Professional midwives are not usually employed at childbirth, and the
women look after each other. Among the Maria Gonds of Bastar the father
is impure for a month after the birth of a child and does not go to
his work. A Muria Gond father is impure until the navel-cord drops;
he may reap his crop, but cannot thresh or sow. This is perhaps a
relic of the custom of the Couvade. The rules for the treatment of
the mother resemble those of the Hindus, but they do not keep her
so long without food. On some day from the fifth to the twelfth
after the birth the mother is purified and the child is named. On
this day its hair is shaved by the son-in-law or husband's or wife's
brother-in-law. The mother and child are washed and rubbed with oil
and turmeric, and the house is freshly whitewashed and cleaned with
cowdung. They procure a winnowing-fan full of kodon and lay the child
on it, and the mother ties this with a cloth under her arm. In the
Nagpur country the impurity of the mother is said to last for a month,
during which time she is not allowed to cook food and no one touches
her. Among the poorer Gonds the mother often does not lie up at all
after a birth, but eats some pungent root as a tonic and next day
goes on with her work.