242 REPORT — 1861. 



band, whom she serves. Brothers may have connexion with their sisters 

 until the latter are married. Sexual connexion may take place before the 

 men, women, and children of the party. " If any married or single man goes 

 to an unmarried woman, and she declines to have intercourse with him, by 

 sitting up or going to another part of the circle, he considers himself insulted, 

 and, unless restrained, would kill or wound her. I have seen a young woman 

 severely wounded in the thigh in such a case. All the women ran away 

 into the jungle, and the men who restrained the violent man from further 

 wounding her seemed to regard the matter lightly, as they laughed while 

 they held him back*." 



The bridegroom and bride smear their bodies in stripes with red earth 

 moistened with turtle-oil, and squat on leaves spread over the ground ten or 

 twelve paces apart. They sit in silence for about an hour. The man who 

 marries them takes the bridegroom by the hand and leads him to where the 

 bride is, and having seated him, without saying a word, presents him with 

 five or six iron-headed arrows, and leaves them sitting in silence by each other 

 until it is dark. 



A pregnant woman performs her duties almost to the time labour com- 

 mences. The party halts an extra day when she is confined. Several 

 female friends collect around the woman in labour to assist her by punkahing 

 away the flies and mosquitos. When the child is about to be born, she stands 

 up, supported by the females, spreads out her legs, and the child is taken 

 into the hands of one of the women ready to receive it. The umbilical cord 

 is cut, about a finger's breadth from the body, but no ligature is applied. 

 The afterbirth is allowed to be voided without assistance. Some hours after, 

 the mother is anointed with the usual unguent of red earth and turtle-oil : 

 she eats and drinks as usual. Convalescence is very rapid ; and if the party 

 has to move on the morrow, the recently-delivered woman accompanies them 

 on foot. The child is washed in cold fresh water, poured upon it either from 

 a bamboo water- vessel or a shell. Its wet body is dried by the hand, which 

 is heated before the fire, and quickly and repeatedly but very gently applied. 

 Any woman of the party who is suckling gives the new-born child her breast 

 for a day or two until its mother's milk comes : children are suckled as long as 

 their mothers have milk to give them. If it rains during a march, a few leaves 

 are sewn together with rattan, and used as a covering for the infant. The 

 parents are fond of the children, and reciprocally. 



The men go into the jungle to hunt for pigs ; the women stay in the en- 

 campment, supply the drinking-water, firewood, catch fish and shell-fish, cook 

 the food ready for the men's return, make small fishing-nets, baskets, and 

 spin twine. They catch the fish left by the ebb-tide by means of a small 

 hand-net stretched over a hoop, and collect shell-fish from the rocks. They 

 tattoo by incising the skin with small pieces of glass, without inserting 

 colouring-matter, the cicatrix being whiter than the sound skin. The women 

 .make a sling, six inches wide, to suspend the infant or young child, which 

 sits in the loose turn, with the legs passing over the mother's loins or hips. 



Boys about the age of three years play with little bows and arrows, and 

 when about eight years they are capable of taking a good aim and accom- 

 pany their fathers into the jungle. The girls are very fond of playing 

 with the sand on the beach, raising it into a circle or square around them, 

 calling the interior their house (boov), and imitating the manners of their 

 mothers. 



In their encampments, which enclose an open central place, there is 



* Report and evidence of the Brahmin sepoy. 



