For one day after a child has been born the mother is allowed no
food. On the sixth day she herself shaves the child's head and bites
his nails short with her teeth, after which she takes a bow and arrows
and stands with the child facing successively to the four points of the
compass. The idea of this is to make the child a skilful hunter when
he grows up. Children are named in their fifth or sixth year. Names
are sometimes given after some personal peculiarity, as Lammudia,
long-headed, or Khanja, one having six fingers; or after some
circumstance of the birth, as Ghosian, in compliment to the Ghasia
(grass-cutter) woman who acts as midwife; Jugi, because some holy
mendicant (Yogi) was halting in the village when the child was born;
or a child may be named after the day of the week or month on which
it was born. The tribe believe that the souls of the departed are born
again as children, and boys have on occasion been named Majhian Budhi
or the old head-woman, whom they suppose to have been born again
with a change of sex. Major Macpherson observed the same belief:
[513] "To determine the best name for the child, the priest drops
grains of rice into a cup of water, naming with each grain a deceased
ancestor. He pronounces, from the movements of the seed in the fluid,
and from observations made on the person of the infant, which of his
progenitors has reappeared in him, and the child generally, but not
uniformly, receives the name of that ancestor." When the children are
named, they are made to ride a goat or a pig, as a mark of respect,
it is said, to the ancestor who has been reborn in them. Names usually
recur after the third generation.