The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 01 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 01 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
is swathed in fur-string and made into a necklace, which is placed
round the child’s neck. The necklace is supposed to facilitate the
growth of the child, to keep it quiet and contented, and to avert
illness generally.[669] In the Kaitish tribe of Central Australia the
practice and belief are similar.[670] In the Warramunga tribe, after
the string has hung round the child’s neck for a time, it is given to
the wife’s brother, who wears it in his armlet, and who may not see the
child till it can walk. In return for the navel-string, the man makes a
present of weapons to the infant’s father. When the child can walk, the
father gives fur-string to the man, who now comes to the camp, sees the
child, and makes another present to the father. After that he keeps the
navel-string for some time longer, and finally places it in a hollow
tree known only to himself.[671] Among the natives on the Pennefather
river in Queensland it is {p184} believed that a part of the child’s
spirit (_cho-i_) stays in the afterbirth. Hence the grandmother takes
the afterbirth away and buries it in the sand. She marks the spot by a
number of twigs which she sticks in the ground in a circle, tying their
tops together so that the structure resembles a cone. When Anjea, the
being who causes conception in women by putting mud babies into their
wombs, comes along and sees the place, he takes out the spirit and
carries it away to one of his haunts, such as a tree, a hole in a rock,
or a lagoon, where it may remain for years. But sometime or other he
will put the spirit again into a baby, and it will be born once more
into the world.[672]
[Sidenote: Contagious magic of navel-string in New Guinea, Fiji, the
Caroline Islands, and the Gilbert Islands.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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