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Unveiling the Magic: Exploring Placenta Rituals around the world

A very special placenta I buried

I wish I knew more when I had my babies. I saw them both in a bowl and marvelled at what an amazing job they had done and honoured their help in producing the life in my arms but o how I wish I had done more. Here I explore a couple of the rituals globally that honour this incredible transient organ.


The placenta is a marvellous organ with healing properties that should be cherished and appreciated. It's one of the first things to develop upon conception, providing a filter for toxins while your baby's liver is developing.


The placenta, also known as the afterbirth, is a remarkable and complex organ that develops during pregnancy. It plays a crucial role in nourishing and protecting the growing foetus, while also filtering out waste products. Moreover, the placenta is the only organ that is created and then discarded by the body after serving its purpose. This makes it a unique and fascinating part of the reproductive process.

This wonder organ is made up of 50% of your cells and 50% of your baby’s cells, like a little team working in perfect harmony. The placenta earns its superhero cape by filtering out toxins while your baby's liver is still in training, while also delivering oxygen and nutrients through the umbilical cord. The cord is attached to the center of the placenta (sometimes it’s attached to the side, known as a Battledore insertion). The placenta even gets the “first in” award, being one of the first things to get to work once conception happens. It's like the ultimate home for your little one, complete with an amniotic sac (also known as the caul, waters, or membranes) and, of course, your precious baby! It’s like a womb-ception, and it's all for your little one's precious start to life.


Throughout history, many cultures have recognised the importance of the placenta and have developed various rituals to honour it.

There is a rich cultural and scientific significance to the placenta, and it is important for expecting parents to understand and appreciate its role in the miracle of life so I have compiled a few ways in how the placenta is viewed and handled across the world.



The trees of life

ICELAND


Icelanders traditionally believe the placenta is a child’s 'guardian angel' and is known as "fylgia" by Native Icelanders.



CHINA & SOUTH EAST ASIA


Among the Hmong people of China and South East Asia, the word for the placenta means “jacket” (the child's first and finest clothing) and many believe after death, the soul must recover this garment to cross back over into the spirit world by retrieving its placental jacket from its birthplace before continuing its voyage to the sky.

The burial of the placenta also takes place and for the girls it is buried under the parents bed and if it's a boy it is buried with greater honour under the central column of the house.


A large part of Hmong women's culture is sewing. The women are highly skilled and famous for their fine needlework and embroidery called 'paj ntaub' (flower cloth) which is so intricate that the cross-stitch can be mistaken for fine beadwork.

I love this connection to cloth and cloak, To weave and to thread is something we seem to have running through our folklore and fairytales the world over.



BALI


In the Balinese village of Bayung Gede, people hold an ari-ari ceremony, named after the word for the placenta, which means “younger sibling”.

Some Balinese people believe that while babies are in the womb, until they are earth-side, they are accompanied and protected by four sisters:


Bhuta Nyom (amniotic fluid)

Bhuta Rah (blood)

Bhuta Ari-ari (placenta)

Bhuta Tabunan (belly button)

These four siblings help the baby leave the womb by way of the vagina (known in Balinese as goa garbha) safely and healthily. Their relationship has been established in the womb and will effect the growth and development of the baby including smoothing the course for the baby's birth.


The placentas are washed and soaked in perfumed water, placed in coconut shells which are then hung from the buck trees but they are only allowed to be transported to the tree either before dawn or after sunset and it must not be carried in the bright sunshine. Then as part of the ceremony the father cuts a main branch from the tree, releasing fragrant sap that may mask the smell and allows each home in the village to remain holy.

Some villages will bury the placenta whilst this particular village hangs it in full view.



HAWAII


I feel so lucky to have visited this amazing place and I'd go back there in a heartbeat...


In Hawaii the placenta is brought home and washed, then buried along with a tree seedling, following a religious ritual . It is believed this will then bind the child to his or her homeland. The “iewe” (placenta) of the newborn child is sacred and must be handled in a sacred manner in order to provide for the physical health of the child.


After the birth of the placenta, the traditional Hawaiian midwife would cut the cord with a bamboo knife, tie it off with a special string, and place a drop of mother’s milk and a bit of arrowroot powder onto the umbilicus. The placenta and umbilical cord were considered an extension of the body and thus valued and treated with respect in their burial “to create holistic harmony and facilitate Spiritual evolvement.”


After the umbilical cord stump fell off, it would be taken to one of several known sacred places and put into a hole in the lava covered with a rock.


There is so much more I want to include about traditional Hawaiian birthing; like that of a sacred space, elders encouraging movement and dance to free the body from tension and stress, groups of women from different families coming together to solely focus on the birth and the powerful wisdom of using herbs to help ease the labour... It is fascinating and there are even amazing petroglyphs depicting birth scenarios.



NAVAJO CULTURE


For The Navajo people, it is customary to bury a child’s placenta within the sacred four corners of the tribe’s reservation to bind a child to ancestral land and people. The Navajos also bury objects with it to signify the profession they hope the child will pursue.

Burying the placenta in the ground, according to the Navajo people is done so that it can become one with Mother Earth. Special care is taken with the placenta so that the connection remains between the child, the organ and Mother Earth.


There are a few places it can be buried:

• 2 to 3 feet deep north of the Hogan, under an ash pile.

• Badger hole

• Placed under a live bush

• Buried beneath a juniper or pinion tree

• A place of significance to your family and “put away” with cornmeal /corn pollen blessings;


And according to traditions, it's important that it is placed somewhere animals can’t get to it, otherwise spiritual harm and sickness may occur to the baby.


AFRICA


Igbo people of Nigeria have historically referred to the placenta as “our mother” and many believe that burying the placenta connects the child to the welfare and fertility spirits of the ground.


The placenta is treated as the dead twin of the child and it is given full burial rites. The burial of the placenta and umbilical cord is thought to restore the woman's fertility and help heal her womb.


In the region of Niger the placenta is often referred to as the “traveling companion” that ushers the new human from one world to the next. It is thought only through proper respect toward the placenta, by means of careful burial, can a woman’s future fertility be protected.


In many African cultures, “zan boku” means “the place where the placenta is buried.” and is generally a special place under a tree.


AUSTRALIA


In Australia, several Aboriginal beliefs involve the placenta it is a part of your life and soul. Some tribes believe a soul has two parts: one part the 'cho-i' remains with the placenta. My understanding is that aboriginal people see the placenta as a hologram of a person’s soul and that it contains the life map of your soul. When you plant the placenta in the Mother (earth/ground) then Mother Earth understands that you have arrived and can take care of you.


In Aboriginal wisdom, the placenta is always buried – given back to the Earth, to let Her know that a baby has been born and, by its blood, who this baby is. In the early years, all the mothers and grandmothers of the tribe guide the growing child. Then, when a child is an adolescent, the first blood or first seed is also given to the Earth, buried in a handkerchief. The child steps away from the guidance of the mothers, into the guidance of the Earth Mother, who now begins to oversee the child to become what his/her soul intended. Life circumstances are created by the Earth to help this child become who s/he means to be.


Without burying the placenta, Earth Mother would not know a child had been born; She would not know to cherish the baby in the years after birth, and from adolescence, the child would flounder without Her guidance. How could a child ever become what her soul intended and grow to fulfil the need of the village and the universe without this guidance from Earth Mother? This is the importance of the placenta to the child’s whole life.



EUROPE

In some Western societies, placenta rituals have gained popularity in recent years with practices such as placenta encapsulation and placenta prints becoming more common. Placenta encapsulation involves dehydrating and grinding the placenta into pills for the mother to consume, while placenta prints involve using the placenta as a stamp to create a unique artwork.


Overall, there is a rich cultural and scientific significance to the placenta, and it is important for expecting parents to understand and appreciate its role in the miracle of life. Cambodians even call it “the globe of the origin of the soul.”

I hope by reading the above insights you can see just what an important role this tree of life plays and perhaps it gets you thinking about placentas a little more!



If you would like to know more about the ritual and placenta ceremonies I hold please send me a message and we can arrange a call.


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