Paper short abstract:

The presentation of the newborn is a ritual through which a baby acquires identity as an individual in the community. The birth process performed expresses and reinforces the links between the individual and society and condenses the idea of “social body”

Paper long abstract:

The presentation of the newborn to the community is an initiation rite to life through which a baby acquires identity and is socially acknowledged as an individual. Because bubi society is made up of human beings and non-human beings, birth is ritualized twice, first to introduce the baby to the ancestors and, second, to the rest of the community, thus expressing the continuity that exists between ancestors and descendants, both immersed in the same life cycle.

Another of the ritual's purposes is to endow the baby with knowledge and socialization. This act is performed through symbolic instruction. All along the ritual there are projected the expectations that the newborn as a "social being" should fulfill throughout his/her life (the roles and the place that he/she should play and occupy in the family and in society). In addition to the transition to a "social being" that the baby undergoes, the ritual also performs an initiation to motherhood, as well as many of ritual practices related to woman's corporeal nature that giving birth involves which denotes the relevance of this process. In this sense, the symbolic association that appears all along the performance between the matriclan´s house and the mother's body is especially interesting to understand the kinship links and relationship among the community.

This paper will analyze the symbolic content of both the ritual process and the ritual stage on which a multitude of crucial aspects of Bubi society are expressed.