142 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



she gives it money and cakes, and then the family 

 priest makes her worship Ganpati. The women 

 spend the night in singing ; and the priest receives a 

 fee in money as well as the things offered to the 

 goddess. 1 At Salem in Massachusetts it is said that 

 if a baby, the first time it is taken visiting, be laid on 

 a married couple's bed there will be a baby for that 

 couple. 2 In England to rock an empty cradle is to 

 rock a new baby into it ; and the superstition has been 

 carried by settlers to New England, where people 

 say : " Rock a cradle empty, Babies will be plenty." 3 

 Barren women very generally among the Negroes 

 and Bantu carry dolls which they treat as children. 

 Thus, an Agni or Gau-ne of the Ivory Coast will 

 carry a wooden doll on her back as she would carry a 

 real babe. 4 A woman of the Wapogoro makes a doll 

 out of a calabash with a bunch of short strings at its 

 upper end fastened to a dried wild-banana core ; and 

 the more tenderly she cuddles and caresses the doll 

 the sooner she will have a child. 5 Dolls carried and 

 hugged by Kaffir women in South Africa are to be 

 seen in many museums : they are not to be mistaken 

 for idols. The museum of the London Missionary 

 Society used to possess a Bechuana doll used for this 

 purpose. It consisted " of a long calabash like a 



1 H. A. Rose. J. A. 7. xxxv. 271. A similar ceremony is 

 practised by brides in South Roumania (Globus, xciv. 318). 



2 Bergen, Curr. Super st. 25. 



3 Ibid. 24, 25. In some parts of England it is said to be un- 

 lucky to rock an empty cradle (Addy, 98). This perhaps refers to 

 the converge superstition current in New York that to rock a cradle 

 when the baby is not in it will kill the baby (Bergen, loc. /.). 



4 Binger, ii. 230 ; Delafosse, LAnthrop. iv. 444. 



5 Dr. H. Fabry, Globus, xci. 219. 



