Among the better-class Chamars it is customary to place a newborn child
in a winnowing-fan on a bed of rice. The nurse receives the rice and
she also goes round to the houses of the headman of the village and
the relatives of the family and makes a mark with cowdung on their
doors as an announcement of the birth, for which she receives a small
present. In Chhattisgarh a woman is given nothing to eat or drink
on the day that a child is born and for two days afterwards. On the
fourth day she receives a liquid decoction of ginger, the roots of
the _orai_ or _khaskhas_ grass, areca-nut, coriander and turmeric
and other hot substances, and in some places a cake of linseed or
sesamum. She sometimes goes on drinking this mixture for as long
as a month, and usually receives solid food for the first time on
the sixth day after the birth, when she bathes and her impurity
is removed. The child is not permitted to suckle its mother until
the third day after it is born, but before this it receives a small
quantity of a mixture made by boiling the urine of a calf with some
medicinal root. In Chhattisgarh it is a common practice to brand a
child on the stomach on the name-day or sixth day after its birth;
twenty or more small burns may be made with the point of a _hansia_
or sickle on the stomach, and it is supposed that this operation will
prevent it from catching cold. Another preventive for convulsions
and diseases of the lungs is the rubbing of the limbs and body with
castor-oil; the nurse wets her hands with the oil and then warms them
before a fire and rubs the child. It is also held in the smoke of
burning _ajwain_ plants (_Carum copticum_). Infants are named on the
Chathi or sixth day, or sometimes on the twelfth day after birth. The
child's head is shaved, and the hair, known as Jhalar, thrown away, the
mother and child are washed and the males of the family are shaved. The
mother is given her first regular meal of grain and pulse cooked with
pumpkins. A pregnant woman who is afraid that her child will die will
sometimes sell it to a neighbour before its birth for five or six
cowries. [457] The baby will then be named Pachkouri or Chhekouri, and
it is thought that the gods, who are jealous of the lives of children,
will overlook one whose name shows it to be valueless. Children are
often nicknamed after some peculiarity as Kanwa (one-eyed), Behra
(deaf), Konda (dumb), Khurwa (lame), Kari (black), Bhuri (fair). It
does not follow that a child called Konda is actually dumb, but it
may simply have been late in learning to speak. Parents are jealous
of exposing their children to the gaze of strangers and especially
of a crowd, in which there will almost certainly be some malignant
person to cast the evil eye upon them. Young children are therefore
not infrequently secluded in the house and deprived of light and air
to an extent which is highly injurious to them.