Full Month Ceremony
3 min readFull month birth is another ceremonial activity after the birth of a baby.
When a new life has spent his/her first month, the baby successfully goes through the first pass of his/her growth of life. The whole family, relatives and friends are all happy about it and express their sincere congratulations. The ceremony for full month birth will be conducted 40 days after the birth of the baby among ethnic groups such as Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Uzbek and Tatar. The Uygur people call it the “Cradle Ceremony”.
According to the time-honored custom, when the wife is going to labor, the husband will send her to her mother’s home.40 days after the birth of the child, the wife’s parents will hold a cradle ceremony for celebrating the new life and the safety and health both of the mother and the baby going back to the husband’s family. After the birth, the Uygur baby is usually fed by his/her mother till the fortieth days; then the child is put into the cradle to be fed till he/she is one or two years old. The cradle ceremony is a symbol of the baby beginning to take the second step in his/her growth of life and a celebration of the mother’s recovery. The celebration of the day will invite not only relativesand friends but also 40 children (not necessarily now). First,a basin of baptism water for full month birth,40 small wooden spoons,40″Persian naans”(a kind of cooked wheaten food favored by people of various ethnic groups of Xinjiang) and some candies should be prepared. When the children invited all come, they will be led to the baptism room in a queue and given a wooden spoon each. Then the baby will be unclothed and put into the water with every child bailing a spoon of water, calling the name of the baby and saying thewords of blessing, for example,”xxxx, you shall listen to your parents and I hope you will be upright, honest and tough”and “I hope you will be a scholar”, and pour the water on the baby’s head. Then the host will give every child an oil naan and some candies. Carrying these things home, the children will happily display to their parents what they have got from the ceremony and tell them the name of the baby to make it public to the world. Therefore, thecradle ceremony is also called the “Naming Christening Ceremony”by the Uygur people. After the baptism, the baby will have his/her lanugo hair shaved by an upright and honest barber. The shaved lanugo hair shall never fall to the ground but be wrapped with a piece of cloth and put aside or put into the hole on the upper side of the wall. Finally, the baby is dressed with beautiful clothes and put into the cradle. At the time, the husband’s parents will send the presents prepared for the mother and the parents of their daughter-inlaw to express sympathy and solicitude for and their thanks to them. Then the mother and the baby will be brought back to the husband’s home.
The Xibe people usually hold the full-month-birth ceremony right on the day of the completion of a full month. The ceremony for full month birth of Xibe ethnic group is different from that of other ethnic groups in Xinjiang, enjoying its own characteristics: firstly, induce perspiration by putting two hot eggs under the mother’s arms and two into her hands and put on a few quilts, and when the woman gets sweating, remove the quilts one by one and let the sweat evaporate. It is said that by doing so, the mother may be prevented from the windcold in confinement without any future trouble. Such a ceremony is usually conducted among people within one’s own family and the wife’s aunts and uncles and everyone will send the baby presents and express their congratulations to the couple.
