The Blian Blows Upon A Cupful Of Water Which The Woman Drinks In Order To Make Delivery Easy.

The umbilical cord is cut with a knife or a sharp piece of ironwood, and the afterbirth is buried.

Death in labor is not unknown, and twins are born occasionally. The mother is confined for a week, and she is forbidden to eat pork, eggs, new rice, cocoanut oil, or any acid substance. She may partake of ordinary rice, lombok (red pepper), as well as sugar, and all kinds of fruit except bananas. She bathes three times a day, as is her usual custom. In one week, as soon as the navel is healed, two or three fowls are killed, or a pig, and a small feast is held at which rice brandy is served. The child is suckled for one year.

No name is given the infant until it can eat rice, which is about five months after birth. At the age of six years, or when it begins to take part in the work of the paddi fields, fishing, etc., the name is changed. In both cases the father gives the name. The kapala, my informant, changed his name a third time about ten years previously, when he entered the service of the government. Names are altered for the purpose of misleading evil spirits.

Children were few here, one reason being that abortion is a common practice, as is instanced in the case of the kapala's wife who prided herself on her success in this regard on ten occasions.

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