ABSTRACT
Batara Siwa, the Supreme Lord, next made four mature girls for wives of the four men. Most people talked to had a quite correct idea of the physiology of procreation; they said that the man’s seminal fluid, coming in contact with the “female semen,” turns into blood in the womb, forming a ball which, fed by the woman’s own blood, eventually takes human form and develops into a child. Forty-two days after birth, when the child is blessed by the priest, he is given anklets and bracelets of brass and silver in place of the black strings that he wore tied around his wrists since he was seven days old. His ears are pierced, and a thread is passed through each hole so that three months later he can wear little flower-shaped ear-rings of gold.
