ifer
when the child is grown up.

If this is not done the child will be unlucky when it grows up; if
it is a boy, however often he may marry, his wife will die and so,
if it is a girl, her husbands will die.

Another fact is that they always shave a child's head for the first
two times during the same moon; if it is shaved first during one moon
and then during the following moon; it will always have a headache
once a month.

Similarly when they tie the knots in a string to fix the date of a
wedding the wedding must take place in the lunar month in which the
knots are tied or else the children born of the marriage will die.

CLXXI. Illegitimate Children.

If a woman has an illegitimate child and from fear or shame will not
name its father the bastard is called a child of Chando. At its birth
there is no assembly of the neighbours; its head is not ceremonially
shaved and there is no _narta_ ceremony. The midwife does what is
necessary; and the child is admitted into no division of the tribe. If
it is a boy it is called Chandu or Chandrai or sometimes Birbanta and
if a girl Chandro or Chandmuni or perhaps Bonela. Sometimes after the
child is born the mother will under seal of secrecy tell its father's
name to her mother or the midwife; and then between themselves they
will call the child by a name taken from the father's family but
they will never tell it to anyone else. When the child grows up he
is given some nickname and if he turns out well and is popular his
name is often changed again and he is recognised as a Santal.

Often if a father will not acknowledge a child the mother will strangle
it at birth and bury the body. Men who practise sorcery dig up the
bones of such murdered infants and use them as rattles when doing
their sorceries and are helped by them to deceive people.

CLXXII. The Dead.

Santals are very much afraid of burial grounds; for dead men become
_bongas_ and _bongas_ eat men. If a man meet such a _bonga_ in a
burial ground it is of little use to fight for the _bonga_ keeps on
changing his shape. He may first appear as a man and then change into
a leopard or a bear or a pig or a cat: very few escape when attacked
by such a being.

It is said that the spirits of young children become _bhuts_ and those
of grown-up people _bongas_ and those of pregnant women _churins_.

CLXXIII. Hunting Custom.

Formerly when the men went to a hunt the mistress of the house would
not bat