'A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816. With a journal of the voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an account of the proceedings of His Majesty's embassy under Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart. K.L.S. With two maps, and engravings from the designs of the author.' [‎109] (148/516)

NAMING AN INFANT.
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read. One of the slips of paper is then taken out at random by the
hand of the father, and the child is called after the name which is there
inscribed. A Mollah takes up the babe, pronounces the name in its
ear, and places the paper on its swaddling clothes. The relations of
the child then each give it money and other presents, and this custom
they call the Roo-nemah, or shewing the face.
They have still another custom which they call the Akikeh. The
father of the child kills a sheep, of the flesh of which he makes broth,
but cautiously preserves all the bones. He invites his friends, relations,
and the poor in the highways, to partake of this food, from which he
and his wife are excluded; but when the entertainment is over, he
carefully collects the bones, and having selected a clean place near some
running water, he there buries them. During the mejlis,the name
of the child is given.
They adopt also certain ceremonies about shaving the child's head.
It frequently happens after the birth of a son, that if the parent be in
distress, or the child be sick, or that there be any other cause of grief,
the mother makes a vow, that no razor shall come upon the child's
head for a certain portion of time, and sometimes for all his life.* If
the child recovers, and the cause of grief be removed, and if the vow
be but for a time, so that the mother's vow be fulfilled f, then she
shaves his head at the end of the time prescribed, makes a small enter
tainment, collects money and other things from her relations and
friends, which are sent as Nezers (offerings), to the mosque at Kerbelah,
and are there consecrated. J
* So Hannah vowed, if she were blessed with a man child, saying, " Then I will give
him unto the Lord all the days of his life. There shall no razor come upon his head" —
1 Samuel, i. 11.
f Hannah's vow was a vow of gratitude, an expression of thankfulness; but more usually in
Scripture the unshaven head is an expression of grief, and a vow to such an effect an act of
penitent humiliation.
| Compare with this the law of the Nazarites, Numb, vi., the principle of which was
altogether moral. The person who was separated to God's service let his hair grow, and
abstained from wine and other usual indulgencies. This was done sometimes during life, and
sometimes during certain periods only; after the latter, offerings were made to the Lord.