496 
ON THE ABORIGINES 
We will now describe some peculiarities connected 
with tlieir births, marriages, and deaths. 
The women are generally delivered in the house, 
though sometimes in the forest. When a birth takes 
place in the house, everything is taken out of it, even 
the pans and pots, and bows and arrows, till the next 
day ; the mother takes the child to the river and washes 
herself and it, and she generally remains in the house, 
not doing any work, for four or five days. 
The children, more particularly the females, are re- 
stricted to a particular food : they are not allowed to eat 
the meat of any kind of game, nor of fish, except the 
very small bony kinds ; their food principally consisting ' 
of mandiocca-cake and fruits. 
On the first signs of puberty in the girls, they have to 
undergo an ordeal. Tor a month previously, they are 
kept secluded in the house, and allowed only a small 
quantity of bread and water. All relatives and friends 
of the parents are then assembled, bringing, each of 
them, pieces of sipo (an elastic climber) ; the girl is 
then brought out, perfectly naked, into the midst of 
them, when each person present gives her five or six 
severe blows with the sipo across the back and breast, 
till she falls senseless, and it sometimes happens, dead. 
If she recovers, it is repeated four times, at intervals of 
six hours, and it is considered an offence to the parents 
not to strike hard. During this time numerous pots of 
all kinds of meat and fish have been prepared, when the 
sipos are dipped in them and given to her to lick, and 
she is then considered a woman, and allowed to eat any- 
thing, and is marriageable. 
