The simple life leaves much time for the wife, which she employs in gossiping with friends, in attending pagoda festivals and pwés until that happy event arrives, the birth of the first child. From the moment it is known that the wife is to become a mother she is the recipient of much care and attention and presents from her family and from her friends, and when she can say, “I am the mother of a son,” then, like all Oriental women, she has attained the great crown of womanhood. But because of the lack of medical skill in Burmah she has to face a most dreadful ordeal. As soon as her child is born the mother is rubbed all over with saffron, a fire lighted near her, and all the blankets that can be begged or borrowed are heaped upon her. She is given a drink prepared by the midwife for the purpose of making her perspire. This is given her many times a day, and together with the large bricks that are heated and wrapped in damp cloths and placed in her bed conspire to have the desired effect, and the poor mother passes seven days in a Turkish bath. Then on the seventh day, as a finish to this trying ordeal which she has undergone, she is forced to go through a most elaborate steaming process, and if this does not smother her completely, she is pronounced well. The midwife receives her mats, her allotment of rice and her shilling, and the woman returns to her household duties. In the larger towns now the Burmese woman may call in the European-trained doctor, and there are hospitals which answer the great need that the women have for proper care at this critical time of their lives. Yet I am told that the mortality at child-bearing is not so great as that in India and other Eastern countries. The main effect upon the woman is to age her greatly; at the birth of her first child she changes from the pretty girl-wife to the middle-aged woman.
About two weeks after the birth of the child a great feast is given to celebrate the naming of the new arrival, and on this day also the young man’s head is washed for the first time. All the friends of the family and the neighbours are invited, and they come, bringing presents with them to help pay for the feast. The mother sits down with her child in her arms, then some elder or relation of the parents suggests the name, and everybody accepts it at once, whereupon all adjourn to the feast, where they eat, chew betel, and smoke cheroots until nightfall. If the people have sufficient means, there is a pwé, which lasts until morning.