first laugh ceremony

the boy child laughed for the first time last night. a much awaited moment. further thoughts:

happy photos via http://www.balloonhat.com/laughing/gallery.html

The Navajo believe that prebirth baby showers are premature and can bring evil to a child. Instead, they celebrate a child at its first laugh. The child is thought to assume the personal characteristics of the person who makes him laugh. My nanny told me that for this reason, they always try to keep stingy relatives away from the small babies.
In Navajo theology, babies share a special relationship with the Holy People. Before each child is born, he sits with the Holy People and is granted a certain amount of time on Earth. Reluctant to leave the holy ones, babies must be coaxed into the world with songs. Infants are thought to share a special language with the Holy People, which is why they are unable to communicate with us. Gradually, as the child learns to talk, he becomes part of the human community and relinquishes this connection to the Holy People. Each person then spends the rest of his or her life trying to recreate the intense bond of infancy. Traditional parents do not trim their child's hair until he has a strong vocabulary because the hair is thought to be an extension of thought, and disrupting these early thoughts may prematurely cut the connection with the Holy People.
A medicine man told me that when a baby laughs for the first time, he signals that he is ready to learn to speak. Thus, in my interpretation, the child states his readiness to enter the human world, and the Navajo celebrate by welcoming him to the mortal community with a First Laugh Ceremony. excerpt from http://webweekly.hms.harvard.edu/archive/2004/12_13/student_scene.html