SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 293 



regulations imposed upon women after tlie birth of a child^ the 

 husband must for some weeks do no work and follow no occu- 

 pation, except the procuring of necessary food, and this in 

 order that the child may not die. When a Greenlander dies, 

 his soul starts to travel into the land of Torngarsuk, where 

 reigns perpetual summer, all sunshine and no night, where 

 there is good water, and birds, fish, seals, and reindeer without 

 end, that are to be caught without trouble, or are found cook- 

 ing alive in a huge kettle. But the journey to this blessed 

 land is difficult, the souls have to slide five days or more down 

 a precipice all stained with the blood of those who have gone 

 down before. And it is especially grievous for the poor souls 

 when the journey must be made in winter or in tempest, for 

 then a soul may come to harm, and suffer the other death, as 

 they call it, when it perishes utterly, and nothing is left. And 

 this is to them the most wretched fate ; and therefore the survi- 

 vors, for these five days or more, must abstain from certain food, 

 and all noisy work except their necessary fishing, that the soul 

 on its dangerous journey may not be disturbed or come to harm.^ 

 But perhaps no story on record so clearly shows how deeply 

 the idea of these imaginary ties is rooted in the savage mind, 

 as one told by Mr. Wallace in his South American tour : — 

 " An Indian, who was one of my hunters, caught a fine cock of 

 the rock, and gave it to his wife to feed ; but the poor woman 

 was obliged to live herself on cassava-bread and fruits, and 

 abstain entirely from all animal food, pepper, and salt, which 

 it was believed would cause the bird to die." The bird died 

 after all, and the woman was beaten by her husband for having 

 killed it by some violation of the rule of abstinence.^ 



But the explanation of the practices of the couvade, from 

 the confusion of imaginary and real relations, sound as it may 

 be so far it goes, is incomplete. They almost all involve giving 

 over the parentage to the father, and leaving the mother out 

 of the question.^ This was an ancient Egyptian opinion, as 

 Southey points out when mentioning its most startling deve- 



' Cranz, pp. 275, 258. 



- Wallace, p. 502. For other connected practices, see Id. p. 501. Spix. and 

 Martins, p. 381. '' But see Spix and Martins, p. 1186. 



