| English | English Among the Ewe of Southeast Ghana, eight days after the birth of a child family-members, friends and neighbours gather for the ceremony of outdooring. The outdooring of a newborn child implies that everyone should become acquainted with the existance of the new human being as a new member of a perticular family, and, at the same time, is meant to introduce the child to its new conditions of human life. The ritual, therefore, includes a number of basic experiences which the midwife who helped the child come to life is "showing" to the baby: feeding of basic foodstuffs like maize, palmoil and salt, the touching of earth, the feeling of water, air, light, sun, the acquaintance with physical danger yet also with one's own physical strength. Bathing, dressing and carrying-on-back are symbols for the uppermost importance of body-hygiene in a person's life and of "being carried, being held", with its double meaning: mother's back stands for membership and protection in the community, especially in one's own families. |
