“Turning from the story of the day to the story of the life, we may begin at the beginning, that is, at the birth of the children. And here, at once, we meet with, perhaps, the most curious point in the habits of the Indians; the _couvade_ or male child-bed. This custom, which is common to the uncivilized people of many parts of the world, is probably among the strangest ever invented by the human brain. Even before the child is born, the father abstains for a time from certain kinds of animal food. The woman works as usual up to a few hours before the birth of the child. At last she retires alone, or accompanied only by some other women, to the forest, where she ties up her hammock; and then the child is born. Then in a few hours—often less than a day—the woman, who, like all women living in a very unartificial condition, suffers but little, gets up and resumes her ordinary work. According to Schomburgk, the mother, at any rate among the Macusis, remains in her hammock for some time, and the father hangs his hammock, and lies in it, by her side; but in all cases where the matter came under my notice, the mother left her hammock almost at once. In any case, no sooner is the child born than the father takes to his hammock and, abstaining from every sort of work, from meat and all other food, except weak gruel of cassava meal, from smoking, from washing himself, and, above all, from touching weapons of any sort, is nursed and cared for by all the women of the place. One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint; the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger-nails, but he may use for this purpose a splinter, specially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm. This continues for many days, and sometimes even weeks. _Couvade_ is such a wide-spread institution, that I had often read and wondered at it; but it was not until I saw it practised around me, and found that I was often suddenly deprived of the services of my best hunters or boat-hands, by the necessity which they felt, and which nothing could persuade them to disregard, of observing _couvade_, that I realized its full strangeness. No satisfactory explanation of its origin seems attainable. It appears based on a belief in the existence of a mysterious connection between the child and its father—far closer than that which exists between the child and its mother,—and of such a nature that if the father infringes any of the rules of the _couvade_, for a time after the birth of the child, the latter suffers. For instance, if he eats the flesh of a water-haas (_Capybara_), a large rodent with very protruding teeth, the teeth of the child will grow as those of the animal; or if he eats the flesh of the spotted-skinned labba, the child’s skin will become spotted. Apparently there is also some idea that for the father to