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Expecting a baby in a family is one of the happiness moment. Many country has their own way to celebrate the welcoming of this new family member. Also the expecting mother has to prepare for a smooth delivery.
In western world this event called as baby shower. Means that the mother to-be would be showered with gifts from close friends, and usually only attended by the women.
In Indonesia, the Javanese culture has its own ceremony for this event, more to seek blessing for the Baby and the Mother. Shower here means showered with blessing from God for the baby and the family.
There are steps in this ceremony that mainly are :
It starts he mother being showered with holy water comes from 7 different springs of water with flowers in it (jasmine and roses) . The mother has to bathed by her parents and elders in the family. Again 7 person is usually chosen to bath the mother.
This ceremony takes place in a hut built for this purpose in the garden or in the bathroom.
The mother wears a very simple white covering her body ,and sit in a chair decorated by leaves of green plants, representing a healthy and safe delivery.
Then the mother to be, has to changes 7 times the traditional dresses in front of the guest. The traditional dress is a top and a traditional fabric” with 7 different pattern that has all a good things in life meaning. Happiness, prosperity, good health, good look, eternal love etc.
Every time after the mother changes one dress, she has to ask opinion of the guests , asking if the dress suits her, and the guests have to say : “It does not suit you “, After 7 fabrics she changes finally the 7th dress, the guests say ; “This is the best “.This last outfit has a very special meaning as pattern and made of a strong weaved material, representing safe delivery, happy and love life.
After that, another sequence has to be followed. Two young coconut carved each of them of the God and Goddess of love, has to enter inside the mother's sarong/batik from up to down, symbolize that the baby will be born without difficulty.
The father has also task to break the coconut, where they say if it breaks into 2 pieces means the baby would be a girl and if it is hard to break, only the water spreads out the baby would be a boy.
Those are the main thing every ceremony usually have, although many parts of Java has its own style and more sequences that described above.
The food the parents offer to the guests is also special, there is one called rujak, a spicy fruit salad that has to be served by the mother and the father. The guest has to buy the “rujak “ with a piece of roof tile prepared by the host.
This means that the parent will keep on working for the family for their responsibility as a parent.
This ceremony now only held in a traditional Javanese family, that starts to be replaced by Western Baby Shower by the young generation.
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