PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



elaborate reason is assigned. In the invisible world, 

 it is said, every woman is represented by a tree which 

 bears as many flowers as she is fated to bear children. 

 If the tree bear no flowers she will be naturally sterile ; 

 and then just as a fruit-tree is grafted with the shoot 

 of another tree to make it bring forth fruit, so by 

 adopting a child the childless woman hopes to produce 

 on her tree in the spiritland the germination of flowers, 

 and thus to become herself fruitful. 1 Among the Thai 

 of Tonkin it is customary when a man has no children 

 to adopt a son from another family, though no father 

 can be found to part with a son save in the direst 

 misery. A child thus adopted is regarded as a bringer 

 of luck ; and he is believed often as among the Chinese 

 to procure fertility for his adoptive mother. 2 



Fertilisation may also take place by the eye, as in 

 some of the stories. Dulaure cites a certain Saint 

 Arnaud whose phallic statue, more decent than those 

 of some other saints, was clothed with an apron- 

 Only in favour of sterile women who came to pray for 

 offspring was the apron lifted ; and the sight disclosed 

 was enough, with faith, to work miracles. 3 The belief 

 in the Evil Eye has not wholly disappeared in this 

 country. The power of causing conception by a fixed 

 gaze or glare of the eyes seems to be credited to 

 foreigners. At least one instance of this kind has been 



1 Doolittle, i. 113. The practices discussed above raise the 

 suspicion that our own children's dolls may have originated in the 

 same kind of magic. Another European practice appears referable 

 to it. In the Prattigau valley of Eastern Switzerland at the time of 

 vintage women make little dolls of rags and stealthily seek to attach 

 them to one another's clothing (Hoffmann-Krayer, Schweizerisches 

 Archiv fur Volkskunde, xi. Basel, 1907, 268). 



a Antoine Bourlet, Anthropos, ii. 364, 365. 



3 Dulaure, 210. 



