti, ii. 429. 2 Temesvary, 8. 



