tion from the beliefs of
existing savages. The Bahau of Central Borneo have no notion of the real
duration of pregnancy, and date its commencement only from the time of
its becoming visible. The Niol-Niol of Dampier Land in North-Western
Australia hold birth to be independent of sexual intercourse. It is
engendered by a pre-existing spirit through the agency of a medicine
man. The North Queenslanders have a similar belief. They believe a child
to be sent in answer to the husband's prayer as a punishment to his wife
when he is vexed with her. On the Proserpine River the Blacks believe
that a child is the gift of a supernatural being called Kunya. In South
Queensland the Euahlayi believe that spirits congregate at certain spots
and pounce on passing women, and so are born. On the Slave Coast of West
Africa the Awunas say that a child derives the lower jaw from the
mother; all the rest comes from the spirits. Among these people and
others that might be named paternity exists in name, but it implies
something entirely different to what it afterwards connotes. Mr.
Hartland gives numerous instances of this curious fact, and points out
that "the attention of mankind would not be early or easily fastened
upon the procreative process. It is lengthy, extending over months
during which the observer's attention would be inevitably diverted by a
variety of objects, most of them of far more pressing import.... The
sexual passion would be gratified instinctively without any thought of
the consequences, and in an overwhelming proportion of cases without the
consequence of pregnancy at all. When that consequence occurred it would
not be visible for weeks or months after the act which produced it. A
hundred other events might have taken place in the interval which would
be likely to be credited with the result by one wholly ignorant of
natural laws."

There seems, therefore, fair grounds for Mr. Hartland's conclusion
that:--

"for generations and aeons the truth that a child is only born in
consequence of an act of sexual union, that the birth of a child is the
natural consequence of such an act performed in favouring circumstances,
and that every child must be the result of such an act and of no other
cause, was not realised by mankind, that down to the present day it is
imperfectly realised by some peoples, and that there are still others
among whom it is unknown."

This, however, is but one of the ways in which supernatural beliefs