twice a day rice is rubbed on the edge of the pot, for the purpose, as the people say, of giving the child’s little brothers or sisters something to eat. After a while this feeding, as it is called, takes place at {p190} rarer intervals, and when the mother has been again brought to bed it is discontinued altogether. On the ninth day after the birth a number of coco-nuts are planted, with much ceremony, in a square enclosure, and the water which was used in cleansing the afterbirth and navel-string is poured upon them. These coco-nuts are called the contemporaries of the child and grow up with him. When the planting is done, the rice-pot with the navel-string and afterbirth is carried back and set beside the bed of the young prince or princess, and when his royal highness is carried out to take the air the rice-pot with his two “brothers” goes out with him, swathed in a robe of state and screened from the sun by an umbrella. If the prince or princess should die, the afterbirth and navel-string are buried. Among common people in South Celebes these parts of the infant are generally buried immediately after the birth, or they are sunk in the deep sea, or hung in a rice-pot on a tree.​[691] [Sidenote: Contagious magic of the placenta and navel-string in Timor, Savou, and Rotti] In the island of Timor the placenta is called the child’s companion and treated accordingly. The midwife puts it in an earthen pot and covers it with ashes from the hearth. After standing thus three days it is taken away and buried by a person who must observe silence in discharging this duty.​[692] In Savou, a small island to the south-west of Timor, the afterbirth is filled with native herbs, and having been deposited in a new pot, which has never before been used, is buried under the house to keep off evil spirits. Or it is put in a new basket and hung in a high toddy palm to fertilise it, or thrown into the sea to secure a good catch of fish. The person who thus disposes of the afterbirth may not look to the right or the left; he must be joyous and, if possible, go singing on his way. If it is to be hung on a tree, he must climb nimbly up, in order that the child may always be lucky. These islanders ascribe a similar fertilising virtue to a caul. It is dried and carefully kept in a box. When rice-stalks turn black and the ears refuse to set, a man will take the box containing the caul and run several {p191} times round the rice-field, in order that the wind may waft the genial influence of the caul over the rice.​[693] In Rotti, an island to the south of Timor, the navel-string is put in a small satchel made of leaves, and if the father of the child is not himself going on a voyage, he entrusts the bag to one of his seafaring friends and charges him to throw it away in the open sea with the express wish that, when the child grows up and has to sail to other islands, he may escape the perils of the deep. But the business of girls in these