Upon the birth of the child, a big fire is made by the side of the mother, who at this time forsakes her bed and lies on a long narrow flat board. A fruit supposed to possess protective properties is scattered round or under the house, and a cord is twined round the exterior of the dwelling, which has been blessed by the priests and which also serves the same purpose of keeping off those evil spirits who would otherwise enter and carry away the life of the child. The interior of the room is like a furnace, and it is to be feared that under these conditions, the evil spirits that haunt the sites of defective ventilation do only too often accomplish their fatal object. For three days, several old women attend the mother and make offerings to the powers whose influence is beneficial. This they do by making three balls of rice and then throwing them in three lucky directions. It is said that every new-born babe bears as its first name the word "Dang", which means "red". If this be so, then the mother or nurse speedily turns her attention to the best means of rendering the term singularly inaccurate, for instead of allowing the child to retain its original and natural colour, she immediately rubs it all over with a yellow paste whose chief constituent is turmeric powder. The baby presently appears as if it were suffering from a very severe and expansive attack of jaundice. This process of 'yellowing' is popularly supposed to keep away mosquitoes. It is not confined to red babies, but cats and dogs may often be seen who have received the same treatment. It is a common sight to see a couple of toddling yellow children engaged in teasing or amusing an equally yellow specimen of the canine or feline family.
For several years no clothes are worn, so that their health is never injured or their comfort marred by unsanitary garments. They are frequently adorned with massive gold or silver bracelets and anklets, and wear a little silver shield fastened in front of the body by a string of beads passed round the loins. The shield is merely an ornament and plays no indispensable part in their metallic apparel, for when it is once lost, it is seldom replaced, though the string of beads may persist for some months afterwards. The amount of wealth possessed by the poor in the shape of ornaments must be enormous, for almost every child bears somewhere on its body a heavy piece of gold or silver.
Until the child can walk it passes its life under the same system of treatment usually accorded to human beings at this tender age. It is nursed and petted by its mother, talked to, made a fuss of, presented to uninterested visitors, and generally tormented by the same excess of demonstrative affection which mothers of every colour lavish upon their own offspring. At a very early stage in its existence it is transferred with solemn ceremony from the wicker basket in which it has lain since its birth to a cradle peculiar to Siam. The cradle consists of a strong oblong rectangular frame-work at the top and a flat narrow board at the bottom. The two are connected round the four sides by a network made of strong twine. It is suspended from the rafters of the roof by four strong cords. It is swung, not rocked, and the mother or sister of the babe will sit tailor-fashion on the floor for hours at a time contentedly chewing betel-nut, or chanting monotonous Siamese Gregorians in a low plaintive tone, at the same time swinging the cradle gently to and fro by a long rope. When the baby is taken for an airing it is carried by some female member of the household, who places it on her hip and supports it with one arm. This method of carrying the child is said to be a healthy one for the baby, but it must be a fairly unhealthy one for the nurse, who has always to walk at an angle with the ground, suggesting the appearance of the Tower of Pisa, while the baby is wedged, cross-legged, between the firm pressure of the supporting arm and the bended body.
Passing over the period which elapses between lying in the cradle and learning to walk, we next find these little Eastern street-arabs following their own sweet wills in the roads and alleys or on the canals of their native town or village. They are perfectly free and independent, and are given up to the educative influence of Nature in a way that would have satisfied Rousseau himself. The boys still remain unclothed; they scamper along the roads, driving young bullocks; sit on the backs of tame buffaloes as they plough the rice fields; steal bananas; climb trees for cocoa-nuts; smoke enormous cigarettes; paddle their own canoes; never bother their heads about getting home in time for meals; lie down in shady places to rest; never read books; do not know the inside of a school, and spend the whole day according to their own ideas of amusement. If they want to play, they play; if they desire to sleep, they have but to lie down in the first convenient spot, when they attain the desired condition with a rapidity that is to be greatly envied. Gloves, ties, collars, neat pockets, untorn coats, unsplit boots and other abominations never cause the Siamese boy a moment's anxiety. If he wears any hat at all, it is a nice light roomy sort of structure discarded by its original owner several years before, and in such a condition of decay, that an occasional fall into the water or mud does not affect either its value or its usefulness.
At a later date he begins to wear clothes. He dresses like his sister, wearing a cool airy garment consisting of a single long strip of cloth of some bright colour, fastened round the waist and draped about the legs. It hangs loosely about the knees and resembles a pair of knickerbockers. There are no buttons, tapes, pins, or suspenders, and he requires little training in the art of fixing his single garment so that it will remain permanently in the required position. He wears no shoes or stockings, the use of such luxuries being restricted to the upper classes. The upper half of the body is left bare, except when, in accordance with a fashion of very recent date, a white linen jacket is worn. All girls wear either this jacket or else a coloured scarf wrapped tightly round the breast. The smarter ones wear both scarf and jacket, but amongst the lower classes, the majority of the women leave their bodies uncovered above the waist after the birth of the first child. All ranks of society are passionately fond of finery, and adorn themselves as well as they can possibly afford. The native rings are set with native stones, but the workmanship is very rude. When money is not available for the purchase of jewellery, flowers are obtained. As their clothes possess no collars with button-holes in which the floral decorations can be placed, they stick them behind the ear.
A day's life with one of these children is spent after the following fashion. He rises at early dawn and goes at once to the nearest water to bathe. He has no acquaintance with soap, but pours abundant water over himself with basin or bucket. The refreshing operation finishes with a plunge in the stream, after which he either lies down, or runs about till he is dry. A breakfast of rice, salt fish, and fruit, eaten from brass or earthenware dishes, with his fingers, is the prelude to the day's enjoyment. He next devotes all his energies to getting through the day. He accomplishes the task set before him by alternate intervals of sleep or play. He is a faithful disciple of Isaac Walton. A bit of stick and a fibre of rattan are sufficient tackle with which to capture a few fish out of the thousands that swarm in the waters. At low tide, when many of the canals are mere valleys of mud, a whole tribe of children descend into the slimy deposit, and push coarse sieves into the mud in the attempt to catch prawns. The captured creatures are placed in stone jars. When weary of the sport, or when the jar is filled with prawns, they vary the nature of their amusement by pelting each other with mud. It is simply snow-balling transformed. They stand about in the slippery mess, and make little pellets of soft mud. These they fling at each other with an aim remarkable for its invariable accuracy. When sufficiently tired and dirty they get away to the nearest water, take a turn or two, and then come up to dry.
They delight in witnessing extreme activity in other creatures. A cock fight or a general battle amongst the pariah dogs is a source of great amusement. At night they search for crickets. When they have collected a large number they place them, two at a time, in small jars made of mud and baked hard in the sun; the two crickets are urged to engage in warfare by the skilful application of small pointed pieces of wood. The battle which ensues evokes their hearty appreciation. They catch fighting fish, feed them with mosquito larvæ, and then train them to fight. After a proper course of training the fish become extremely pugnacious, and will even make fierce attacks upon their own images as seen in a looking-glass placed by the side of the bottle in which they are imprisoned. As a general rule, Siamese youths are keen spectators of anything of a combative character. And yet amongst themselves they are extremely peaceful and unquarrelsome. Supposing them all to be sent to school, it may be safely predicted that there would be fewer fights in a whole generation of scholars than an English school knows in a year.
Uncoloured pictures have no charm for them, for an ordinary drawing in black and white is utterly incomprehensible to them. All native drawings, with their strange disregard of the laws of perspective, are executed in colours. They do not instantly recognise photographs of the streets and buildings with whose appearance they are perfectly familiar, and they will as often as not view them upside down. The power to appreciate black and white is, however, merely dormant, as is shown by the fact that the few children who attend the Anglo-Vernacular schools speedily learn to take an intelligent interest in the drawings and reproductions of photographs published in the English illustrated papers.
They are very clever in the art of making bouquets and weaving garlands of flowers. On festive occasions, the houses are festooned from end to end with long rope-like strands of small blossoms fastened together with wonderful skill.