Category Archives: Gestation, birth, and infancy

Generally up to the first year.

Family Baptismal Gown – Family Ritual

The family of the informant has used the same baptismal gown for many generations. At least one child in each section of the family wore the gown while being baptized, and many times in the same church. This gown was said to be made from fine linen cloth brought straight from Ireland. The informant wore the gown and their sibling also did, but their cousin on their mother’s side (the side of gown tradition) wore their mother’s. However, the informant said there is now much question in the family as over one hundred people have worn it, but it is currently missing. The informant said that this gown held importance to much of the family to carry on wearing the traditional gown, but now there is discussion of making another one since the first is gone.

Context – Many families will often have a garment or cultural object that holds meaning among the family or a common group. For the informant in this story, the baptism gown is that object and became a symbol of family heritage and carried meaning from generation to generation. This crosses over into the realm of folklore due to the mass of the shared ritual and the commonality that each family may have similar garments or rituals.

Analysis – For those who have a cultural object carrying meaning among a family, there is much symbolic meaning and weight carried by the object. The object no longer is seen as a simple piece of cloth to be worn, but rather a symbol of generational wealth, prosperity, and heritage. In families such as the informant, there is a question created as to where clothing/objects begin carrying weight, and where does the meaning begin collecting deep folklore and meaning among a shared group — it is unclear and decided family by family case whether the object can be replaced or changed at all (such as in this informants family).  

Sacrifice for Deceased Osage Children

Tags: Osage, Ozarks, Funeral Custom, Sacrifice

Text

For the Osage, whenever there’s a death of a child/baby, dogs will be used in ceremonial practices as a sacrifice.

Informant Info

Race/Ethnicity: Indian

Age: 22

Occupation: College Student

Residence: Northwest Arkansas, USA

Date of Performance: March 2024

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

Relationship: Friend

Context

AH, the informant, is of Indian descent. Her father practices Hinduism and speaks Tulu. He has been a very influential figure in her upbringing. She also studies indigenous peoples and their customs as a Sustainability major.

Analysis

This act of sacrifice is meant to represent the similar innocence of little dogs and babies. It is also done as a means to give the child/baby companionship in the afterlife.

Korean Doljanchi

Text:

JK: In Korea there is a particular celebration for 1-year olds. Korean “doljanchi” is the first birthday celebration. Technically Koreans view birthdays in different times than Western cultures but the first year birthday is very important. The 1-year old is dressed in very traditional clothing and so are the guests, they wear hanboks. There is a lot of fruit everywhere and rice cakes. One of the most important things is the baby choosing an item. There are a lot of things laid out in front of the baby, money, paintbrush, stethoscope, gavel, that sort of thing. Then whatever the baby grabs or touches is meant to influence their future in Korea. For example if they grab a pencil, they’re gonna be a scholar, if they grab money they are going to be rich.

Context:

JK’s family is Korean as well and he participated in this culture as a baby. He grabbed the pencil and money. He doesn’t know if it influenced his future, but he is here pursuing higher education and “hopefully the money will come in soon.”

Analysis:

Other cultures have similar coming of age rituals that are conducted on a child’s birthday. These rituals are meant to determine a child’s future and celebration of their first milestone. Most cultures have a birthday celebration meant to recognize when a child becomes an adult, such as a quinceanera or a bar mitzvah. This specific divination ritual is practiced in other cultures as well, notably in China. Other Asian cultures have varying rituals for the first birthday. In India, the child’s head is shaved to purify them of any evil committed in a past life. This ritual is heavily influenced by the large presence of Hinduism in India.

Birthday Breakfast & Dinner Ritual

Text
K: “Okay so another one that we have is when it’s somebody’s birthday, in our family, uh, for- for breakfast, they would get a choice between, um, cinnamon rolls for breakfast or donuts for breakfast, like, specifically dunkin’ donuts or like the pillsbury cinnamon rolls that you would buy at the grocery store. And then every night for dinner they got to choose a place to eat out, or like, choose what we eat for dinner.”

Interviewer: “That’s awesome! Where did the food selections come from? Like, who kind of decided that those were the food selections?”

K: “I think my mom, uh, because cinnamon rolls for breakfast or donuts for breakfast, those are like- like a big deal in the house. Like, that’s not something we do, we would normally- I mean I don’t get really hungry around breakfast time, but whenever, like, whenever we would eat breakfast it would just be waffles or a bagel or like, a piece of you know, toast. So like making cinnamon rolls or ordering donuts is like a special occasion. They’re like special breakfast foods.”

Interviewer: “And for the choosing, um, where you wanna go for dinner, is that something that’s discussed beforehand or is it like, the person no matter what is like ‘we’re going here’?”

K: “It’s pretty much your choice. Like, whenever I choose dinner, I go to, um, Potbelly’s, which is this sandwich chain that started in like Chicago and they just got a couple in North Carolina. So I just- I choose there, and I mean, someone can not like it but you don’t really have a choice because it’s not your birthday, so everyone just has to go with whatever the um, the birthday person wants to do.”

Context
K is a current student at the University of Southern California. They spent most of their childhood in Chicago, Illinois before their family moved to North Carolina, where they currently live when not in school. In addition to birthday breakfasts, K stated that theri family would sometimes also have donuts after Mass and typically have cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast, which they thought contributed to the idea of these foods being for “big exciting occasions.” They also described that they would typically consider and eat these foods as dessert foods. For dinner, K added that their family goes to Potbelly’s outside of K’s birthday celebrations, but that they really like the food there. Now that they’re in college, K says they see it as an extra special opportunity, since they have a summer birthday and the Potbelly’s chain has no locations on the West Coast, where they go to school.

Analysis
Both K’s family’s breakfast and dinner birthday rituals seem to showcase some form of ritual inversion. In the case of breakfast, foods that are typically only had for dessert are instead the main focus of the meal in order to emphasize the special nature of the occasion. In the case of dinner, what restaurant to go to or what food to each, which would perhaps otherwise be a group or family decision, is handed over to the birthday person, attributing them extra power and special status on their birthday. This ritual seems to have taken on an added meaning for K now that they attend college on the West Coast; by almost always eating at Potbelly’s, a restaurant they enjoy, K is able to reaffirm their identity ties to Chicago and North Carolina.

Atam Hatik

Text:
Atam Hatik is an Armenian tradition that families do to celebrate their baby’s first tooth coming out. The baby is places around several different objects that correlate to a certain job (one example is a stethoscope. If the baby picks up the stethoscope, the family believes that the baby has a high chance of becoming a doctor in the future). On my own Atam Hatik, I picked up a pencil. Now, I am an English major and hope to pursue screenwriting as my profession.

Context:
TL is a sophomore in college and is pursuing her passion of screenwriting and working in the film industry. She was brought up in a culturally rich Armenian immigrant family and enjoys listening to her grandmother’s folk tales. TL told me about the Armenian tradition during a conversation through text.

Analysis:
The Armenian birth tradition is another example of the celebration of one of the three major events- birth, marriage and death. The celebration of birth, in this case, also works to integrate the child into society by assigning an occupation at the time of birth. This tradition also reflects one of the major trends in Asian societies which are predominantly centered about finding a stable job to make oneself financially stable.