The methods used by primitive people to prevent conception
were many and varied, and were dependent on knowledge of the
relationship between sex and pregnancy. The vast array of methods
reported in various parts of the world testifies to the universality and
the intensity of the human desire to regulate reproductivity. These
methods include abstinence, prolonged nursing of infants, coitus
interruptus, the use of potions, herbs and extracts thought to have
contraceptive powers, spermicidal douches, and, in one culture, the use
of a rope tied around a woman’s waist. These methods are characterized
by one or more disadvantages: they interfere with the sexual act, they
are harmful to womeen, or they are totally ineffective. If human couple
did try to practice contraception Paleolithic, it is little wonder that
they still resorted to infanticide.
Recent anthropological evidence suggests that both family
planning and population control were very much a part of the
pre-agricultural way of life. Many anthropologists believe that
infanticide was a widely used method of family planning by the
hunter-gatherer. During this age, it may have involved as much as 50 per
cent of the total number of births. Infanticide spares the mother the
risks to her health, which until recently, accompanied abortion. It
allowed for precision in family planning since the lives of sick
offspring and those of the wrong sex could be terminated while healthy
offspring of the right sex could be spared. As late as the present
century, the Bondei of West Africa strangled infants at birth is any of
the numerous portents and omens for which they watch are unfavorable, or
if the infant’s upper teeth come in first. In Madagascar, all children
born on certain unlucky days were killed to prevent them from bringing
bad luck to the parents.
The Rendille, a tribal of camel herders in the Kenya highlands,
use a variety of methods to keep their population within the limits that
can be supported by the camel herd. In addition to postponing the age of
marriage of women and sending women to be married out of the tribe, they
kill off boys born after the next eldest son is old enough to have been
circumcised, and boys born on Wednesdays. Among this tribe, Wednesday’s
child is indeed full of woe.
In a number of cultures, abortion is practised among women at
the extreme ends of the reproductive continuum. Some abort their first
pregnancies out of a belief that subsequent pregnancies will be easier
to deliver. Fear of pregnancy at the upper end of the reproductive age
range is apparent in other cultures which abort pregnancies taking place
after a certain age. In one tribe a woman must not bear children after
her daughter’s puberty, which can be delayed, however, if the mother
wishes to wear an amulet.
Various methods of terminating pregnancies:
Throughout Melanesia the practice of jumping from high places
which was also a common method of suicide was widespread. Navaho women
carried a log around, resting it on top of their abdomens. In New
Britain women clasped the waist on both sides, pressing and working
their fingers into their abdomen in an attmept to expel the foetus.
Among the Crow and Assiniboine Indians, the unwillingly pregnant woman
lay on her back, a plank was placed across her stomach and several
women jumped up and down on the plank until blood spurted from her
vagina.
In one culture the woman lay on heated coconut husks, in another
she lay on the coals of a fire that had been doused with water to
produce steam. Irritating substances were also used, including ground up
black beetles and irritating leaves. In one culture, ants were made to
bite the abdomen of the woman, who then ingested them by mouth.
Oral preparations thought to have abortifacient properties
abounded. The Jivaro woman was forced to take a raw egg, presumably in
the hope that the foetus would be expelled in the vomiting that ensued.
The Masai had a number of methods, one of which was the eating of goat
dung which acted as an emetic. The Menomini, a group of Algonquin
Indians who lived in what is now Wisconsin, chopped up the tail harirs
from the black tailed deer and administered it in bear fat, thus causing
gastric irritation and possibly uterine contractions.
The combination of magic, along with drugs or mechanical methods
was common in primitive cultures, and represented a healthy commitment
to the belief that the gods can always use a helping human hand. Among
the Hopi Indians there was a belief that a woman may abort simply by
wishing it. Among the Dahomeyan people in West Africa, if a pregnant
woman was ill, the foetus was formally tried. If found guilty of causing
her illness, it was aborted.
