When were were in Kazakhstan in 2009, we looked for as many books we could find that had an English translation to bring home. One of the books we found is called Kazakh Traditions and Customs. Many of the customs are more oriented to small babies, marriage and funeral rites. We did find one that we have been waiting until this day to celebrate.
Kulak tesu
Every four-yeared girl had her ears pierced, and a silk thread was put into the holes. Later on it was replaced by small silver earrings. The ear-piercing was regarded as an obligatory peculiar practice for the girls, having the same importance as boys’ circumcision. That is the reason why people say ‘kulak tesu – kyzdyn sundeti’. When a girl becomes adult enough to get married, she wears earrings with reproductive motives expressed in the shape of the sun, stars, or new moon, and various pendants have the form of seeds, petals, and grains.
Today Miranda is four years old and in honor of the Kazakh tradition Kulak tesu, we had her ears pierced. We had done previous reconnaissance at the local mall* and she was well versed in the process. Zoo goo (sanitizer), dot, pinch, pinch on the other ear, all done. She did great and only looked slightly nonplussed according to Ben who could see her face during the process.
I've incorporated some silk thread into her birthday dress and we started with 14K gold earring just in case of a metal sensitivity, but we already have two sets of beautiful silver earrings for when we can change them out eight weeks from now (thanks Grammy & Aunt Karen!).
*I really wanted to get a real piercer to do her ears with a piercing needle rather than the mall method of having the earring do the piercing, but I was unable to find anyone who would do it because she was so young. I explained all my reasons, cleaner piercing, faster healing, less trauma to the earlobe, more sanitary piercing supplies. But the youngest they would do at any place I called was 13. That just didn't work for us, so the mall was all we had.
1 comment:
I love that you're finding reasonable Kazakh traditions to incorporate into Miranda's American life. Very cool. I hope she enjoys her holey ears!
I hadn't given any thought to where one should procure ear piercing for a kid (not that I'm in any hurry to pursue that for our girls), so I appreciate you sharing your findings. I'm pretty sure that mine were done by a dermatologist at our HMO (in the 1980s), but I also think I was in middle school, so no clue whether they would have done it earlier.
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