Practices with the newborns

Abstract

Abstract

The study was conducted in 10 towns and 17 villages of Mardin between 15-25 June 2009, with 159 married women in their own houses using interviewing technique. In this study, the answers of 155 women with kids were assessed. 42,8% of the interviewed women introduced themselves as Kurdish, while 31,4% introduced themselves as Arabic, 25,8% introduced themselves as Syriac. The interviewed women were 17-60 years old. It was found that half of the women were not literate and 40,5% were inbred. The purpose of the study is to present the similarities of the practices regarding newborns, according to ethnical identities. According to the findings, it was noticed from the tables that 85,7% of the people who introduced themselves as Kurdish,  14,3% of the people who introduced themselves as Arabic celebrated the birth of a male child by sacrificing an animal.  93,8% of the Arabic people and 6,3% of the Kurds were found to value the first cut hair piece of the babies with gold or paper note.   93,8% of the Arabs were found to name their babies after their dead relatives with a ceremony. The majority of the Kurds and Arabs name their babies after the prayer. The Syriacs were found to name their babies with the prayer of the priest, 3 days after they are born. The babies were named by the elderly in the Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac societies. The majority of the people who swaddle their babies are the Kurds. According to our findings, it is possible for us to say that the people who express themselves with different ethnic and religious identities have similar cultural characteristics under the same geographical conditions.