PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 115 



conjuring formula : " So-and-so shall conceive." After 

 that, she brings the pitcher with the water to the barren 

 woman to drink, and winding the wedding-garment 

 (it does not appear what portion of the dress is meant) 

 of the latter about her own body, wears it for three 

 months or longer, until the woman for whom the 

 ceremony is performed shall feel that her desire has 

 been accomplished. The friend, however, must not 

 eat even a morsel of bread in the patient's house. 1 



In this performance as in the former two distinct 

 rites are employed, in the hope that one will be 

 successful if the other fail. The potion carries us back 

 to the fertilising means discussed earlier in the chapter. 

 The stone shaken down from the tree can hardly be 

 understood to represent anything but a pear ; and 

 inasmuch as the patient cannot eat the stone, its 

 virtues as fruit (enhanced by its being plucked by a 

 woman already pregnant) are transmitted to the water 

 which is given her to drink, the intention being made 

 effectual by the utterance of the command, " So-and-so 

 shall conceive." In the second rite, included alike in 

 both customs, the quasi-permanent contact of the fruitful 

 tree or the pregnant woman with the barren woman's 

 clothing though detached from her body is sufficient, 

 by a magical doctrine which I have considered else- 

 where, to secure the transmission of prolific virtue to 

 her. Arab women attempt the more direct method of 

 transmission by borrowing the robe of a friend who 

 has already proved her fecundity. 2 So Egede, the 

 Danish missionary to Greenland, tells us of the 

 Eskimo that " to render barren women fertile or 



1 Dr. Kratiss, in Am Urquell, iii. 276. Cf. the variant rites 

 practised by the Schokaz, supra, p. 60. 2 Jaussen, 35. 



