Mapuche medicine women treating a patient

Identifier: womenofallnation01joyc
Title: Women of all nations, a record of their characteristics, habits, manners, customs and influence;
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Thomas, Northcote Whitridge, 1868-
Subjects: Women
Publisher: London, New York [etc.] : Cassell and Company, limited



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child in adark room, choosing a title hereditary inthe family. The Omagua woman may catonly the tracaja turtle and fish, bnt nomammals, and the father must practisethe same restrictions till the child cansit up. The Passe compel the mother toremain in the dark for a month, and eatonly manioc; her husband does thesame, and in addition blacks himself andremains in his hammock. Bororo parents couvadc. This custom demands that the mother shall resume her household dnties as soon as the child is born, .^ J „ whereas the husband must lieCouvade. , „ up and allow hnnself to be coddled. Im Thurn found this remarkable customamong the Indians of (uiiana. Tiie womanworks till the hour of birth is near at hand ;then she retires to the forest with one ormore women, hangs up her hammock, andawaits the progress of events. A few hoursafter, she gets up, washes the child andherself in a neighbouring stream, and re-turns to the village to take up her ordinarywork, while her husband lies for davs.
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MAPUCHE MEDICINE WOMEN TREATING A PATIENT. eat nothing for two days, and then take and perhaps weeks, in his hammock. Hea little warm water. may eat only a decoction of manioc meal; he may not smoke, and may notOne of the most singular usages, reported wash ; he may touch no weapons, andby the earliest authors, is the so-caUed enjoys the services of all the women in the48 378 WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS village as nurses. Schomburgk says thathe may not even touch his body or hishead with his nails ; but must scratch him-self with a palm leaf nerve hung near hishammock. Any infringement of these rulesis held to cause the death, or lifelong ill-ness, of the child. If, for example, thefather eats capivara meat, the childs teethwill grow like those of the animal, and beprominent. If he eats the meat of a spottedanimal, the childs skin will be spotted. More or less similar customs are recordedof the Mundurucu, among whom the hus-band is visited by his neighbours as helies in his hammock ; by the