Of birth ceremonies, the following account is given by Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar. The woman is attended in her confinement by an elderly Kondh midwife, who shampooes her abdomen with castor-oil. The umbilical cord is cut by the mother of the infant. For this purpose, the right thigh of the baby is flexed towards its abdomen, and a piece of cooled charcoal placed on its right knee. The cord is placed on the charcoal, and divided with the sharp edge of an arrow. The placenta is buried close to the house near a wall. After the cord has been severed, the mother daubs the region of the infant's navel with her saliva, over which she smears castor-oil. She then warms her hands at a fire, and applies them to the infant's body. [It is stated, in the Ganjam Manual, that the infant is held before a hot fire, and half roasted.] The warming is repeated several times daily for four or five days. When the umbilical cord has sloughed off, a spider is burnt to ashes over a fire, placed in a cocoanut shell, mixed with castor-oil, and applied by means of a fowl's feather to the navel. The infant's head is shaved, except over the anterior fontanelle, the hair from which is removed after about a month. Its body is smeared all over daily with castor-oil and turmeric paste until it is a month old. The mother then goes with her baby and husband to her brother's house, where the infant is presented with a fowl, which is taken home, and eaten by her husband. The appropriation of the fowl varies according to the locality. In some places, the infant's father, and other relations, except the mother, may eat it, and, in others, both its parents, and relations living in the house, may do so. In still other places, the father, paternal grandfather and grandmother, and paternal uncle, may partake of it. The naming ceremony among the Kondhs of Gumsur is thus described by Mr. J. A. R. Stevenson. "Six months after birth, on a fixed day, they make gaduthuva (the ceremony of naming the child). On that day, killing a dog, and procuring liquor, they make baji. They wash the feet of the child. The Jani being come, he ties a cord from the haft to the point of a sickle, and they divine by means of it. Having assembled the petrilu (literally ancestors, but here denoting household images or gods), they put rice on the sickle. As the names (of the ancestors or family?) are repeated in order, each time the rice is put on, that name is chosen on the mention of which the sickle moves, and is given to the child. They then drink liquor, and eat baji. They give rice and flesh to the Jani."