[Birth ceremonies.] 5 There is no ceremony during pregnancy. The woman is delivered sitting on the ground facing any direction except the south, the region of death. She is attended by a Chamâin midwife, who cuts the cord, buries it in the room, and lights a fire over the place, which is kept burning till the twelfth day. They have the usual extreme fear of pollution from the secretions after delivery or menstruation. The midwife attends till the sixth day, when the usual chhathi ceremony is done, and the woman is kept secluded till the twelfth day (barahi) in charge of the barber’s wife, when mother and child are bathed, all the family clothes washed, the house plastered, and the earthen vessels replaced. The mother then cooks for the family, and is pure. Her husband does not cohabit with her again for two months after her confinement. [Puberty ceremony.] 6. The ceremony which marks the reception of the child into caste after which he or she must conform to tribal rules of eating and drinking is the ear-boring, which is done in the fifth or sixth year. The occasion is marked by the use of choice food. 7. Marriage is conducted with some pretence of observing the orthodox Hindu ritual. The girl’s father commences the negotiations, and when the question of prohibited degrees is settled, then comes what corresponds to the Hindu tilak, which is called “the day for drinking water” (pânî pînê kâ din). The bride’s father visits the house of the bridegroom, and sitting on a square (chauk) in the court-yard, eats curds and treacle, which settles the match. All present are then feasted. Five days before the wedding day the ceremony of “the lucky earth” (matmangara) is done in both families in the usual way. The drum of the Chamâr, who leads the procession, is worshipped, marked with red lead and oil, and on it are placed some betel nuts and a quarter ser of poppy-seed, which are the Chamâr’s perquisite. The earth is dug by some old female relative, who brings it home and places it in the marriage shed (mânro), in the centre of which is a ploughshare (haris), and a water jar (kalsa). After this commences the anointing of the bride and bridegroom with oil and turmeric, which is started by the Pandit sprinkling it over them five times with a bunch of dûb grass. The anointing should, if possible, be done by five unmarried girls. A day previous to the wedding is the bhatwân, when the clansmen are feasted. As the procession starts the boy’s mother waves (parachhan karna) over his head a rice pounder (mûsar), or a water jar (kalsa), for good luck. When the procession arrives at the bride’s house the women of the neighbourhood receive them with a shower of rice. The bridegroom then worships Gauri and Ganesa; and the bride meanwhile bathes and puts on the clothes which the father of her future husband sends her. She then retires into an inner room, into which the bridegroom forces his way after a mimic struggle, a survival of marriage by capture, and brings