The Couvade. 
249 
Forster's and Diftenbach's voyages, though the del)aucher'ies of which 
the female sex were guilty with the sailors on the first arrival of the 
Europeans are entirely foreign to the Indian women of Guiana. 
5G8. As soon as the mother feels that she is about to be w<ith child, 
she betakes herself to the near forest, to the provision field, or some 
unoccupied hut and is confined there without any assistance. The navel 
string is cut by the motlier or sister of the parturient woman, and tied 
with a cotten thread : if the new-l>orn l)abe is a boy, tlie cutting is done 
with a sharpedged piece of bamltn : if it is a girl a piece of arrow reed ' 
{Gyncriiim sacehnroicJcf^) is us(ed. Witli the deepest and most sacrific- 
ing love the motlier clings to the young citizen of the world from the 
moment it draws its breath : the murder of an actually born child by 
its mother is a thing unknown, and the killing of an infant by its grand- 
father, which happened in Pirara shortly before our arrival, com- 
manded the most universal horror. Aberisto, the Brazilian already 
mentioned (Yol. I, Sect. 800), had lived in polygamy at Pirara and 
seduced one of the prettiest girls in the settlement, Tokuipa. ( Tokui is 
the name given by the Macusis to the different species of flalhnla.) 
The latter resided in the house of her father who had not yet overlooked 
her fault for having given herself away to a "Caraiba" and was always 
being reminded anew of his daughter's frailty l>y the continual crsnng 
of the child. One evening when the noise could not in any way be 
stopped by its anxious mother, the angered' grandfather jumped out of 
his hammock, seized his cutlass, and ^\^th one blow split the infant's 
skull. Aberisto buried his child's body under the large cross in front 
of the church. Tokuipa often told us about this bloody deed of her 
father's. 
5fi9. After baby's birth, the father hangs his hammock near that 
of his W'Ue. and keeps child-bed with her until the navel-string falls off. 
During tin's period, the mother is regarded as unclean, and tlie husband, 
before commencing his share in the ceremony, must, if he possesses no 
special house for the reciproical lying-in, se])aratie his bed from hers by 
a palm-leaf partition. Neither tlie father nor mother may perform any 
work: the former can only leave the house of an evening momentarily. 
The usual batli is forbidden him, and he dares not touch his weapons. 
The two of tliem may only quench tlieir thirst with luke-warm water 
and their hunger with pan or cassava bread, which has to be prepared 
by ouf^ of the relatives. Still more extraordinaiw is the prohibition not 
to scratch their body or head with the finger nails, for which purpose 
a piece of the leafl-rib of the Tucurit palm is hung close to the hammock. 
The neglect' of these orders and prohibitiions will entail the death or 
life-long sickness of the infant. Another thing with them, the descent 
of the child, as in the remaining Guiana tribes, is derived through the 
mother: if she is a Macusi, but the father a Wapisiana, Arekuna, etc., 
the children are Macusi. 
570. Before the married couple keep child bed the infant is "blown 
upon" by the relatives, and when they have finished keeping it, the 
grandfather or grandmother give him a name customary to the family. 
If neither of them are alive, the duty falls upon the father as also doe? 
