Paper short abstract:

In this report I’ll examine the transformation of the baptism party ritual “drowning of the midwife”, after the disappearance of the institution of the traditional midwife, trying to explain how old rituals are adapting to the new cultural environment and how they are perceived in a modern society.

Paper long abstract:

In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the midwife was an important participant in baptism party. In Eastern Lithuania and Western Belarus, baptism party was completed by the ceremony of midwives removal and symbolic drowning. Although there were no more midwives in the second half of the twentieth century, the form of rituals, performed in the baptism party, has changed little. The midwife's ritual functions were taken over by an older woman (most often grandmother of baptismal person), not involved in the delivery of the baby. Therefore, in these areas, baptism party often ends in the symbolic drowning of the baby’s grandmother. In this report, I will try to answer what is the difference between traditional and modified rituals of “drowning of the midwife” and how it is understood in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.