20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Childbirth and related rituals, in Albania... 463seven days. People believed that the new or old moon influenced on the lifeof newborn baby. (Selimi, 2007: 50-51) For e.g. when the child is bornwhen there was a new moon, he/ she would cry a lot. During this time, thefamily prepared the clothes of the baby.The mother feels that the child is alive, when the child starts moving,in the fourth month of the pregnancy. If the child is quiet, she feels thechild after four months and a half. It was believed that such behavior ofthe child would also accompany him / her during all his / her life. It wasalso believed that the child would look not only like the parents or likerelatives but also like some other person who was close to the pregnantwoman in the moment she felt the child alive for the first time. Thus, thefuture mother, as soon as she is four month pregnant and until she feelsthe child moving, show extreme care to avoid meeting people she doesnot like due to their appearance or behavior. There are a large number ofsuperstitions concerning the sex of the child, based on different signs thepregnant woman shows.One of the reasons for having a boy or a girl is said to be the “strengththat the man or the woman have in their blood”. In case the woman hadmore strength in her blood, the children are most likely to females andvice versa. As external signs of the pregnancy, related to the forecast of thesex of the child, were the following: when the woman had thin lips, whenshe had good appetite and enjoyed the food, when her pregnant belly wasround and upfront, when she became lazy and had no spots in her face, itwas believed that she would give birth to male children. When the womanbecomes more beautiful, she was to give birth to a boy. When she becomesfat and round, she was to deliver a girl. When she likes sour foods such aslemon, vinegar, sour plums, etc., it is said that she will deliver a girl. Whenthe moving of the baby inside the mother is such as “kicking”, she willdeliver a boy. When the moving is light, she will deliver a baby girl. Whenshe feels pain – when ready to deliver, and when such pain is light t, shewill deliver a boy, if the pain is strong, she will deliver a girl. It was alsobelieved that when a child is born under full moon, the second child shouldhave the same sex as the first child. If the moon is dreamy, the second childshall be of a different sex.Another custom is the one applied by all the women of the house whogathered and used to stay together, separate initially from the woman whowas pregnant. They used to bring a spindle for wool work and an agriculturetool. They used to hide both objects and when the pregnant woman was tojoin them, the place where she sat – closer to one of the objects – woulddefine if the child would be a boy or a girl.