No special rites are observed during pregnancy, and the superstitions
about women in this condition resemble those of the Hindus. [65]
A pregnant woman must not go near a horse or elephant, as they think
that either of these animals would be excited by her condition and
would assault her. In cases where labour is prolonged they give the
woman water to drink from a swiftly flowing stream, or they take
pieces of wood from a tree struck by lightning or by a thunder-bolt,
and make a necklace of them and hang it round her neck. In these
instances the swiftness of the running water, or of the lightning or
thunder-bolt, is held to be communicated to the woman, and thus she
will obtain a quick delivery. Or else they ask the Gunia or sorcerer
to discover what ancestor will be reborn in the child, and when he has
done this he calls on the ancestor to come and be born quickly. If
a woman is childless they say that she should worship Bura Deo and
fast continually, and then on the termination of her monthly impurity,
after she has bathed, if she walks across the shadow of a man she will
have a child. It is thus supposed that the woman can be made fertile
by the man's shadow, which will be the father of the child. Or she
should go on a Sunday night naked to a saj tree [66] and pray to
it, and she may have a child. The saj is the tree in which Bura Deo
resides, and was probably in the beginning itself the god. Hence it
is supposed that the woman is impregnated by the spirit of the tree,
as Hindu women think that they can be made fertile by the spirits of
unmarried Brahman boys living in pipal trees. Or she may have recourse
to the village priest, the Bhumka or the Baiga, who probably finds
that her barren condition is the work of an evil spirit and propitiates
him. If a woman dies in the condition of pregnancy they cut her belly
open before burial, so that the spirit of the child may escape. If
she dies during or soon after delivery they bury her in some remote
jungle spot, from which her spirit will find it difficult to return
to the village. The spirit of such a woman is supposed to become a
Churel and to entice men, and especially drunken men, to injury by
causing them to fall into rivers or get shut up in hollow trees. The
only way they can escape her is to offer her the ornaments which a
married woman wears. Her enmity to men is due to the fact that she
was cut off when she had just had the supreme happiness of bearing
a child, and the present of these ornaments appeases her. The spirit
of a woman whose engagement for marriage has been broken off, or who
has deserted her husband's house for another man's, is also supposed
to become a Churel. If an abortion occurs, or a child is born dead
or dies very shortly after birth, they put the body in an earthen
pot, and bury it under the heap of refuse behind the house. They say
that this is done to protect the body from the witches, who if they
get hold of it will raise the child's spirit, and make it a Bir or
familiar spirit. Witches have special power over the spirits of such
children, and can make them enter the body of an owl, a cat, a dog,
or a headless man, and in this form cause any injury which the witch
may desire to inflict on a human being. The real reason for burying
the bodies of such children close to the house is probably, however,
the belief that they will thus be born again in the same family. If the
woman is fat and well during pregnancy they think a girl will be born,
but if she is ailing and thin, that the child will be a boy. If the
nipples of her breasts are of a reddish colour they think the birth of
a boy is portended, but if of blackish colour, a girl. When a birth
occurs another woman carefully observes the knots or protuberances
on the navel-cord. It is supposed that the number of them indicates
the further number of children which will be born to the mother. A
blackish knot inclining downwards portends a boy, and a reddish one
inclining upwards a girl. It is supposed that an intelligent midwife
can change the order of these knots, and if a woman has only borne
girl-children can arrange that the next one shall be a boy.