{"id":872,"date":"2010-09-19T14:56:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T19:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=872"},"modified":"2013-03-05T11:40:03","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T17:40:03","slug":"tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/09\/tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Tradition!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 16 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading the book Human<\/em>. It\u2019s edited by Robert Winston and Don Wilson<\/a>. It\u2019s one of those Dorling Kindersley books that, instead of containing the usual linear text, has lots of pictures with captions that all relate to one another via a larger-font paragraph in the top left of each page. This book tries to bring in the whole of the human experience: Its 500+ pages spend some time discussing the origins of humans, all the major body systems, organs, and senses of the human body, and all the cultures around the world.<\/p>\n

The chapter I\u2019m in right now is called \u201cLife Cycle.\u201d This chapter goes through many of the traditions and rituals that humans experience during their lifetimes, as well as the changes their bodies go through. Early in the chapter, the book details various birth rituals. Since there\u2019s a newborn in our home, I\u2019ve been particularly interested in this section. Specifically, I\u2019ve been trying to see if any of the birth rituals aren\u2019t totally insane.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the Wodaabe people of West Africa do: \u201cFirst a goat is sacrificed in honor of the new life. Then the heads of the baby and mother are shaved, an act that is believed to strengthen the bond between them\u2026In the evening of the ceremony, the baby is named by a village elder. Once the baby is named, the parents are not allowed to speak his or her name in case evil spirits hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another dozy: \u201cA Muslim baby is often introduce to the religion within hours of being born. An elder of the Muslim community whispers the azaan, the call to prayer, into the child\u2019s right ear and the Islamic creed into the left. This is done to ensure that the very first thing a newborn childe hears is the name of God. Often, the elder places a small piece of chewed date into the child\u2019s mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or how about this one: In the Hindu Chudakarana ceremony, the baby\u2019s head is shaved. \u201cAfter the hair is shaved off, it is mixed with cow dung and burned or thrown into a river.\u201d<\/p>\n

And from Russia: \u201cIt is a traditional Russian belief that the body should be immersed regularly in very cold water\u2026.Babies as young as a few months old are dipped into icy waters by their parents.\u201d There\u2019s an accompanying picture showing a Dad holding his baby, full submerged, in cold water.<\/p>\n

From the crazy department: \u201cThe baby is laid on a cushion and held by a sponsor who has been chosen by his parents while the mohel<\/em> cuts the foreskin with a double-edged knife. An empty seat is left next to the sponsor to allow room for the prophet Elijah\u2026.The baby is given a drop of wine.\u201d\u00a0 You can see why they\u2019re god\u2019s chosen people: only people who can delude themselves into thinking child-abuse is a fitting way to welcome a baby into the world could also delude themselves into thinking Moses\u2019 ramblings have any real-life relevance.<\/p>\n

Some, honestly, aren\u2019t so bad: \u201cIn Nepal, a baby is marked with black soot in the center of the forehead as a protective sign to ward off evil.\u201d Okay\u2026so at least the baby isn\u2019t harmed, but it\u2019s a ritual based on a couple of false premises.<\/p>\n

But the award for only-not-totally-stupid ritual goes to the folks of Northern Uganda: \u201cSoon after birth and before being put to the mother\u2019s breast, a drop of home-brewed millet or banana beer is placed in the baby\u2019s mouth. Beer drinking is a communal event \u2026.and is seen as a symbol of community life. The act of giving a child beer as its first drink reinforces the importance of the community to the child and the fact that the child is part of a wider group of people than its family alone. Whenever people are thought to be acting selfishly later in life, elders will remind them\u2026\u2019beer before milk,\u2019 which means \u2018remember others before yourself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Not bad\u2026but I think we\u2019ll stick with passing out chocolate cigars.<\/p>\n

Friday, 17 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jennifer and I are trying to institute a don\u2019t-go-out-to-eat policy lately. We like going out to eat but, let\u2019s face it, it really eats into the budget. I didn\u2019t think we were going to go out to eat that much in the first few weeks after Isla was born, but even then we still did. We ate a Ruby Tuesday one afternoon (as previously discussed) one day. Another day, we breakfasted at Mickey\u2019s. We feasted at Brine\u2019s during a daytrip to Stillwater. On our anniversary, we ate at Olive Garden. One day, while with Owen on a playdate with his former preschoolmates, we bought some sandwiches as Cups \u2018n\u2019 Scoops.<\/p>\n

Today I had lunch from Jimmy John\u2019s. Hey, at least I didn\u2019t pay for it: it was free with my attendance at a webinar at work during the noon hour. I think I was the only person to order the 7-grain bread. I\u2019m not sure if I think the 7-grain option is a better tasting bread than their standard bread, but it agrees with my digestive tract a lot more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny how you can decide not to go out to eat, yet still get restaurant food so often: my mom took us out to eat for our anniversary, and some friends that stopped by to see Isla couple of weeks ago gave us a gift card to Jimmy John\u2019s. During last week\u2019s picnic with my group at work, I was treated to Holy Land.<\/p>\n

I think, instead of just making it our goal to not eat out, we should make it our goal to eat out as often as possible without having to pay for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, 16 September 2010 I\u2019m reading the book Human. It\u2019s edited by Robert Winston and Don Wilson. It\u2019s one of those Dorling Kindersley books that, instead of containing the usual linear text, has lots of pictures with captions that all relate to one another via a larger-font paragraph in the top left of each page. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}