[Birth ceremonies.] 5. During pregnancy an old woman of the family waves a pice or a handful of grain round the head of the patient and vows to present an offering to a deified ghost called Kâlu Bîr, and Niman Parihâr, who is one of the quintette of the Pânchonpîr, and is supposed to have some special connection with the use of spirituous liquors. The woman is attended by the Chamâin midwife, who cuts the cord and buries it outside the house. At the entrance of the delivery room a fishing net, a branch of the thorny bel tree (Aegle marmelos) and the family pestle are placed to keep off malignant spirits; and a fire is kept lighting there during the period of impurity with the same object. They have the usual dread of menstrual impurity common to all these races. On the day her child is born the mother gets no food, except a mixture of ginger and coarse sugar mixed up in water. From the next day she receives her usual food. Those who have lost their children get the baby’s ears bored before it leaves the delivery room. On the sixth day is the Chhathi, when mother and child are bathed. From this time the place of the midwife is taken by the barber’s wife, who attends till the twelfth day, when the barahi ceremony is performed. The house is plastered and the earthen vessels replaced. The nails of the mother and all the family are cut, mother and child are bathed, and the clansmen are feasted on wine and cakes (pûri). When the mother first visits the well after her confinement she bows down to it and offers fried gram (ghughuri) on the platform, which she also marks with a little red lead, a practice which may be a survival of some form of sacrifice, human or animal. If the child is a boy the midwife receives four annas and two sers of grain: for a girl, two annas and the same amount of grain. They so far practise the couvade that the husband does not work on the day his child is born. The original motive has been forgotten, and the explanation given is that he does so to express his joy at his wife’s safe delivery. At the age of five or seven the child’s ears are bored, and this is considered an initiation into caste: after this the child must observe the caste regulations regarding food.