L'enfant exposé.

Dreaming of Fecundity in Rural Society

“…The world of nature situated on the boundary between the wilderness and cultivated land, on the other side of the territory occupied by human dwellings and agriculture yet slightly this side of the vast wilderness, domain of ferocious beasts and supernatural beings, is the mythical model of birth, another site par excellence where gestation takes place (Belmont, 1980). The gunshot expresses optimistic joy and, in general, the prediction and hope of a favourable destiny and a happy future.…”

“…Fecundity can also result from the immersion of the woman in water, water and mud being the primordial female womb from which all forms of life spring (Doja, 1991: 44 Whether masculine or feminine, water was the primal undifferentiated origin of fertilisation. If we follow the interpretation proposed by Nicole Belmont (1980) of the myth of the child exposed on the waters, we gain access to an additional meaning of water symbolism. According to this interpretation, it is no longer a question of a birth by inversion of the terms, 'enter the water/leave the water', as, following Freud, Otto Rank suggested in Der Mythus der Geburt des Helden ([1909]1952), but something like an inverted birth, in which we re-enter the water, return to the maternal waters, return to whence we came.…”