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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.