244 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



is caused by the mere will of such a soul to return to 

 human society. Even where, as among the tribes of 

 North Queensland, we have no evidence of the belief 

 in reincarnation of ancestors, sexual intercourse is 

 excluded as a necessary condition of birth. These 

 facts, occurring as they do among a race in a stage of 

 culture lower than any other now upon the surface of 

 the globe, materially assist the conclusion that preg- 

 nancy was widely held in early times to be caused by 

 other than what we regard as the natural means. 



The notion of a factory or warehouse of children 

 whence they are sent forth to find mothers is shared 

 by some of the Australian tribes with peoples in other 

 continents. The Hidatsa of North America have a 

 cavern near Knife River called Makadistati, the house 

 of infants. It was supposed to extend far into the 

 earth, but the entrance was only a span wide. " It was 

 resorted to by the childless husband or the barren 

 wife. There are those among them who imagine that 

 in some way or other their children come from the 

 Makadistati ; and marks of contusion on an infant, 

 arising from tight swaddling or other causes, are 

 gravely attributed to kicks received from his former 

 comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean 

 home." Another account which appears to refer to 

 the same place only mentions squaws as resorting to 

 it and receiving from it "prolific virtue." 1 Precisely 

 parallel to this cavern is a hill on the Daly River in 

 the Northern Territory of Australia. It is called 

 by the natives Alalk-yinga, the place of children. 

 They believe that the children hereafter to be bom 

 are kept shut up there under the care of one old man 

 1 Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 516. 



