ROTH] BIRTH AND CHILDREN 695 
kind of scarf made of cotton, they return to their occupations ‘with- 
out the smallest inconvenience (StC, 1, 327). On the other hand, 
Bancroft’s account would tend to leave the impression upon the 
reader that (in Demerara) the woman’s share in the treatment was 
a passive one. The mother and newborn infant, when delivered, are 
carried and plunged into the water, and the next day the former 
resumes the discharge of her domestic employments (BA, 330). 
With the present-day Arawak the baby is not washed until the navel 
is healed. Among the Uaupes River Indians the mother takes the 
child to the river and washes herself and it, and she generally re- 
mains in the house, not doing any work for four or five days (ARW, 
345). In Cayenne the Roucouyenne mother, after confinement, takes 
a vapor bath. She les in a hammock, and underneath is placed a 
big stone, which has been freshly heated upon the fire, and water 
poured on it (fig. 735)... . Besides mother’s milk the baby is fed 
from time to time on a drink made from the juice of cooked ripe 
bananas squeezed by hand into hot water (Cr, 242). 
907. Though no mention appears to be made by Gumilla of cou- 
vade on the Orinoco, Crévaux relates the following from the Piapoco 
of the lower Guaviar, one of its upper left-hand tributaries: Ac- 
couchement takes place in a hut, where the woman remains seven days 
subsequently. During the same period the husband remains in his 
hammock. Both partake only of a little cassava and water (Cr, 
526). Traces of couvade on the upper branches of the Rio Negro 
appear among the Siusi, an Arawak stock, where for the five days 
that the mother keeps childbed neither parent may work nor wash 
and only eat cassava cake and peppers (KG, 1, 183). In a higher 
degree of development the custom prevails on-the same watershed 
among the Tukuya (KG, 1, 312) and apparently: the Kobéua (IG, 
1, 146), both of Betoya stock. But eastward the practice is recorded 
throughout the Guianas, e. g., Demerara (HiC, 229), Surinam (St, 1, 
398; FE, 81), Cayenne (GB, 47; PBA, 223, 224), and even in the 
islands (PBR, 248, 249). Particulars of the local variations in cou- 
vade are to be found elsewhere (WER, v1, secs. 281-283). As Pen- 
ard’s account and explanation of the facts as observed among the 
Surinam Carib, of whom no one can speak with better authority and 
experience, are certainly the most satisfactory of any that have been 
hitherto offered, | am giving them in greater detail: On the return 
of the mother and baby from the forest, where she has just been 
confined, back to the house to resume her household duties, the father 
takes to his hammock to be pampered. This takes place on the sup- 
position that the infant’s body proceeds from the mother, but the 
spirit, on the contrary, from the father, and that a mysterious con- 
nection binds the child’s spirit to the father’s for some weeks after 
