Note 5 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

A superstition obtains in the southern provinces that if three children appear at a birth one of them will eventually become a noted rebel, and it hence becomes a question of “Which is Papa going to keep?” if the luckless father would avoid that direst of Chinese curses, a thoroughly bad son. To decide the question a “wise man” is sent for, by whose directions the three infants are taken into a perfectly dark room. The wise man then takes three pieces of string, each of a different colour, such as white, red and black, and entering the room ties one of these pieces of string round a wrist of each baby. The one that is found when brought out into the light to have the red string on its wrist is drowned like a puppy.5 Presuming however that the little one has not had such ill-luck as to be the odd one of three, it still undergoes within an hour or two of birth the ceremony of “binding the wrists.” A cash or charm is tied to this part of the arm by means of red cords, which are not untied for some ten or twelve days. Others attach miniature toys, such as a mallet, drum, bell, &c., the red cords being about two feet long altogether, with one foot of loose string between them. Sometimes, however, the cord or tape alone is used, being replaced when dirty, but worn altogether for several months or even a year.6 This of course has reference to the dread lest evil spirits should harm the child, and the impelling motive finds expression in other countries in a not quite dissimilar way. Thus the Danish women place amulets (garlic, salt, bread and steel) over the cradle of a new-born infant before depositing it therein;7 while a superstition formerly obtained both in England and the Highlands that a child should not be left alone until it was christened lest it should be stolen or changed by fairies.8 A practice common amongst nurses is to pass a knife edge downward between the feet of a child just as it commences to run alone. This is called “cutting the cord of his feet,” and is supposed to facilitate his learning to walk.9