the Evil Spirit would
be able to trace it out and do it some mischief. And for the same reason
the newly-made mother dare not have contact with any of the adults who
go into the jungle to hunt or for other purposes, but has food and water
taken her by the children.

It is superfluous to add that for a given time before and after a
confinement the presence of a stranger in the village is not tolerated,
worse still if he is a white man.

The _Ala_, seconded by all, both males and females, is inflexible about
this, asserting that it would be the death of the babe, and it is a
prudent thing to accept the veto with a good grace and to obey the
sorcerer's orders without hesitation. Sometimes a stranger is not even
allowed to look upon a woman who is in an interesting state, as it once
happened to me.

Another time upon arriving at a village where a child had been born a
few hours before, I was flatly refused hospitality, some Sakais
preferring to accompany me a long way off and there erect a hut for my
use on the formal understanding that I should not for any motive
whatever attempt to approach the settlement. Had I not kept to this
condition I should probably have been killed.

One cannot reason with terror.

The hut in which the poor woman is fulfilling the noblest of Nature's
missions is jealously guarded by day and by night.

Woe to the unfortunate individual who is found loitering around it if he
is not one of the village!

The floor of the hut does not touch the ground that the odour of
excrements may not penetrate into the earth and proclaim to the Evil
Spirit: Here a babe is born!

The mother herself, with extreme caution places everything of this sort
in vessels of bamboo which she hangs high up on the bough of a tree.

There the torrid sun quickly dries it all up and the smell emanating
from it being diffused in the upper air the spirit cannot find out the
sick woman or her child.

* * * * *

As soon as the period of gestation commences neither the woman nor her
husband must eat the flesh of monkey or serpent in order not to transfer
to the unborn child the tendencies of a quadruped or reptile.

They must also abstain from eating fish and meat on the same day and are
obliged to be very careful not to enter a hut whilst it rains, this
being always a very bad omen but especially so when an increase is
expected in the family.

Another very bad sign is when the _cep plui_