The Hindoos instituted ten "samskâras" or rites, the due performance of which, was supposed to ensure to the child freedom from all evil influences. Now the original Siamese as they travelled south from the slopes of the Tibetan mountains, came into contact with the Hindoo civilisation and religion, and adopted therefrom their religious beliefs and many of their social customs. Owing to the absence of reliable written historic records in Siam itself, the mass of the people have long since forgotten where and how most of their ceremonial practices originated, but the learned amongst them have little difficulty in pointing out both their primary source and their latter-day modifications. The ten auspicious rites that encompassed the life of the Hindoo child, began with its birth, and ended with one imposing pageant more important and far-reaching in its effects than any of the nine that had preceded it, and marking very definitely the end of the period of childhood. One month after birth occurred the ceremony of shaving the first few hairs of the new-born, and about the same time, a rite somewhat similar to that of christening was observed, when the child received its first but temporary name. These two ceremonies still exist in Siam, but six of the original ones have disappeared. Amongst those that have thus been lost are the rite of ear-boring, which occurred about the third year and which still survives amongst the Laos and the Burmese; the rite of training the child to eat rice; the rite of teaching the first footsteps; the rite of speaking the first words; the rite of first putting on the loin-cloth; the rite of taking the first lessons in swimming, which was reserved for princesses; and lastly, the rites of shaving the top-knot and the subsequent investiture of the sacred thread, which form the final links in the chain of ceremonial practices devoted to the little ones.