Birthing Cermonies Of Other Cultures Essay -- essays research papers

Birthing Cermonies of Other Cultures The birthing ceremonies of the Indian culture has a lot of different aspects then the American culture does. I guess that is why they are different cultures. All cultures have different views on different things such as religion, but they also share the same as well for example every culture has some form of the family. This is what helps most cultures understand other cultures. In the Indian culture their view of bringing a child into the world is much different then the American culture's view. In the Indian culture there are a lot of preparations that go into getting the parents and the community ready for the new member. Their culture does more work with the child before they are even born. First of all plans are made for them so they know who is going to be there to witness the child being born into their society. They are usually the grandparents, the representatives, and the Godparents that were selected by the parents and the representatives. The mother is to keep on working as she did before the baby is born. 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 baby to the natural world. She does this by taking walks in the fields and over the hills. They believe that the baby is consciously taking all of this in to prepare him/her for life within that culture. When the baby is born none of the mothers children should be around. The only people there are the ones that were chosen by the representatives and the parents. If someone can not make it then someone will have to fill in for them. The only people besides children who are not allowed to see are the single women. The only way that they can attend is if there is no one else to go. There has to be three couples at the birth of the child, the child doesn't just belong to the parents but to the community as well. It is considered to be a scandal if an Indian women goes to a hospital to have a baby. For the mothers other children there are not to know where or how the baby is born. Only the three couples know where the child is born. The children are told that a baby has arrived and they can not see their mother for eight days. After the baby is born the placenta has to be burned at a certain time. If the baby was born at night then it is burned at eight in the mo... ... sleep with more men then someone else did. In our society I believe we want to treat everyone the same but to me it doesn't seem like we are doing a very good job of it. My next story is about another initiation but this is into a tribe of headhunters. The test began when they had him lay down in a pit of carnivorous ants. He had to lay there until they gave him a signal to get up because it was over. The test doesn't stop there next was he had to go into the woods without any weapons or food and survive for three days and nights while three headhunters are hunting you down. If you fail this part of the test then they do a ritual using your head, but if you pass you are finally allowed to join them as headhunters. They apply gender roles kind of like we did. The male has to be strong and not a coward whereas the female is dependent on the male. In our society 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 them are based on embarrassing you. I think that these four stories show you how your society is not the only one and also it is not the best but just different from all of the others.