PARSONS] ISLETA, NEW MEXICO 213 



PERSONAL LIFE 

 Conception and Pregnancy 



Women, whether wanting a child or not wanting one or not wanting 

 another, "if they have suffered in having baby," w\\\ apply to a 

 member of one of the medicine societies, to whom a buckskin, black 

 cloth, a belt, and cotton will be given. Two women were cited as 

 having no children after three or four years of marriage, thanks to 

 their medicine man. If a woman does not wish to conceive she will 

 not have intercourse for nine days after menstruation. There is no 

 intercourse during the four days of menstruation, nor during preg- 

 nancy, nor for six months after childbirth. At least in theory. A 

 case was cited of a man who sought intercourse 10 days after his 

 child's birth; his wiie wept, thinking she would conceive, and her 

 mother scolded her husband. At first menstruation a medicine may 

 be given a girl which will preclude child bearing. . . . Lucinda had 

 ceased menstruating at the age of 35. An "old man" said she 

 was too young for that and offei'ed to bring the function on again, 

 but she refused. In speaking of her daughter's family, Lucinda 

 opined that two children were enough for her daughter to have. 



A pregnant woman should be generous, and give things to children 

 passing the house. Were she stingy and tenacious of her things, the 

 afterbirth would stick, too. She should not turn her back on the 

 sun or on the fire. A case was cited of a girl ha\'ing ignored this 

 taboo and dying in childbirth, the afterbirth looking black as if 

 burned. A pregnant woman should always carry something in her 

 arms in front of her. She should not peek out of the door and reenter 

 the house, else the child will not be delivered quickly. 



A pregnant woman should not fry anything nor use much powder 

 lest the child have sore eyes or be blind, nor should she blow on the 

 fire lest the child be born with a big belly, nor should she step on 

 the ash piles of the town, lest the child be born deformed, without 

 fingers or toes. A pregnant woman should not go into a house where 

 the dead is lying (she should not be scared), nor to a ceremonial where 

 lightning and thunder are brought down, nor to church. She should 

 not go to a moving-picture show lest the child twitch, moving cjuickly 

 like the film, and have no sense. A girl was mentioned on whose 

 neck there was a mark which lessened with the waning of the moon 

 and increased and darkened with the waxing moon. Her mother 

 when she was pregnant went outdoors during an eclipse of the moon 

 which "did this" to the baby. This same girl is deaf and dumb, and 

 her grandmother once suggested to her mother that it was because 

 during her pregnancy she had mocked at the little chattering bird 

 called bebatire (dizzy flying) that her child was born dumb. I heard 



