CHaprrer XX XV 
BIRTH AND CHILDREN 
Accouchement (904); umbilical cord (905); post-partem ablutions (906) ; 
couvade (907). 
Abortion (908). 
Suckling to an advanced age (909). 
Lullaby songs (910). 
Affection for children (911). 
Education by habitude and experience: knives (912); baby hanging-chair, ete. 
(913) ; chastisement (914). 
Regard for children’s property (915). 
904. Among the present-day Arawak and Warrau of the Pomeroon 
a woman is delivered either in a separate banab (utilized also at the 
menstrual period by other women) or in a portion of the house 
screened off with manicol, truli, or other thatch. She is accompanied 
by her mother, or some old woman relative of either parent. Makusi 
and other women may go alone and without assistance into the 
neighboring forest, provision field, or an unoccupied hut (SR, nu, 
313). In former times, referring to the Surinam Carib, as soon as 
the time of her confinement grew near, the woman retired into the 
“forest, and there in the midst of untrammeled nature the little redskin 
made his entrance into the vale of tears. The cause of this strange 
custom is possibly to be sought in the fear of ridicule and maltreat- 
iment, which undoubtedly the woman receives if she brings into the 
world a twin or abnormal child (sec. 729). By hiding in the forest 
she thus had an opportunty of killing the child or shuffling it away 
before her man or remaining women in the village noticed any- 
thing. ... As soon as she had taken a little rest she returned with 
her baby to the house, where she immediately continued on with her 
work (PEN, 1, 158). On the Uaupes River a woman may be de- 
livered even in the maloka (KG, 1, 146). Many instances are noted 
where an accouchement has apparently made no difference whatever 
in the daily routine; e. g., when on the march an Indian [Guajiva 
or Chiricoa] is taken with labor, she just steps aside, is delivered, 
wraps up the baby with the afterbirth and runs in haste after the 
others. At the first stream that presents itself she washes herself 
and infant (G, 1, 255). “So again, the mother [Wapishana] with 
her first born in her arms, had been in our hut,” says Schomburgk, 
693 
