Blog 4-Child Comforting Song

Title: Child Comforting Song

 Date: 06/22/2019

Observer: Rosa Rutland

Time: 1:00 pm in the afternoon

Setting: Lapaisenja

Description of events:

         Today I am back at lapaisenja. I am at a medical facility because I woke up burning with a fever and a headache. The medical facility is made of brick as a more permanent facility. I am waiting to see the doctor /medi/. There are two other adults and the rest are women with small children sitting in the waiting room. There is a baby crying in the back. The mother is trying to sing to comfort the baby. A young boy that seems to be around four years of age runs to play with another child. He runs back to his mother and falls making a really loud noise with the toy he was holding. Everyone stops what they are doing to see what just happened.

         Boy: mat mat (mother, mother)[crying loudly].

         Mother: pat pat aman he mat (son, son, come next to mother) [in a soft voice]

The crying boy gets up and limps to his mother’s chair holding his knee. He looks around to see who all is looking at him and cries even more. The mother picks him up and tries to comfort him since every eye in the room is on them.

         Boy: babeid tomi (my knee hurts).

The mother can’t understand his whinny voice while he is crying.

         Mother: izim (where?)

         Boy: hefzim tomi. (it hurts here) [the boy is pointing at his right knee]

The mother rubs his left knee with her hand and kisses his forehead. His face looks feverish and he also has dark circles under his eyes like he has not slept much. The mother sings a little chant or song to comfort him.

         Mother: shanun  shanun (cry, cry)

                     lipi lipi  miko  (little, little child)

                     baben    baben  (laugh, laugh)

                    nanka  pogu garja (neck, arm, ear) [as she touches each part of his body named in the chant. The boy is ticklish and giggles]

         Mother: sachom (stand up)

         Boy: izim medi (where is the ‘doctor’)

A nurse enters the room and calls the mother’s name and they go in to an adjacent room. Everyone goes back to what they were doing before the boy fell.

Reflection:

         The medical facility visit was very helpful with my recovery. There was a virus around the island that was affecting mostly children and me. This must have been due to my exposure to new viruses that my immune system lacks.

         This comforting song the mother sang to the child who fell is mostly sung to toddlers and babies. The young boy was a little on the older side, but mothers of oktip culture do not like their children to cry in social gatherings. Normally a child this age would have been expected to stand up and comfort himself. This expectation explains why everyone was watching him. However, there is grace shown to children who are truly sick.

         The song begins with a time to allow the child to cry and express pain by the lyrics, “cry, cry”. The song also points that it is acceptable for little children to cry in social gatherings, but not for the older ones in the words, “little little child.” However, the expression of morning of a death or emotional despair is acceptable. Only the cries that are expressed because of the embarrassment of a fall in public or a good knocking on the head are not accepted as socially good. This is a way of being able to assess whether someone is physically hurt and not just embarrassed. Then, “/baben/, /baben/” the parent tries to cheer the child with the imperative “laugh, laugh.” Finally, the parent tickles the child to produce laughter and to distract the child from the event that made him/her cry in the first place. This song is mostly song for comforting falls and when a child accidentally hits him/herself.