SOME EEMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 291 



is effectual for the well-being of the new-born offspring, and is 

 even necessary. Hear, I pray, a confirmation of this matter. 

 Francisco Barreda, Deputy of the Royal Governor of Tucu- 

 man, came to visit the new colony of Conceijam in the terri- 

 tory of Santiago. To him, as he was walking with me in the 

 courtyard, the Cacique Malakin came up to pay his respects, 

 having just left his bed, to which he had been confined in con- 

 sequence of his wife's recent delivery. As I stood by, Bar- 

 reda offered the Cacique a pinch of Spanish snuff, but seeing 

 the savage refuse it contrary to custom, he thought he must be 

 out of his mind, for he knew him at other times to be greedy 

 of this nasal dehcacy; so he asked me aside to inquire the 

 cause of his abstinence. I asked him in the Abiponian tongue 

 (for this Barreda was ignorant of, as the Cacique was of 

 Spanish), why he refused his snuff to-day ? ' Don't you 

 know ?' he answered, ' that my wife has just been confined ? 

 Must not I therefore abstain from stimulating my nostrils ? 

 What a danger my sneezing would bring upon my child !' 

 No more, but he went back to his hut to lie down again di- 

 rectly, lest the tender little infant should take some harm if he 

 stayed any longer with us in the open air. For they believe 

 that the father's carelessness influences the new-born offspring, 

 from a natural bond and sympathy of both. Hence if the child 

 comes to a premature end, its death is attributed by the women 

 to the father's intemperance, this or that cause being assigned ; 

 he did not abstain from mead ; he had loaded his stomach with 

 water-hog ; he had swum across the river when the air was 

 chilly ; he had neglected to shave off his long eyebrows ; he 

 had devoured underground honey, stamping on the bees with 

 his feet ; he had ridden till he was tired and sweated. With 

 raving like this the crowd of women accuse the father with 

 impunity of causing the child's death, and are accustomed to 

 pour curses on the unoffending husband."^ 



We have laid open to us in these accounts a notably distinct 



Dobrizhoffer, ' Historia de Abiponibus ;' Vienna, 1784, vol. ii. p. 231, etc. 

 For other South American accounts of the couvade, see Biet, Voy. de la France 

 Equinox., p. 389. Fermin, Descr. de Surinam ; Amsterdam, 1769, p. 81. Tschudi, 

 'Peru,' vol. ii. p. 235. Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1291. Spix & Martins, pp. 3186,1339. 



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