anged so as to provide a safe sitting-place
in it for her child. Baiga women have been seen at work in the field
transplanting rice with babies comfortably seated in their cloth,
one sometimes supported on either hip with their arms and legs out,
while the mother was stooping low, hour after hour, handling the rice
plants. A girl is tattooed on the forehead at the age of five, and over
her whole body before she is married, both for the sake of ornament and
because the practice is considered beneficial to the health. The Baigas
are usually without blankets or warm clothing, and in the cold season
they sleep round a wood fire kept burning or smouldering all night,
stray sparks from which may alight on their tough skins without being
felt. Mr. Lampard relates that on one occasion a number of Baiga men
were supplied by the Mission under his charge with large new cloths
to cover their bodies with and make them presentable on appearance in
church. On the second Sunday, however, they came with their cloths
burnt full of small holes; and they explained that the damage had
been done at night while they were sleeping round the fire.

A Baiga, Mr. Lampard continues, is speedily discerned in a forest
village bazar, and is the most interesting object in it. His almost
nude figure, wild, tangled hair innocent of such inventions as brush
or comb, lithe wiry limbs and jungly and uncivilised appearance,
mark him out at once. He generally brings a few mats or baskets which
he has made, or fruits, roots, honey, horns of animals, or other
jungle products which he has collected, for sale, and with the sum
obtained (a few pice or annas at the most) he proceeds to make his
weekly purchases, changing his pice into cowrie shells, of which he
receives eighty for each one. He buys tobacco, salt, chillies and
other sundries, besides as much of kodon, kutki, or perhaps rice, as
he can afford, always leaving a trifle to be expended at the liquor
shop before departing for home. The various purchases are tied up in
the corners of the bit of rag twisted round his head. Unlike pieces
of cloth known to civilisation, which usually have four corners,
the Baiga's headgear appears to be nothing but corners, and when the
shopping is done the strip of rag may have a dozen minute bundles
tied up in it.

In Baihar of Balaghat buying and selling are conducted on perhaps
the most minute scale known, and if a Baiga has one or two pice [97]
to lay out he will spen