52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 34 



others designate sucli women except tu-il-sih-ta {' *never-get-a-child "), 

 and, as elsewhere, not much attention seems to be given to the condi- 

 tion. At San Carlos sterility in women is well known, and is believed 

 by the women to be the men's fault, A young woman who, though 

 well developed and healthy looking, and menstruating regularly, 

 remained sterile, was pointed out to the writer. Her first marriage 

 was dissolved on account of the sterility, on the supposition that the 

 man might be the cause of it. She was given another husband, with 

 whom she has now lived for more than two years, but there has been 

 no conception. Among the Navaho, Zuni, and Papago women ste- 

 rility is rare. A few sterile women were ])ointed out to the writer 

 among the Pueblos and the Pima, and several such, known as 

 cha-aik ("barren") were living at the time of his visit among the 

 Mohave. On the First mesa of the Ho])i there were in 1900 four 

 women who, although married for more than ten years each, had 

 never become pregnant. Among the Tarahumare sterile women are 

 called ''mules." The Cora told the writer that occasionally one of 

 their women has no child until the third or fourth year after marriage, 

 and a few have never borne any. Similar accounts as to childless 

 women were heard in all the other tribes. The opinion that the male 

 may be the cause of the childless marriage was met with in several 

 tribes besides the Apache. 



All the young Indian wives want to have children. In some in- 

 stances they prefer boys to girls; in others they desire children of 

 both sexes. 



Usually, though not always, the White Mountain Apache woman 

 desires a boy. In this tribe when a jjregnant woman wants especially 

 a boy or a girl, she calls on a medicine-man or woman, who plays on 

 the violin, uses certain incantations, touches the woman's abdomen, 

 and gives her to take internally some of the much used sacred yel- 

 low tule pollen Qiadntin) . Women who wish to have children, or who 

 want more children after being unf ruitfid for a time, are sometimes given 

 by a medicine-woman a cluster of the eggs of a certain spider; this 

 dose is handed to a relative to put into meat or other food without 

 being cooked or otherwise prepared, to be given the patient without 

 her knowledge. It is supposed that the many eggs of the particular 

 spider referred to will bring about conception — in other words, that 

 the prolificness of the spider will induce a similar condition in the 

 woman. The San Carlos and the Tonto Apache women want girls as 

 well as boys, for the former would soon be able to aid the mother in her 

 domestic duties. 



On one occasion the Walapai women were observed l)y Doctor Per- 

 kins, their agent, to cut off, with avidity, the feet of a gopher; they 

 said that the feet are ])()iled and eaten l)y young women in order 

 ' ' to have many boys and girls." 



