The Hair-cutting Narta ceremony – which ritually purifies a baby from the polluting process of birth, and the Name-giving Saki ceremony – that assigns a name to the baby, marking her/his new status as a “social person”, are the first of many rites of passage assigning and maintaining clan membership. ‘The soul of a learned man will make you learn quickly’ said Rasai, a teacher, to his three weeks-old grandchild (in the pictures below), in an effort to ‘persuade’ the baby to select the name Rasai during the Saki ceremony.

Picture of man receiving the baby by the door of his house: The new father holds his 7 days-old baby for the first time only after the Hair-cutting ceremony. This is also the first time the family moves back inside their house since the birth.