PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 137 



remains in the cup, it prognosticates marriage in the 

 course of the year. 1 All these, it may be suspected, 

 were first of all fertilising rites. 



Among the votive offerings in Roman Catholic 

 Churches on the continent of Europe, the waxen 

 baby is a constant spectacle. In the Tirol there are 

 miraculous images beside which little waxen figures in 

 the shape of toads are hung. These figures are called 

 Muettern. It is believed that every woman has 

 inside her a creature in this form a belief due to 

 symptoms of hysteria common among women. Many 

 a mother has gone to sleep with her mouth open 

 and the muetter has crept out and gone to bathe in 

 the nearest water. If she does not close her mouth, 

 the muetter by-and-by gets back safely, and the woman, 

 previously sick, is restored to health. But if she close 

 her mouth, she dies. Unfruitful women offer these 

 waxen figures to images of the Madonna, or of the 

 Pieta. 2 On the Gold Coast, Bassamese women who 

 are possessed by a demon of barrenness meet at the 

 fetish hut and deposit consecrated vases and figures 

 of clay representing mothers nursing, while they 

 present to the fetish offerings of tobacco and hand- 

 kerchiefs. The demons are frightened away by the 

 noise of fire-arms, drums, and the blowing of horns. 

 The officiating chief makes an offering of gold-dust, 

 and then spirts a mouthful of rum over the belly of 

 every woman who desires issue. An improvised 



1 UAnthrop. viii. 482. 



2 Zingerle, Bitten, 26. Ploss (Weib, i. 444) reproduces a photo- 

 graph of one of these votive figures bought by the author in a wax- 

 chandler's shop at Salzburg as recently as 1890. Another form of 

 the muetter is that of a ball stuck with spikes, of which an account 

 is given by Dr. Wilhelm Hein, Zeits. des Vereins, x. 420. 



