Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/298

 28o Collectanea.

The Pokhu. — (i.) Of three male children born one after the other, the middle one is said to be lucky. Of three successive female children the middle one is considered unlucky.

(ii.) A boy following and preceding a girl is regarded as in- auspicious. A girl following and preceding a boy is believed to be lucky.

An inauspicious child is termed bhdrd-pokhii-wdld} while an auspicious one is called halka-pokhu-wdld. When a woman com- mences to grind wheat, to spin, or to churn milk she will not allow one of the former to stand by her, because she believes that the presence of such a child will render the work difficult or im- possible. She will either send him away or ignore his presence. On the other hand, the presence of one of the latter children is considered a good omen, and women believe that their work will be easily finished, if such a child be sitting by them.

Birth Superstitions. — There are some curious customs con- nected with births at particular times or after certain periods. For instance, a child born in the month of Bhadon is lucky (unlike a calf), while one born in Katik is inauspicious. In the latter case it is considered sinful to keep the mother in the house, and she should be expelled from it, but instead she may be made over, temporarily, to a Brahman and afterwards redeemed from him.

" According to the Shastras " a wife who has no child for some years is called sujidh ; one who does not bear a child for ten years, kai budhia ; and after twenty-one or twenty-four years, suf budhia. If then she bears a child, a fire of dried cowdung is burnt in front of the house, and the woman is sent away out of the village to live for forty days (a period called the parsuf) in a thatched hut, after which Brahmans are fed and she is allowed to return.

A. J. Rose.

30th June, 1902.

An Indian Ghost Story.

The following account was given to me some years ago by Babu Akhaya Mohana, a respectable Bengali, at that time

' Pokhun in Multani = an omen or augurj- ; Jukes, Western Punjabi Dictionary, s.v.