Even in Europe many people still believe that a person's destiny is
more or less bound up with that of his navel-string or afterbirth.
Thus in Rhenish Bavaria the navel-string is kept for a while wrapt
up in a piece of old linen, and then cut or pricked to pieces
according as the child is a boy or a girl, in order that he or she
may grow up to be a skilful workman or a good sempstress. In Berlin
the midwife commonly delivers the dried navel-string to the father
with a strict injunction to preserve it carefully, for so long as it
is kept the child will live and thrive and be free from sickness. In
Beauce and Perche the people are careful to throw the navel-string
neither into water nor into fire, believing that if that were done
the child would be drowned or burned.
Thus in many parts of the world the navel-string, or more commonly
the afterbirth, is regarded as a living being, the brother or sister
of the infant, or as the material object in which the guardian
spirit of the child or part of its soul resides. Further, the
sympathetic connexion supposed to exist between a person and his
afterbirth or navel-string comes out very clearly in the widespread
custom of treating the afterbirth or navel-string in ways which are
supposed to influence for life the character and career of the
person, making him, if it is a man, a nimble climber, a strong
swimmer, a skilful hunter, or a brave soldier, and making her, if it
is a woman, a cunning sempstress, a good baker, and so forth.
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