hoth] sexual life 323 



The Broken Egg (C) 



Uraima once had in hu possession a bird's egg, which he kept in a calabash; he 

 took great care of it until it should hatch o\it. He met two girls on the road: they 

 saw the egg and asked him to let them ha\-e it. "No!" he said, "I can not." They 

 worried and even followed him, but he still refused. So they seized the egg, and 

 in the course of the scuffle broke it. Uraima then spoke to the women as follows: 

 "Since you have done this, trouble will follow you from now onward. Up to the 

 present, the egg has belonged to man. For the future it will belong to woman and 

 she will have to hatch it." It is only the female that lays eggs nowadays. 



382. There seem to be some curious restrictions concerning water, 

 so far as the father is concerned, both previous and subsequent to birth. 

 R. L. Kingston gives the following interesting pre-natal example: 

 "Wliile some (True) Caribs were poisoning the upper Ponieroon 

 with haiari for fish, I saw one of them rub his shins with the beaten 

 and waslied-out haiari. Asking why he did this, he told me his wife 

 was with child, and that he could not therefore go into the water 

 without lii-st rubbing his legs with liaiari, lest all the fish should sink 

 to the bottom'' [instead of floating narcotized on the surface] (Ti, ii, 

 1883, p. 3.'55). It was said to be a custom of the Island Caribs 

 that "they often deliver near the fire, and the child is bathed at 

 once; but a fumiy precaution is, that if it is born at night, the men 

 who are sleeping in the house go and l)athe so that the child may not 

 catch cold " (BBR, 248-9). It is curious that the Pomeroon Arawak 

 women will not bathe their infants until such time as the navel- 

 string lieals, for fear of the same contingency happening. On the 

 other hand, liis usual bath is forbidden the Makusi father (ScR, ii, 

 314) during his time of couvade. Strange to say, it is the bath which 

 in most tribes constitutes the final purification of the mother, at the 

 end of her lying-in period, whether such period be of a few hours' or 

 several days' dm-ation. Beyond what has already been mentioned 

 concerning fire — how some women (Island Caribs) will often deliver 

 near a fire and how others will apparently have one hghted for 

 them — I have found no further references to childbirth in connection 

 with fire, except one in coimection with the navel-string. Bancroft 

 is the only author who speaks of the division of " the umbUic vessels, 

 which they do wath a brand of fire, which cauterizes their orifices, 

 and renders a ligature unnecessary" (Ba, 330). Two old Arawak 

 women are my authority for saying that in the old days the cord was 

 burned off' with a heated nail. Cooking for a man is strictly prohib- 

 ited to a pregnant woman: she may however "clean" the meat, but 

 in cleaning any animal or fish she must not cut off the ears, nails, or 

 fins. In this latter connection there is a curious prohibition con- 

 cerning fingernails in force among the Makusis : neither men nor women 

 at times of couvade or hang-in must scratch their bodies or heads 



