Birthing Cermonies Of Other Cultures Essay -- essays research papers

Birthing Cermonies of Other CulturesThe birthing ceremonies of the Indian culture has a lot ofdifferent aspects then the American culture does. I guess that is why they aredifferent cultures. All cultures have different views on different things suchas religion, but they also share the similar as well for example every culture hassome form of the family. This is what helps most cultures understand othercultures. In the Indian culture their view of livery a child into the worldis much different then the American cultures view.In the Indian culture there are a lot of preparations that gointo getting the parents and the community ready for the new member. Theirculture does more than work with the child before they are even innate(p). First of allplans are do for them so they know who is going to be there to witness thechild being born into their society. They are usually the grandparents, therepresentatives, and the Godparents that were selected by the parents and therepresentative s. The mother is to keep on working as she did before the baby isborn. They say that this shows the child the importance of work in their culture.During the pregnancy, around the seventh month, the mother introduces the babyto the natural world. She does this by taking walks in the fields and over thehills. They believe that the baby is consciously taking all of this in toprepare him/her for life within that culture.When the baby is born none of the mothers children should bearound. The only people there are the ones that were chosen by therepresentatives and the parents. If someone can not make it then someone pass onhave to fill in for them. The only people besides children who are not allowedto see are the single women. The only way that they can go out is if there isno one else to go. There has to be three couples at the birth of the child, thechild doesnt just belong to the parents but to the community as well. It isconsidered to be a scandal if an Indian women goes to a hosp ital to have a baby.For the mothers other children there are not to know where orhow the baby is born. solely the three couples know where the child is born. Thechildren are told that a baby has arrived and they can not see their mother foreight days. After the baby is born the placenta has to be burned at a certaintime. If the baby was born at night then it is burned at eight in the mo... ... sleep with more men thensomeone else did. In our society I believe we want to treat everyone the samebut to me it doesnt seem like we are doing a very good job of it.My next story is about another initiation but this is into atribe of headhunters. The psychometric test began when they had him lay down in a pit ofcarnivorous ants. He had to lay there until they gave him a signal to get upbecause it was over. The test doesnt stop there next was he had to go into thewoods without any weapons or food and survive for three days and nights whilethree headhunters are hunting you down. If you fail this part of the test thenthey do a ritual using your head, but if you pass you are finally allowed tojoin them as headhunters.They apply gender roles kind of like we did. The male has to bestrong and not a coward whereas the female is dependent on the male. In oursociety we have a lot of initiations that go on like for clubs, sorority,fraternity, but none of them are usually this much based on courage most of themare based on embarrassing you. I think that these four stories show you how yoursociety is not the only one and also it is not the best but just different fromall of the others.