200 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
to families; had they been standardized all informants would have 
cited them. 
No restrictions at all are placed on a man while his wife is pregnant 
except the one aforementioned: he may not sleep with her after the 
first 5 months. 
CHILDBIRTH 
Mrs. Stevenson witnessed all of the activities attendant upon the 
birth and naming of a baby at Sia about 1890, and has given us a 
vivid and moving account of the events (1894, pp. 182-143). My 
account differs from hers at some points, but corresponds closely 
with it at others. 
As the time for delivery draws near, the expectant mother takes a 
handfull of prayer meal (petana) to the midwife she wishes to have 
help her. 
MIDWIVES 
There are a number of midwives (tsaiyawaiya) at Sia. They are 
appointed by Tiamunyi and tcraikatsi. I obtained the names of 
seven midwifes in Sia in 1954; one of them however had become a 
member of the Holy Rollers and declined to continue to serve. Col- 
lectively, the midwives are called tsaiyawaiya yayatitcra. One of 
the women acts as leader of the group. They have a kotcininako 
fetish which is kept by one of the midwives; she is the granddaughter 
of Gye-iro, the last cacique who served as midwife (in the old days, 
it was said, the cacique was the obstetrician of the pueblo). 
One woman, Reyes Galvan, has some paraphernalia that is used 
in very difficult cases of childbirth, but she is not a midwife. She 
inherited the paraphernalia from Latiye, a woman who belonged to 
the Fire society and with whom she lived. Reyes is not a member 
of a curing society. 
PARTURITION 
When labor begins two or three midwives go to the house of the 
expectant mother; the group always includes the leader of the tsai- 
yawalya yayatitcra and the one to whom the prayer meal had been 
given. ‘The midwives brew a tea of sprigs of kanyi (Juniperus mono- 
sperma). As soon as the baby arrives the midwives put the mother to 
bed and give her a drink of hot kanyi tea. 
I obtained no data on the parturition itself, but Mrs. Stevenson 
has a full account (1894, pp. 132-43). The mother was assisted by 
her father who was the head of a medicine society and by a ‘‘doc- 
toress.”’ Virtually all the assistance was of a magical nature, with — 
the possible exception of massaging, or pressing, the mother’s abdomen. 
The doctoress, said Stevenson, ‘seemed perfectly ignorant and un- 
able to render any real assistance”’ (1894, p. 136). 
