The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-09-26
"LA OOUvADE.r
BY ]. p. MAcLEAN, PHI. D.

the most ludicrous, is known as La
Couvade. It has been quite thor
oughly treated by Tylor and re-
ceived passing attention from Prof.
Max Muller and Sir John Lubbock.
We would naturally expect to see
this custom fully treated in the vol
luminous works of Bancroft. AL
though he devotes five large vol
umes to the native races of the Pa
cifc Slope, yet he passes this subject
over with few lines.
This custom may be traced back
for period of twenty centuries and
in distant regions of the world. 1t
is still dark, superstitious mystery;
but among South American tribes an
Ineligible explanation is given.
They hold to the idea that different
persons are not necessarily separate
beings, for there is such connection
between father and son, that the diet
of the one affects the health of the
other. On the other hand, Max
Muller, forming his ideas solely on
the researches of Tylor, declares: at
is clear that the poor husband was at
first tyrannized over by his female
relations, and afterward frightened
into superstition. He then began to
make martyr of himself till be made
himself really i'll or took to his bed
in self-defense." This view is borne
out by the relation as given by the
Jesuit missionary, Dobrizhoffer.
The couvade, or "hatching" in
wolves the giving over the parentage
to the father, and leaving the mother
out of the question. This law or rule
has been proved to exist in Spain,
Corsica, Pontus, Africa, the Eastern
Archipelago, Greenland, the West
Indies, North and South America.
S rabo mentions that among the
Iberians of the north of Spain, TIE
women after the birth of ia child, tend
their husbands, putting them to bed
instead of going themselves" Ac
cording to Michel this practice is in
existence among the modern Bas-
cues; for he says, Sin tscay in val
leys 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 eneighbors' com
pliments." About the beginning of
the Christian Era, Diodorus Siculus
notices the same habit of the wife
being neglected, and the husband
being put to bed and treated as the
patient among the natives of Corsica.
Ia these countries as we'll as in Ma
varre the habit was maintained long
after the cause had been forgotten.
1t is still retained among the Miau-
tsze of China, the Hinduized people
of Southern India, and the savage
Tibareni of Pontus.
In Greenland the husband must
for some weeks, after the birth of a
child, do no work and follow no oc-
cupation, except the procuring of
necessary food, and this in order
that the child may not die.
A full account of the couvade,
among the fierce equestrian tribe of
Abipones, whose home is little
south of the center Of South America,
is given by Dobrizhoffer: "No
sooner do you hear that the wife has
borne child, than you will see the
Abipone husband lying in bed, hud-
died up with mats and skins lest
some ruder breath of air should
touch him, fasting. kept in private,
and for number of days abstaining
religiously from certain viands; you
would swear it was he who had had
the child. have read about
this in old times, and laughed at it,
never thinking l could believe such
madness, and used to suspect that
this barbarian custom was related
more in jest than in earnest, but at
last L saw it with my own eyes in
use among the Abipones. And in
truth they observe this ancestral
custom, troublesome as it is, the more
willingly and diligently from their
being altogether persuaded that the
quiet of the father is effectual for
the well-being of the new born off
spring, and is even necessary.
Shear, pray, confirmation of this
matter. Francisco Barreda, deputy
of the royal government of Tucumap,
came to visit the new colony of Con-
ceicam in the territory of Santiago.
To him, as he was walking with me
in the courtyard, the Cacique Mala-