People use traditions to mark important days. On special days for your family, there will be certain ceremonies, special foods, and maybe even presents. These are your traditions.
Family traditions mark big life changes and smaller ones, too. Some families have traditions for the first or last day of each school year, including eating special meals or wearing special outfits. School and college graduations are big days for many families. People celebrate them with photographs and parties.
Traditions welcome new babies to the world. Some Christian families take their babies to church to be baptized. The ceremony marks their entry into the Christian faith. In Japan’s Shinto religion, a mother takes her baby to a shrine to “show” it to the gods and give thanks for its life.
In Swaziland, Africa, parents burn animal hair and animal skins. Then they hold a new baby in the smoke to give it lifelong protection from wild animals. Among the Lao of Southeast Asia, it is a tradition to rub a baby’s body with salt to protect it from evil.
Weddings are also filled with traditions. An Arab bride arrives at her wedding hidden in a tent on top of a camel. The groom pretends to run away, and his friends catch him. Then the wedding ceremony begins.
At a Shinto wedding in Japan, the bride wears a kimono and covers her face with white powder. The bride and groom must take nine sips of rice wine together.
In many Western countries, some brides wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”. In many Western countries, brides traditionally wear a long white dress and veil. In India, brides wear red and cover themselves with gold jewellery.
Traditions also help us say good-bye and show respect when someone dies. In Western countries, a dead person’s body may be placed in a coffin and buried. Sometimes the body is burned rather than buried. The person’s ashes may be placed in a vase, or urn.
In the Hindu religion, tradition calls for a body to be burned. In India, the ashes are thrown into the holy River Ganges.
At a funeral in Western countries, people often wear black to show respect and sadness. In China, people wear white for mourning.
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