PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 119 



right nostril with the officiant's right thumb. This rite 

 is an amalgam. The recited spell, the amulet and 

 the mixture conveyed into the woman's nose are 

 doubtless all separately potent : their combined effect 

 ought to be decisive. 1 In Persia the mandrake is 

 said to be worn as an amulet. The women of Mecca 

 commonly wear a magical girdle to yield them fertility. 2 

 A Chukchi female shaman showed a recent scientific 

 traveller a stone of peculiar shape, which she called 

 her husband. She said she loved it more than her 

 living mate, and averred that most of her children were 

 conceived from it. 3 Similarly on the Banks' Islands 

 women take certain stones to bed with them to become 

 fruitful. 4 By the Australian women of Tully River in 

 Northern Queensland twins or triplets are often ac- 

 counted for as a punishment inflicted by a mother-in- 

 law for neglect. The process is simple. The old lady 

 plants two or three pebbles underneath her daughter- 

 in-law's sleeping-place and the result is assured. 5 



From north to south of the African continent 

 amulets are prominent among the means of obtaining 

 offspring. A porcupine's foot is a favourite talisman 



1 Sacred Books, xlii. 96, 356. In a note on a previous page I 

 have mentioned a third spell (p. 61) to ensure male issue from a 

 women already pregnant. Strabo (xv. i, 60) mentions on the 

 authority of Megasthenes that among the Garmanes the physicians 

 can cause people to produce numerous offspring and to have either 

 male or female children by means of charms. Among the bunches 

 of charms worn by Korean women are " curious little twin Josses 

 which are supposed to insure the wearer becoming a mother of sons " 

 (/. A. I. xxiv. 311). Here it may be the sex rather than the mere 

 production of the offspring which is intended to be insured. 



2 Ploss, Weib, i. 437, 439- 



3 Bogoras, Jesup Exped. vii. 344. 



4 Codrington, 184. 



6 Roth, N. Q. Ethnog. Bull. v. 25 (par. 92). 



