Outlawed bizarre ritual of “baby dropping” continues
From OddityCentral.com, April 9:
The devotee scales the high walls of the religious shrine on a rope, a bucket dangling off his back. Once he is at the top (typically about 30ft high), he miraculously retrieves a baby from the bucket, handing it over to a bunch of men standing on the balcony.
One of these men takes hold of the baby’s hands and feet, holding the child as though it were a basket. He swings the kid back and forth in the air, exclaiming a chant in the praise of the Lord. And then, shockingly, the baby is dropped.
Baby dropping could be India’s most bizarre ritual. Screaming, wailing babies are dropped from several meters into the air, and there are a group of 14 to 15 men standing right below, holding a blanket that breaks the baby’s fall. Just as it bounces on the blanket once, it is caught by one of the men and handed over to the mother. Understandably, it takes several minutes before the baby recovers from the shock.
[I]t has apparently been in practice for the past 700 years by Hindu and Muslim Indians alike in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The ritual happens only once per year, and is believed to bring good luck to the baby, keeping it safe and healthy. It also ensures prosperity for the entire family. The ritual is generally meant for babies less than 2 years of age, and is so absurd that it seems to blatantly defy all reason and logic.
However, locals are pretty staunch in their belief and in spite of all the hue and cry raised by human rights activists, and even a ban on the ritual in 2011, this year’s ceremonies were carried out as usual. The most recent baby dropping event was held, last week, at the Digameshwara temple in Nagrala village, Karnataka….
Although no child has been harmed so far, the practice seems extremely unsafe, since mistakes can happen at any moment.
Here’s the stomach-churning video…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbOsEmHzq1c[/youtube]
A couple points.
First, these people need Jesus. From first century Rome to 19th century Hawaii, and everywhere in between and beyond, the Good News has gratefully brought with it an end to dangerous rituals, infanticide, and human sacrifice.
Second, this is as close to Scott Klusendorf’s example of “trotting out the toddler” as I want to get. As he writes, the “justification for abortion also works as a justification for killing toddlers or other humans.” Whatever reason abortion proponents may give to decry the baby tossing ritual is a reason they would give to defend abortion.
Here’s one who doesn’t, a commenter at The Daily Mail. Note how this moral relativist throws similar mud against the wall in an attempt to squelch anti-baby tossers as others do to attempt to squelch pro-lifers…
A tradition thats gone on for years, dont get involved with your false concern…if your really concerned about childrens health then bin your huge 4x4s you drive them to school in poluting the planet and dont feed them mcdonalds becasue its easy…!
[HT: Randi]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Is this really about Michael Jackson?
I can’t even bring myself to watch the video.
What an completely INSANE ritual.
To some cultures the ritual of male circumcision is just as barbaric and bizarre.
The look of sheer terror on the baby’s face is enough for me. Can’t watch the video.
How are those prosperous families doing in India? Follow up please.
And who would line up for adult dropping??
Yes they need Jesus. God help us.
Seen on a young person’s Facebook page – I’m talking about somebody in their 20s here – somebody else jokingly wrote, “I wish you were a baby so I could shake you.”
I can’t watch the video, either. Just the DESCRIPTION of the act makes me cringe! :O
Evil in intent? Seemingly not. Stupid? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. Is it wrong? Yes. Should it be illegal? Yes. The whole town should have to go sit in the corner. If someone tried to do that to me I would slap them silly.
But circumcision is still OK because of religious tradition, and the attention to female circumcision is almost nonexistent.
And so the hypocrisy continues.
So, where does one draw the line concerning religious freedom? Shouldn’t everyone be entitled to theirs under the first amendment, or is yours the only one entitled to such protections?
“But circumcision is still OK because of religious tradition” – Pete
Are you being sarcastic? Because isn’t the baby dropping a religious tradition as well? I’m confused by your comment. Wouldn’t the hypocrisy be that the baby dropping was made illegal, even though “no child has been harmed so far,” while according to the National Institute of Health one out of every 476 circumcisions results in medical complications and it is still legal to circumcise infants?
Dear Lord no.
Not another circumcision thread……….
Lol, Carla. I thought that circumcision threads were perfectly civil and and productive.
You might have missed a couple Jack. Oy.
I heart the ones that call me a child abuser and mutilator. It’s cute.
Ok NO MORE TALKING ABOUT CIRCUMCISION.
I mean it. LOL
Jack,
Please tell the class your thoughts on baby dropping.
Carla, I had no intention of starting a dramatic circumcision debate! Personally, I don’t care if you do or you don’t circumcise your babies. \
I wanted to point out that maybe we should stop and think before we get all bent out of shape and start insisting that people of other cultures change their religion because of a tradition they have that is foreign and strange to us. Some of our own traditions and rituals probably look just as upsetting and bizarre to outsiders as well.
Off the circumcision topic, my cousin’s baby had a look of sheer terror quite similar to that baby’s when she was baptized with holy water last fall. She seems to have suffered no lasting damage. ;)
len: “To some cultures the ritual of male circumcision is just as barbaric and bizarre.”
That’s true and I don’t disagree with you, but we have discussed that issue here before.
Carla: “And who would line up for adult dropping??”
That’s just it, though. If someone did, (s)he would at least be giving consent.
Of course you did Len.
That is why you brought it up.
How bout we stay on topic for more than 2 comments?
Who is “bent out of shape?”
Looks to me like business as usual. Something is posted and we comment with our thoughts on it.
I think baby dropping is wrong. Go me. I have an opinion.
If this ritual ‘has been carried out for the past 700 years’, but ‘no child has yet been harmed’, I’m not sure what the problem is. It might look strange and bizarre to Westerners, for whom it’s not a cultural and religious tradition, but then again traditions such as baptism that are widely accepted as normal (and even expected depending on your religious background) in this culture might well look just as peculiar to outsiders. Since this tradition appears to do no harm to anyone, I’d say it’s a case of live and let live.
Why do you think they banned this ritual in 2011??
Baby dropping is wrong. That’s common sense to us because of the threads of Christianity in our culture.
Jill makes a good point about human sacrifice, including child sacrfice when Christianity becomes prevalent in any culture. One sad note, though- will the brutal practice of widespread- and legal- abortion be considered by historians looking at
our present culture as just another form of human sacrifice?
Wow Carla, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to offend you. I brought it up as an example of a ritual that a different religion has for infants that might look bizarre to outsiders. You didn’t need to get snarky with me. I didn’t mean it as an attack on you.
Like I said, I don’t care at all whether a person circumcises or not. But yeah. Go you.
Live and let live…
From the toddlers perspective, more like live and let torture. I bet that’s why it was outlawed.
I am not offended. I didn’t think you were attacking me.
I apologize for being snarky.
I still think
Baby dropping is wrong. Doesn’t have anything at all to do with religion IMHO.
I also don’t believe that stating other cultures might think what we do is bizarre does not justify dropping babies off of buildings.
Wait, what’s circumcision??
(kidding….I was kidding!)
If this has been carried out for 700 years, well..nobody on Earth (right now) has been AROUND for 700 years. How does anybody really KNOW that no babies have ever been harmed or killed by this? It would seem to me that, since you never know which way a falling body may turn (flip, twist, etc.) we can’t say for SURE that it’s never happened before, just that there hasn’t been any MENTION of it happening.
Adults do line up in the west.
We call it bungee jumping.
Then there is that South African fellow in the flying squirrel suit who caromed off Table Top mountain.
The video reminds me of that scene from ‘UHF’ where the fellow tries to teach poodles to fly by throwing them out of a second story window.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kFGxH4wrs4&feature=related
Religion aside: There are some personal hygiene benefits associated with male circumcision, that may outweigh the risks associated with the procedure.
But those risks ain’t nothing compared to a pre-natal child being suctioned out of the uterus.
If forced to make a choice between baby dropping and elective abortion, I am sure the babies would choose the former.
@ Mary Ann- Yes you are quite right- not carrying out baby dropping is indeed common sense to us because of the elements of Christianity in our culture. But if something is abnormal and alien to us because it isn’t culturally established, that does not necessarily make it abnormal to people in whose culture it is established. In some cultures, it is the norm to circumcise babies (Judaism), pierce their ears (Hinduism and it’s also common in Hispanic culture), dip them underwater (denominations of Christianity which practice full-immersion baptism) All of the above are likely to cause the infant some pain/distress/fright but, although there is of course a small risk of accidental injury (there are documented cases of children tragically accidentally dying from at least two of those procedures), the risk is very low and the ill effects are generally short-term so we allow parents to consent on the childs behalf on the grounds of tradition/religion/culture. I fully agree with you that baby dropping seems bizarre and upsetting in the context of Western culture and it’s not something I would want done to any child of mine but I can’t see that it’s objectively any worse than other religious rituals for infants.
@ Pamela- I agree, this tradition does appear somewhat risky to me but it also seems highly unlikely that these people would wish to cause harm to their children- you don’t think that if there had been cases of children being injured or killed by it the organisations who campaigned for the banning of the ritual would not have sought them out and used them as publicity?? or that the parents involved would have spoken out? A google search reveals lots of angry rhetoric but zero reports of deaths/injuries, including from the local health officials- it’s highly unlikely that no-one in authority at all would have heard of accidents, unless you’re concluding that there is some kind of a cover up- why would they do that if the ritual was only banned in 2011??
@Carla, this ritual was banned in a certain region only because a new deputy commissioner was appointed who was not local and did not approve of the custom- I can post a link if you like. Also, please see my reply to Mary Ann above :)
And finally, @ ken, I agree that there is no comparison between baby dropping and abortion. However misguided baby dropping might be, the people who practice it are attempting to bring their children good luck, unlike those who practice abortion whose intent is only to kill their children. :)
I completely agree with what cookie said.
I knew someone was going to bring up the “It’s their culture; learn to accept!” line. So, speaking as someone who actually lived in an Asian country for many years growing up, let me just say that that line is absolute crap. No cultural practice is above criticism simply because it belongs to ~*EXOTIC*~ people that our tiny, little, Western minds can not begin to understand. No culture is universally good, and right, and fine, and shiny, and pure. Not America’s, not India’s, Not Mexico’s, not Sierra Leone’s, not nobody’s. If you feel this practise is defensible, defend it on its own merits (whether it harms the child, whether it’s genuinely as dangerous as it looks, et cetera and so on). Don’t bang on about how it’s part of somebody’s culture. Everything is part of somebody’s culture. That’s not a defence, it’s an adjective.
Me too. I see no difference between this and a westerner who throws their baby up directly in the air and catches him/her. Especially if no baby has ever been injured. To each his or her own, and more power to them. I hope they go another 700 years without any baby being injured.
Cookie,
You can link to whatever you would like.
I think it’s child abuse.
Google the video of “baby yoga” if you dare. Human babies are not programmed to be up and about like giraffe babies. Treating them like rag dolls is not good. No way, no how.
I could watch up to five babies dropped. That was that! poor dears.
Disgusting! That’s all I can say. Praying.
@ Alice While it’s quite true to say that no culture is perfect or above criticism, it does however explain the motives for a practice that seems, on the face of it, quite bizarre. After all, if we were to ignore the cultural and religious significance of a practice like baptism, which has caused (documented) cases of accidental drowning and often a few minutes fright for the baby it would seem to me that this practice also become indefensible. We allow something that does carry a risk to the baby (albeit a tiny one) and doesn’t carry any health benefits it because of its religious and cultural significance- I’m not sure why this shouldn’t also apply to other traditions.
And if they really haven’t had an accident in 700 years, with several hundred babies undergoing it each year, evidently this practice is safer than it looks at least to outsiders and the children come to no harm except for a few minutes fright- that’s no worse than what happens in Western religious rituals. :)
And @ Hans Human babies aren’t programmed to be dipped underwater, have holes pierced in them or have parts of their bodies removed either- we do all those things for cultural reasons. Are these things also unjustifiable ‘no way no how’? Btw, my parents did swing my siblings, cousins and I around like that as small children, (although as toddlers rather than infants and never by only one limb.) We don’t seem to have suffered any lasting harm though it was terrifying to watch :)
It’s just plain stupid to drop a baby out of a second story window. Comparing it to anything else is just plain insane. Getting a baby’s head wet or tossing him up in the air while he giggles doesn’t compare to a baby falling 20 feet and splatting on the ground if something goes wrong. Everyone who sees no problem with this should be picked up and tossed out of a third story window to give it a try themselves. Hope the sheet holds.
Amen Chris!! Thank you!!
Why can’t folks take this baby dropping for what it is without comparing it to this or that or that or this?? OR stating that what we do might seem bizarre to other cultures to do? Who cares?
Is it right? Is it good for the babies? Does it truly bring prosperity? Does it make the child healthy? And safe? Those are the reasons given for doing it.
Absofreakinglutely misguided reasons to drop babies. I don’t care who you are or where you live.
Cookie,
We are not talking about you and your siblings getting swung and how you turned out are we? We are not talking about Western rituals. We are not talking about piercings or baptism etc etc etc.
State that you think baby dropping is fine and dandy with you.
While it’s quite true to say that no culture is perfect or above criticism, it does however explain the motives for a practice that seems, on the face of it, quite bizarre.
First, sorry about being snappish earlier. To respond to your post, as you pointed out yourself, every ritual seems bizarre to somebody, thus making the cultural aspect of justification off-point. We all have our cultural rituals and none of them are excused from critical examination on that factor alone. It doesn’t matter if something holds cultural significance to someone if there is a genuine risk of harm, especially to children. TBH, I haven’t decided about this one, and probably never will in my lifetime, but I’m not going to hold off making a decision–if it ever comes to that–simply because this practice belongs to a culture that I don’t.
A minor point, but worth mentioning, I belong to a denomination that baptizes infants…by sprinkling water on their heads. There is no risk of drowning whatsoever (in fact, in a few cases, I’d be surprised if the kid even noticed the water). Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anyone who practices immersion baptism and infant baptism. They may be out there, but nobody is coming to mind.
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:6
http://niv.scripturetext.com/galatians/5.htm
Understand that the covenant made with God’s chosen people is over taken by Jesus. Read the bible in it’s entirety and understand it in it’s entirety. As for circumcision here is your answer http://niv.scripturetext.com/galatians/5.htm that can help you understand why you’re still stuck on the history of the Old Testament. Again, read the bible for it’s entirety so that you won’t be fooled by those who haven’t.
And again for those who still don’t understand Galatians 5 (because I too have a hard time understanding the King James version or the NIV at times, here is the GNT…) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5&version=GNT
Ace, under other circumstances and in other venues, I’d happily debate the validity issue of Holy Baptism with you; but experience has taught that (at least on this forum) it usually results in quarrels, squabbles, and all sorts of heated tempers among people whom I admire and respect… so (no offense), despite my normal penchant for defending the teachings of Holy Mother Church, I’m just not going there, today. The risk-to-payoff ratio just isn’t worth it, given the circumstances.
cookie,
They have this practice in India of burning still widows on the funeral pyre with their deceased husband.
They have this practice of ‘honor killings’ in muslim countries.
They have this practice in the Asian culture of killing female infants.
To compare sprinkling an infant with water or immersing a willing child with the aforementioned barbaric acts is evidence that you mind is so open that it has been lost without your notice.
[Does anybody know of a ‘christian’ sect that immerses infants in the rite of water baptism?]
I am not defending our culture, just exposing the absurd extrapolations of ‘equivalency’.
Pete: and the attention to female circumcision is almost nonexistent.
And so the hypocrisy continues.
Very, very good point, Pete.