Facsimile of Page 5 in Part 1. 
Customs of the World 
Many of the ceremo- 
nious observances of the 
Melanesians are extremely 
peculiar and interesting, 
and it is proposed first to 
give examples of some of 
those which relate to the 
various ordinary stages of 
a man’s life. 
Special ceremonies in 
connection with the birth 
of a child are not widely 
indulged in, but they are 
met with in places; in 
many they are confined 
to births of first-born 
children, and in some to 
the children of chiefs. 
La Couvade, that is the 
lying-up by the father as 
an invalid, and customs 
approaching it are found 
in some parts. In one of 
the Solomon Islands this 
¥ 
Photo by} (4. C. Haddon, Sc.D., PRS, 
The front dancer at the same ceremony. They emerge from a sacred house, wearing 
the sacred masks, and dance into the horse-shoe group of men, and back again into the 
house, and repeat the performance twice. The way in which the front dancer holds his 
arms and hands is a peculiarity of this dance. 
practice has actually been met with; and both there and in the New Hebrides and Banks 
Islands it is in places the custom, not only for the mother, both before and after the child’s 
birth, to refrain for a 
period from eating certain 
food, which, it is thought, 
would be harmful to the 
infant (this being pretty 
universal in Melanesia), 
but for the father to do 
so also; and the father 
will sometimes abstain 
from lifting heavy weights, 
or climbing trees, or en- 
gaging in any hard work, 
or going out to sea, the 
belief being that, if he 
does so, the babe will 
suffer. In the Banks 
Islands the father will not 
for a month after the 
birth of a child go into 
any of the sacred places 
into which the child could 
not go without risk. 
Among the Koita of New 
Photo by] [4. C. Haddon, Sc.D., F.R.S. 
The dancers turning round to dance back again to the sacred house. During this 
turning movement they kick out as though trying to drive something away. 
