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of the river with ceremonial offerings, and finally 
cradled. All these ceremonies, and others, .take 
place during the first forty days or so after Mr. 
Baby’s birth. So it will be seen that he does not 
have a very easy time. 
Malay boys all undergo circumcision, which, in 
the Peninsula, is regarded as signifying full admis- 
sion to the Mohammedan community, though, as a 
matter of fact, circumcision is nowhere enjoined in 
the Koran and, according to orthodox teaching is 
only one of those things which are “ fitting.” The 
operation is usually performed after the boy has 
undergone religious instruction, somewhere between 
the. age of seven years and puberty. Girls have to 
submit to an operation of a similar nature, but at 
a much earlier age. Other ritual, but non-Moham- 
medan, mutilations are the filing down of the front 
teeth in both sexes at maturity and the piercing of 
girls’ ears for maidens’ ear-studs, this being done 
while the children are still small. The teeth used 
to be blackened, but this custom is now obsolete. 
In the marriage ceremony Mohammedanism is 
comparatively little in evidence, for though, from 
the orthodox point of view, the formal offer of 
marriage and its acceptance, at which is also stipu- 
lated the amount of the marriage-settlement, or 
bride-price, are the essential part of the ceremony, 
to the average Malay the non-Mohammedan cere- 
monies are at least equally important, possibly more 
so. The chief of these are the sitting together of 
the couple on a raised dais in view of the guests, 
and the ceremonial feeding of the man by the woman 
with three mouthfuls of rice, and vice versa , but 
the whole marriage ceremony, which goes on for 
several days, consists of a mass of rites including 
ceremonial bathings, shavings, henna-stainings, 
