140 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



to sit together, and sets before them a platter con- 

 taining sirih-pinang and a young kalapa-fruit. The 

 woman holds the doll in her hands as if she were 

 suckling it. The kalapa-fruit is opened, and both 

 husband and wife are sprinkled with the juice. The 

 assistant then takes a fowl, holds its feet against the 

 woman's head and prays, apparently in her name : 

 11 O Upulero ! make use of this fowl, let fall a man, 

 let him descend, I pray thee, I implore thee, let fall a 

 man, let him descend into my hands and on my lap/' 

 He asks the woman: " Is the child come?" She 

 answers: " Yes, it is already sucking." Then he 

 touches the husband's head with the fowl's feet and 

 mutters certain formulae. Thereupon the fowl is put 

 to death by a blow against the posts of the hut, 

 opened, and the veins about the heart are examined 

 for the purpose of augury. Whatever augury may be 

 drawn from them, the fowl is laid on the platter with 

 the sirih-pinang and put on the domestic altar. The 

 news is spread in the village that the woman is preg- 

 nant, and every one comes to wish her joy and receives 

 in return one of the dried kalapa- fruits. The husband 

 borrows a cradle, in which the doll is placed, and for 

 seven days it is treated as a new-born child. 1 Here 

 in addition to the prayer and sacrifice, which might 

 be found anywhere, the Babar islander pretends that 

 the prayer has been granted, and acts accordingly. 

 It might be a question whether some of the methods 



1 Riedel, 353. Note that the man who performs the rite is 

 already rich in children, and therefore in that very quality which is 

 sought. This must be a powerful magical influence tending to the 

 success of the rite. Since the above was written an account has 

 been published of a similar ceremony in Ceylon (W. L. Hildburgh, 

 /. A. L xxxviii. 184). 



