Naming traditions: Nenets

Today naming traditions from the Nenets. From cold cold Siberia!

Were you named after... a SONG?

Did your motherhood path start with sounds? Voices? Songs? Did you sing to your baby inside or used music for birth? Does your child settle to sleep with a specific tune?

For the Nenets singing is a kind of medicine, so everyone has a Song, since birth, considered like an AMULET, a protection for life.

Songs, "syo", for babies are called "ngatsyeki syo, children song, and it is the personal song of a newborn baby, composed by her mother. Hopes and dreams are reflected in this "ngatsyeki syo" and It is used until she can compose her own song. 

How amazing is this? 

(...) "When I was born my land Yamal 

had taken off his white sovik (fur coat)

And my native land Gyda had joyfully put on her beautiful decorated yagushka (coat).

And in honour of my birth my motherland sang with the many voices of nature."

(from Let us come together, traditional song)

A newborn in Nenets family is only named after the umbilical cord fells off (and not before both mother and child take a rite of purification), and baby can only be named by the most RESPECTED woman in the family: a grandmother, an aunt, or a midwife.

Newborn receive two names, an “Open” name, known by everyone, and a “closed” one, known only by close relatives. Nenets traditional names reflect the peculiarities of a child’s birth or his purpose in life and respected people are not called by their name, it's considered rude. Actually as they get older, the names of Nenets become TABOO.

How interesting is this?! I cannot believe how much the traditions change from culture to culture! Uau!

And one more thing! I just find it so beautiful how the nomadic people live in total REVERENCE to nature! Nenets survival is connected, totally!, to the reindeer (white deer are even considered SACRED and their horns decorated with red ribbons) and they believe there is a kind of a pact, with the reindeer OFFERING themselves for subsistence and transport, and the tribe PROTECTING them from predators during the seasonal migrations. 

Every culture, every #sacredtribe honors specific #sacredbeginnings .

What about you? What are your family #namingtraditions ?