PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 139 



period, 1 In this case there does not seem to be a 

 deposit of any votive figure. Further, when recourse 

 is had to a sorcerer instead of a divinity such deposit 

 is indeed inappropriate. On the Equatorial Nile 

 Ledju, the hereditary Chief Rainmaker of the Bari 

 tribe, includes in his professional duties that of "in- 

 ducing women to bring forth large families." His 

 manner of procedure is original. He has an iron rod 

 about three feet long and about an inch in diameter, 

 armed at either end with a hollow iron bulb enclosing 

 bits of stone. When the husband brings a would-be 

 mother to htm the sorcerer grasps the instrument in 

 the centre with the right hand and shakes it over and 

 around her, at. the same time muttering an incantation. 

 I.t is possible that this is an exorcism. The offerings 

 are of course of that substantial character which the 

 sorcerer's rank and reputation demand. 2 



A very common magical process takes the form 

 of! simulating the result intended. As applied to the 

 purpose of procuring children religious worship is 

 often combined with the magical proceeding. When 

 a woman on the Babar islands, in the Malay Archi- 

 pelago; desires a child a man who has many children 

 is first called in to pray to Upulero. To that end her 

 husband collects fifty or sixty old and young kalapa- 

 fruits, while she prepares a doll about twenty, inches 

 long of red cotton. On the appointed day the man 

 goes to the wife's hut, puts, the husband and wife 



1 Ploss, JVeib, i. 439. 



2 Journ. Afr. Sac. v. 2 1. The Lillooet Indians of British Columbia: 

 have shamans who can make barren women bear children or make 

 women have male or female children as they may desire. But what 

 the process is we are not informed (Teit, Jesup Exped. ii. 287). 

 The pretension is, it need hardly be said, very widespread. 



