Page:Daany Beédxe.djvu/12

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

A relative made a list of all the presents received. Because the custom was that if friends or relatives had another "commitment" with the people, due to a birth, baptism, wedding, a house construction or death; Jaguar claw would have to cooperate, with a little more than what he received. This is how men learned from very little, that solidarity and fraternity, was what linked human beings from birth to death.

So at the day chosen by the wise men of the books for Night Eagle baptism, friends and relatives gathered in the house of the parents before the Sun rose, the midwife was responsible for the ceremony which started by taking the child in her arms and faced the East saying:

—"Oh Eagle oh jaguar, oh brave man, my grandson; you have come into his world, your father has sent you, your mother, the great Lord, the great Lady. You were created and engendered in your house, which is the house of the supreme gods, of the great Lord and the great Lady at the nine heavens; they gave you the opportunity to come and he for who we live so ordered; the Lord of water gave you life, the Lord of the wind gave you the divine breath."

Having said these words, the midwife gave the child water to drink, by getting her fingers wet and placing them on the child’s tiny lips; and then she said:

—"Our beloved son, receive, see here that you shall live on Earth, so that you grow and flourish; this water, sacred life essence, is why we live and through whom we receive the things necessary to support life on Earth! Receive it!"

Everyone was quiet, could only hear the monotonous sound of the great drum and bone bells, which rhythmically and solemnly accompanied the voice of the old midwife.

12