sings near the encampment.
The Sakais consider it quite as unlucky as the grating screech of the
night owl (birds kept in awe by the Sakais as being in familiarity with
the Evil Spirit) on the roof of a house, or the spilling of salt is
believed to be in many countries we know.

A few days before her confinement the woman picks up some leaves of the
_bakau_ which have fallen to the ground and makes a decoction with them.
She drinks a little every day, continuing the cure even after
child-birth. I do not know the wherefore of this but the women seem to
think it exercises a particular effect upon them at this period.

Immediately the child is born its mother takes the fruit of the _bua
kaluna_ and squeezes out a few drops into the little thing's mouth.

I have never been able to understand the reason of such a practice but
believe that it is inspired by some superstition or hygienic rule of the
natives.

The fruit of the _bua kaluna_ is sweet but has also a rather tart
flavour.

After seven days have passed the newly made mother leaves the hut and
makes abundant ablutions that have the same character and scope as the
religious duty imposed upon the Israelite women; that of respect for
elementary hygiene.

From this moment the wife may return to her husband but she is not
allowed to go into the forest and is obliged to wear upon her stomach a
hot stone, which serves her as a cure and exorcism.

She returns to her faithful mate but she does not abandon her child
whose separation from all other human beings, including its own father,
cannot last for less than six months.

The birth and death of a Sakai, as here seen, is devoid of every rite or
ceremony, as in the case of matrimony or divorce and do not require even
the intervention of the _Ala_.

* * * * *

The fact of their being strictly forbidden, when kindling a fire, to
lift their eyes from it until the wood has been well ignited and smoke
proceeds from it would suggest the idea that there is either a
superstition attached to this operation or that fire is also an object
of veneration with them. But this concentration of the gaze may be
simply a precaution (become a habit) not to retard the act of combustion
by distraction of thought.

The only thing in connection with this custom I have succeeded in
ascertaining is that the Sakais have no particular cult for the Sacred
Fire like the priests of Baal the Brahmins in India and