. Bulletin. Ethnology. 262 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [ Bull. 143 the laboring mother, and the child is born into a water-filled canoe placed beneath the hammock in which the mother lies. Outside of the enclosure a shaman sings the childbirth chants and supplies various medicines to the midwife according to her reports of progress. In addition to several food taboos observed by both husband and wife during pregnancy, the couvade is in force for 3 days after birth. Albino children have, in the past, often been killed at birth. Albinos, who constitute about percent of the Ctina population,
. Bulletin. Ethnology. 262 SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS [ Bull. 143 the laboring mother, and the child is born into a water-filled canoe placed beneath the hammock in which the mother lies. Outside of the enclosure a shaman sings the childbirth chants and supplies various medicines to the midwife according to her reports of progress. In addition to several food taboos observed by both husband and wife during pregnancy, the couvade is in force for 3 days after birth. Albino children have, in the past, often been killed at birth. Albinos, who constitute about percent of the Ctina population, are not permitted to intermarry, and many of them have difficulty in finding mates among the brown members of the tribe. They are looked upon as weak and incapable of the full duties of adulthood, although they are thought to be more intelligent and to possess the power of driving away, with a small bow and arrow, the demons that devour the sun or moon during eclipses. Puberty ceremonies.—There are no puberty ceremonies for boys, but for girls there are two. At the first, held at the onset of puberty, the girl is placed in an enclosure for 4 days, during which her female relatives and their women friends pour great quantities of water over her, her hair is bobbed, and she is painted black. Chicha is brewed during the next several weeks to be drunk ceremonially with rum when a dance is held in her honor. The second ceremony, held a year or more after puberty, is actually a debut, for it serves as formal notice that the girl is now marriageable. It is a 4-day ceremony, during which the girl is kept in an enclosure and her hair is cropped. For this ceremony her parents accumulate large quantities of food and the materials for making several large jars of chicha. The ceremony itself is composed of many episodes, chief of which are those devoted to making the rattles and flageolets and other ceremonial equipment, such as painted balsa-wood planks (fig. 59), which. Figure 59.—Cu
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectethnolo, bookyear1901
