. The Baganda . to his wife who also drank of it ; itwas assumed that after this ceremony their union would befruitful, and that the desired child would be born in due a husband lost hope of having children, and the womanwas pronounced to be sterile, she lost favour with him ; andthough he seldom put her entirely away, yet, where there wasa second wife, the latter came to the front, and received theattentions and affection of her husband, while the barren wifebecame more and more his While the present generation know the cause of preg-h t^^ nancy, the people in the ear
. The Baganda . to his wife who also drank of it ; itwas assumed that after this ceremony their union would befruitful, and that the desired child would be born in due a husband lost hope of having children, and the womanwas pronounced to be sterile, she lost favour with him ; andthough he seldom put her entirely away, yet, where there wasa second wife, the latter came to the front, and received theattentions and affection of her husband, while the barren wifebecame more and more his While the present generation know the cause of preg-h t^^ nancy, the people in the earlier times were uncertain as to itsreal cause, and thought that it was possible to conceivewithout any intercourse with the male sex. Hence theirprecautions when passing places where either a suicide had 46 CH. II BIRTH, INFANCY, AND PUBERTY 47 been burnt, or a child born feet first had been were careful to throw grass or sticks on such a spot,for by so doing they thought that they could prevent the. FIG. 13 —BAGANDA WOMEN. ghost of the dead from entering into them, and being , who were found to be with child in circumstances inwhich they ought not to be with child, might deny any wrong- 48 THE BAGANDA chap. doing on their own part ; they might affirm that some flowerfalHng from a plantain upon them, while they were digging,had caused them to become pregnant. If the reader con-siders what a close connection was thought to exist betweenthe plantains and the ghosts of the afterbirth, and also howthe ghosts of ancestors were thought to reside amongst theplantains, he will readily understand that the conception wassupposed to have taken place by the reincarnation of one ofthe ghosts.^ The woman who pleaded that she had becomepregnant by the falling of a plantain flower upon her back,was apparently not punished, as was the case with a womanwho had committed As soon as a womau knew that she was pregnant shef Pcg- consulted the medicine-ma
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidbaganda00joh, bookyear1911
