[Birth ceremonies.] 5. In the fifth month of pregnancy the ceremony of Panchmâsa is celebrated on a day selected by a Brâhman. Friends are invited, and the relatives of the woman bring her presents of clothes and sweetmeats. The woman is seated inside a holy square marked out on the ground with flour by a Brâhman. The barber’s wife pares the nails of all the women present, and after colouring the soles of the woman’s feet with lac-dye (mahâwar) puts some red lead (sendur) in the parting (mâng) of her hair. Her mother, if she be alive, or if not, some senior woman of the family, fills her lap with rice and sweetmeats. She is then dressed in a new suit of clothes in the presence of the women and officiating Brâhman. On the next day the clothes are taken off and put away carefully for use when the sixth month (chhahmâsa) and seven months’ ceremony (satmâsa) are performed. At these ceremonies rice-milk is cooked, and the woman is fed with it. The caste men are feasted, Brâhmans fed and paid, and the whole day is spent in merry-making. The sweeper or Chamâr midwife attends the woman for three days after delivery; then her relatives and the wife of the barber nurse her for a month. On the third day after delivery the mother is bathed at a time fixed by the advice of a Brâhman. On the sixth day is the Chhathi, when the mother, dressed in the clothes she wore at the Panchmâsa ceremony already described, is seated in a sacred square made of flour by the Brâhman, and she, with her husband’s younger brother (dewar), is fed on choice food placed inside the square, at the four corners of which lighted lamps are placed. After this the relatives are feasted and the night is spent in merriment. During this ceremony some rude marks supposed to represent Chhathi or Shashti, the protectress of children, are made on the wall of the room (sobar) in which the woman was delivered; and near the figures is placed an earthen vessel full of water, covered with a saucer, on which a lamp is lighted. The mother and child are taken in there for the night and left there alone, these arrangements being supposed to be a protection against all kinds of demoniacal influence. The only special rule about twins appears to be that it is unlucky to take any thing from their hands. [Adoption.] 6. The ceremony of adoption of a boy who has not been initiated by the ear piercing ceremony (kanchhedan), is as follows:—The pair who are about to adopt a son sit on a wooden seat (patta) inside a sacred square (chauk) made by a Brâhman on a lucky day selected by him. The parents of the boy about to be adopted, or, in their absence, his nearest relatives, place him in the lap of the person adopting him. The Brâhman then worships an earthen water vessel (kalsa), drums are beaten, and alms distributed to the poor. The ceremony ends with a tribal feast.