The over-indulgence of children in food finds parallels at a later period of life, when, as with the people of southern Nubia and the Sahara between Talifet and Timbuktu, men fatten girls before marriage, making them consume huge quantities of milk, butter, etc. For children, among many primitive peoples, there are numerous _taboos_ of certain classes and kinds of food, from religious or superstitious motives. This _taboo_-system has not lost all its force even to-day, as no other excuse can reasonably be offered for the refusal of certain harmless food to the young. _Tobacco_. Concerning certain Australian tribes, Lumholtz remarks: "Before the children are big enough to hold a pipe in their mouth they are permitted to smoke, and the mother will share her pipe with the nursing babe" (495. 193). In like manner, among the natives of the Solomon Islands, Mr. Guppy witnessed displays of precocity in this regard: "Bright-looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their pipes as gravely as Haununo [a chief] himself; and even the smallest babe in its father's arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck instinctively" (466.42). With the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, according to Simson, the child, when three or four years old, is initiated into the mysteries of tobacco-smoking, amid great festivities and ceremonies (533. 388). _Drink of Immortality_. Feeding the dead has been in practice among many primitive peoples. The mother, with some of the Indian tribes of New Mexico, used to drop milk from her breast on the lips of her dead babe; and in many parts of the world we meet with the custom of placing food near the grave, so that the spirits may not hunger, or of placing it in the grave or coffin, so that on its way to the spirit-land the soul of the deceased may partake of some refreshment. Among the ancient natives of Venezuela, "infants who died a few days after their birth, were seated around the Tree of Milk, or Celestial Tree, that distilled milk from the extremity of its branches"; and kindred beliefs are found elsewhere (448. 297). We have also the tree associated beautifully with the newborn child, as Reclus records concerning the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills, in India: "Immediately the deliverance has taken place--it always happens in the open air--three leaves of the aforementioned tree [under which the mother and father have passed the night] are presented to the father, who, making cups of them, pours a few drops of water into the first, wherewith he moistens his lips; the remainder he decants into the two other leaves; the mother drinks her share, and causes the baby to swallow his. Thus, father, mother, and child, earliest of Trinities, celebrate their first communion, and drink the living water, more sacred than wine, from the leaves of the Tree of Life" (523. 201).