Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/311

Rh the first edition of this work, I have to add another, South India. The account, for which I have to thank Mr. F. M. Jennings, describes it as usual among natives of the higher castes about Madras, Seringapatam, and on the Malabar Coast. It is stated that a man, at the birth of his first son or daughter by the chief wife, or for any son afterwards, will retire to bed for a lunar month, living principally on a rice diet, abstaining from exciting food and from smoking; at the end of the month he bathes, puts on a fresh dress, and gives his friends a feast. The people of this district of India may be described as mainly of the indigenous Dravidian stock, more or less mixed with Aryan Hindu. They are Hinduized to a great degree in religion and habits, but preserve some of their earlier customs, among which the couvade, which is not known as an Aryan Hindu practice, must probably be counted. An ancient Asiatic people recorded to have practised the couvade are the Tibareni of Pontus, at the south of the Black Sea, among whom, when the child was born, the father lay groaning in bed with his head tied up, while the mother tended him with food, and prepared his baths.

In Europe, the couvade may be traced up from ancient into modern times in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees. Above eighteen hundred years ago, Strabo mentions the story that among the Iberians of the North of Spain the women, "after the birth of a child, tend their husbands, putting them to bed instead of going themselves;" and this account is confirmed by later mentions of the practice." In Biscay," says Michel, "in valleys whose population recalls in its usages the infancy of society, the women rise immediately after child-birth, and attend to the duties of the household, while the husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him, and thus receives the neighbours' com-