The Presence and Significance of Water in Family Traditions Born
The Presence and Significance of Water in Family Traditions Born

Summary/Abstract: Water as an indispensable element of life, plays an important role in the passage cycle:-birth, marriage, death. In a first stage, we have focused on the water’s purifying role in the traditions connected to birth. The archaic popular beliefs imposed a series of rituals for the removal of the forces of evil and the prevention of certain diseases in which water is the primordial element. Beginning with the first bath of the new-born baby until its baptism (for a period that can last between several days and six weeks, and sometimes even more, a series of ceremonies take place, generating numerous beliefs related to the child’s growth, health and subsequent development. The midwife, as a main character, leads and practices all the rituals related to water, carefully keeping the secrets of the ritual practices but also the tradition of the custom development. She watches that all the sequences of the bathing ritual be strictly respected: the bathing water needs to be neither too cold, nor too hot, for the child’s state of wakefulness not to be disturbed, she puts different objects in the baby’s bathing water for the child to be “wise”, an important man in society and protected from all evil things, known and unknown. The midwife together with the women who are allowed to assist to the bathing accomplish certain rituals (songs), dances, declamations, incantations) meant to protect the child. The archaic elements comprised in the tradition are still kept to this day in the practice related to the bathing of the new-born baby.

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