If a child is born feet first its feet are supposed to have special
power, and people suffering from pain in the back come and have their
backs touched by the toes of the child's left foot. This power is
believed to be retained in later life. If a woman gets a child when the
signs of menstruation have not appeared, the child is called Lamka, and
is held to be in danger of being struck by lightning. In order to avert
this fate an offering of a white cock is made to the lightning during
the month of Asarh (June) following the birth, when thunderstorms are
frequent, and prayer is made that it will accept this sacrifice in lieu
of the life of the child. They think that the ancestors who have been
mingled with Bura Deo may be born again. Sometimes such an ancestor
appears in a dream and intimates that he is coming back to earth. Then
if a newborn child will not drink its mother's milk, they think it is
some important male ancestor, and that he is vexed at being in such a
dependent position to a woman over whom he formerly had authority. So
they call the Gunia or sorcerer, and he guesses what ancestor has been
reborn by measuring a stick. He says that if the length of the stick
is an even number of times the breadth of his hand, or more or less
than half a hand-breadth over, such and such an ancestor is reborn
in the child. Then he measures his hand along the stick breadthwise,
and when the measurement comes to that foretold for a particular
ancestor he says that this one has been reborn; or if they find any
mark on the body of the child corresponding to one they remember to
have been borne by a particular ancestor, they identify it with this
ancestor. Then they wash the child's feet as a token of respect, and
pass their hands over its head and say to it, 'Drink milk, and we will
give you a ring and clothes and jewels.' Sometimes they think that an
ancestor has been born again in a calf, and the Gunia ascertains who
he is in the same manner. Then this calf is not castrated if a bull,
nor put to the plough if it is a cow, and when it dies they will not
take off its hide for sale but bury it with the hide on.
It is believed that if a barren woman can get hold of the first hair
of another woman's child or its navel-cord, she can transfer the
mother's fertility to herself, so they dispose of these articles
very carefully. If they wish the child to grow fat, they bury the
navel-cord in a manure-heap. The upper milk teeth are thrown on to
the roof, and the lower ones buried under a water-pot. They say that
the upper ones should be in a high place, and the lower ones in a low
place. The teeth thrown on the roof may be meant for the rats, who in
exchange for them will give the child strong white teeth like their
own, while those thrown under the water-pot will cause the new teeth
to grow large and quickly, like the grass under a water-pot. Diseases
of children are attributed to evil spirits. The illness called Sukhi,
in which the body and limbs grow weak and have a dried-up appearance,
is very common, and is probably caused by malnutrition. They attribute
it to the machinations of an owl which has heard the child's name
or obtained a piece of its soiled clothing. If a stone or piece of
wood is thrown at the owl to scare it away, it will pick this up,
and after wetting it in a stream, put it out in the sun to dry. As
the stone or wood dries up, so will the child's body dry up and
wither. In order to cure this illness they use charms and amulets,
and also let the child wallow in a pig-sty so that it may become
as fat as the pigs. They say that they always beat a brass dish at
a birth so that the noise may penetrate the child's ears, and this
will remove any obstruction there may be to its hearing. If the child
appears to be deaf, they lay it several times in a deep grain-bin for
about half an hour at a time; when it cries the noise echoes in the
bin, and this is supposed to remove the obstruction to its power of
hearing. If they wish the boy to be a good dancer, they get a little
of the flesh of the kingfisher or hawk which hangs poised in the air
over water by the rapid vibration of its wings, on the look-out for
a fish, and give him this to eat. If they wish him to speak well,
they touch his finger with the tip of a razor, and think that he will
become talkative like a barber. If they want him to run fast, they
look for a stone on which a hare has dropped some dung and rub this
on his legs, or they get a piece of a deer's horn and hang it round
his neck as a charm. If a girl or boy is very dark-coloured, they get
the branches of a creeper called malkangni, and express the oil from
them, and rub it on the child's face, and think it will make the face
reddish. Thus they apparently consider a black colour to be ugly.
(e) Funeral Rites