Hmong Customs Essay

After reading chapter 1, Birth, some of Hmong customs that stood out to me was when the parents had to bury the placenta after the child was born; depending on the gender the placenta was buries in a special place. I like the meaning that the placenta was a special garment that was first worn by the baby. Furthermore, another custom was when the mother had to satisfy any craving to prevent her baby from getting any type illness, and as well as having a special diet for the mothers after they give birth to help them cleans their body’s after the pregnancy. One custom that really stood out to me from the rest was “Lia’s hu plig” which was a party to appreciate a new child into the world and welcome the soul into a new body; they sacrificed chickens

My family never had any customs or beliefs the only belief was, if the baby’s has an upset stomach, the parents massage the stomach with oil to make the baby feel better from having an upset stomach. Generally speaking many who have an upset stomach will throw up or have diarrhea that will last a few days, the food will get stuck on the belly; in that case messaging the belly with oil will prevent from the baby from getting sick even further and will help speed up the process. There are many customs from different cultures that I have heard of, especially in the Hispanic community, but that I and my family don’t believe in, such as the evil eye. The evil eye is given to a baby when someone sees a baby and wants to carry it, but can’t because the mother said no. In effect the evil eye then causes the child to cry and scream or even make the baby sick. Red bracelets are given to children to help them from getting the evil eye. Another belief is sunken fontanel, which is when the baby’s soft spot from the top of their head sinks down because they are given the evil eye or if the mother stopped breast-feeding soon. As a result a remedy that helps is to put your thumb in their mouth to push the head up or to turn the baby upside down to hit them on the bottom of their feet. Many families have their own customs, but I was never brought up with any of these customs that I mentioned; many of the customs that I know about were because of friends and their parents; they told me what they did to their children so they can grow up