SKETCHES IN ANN AM AND TONQUIN. 629 



that they may be regular and majestic. She is expected to listen to 

 the reading of good authors, to music and moral chants, and to attend 

 learned societies, in order that she may fortify her mind by amuse- 

 ments of an elevated character. And she endeavors, by such discipline, 

 to assure to the child whom she is about to bring into the world, intel- 

 ligence, sagacity, docility, and fitness for the duties imposed by social 

 life. In confinement ladies are attended, not by the ordinary doctors, 

 but by women especially devoted to the calling, who regard their pro- 

 fession as honorable and humanitary. The birth of a child is signalized, 

 especially in the country, by setting up in front of the house a bamboo 

 stick, in the tip of which is inserted a half -burned piece of wood. A 

 glance at this stick is enough to tell the sex of the child. It is a boy 

 if the burned end is turned toward the house ; a girl, if the black is 

 turned in the other direction. The arrangement is symbolical, is of an 

 origin that is lost in the darkness of the past, and signifies that the son 

 will some day succeed his father in the government of the family, while 

 the daughter will leave the paternal mansion to enter, by marriage, a 

 strange one. It is customary to give the child a year on the day of its 

 birth, and a second year on the first day of the succeeding calendar 

 year. Thus a child born on the 30th of December, 1886, would have 

 been counted as of two years on the 1st of January, 1887. This way 

 of counting ages makes the first day of the year a day of general fes- 

 tivity, for it marks for every one, no matter what may have been 

 his real birthday, one year more, and thus represents a common anni- 

 versary. A month after the birth the family gives a festival, to which 

 the relatives and friends are invited. An elderly person, man or woman, 

 according to the sex of the child, who must also be of good repute and 

 well instructed, is chosen to give the child its particular name and 

 transmit to it the first notions of things. In this ceremony, called 

 M^ach-Mieng, which accompanies the festival, the person who pre- 

 sides passes a ruler several times before the mouth of the child, pro- 

 nouncing some consecrated words ; then, with a freshly-plucked flower, 

 he sprinkles pure water over its head and body : this symbol signifies 

 that the child, when it has become master of its actions, will take just 

 reason for its guide, and will guard itself against contaminations and 

 vices. Another ceremony, of an entirely different character, takes 

 place a little later. It is called An-Thoi-Noi, which means leaving 

 the cradle. The parents bring the child before the altar of the ances- 

 tors and present their youthful descendant to them. They then place 

 it among a collection of objects appertaining to various trades, and let 

 it choose the one toward which its instincts draw it. Its choice, di- 

 rected by the spontaneous aspiration of a virgin mind, will indicate 

 the way which it is some day to follow. This ceremony, which is of 

 ancient origin, is, however, nearly abandoned now. The child is given 

 to the care of the nurse only when the mother is prevented by sickness 

 or some other serious cause from nursing it herself. 



