The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

424

A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, during Thirty Years' Residence among the Indians, prepared for the press by Edwin James, M.D. (London, 1830), pp. 155 sq. The passage has been already quoted by Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) in his Origin of Civilisation

(London, 1882), p. 241.

425

François Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (Dordrecht and Amsterdam, 1724-1726), ii. 143 sq.; G. A. Wilken, “De Simsonsage,” De Gids, 1888, No. 5, pp. 15 sq. (of the separate reprint); id., Verspreide Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), iii. 569 sq.

426

J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 137.

427

J. G. Dalyell, The darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 637-639; C. de Mensignac, Recherches ethnographiques sur la Salive et le Crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 49 note.

428

W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 281.

429

W. Crooke, op. cit. ii. 281 sq.

430

B. de Sahagun, Histoire des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite par D. Journdanet et R. Siméon (Paris, 1880), p. 274.

431

Above, pp. 102 (#x_7_i11), 110 (#x_7_i23), 117 (#x_8_i5)sq., 135 (#x_9_i9), 136 (#x_9_i11).

432

Walter E. Roth, North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin, No. 5, Superstition, Magic, and Medicine (Brisbane, 1903), p. 27.

433

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 202.

434

G. Duloup, “Huit jours chez les M'Bengas,” Revue d'Ethnographie, ii. (1883), p. 223; compare P. Barret, L'Afrique Occidentale (Paris, 1888), ii. 173.

435

Fr. Kunstmann, “Valentin Ferdinand's Beschreibung der Serra Leoa,” Abhandlungen der histor. Classe der könig. Bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaften, ix. (1866) pp. 131 sq.

436

Bruno Gutmann, “Feldbausitten und Wachstumsbräuche der Wadschagga,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xlv. (1913), p. 496.

437

C. Velten, Sitten und Gebräuche der Suaheli (Göttingen, 1903), pp. 8 sq. In Java it is customary to plant a tree, for example, a coco-nut palm, at the birth of a child, and when he grows up he reckons his age by the age of the tree. See Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, iii. (Lyons and Paris, 1830) pp. 400 sq.

438

A. Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste (Jena, 1874-1875), i. 165.

439

Rev. J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), p. 178.

440

H. Trilles, Le Totémisme chez les Fân (Münster i. W., 1912), p. 570.

441

Rev. John H. Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals (London, 1913), p. 295.

442

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 52, 54 sq. Compare The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 295 sq.; and for other examples of burying the afterbirth or navel-string at the foot of a tree or planting a young tree over these remains, see id., pp. 182 sqq. In Kiziba, a district to the west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, the afterbirth is similarly regarded as a sort of human being. Hence when twins are born the people speak of four children instead of two, reckoning the two afterbirths as two children. See H. Rehse, Kiziba, Land und Leute (Stuttgart, 1910), p. 117. The conception of the afterbirth and navel-string as spiritual doubles of the child with whom they are born is held very firmly by the Kooboos, a primitive tribe of Sumatra. We are told that among these people “a great vital power is ascribed to the navel-string and afterbirth; because they are looked upon as brother or sister of the infant, and though their bodies have not come to perfection, yet their soul and spirit are just as normal as those of the child and indeed have even reached a much higher stage of development. The navel-string (oeri) and afterbirth (tĕm-boeni) visit the man who was born with them thrice a day and thrice by night till his death, or they hover near him (‘zweven voorbij hem heen’). They are the good spirits, a sort of guardian angels of the man who came into the world with them and who lives on earth; they are said to guard him from all evil. Hence it is that the Kooboo always thinks of his navel-string and afterbirth (oeri-tĕmboeni) before he goes to sleep or to work, or undertakes a journey, and so on. Merely to think of them is enough; there is no need to invoke them, or to ask them anything, or to entreat them. By not thinking of them a man deprives himself of their good care.” Immediately after the birth the navel-string and afterbirth are buried in the ground close by the spot where the birth took place; and a ceremony is performed over it, for were the ceremony omitted, the navel-string and afterbirth, “instead of being a good spirit for the newly born child, might become an evil spirit for him and visit him with all sorts of calamities out of spite for this neglect.” The nature of the ceremony performed over the spot is not described by our authority. The navel-string and afterbirth are often regarded by the Kooboos as one; their names are always mentioned together. See G. J. van Dongen, “De Koeboe in de Onderafdeeling Koeboe-streken der Residentie Palembang,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, lxiii. (1910) pp. 229 sq.

443

Franz Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), p. 653.

444

A. Bastian, Ein Besuch in San Salvador (Bremen, 1859), pp. 103 sq.; id., Der Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipsic, 1860), iii. 193.

445

R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants

(London, 1870), p. 184; Dumont D'Urville, Voyage autour du monde et à la recherche de La Pérouse sur la corvette Astrolabe, ii. 444.

446

W. T. L. Travers, “Notes of the traditions and manners and customs of the Mori-oris,” Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, ix. (1876) p. 22.

447

The late Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to me dated May 29th, 1901. Compare The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 184.