Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling].

Dilling, Walter J. (Walter James), 1886-1950.

Date:: 1913-14

Credit: Girdles: their origin and development, particularly with regard to their use as charms in medicine, marriage, and midwifery / [Walter J. Dilling]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$413 when labour begins.1 Illustrations of them are given in the work by Ploss-Bartels.2 Travelling southwards, we trace the girdle again amongst the Kalmucks, a numerous nomad tribe of Mongolian race who owe their medical knowledge to the Thibetan Buddhists. The poor people of this tribe buckle broad leather belts around the abdomen of the patient as soon as labour begins, and try to hasten matters by pressure from above down- wards.3 The customs prevalent in Burma have been mentioned (vide supra). The natives of Java, the Orang Benua of Malacca, and the Badus are accustomed to wear an abdominal band during pregnane}7; the last mentioned employ one which must be made of five-stranded interwoven Icapas, of which each strand is four-ply. A peculiar custom in which the girdle enters is also practised by the Buginese and Makassare of the Southern Celebes Islands. When a birth is imminent they hold a festival, and massage the abdomen of the pregnant woman ; then they push under the woman, who lies on a bed in the dorsal position, a sort of belly-band, bring the ends of it together, and press them gently down over her body. Here- upon the woman is carefully shaken to and fro, and the band is undone at the stair; she is once more shaken at the door in order to drive away evil spirits. This ritual is carried out three times on the first day, and on the second day only once.4 Continuing the journey southwards amongst the primitive tribes of mankind, excellent examples of animism exist in the girdles of the Australian aborigines. The story is of sufficient interest to merit fairly full recital: “Ihere is, about fifteen miles S.S.E. of Alice Springs, a special rounded stone which projects from the ground amidst ‘mulga’ scrub for about the height of three feet. This stone is called Lrathipa. On one side of it is a round hole through which the spirit children are supposed to be on the lookout for women who St. Louis, 1883, second edition^™ 5°’ “Lab°1' Primitive Peol’les> 3 RTi5Sfce‘‘V lPaS Te-b ’” VoL ’’ PP- 806> 853- 857. Rnsslands?Leipzig lZ^dl^ffU:]VoIksra/ttel .7rac‘”edener Yolkerstamme 4 C M PwL«p i l- 111Selman» loc. cit, p. 208. Familienleven \ler Vt.lke^’vai^d ° ®.u 19eJruik.en uifc <len Cyklus van bet de Tall- Land vJm ^au der Indischen Arclnpel.” Bijdragen voor$