This ceremony he repeats at every new moon for a
year. The intention of the ceremony is not explained by the writer
who describes it, but we may conjecture that it is to place the soul
of the child in a safer place than its own frail little body. This
conjecture is confirmed by the reason assigned for a similar custom
observed elsewhere in the Indian Archipelago. In the Kei Islands,
when there is a newly-born child in a house, an empty coco-nut,
split and spliced together again, may sometimes be seen hanging
beside a rough wooden image of an ancestor. The soul of the infant
is believed to be temporarily deposited in the coco-nut in order
that it may be safe from the attacks of evil spirits; but when the
child grows bigger and stronger, the soul will take up its permanent
abode in its own body. Similarly among the Esquimaux of Alaska, when
a child is sick, the medicine-man will sometimes extract its soul
from its body and place it for safe-keeping in an amulet, which for
further security he deposits in his own medicine-bag.
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