ROTH] SEXUAL LIFE 319 



ami trace descent (exclusively tlu-ough the mother. Certainly among 

 the Arawaks and Warraus, sexual union between persons of certain 

 degrees of cousinshlp is regarded in the same light as is incest by 

 Europeans. (See Sect. 131.) 



279. An analysis of the pre-natal and post-natal ordeals under- 

 gone by father and mother bring into prominence Ihe fact that they 

 bear remarkably strong resemblance to those submitted to at puberty 

 (by both sexes) and at menstruation (Sect. 267 et seq.). In the 

 main, these ordeals consist of food restrictions; the tolerance of severe 

 physical pain without visible signs of suffering: and procedures con- 

 nected with isolation, with water, fire, and cooking. The proper per- 

 formance of the childbirth oi'deals insures that nothing will go amiss 

 wnth the baby. With regard to the food restrictions, before the child's 

 birth, these may be imposed on both parents. 



Some of the men of the Akawai and Carib nations, when they have reason to expect 

 an iiuToa.so of their familie.s, consider tliemselves bound to ab.stain from certain kinds 

 of meat, lost the expected child should, in some very mysterious way, be injured by 

 their partaking of it. The acouri (or agouti) is thus tabooed lest, like that little 

 animal, the child should be meager; the Haimara also, lest it should be blind, the 

 outer coating of the eye of that fish suggesting film or cataract; the labba, lest the 

 infant's mouth should protrude like the labba's, or lest it be spotted like the labba, 

 which spots would ultimately become ulcers. The marudi is also forbidden, lest 

 the infant be still-born, the screeching of that bird being considered ominous of death. 

 [Br, :{5r,.] 



Among the Pomeroon Arawaks, though the killing and eating 

 of a snake during the woman's pregnancy is forbidden to both father 

 and mother tlie husband is allowed to kUl and eat any other animal. 

 The cause assigned for the taboo of the snake is that the little infant 

 might be similar, that is, able neither to talk nor to walk. Neither 

 parent, however, when can-}"ing a piece of cassava cake, may either 

 turn it over in the hand, or curl it up at the sides ; otherwise, the ears 

 of the child, when born, will be found curled over. iVny game hunted 

 by dogs is strictly forbidden the pregnant woman of this tribe, just 

 as it is at her menstruation: otherwise the dog would be spoiled for 

 hunting purposes, permanently in the latter circumstances, tempo- 

 rarily in the former, the dog recovering its powers only when the 

 baby was born. Hence, when a man brings home any animal that 

 has been hunted by a dog, it is his wife's business to see that it is 

 not partaken of by any woman in either of the states named. 

 An interesting reference to this belief will be found in Timehri (vol. 

 11, 1SS3, p. 355), in which report is made of a woman's wages being 

 stopped because, while weedmg, she partook of the game caught by 

 a hunting dog and so rendered the dog useless. She is forbidden to 

 eat when pregnant any "big meat," as tiu-tle or tapir, or fish that 

 has much blood in it, as at menstruation; she can now eat only the 

 tail portion of a fish. Infringement of any of these rules will result 



