of the supernatural, and that
the taboos connected with it arose from his dread of supernatural,
dangerous influence.[338] Many of the ceremonies connected with the
birth of a child may be explained easily as resulting from the natural
care for mother and child. Both of these are, in the modern sense of the
term, sacred; and even in very early times ordinary humane feeling would
seek to protect them from injury.[339]

+185+. Thus the curious custom of the couvade,[340] in which the
husband, and not the wife, goes to bed on the birth of the child, may be
an effort on the man's part to share in the labor of the occasion, since
he has to take care of the child; or it may be primarily an economical
procedure--the woman must go out to work and the man must therefore stay
at home to take care of the house and the child. But probably something
more than this is involved--there seems to be fear of supernatural
danger. It is not necessary to suppose that the man takes the woman's
place in order to attract to himself the malevolent spirits that figure
on such occasions; but the belief in the intimate vital connection
between father and child may induce the desire to guard the former
against injury. Similar precautions are taken in regard to the
mother;[341] some of these have a natural basis in her physical
condition which necessitates a certain carefulness. Where such customs
connected with birth prevail, departure from them is thought to be
dangerous or fatal; but such a feeling exists in regard to all social
customs.

+186+. The belief that the newborn child is the reincarnation of an
ancestor is scientific rather than religious. In Central Australia every
child is held to be the reincarnation of a spirit ancestor; a similar
idea is found in North America, in Western Africa, and in Orissa.[342]
In searching for the cause of birth it is not unnatural that it should
be ascribed to a preexistent being who desires to enter again into human
life.[343]

+187+. The ablutions or sprinklings of water practiced in some places
appear to be merely the expression of welcome into the community.[344]
The choice of a name for the child is frequently connected with
religious ideas. Among many tribes the custom is to seek for some hint
from the child itself, as by repeating a number of names and observing
which of them the child seems to recognize or accept. The help of a
deity is sometimes invoked, as in Borneo, where a pig is killed and it