pread indefinitely, a silent and
terrible source of misfortune, sometimes to a single person, sometimes
to a whole community. Ceremonies connected with taboo are designed to
protect against this destructive influence.

+587+. The principal taboo usages may be classed roughly under certain
heads, which, however, will sometimes overlap one another.

+588+. _Taboos connected with the conception of life._ For early man the
central mystery of the world was life, and mystery and danger attached
to all things connected with its genesis, maintenance, and cessation--to
pregnancy, birth, death, corpses, funerals, blood. Against these things
precautions, in the form of various restrictions, had to be taken.
Pregnancy was sometimes regarded as due to supernatural agency, and in
all cases was noted as a mysterious condition in which the woman was
peculiarly exposed to evil influences; she was sometimes required to
keep her head covered or to avoid moonshine, or to live separated from
her husband.[941]

+589+. Care for women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child
might be induced by natural human kindliness. But certain usages in
connection with birth indicate fear of superhuman dangers. In many
regions (Central Asia, Africa, Oceania, China) the mother is taboo for a
certain time, being regarded apparently as a source of danger to others,
as well as being herself exposed to danger. The child also is surrounded
by perils. Mother and child are protected by isolation, ablutions
(baptism), amulets, conjurations, and by consecration to a deity.[942]
The intimate relation between father and child may make it necessary to
impose taboos on the former--he is sometimes required to go to bed (the
_couvade_, or man-childbed), to abstain from work and from certain foods
held to be injurious, and to avoid touching weapons and other dangerous
things; thus, through the identity of father and child, the latter is
guarded against the hostile mana that may be lurking near. The seclusion
of the mother sometimes varies in duration according to the sex of the
child; in most cases, apparently, the period is longer for a male
child;[943] in the Jewish ritual the period for the maid-child is twice
as great (eighty days) as that for the male;[944] the difference in the
points of view, perhaps, is that the evil influence may direct itself
particularly against, or be more serious for, the male as socially the
more important, or it may be more dangero