In the East Indies this superstition
is extended to the whole time of pregnancy; the people believe that
if a pregnant woman were to tie knots, or braid, or make anything
fast, the child would thereby be constricted or the woman would
herself be "tied up" when her time came. Nay, some of them enforce
the observance of the rule on the father as well as the mother of
the unborn child. Among the Sea Dyaks neither of the parents may
bind up anything with a string or make anything fast during the
wife's pregnancy. In the Toumbuluh tribe of North Celebes a ceremony
is performed in the fourth or fifth month of a woman's pregnancy,
and after it her husband is forbidden, among many other things, to
tie any fast knots and to sit with his legs crossed over each other.
In all these cases the idea seems to be that the tying of a knot
would, as they say in the East Indies, "tie up" the woman, in other
words, impede and perhaps prevent her delivery, or delay her
convalescence after the birth. On the principles of homoeopathic or
imitative magic the physical obstacle or impediment of a knot on a
cord would create a corresponding obstacle or impediment in the body
of the woman.
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