Every mother probably remembers their baby's first haircut. Many of them keep a little locket of hair, just as a memento of this special event. Well, they care about the baby's first hair cut here too.In fact, there is an entire ritual that surrounds this event. The first haircut is called the mundan. It is believed that shaving the hair rids the child of his past life negativity. The hair a baby is born with is considered unclean. So, the head is shaved in order to purify the baby. We had this opportunity this week to participate in this event with one of our friends and her in laws. It was a happy event for the family as this little boy is the apple of their eye! We began our journey about 530 in the morning and got back around midnight. We traveled to the holy river, a popular sight for mundans. This first picture is of the grandfather who is giving his blessing to the child.
us by the river, waiting for the barber to arrive
an anxious mom and an upset baby..the barber is using a straight blade on the poor little guy.
a newly bald but worn out baby
After he gets his head shaved, they wrap the hair in bread and give it has an offering to the river. The weather was beautiful so it was actually a nice day to be outside. It was a full day filled with cultural and language insights.
1 comment:
woah. a straight blade on a BABY!?! one wrong move and.... yikes! cool that you got to experience that, though. Such a huge deal there!
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