Mongolian First Haircutting Ceremony

Mongolians hold off cutting their children's hair until the child reaches a certain age usually about 2 or 4 years old for boys (3 or 5 years old the way Mongolians count age) and about 1 or 3 years old for girls (2 or 4 years old according to Mongolian custom). The first haircutting is a significant ceremony (purely secular I'm assured) that involves lots of food and an invitation to friends and family. They even have a name for the celebration: daikh avakh (if you don't want to sweat the details, just say "dike avak"). We were honored with an invitation to our neighbors to participate in this ceremony, the first that we have participated in.

Our neighbors invited us to come at 11 AM, so we were fashionably late and arrived at about 11:30. Still we were the first ones to arrive. There was lots of food there and we started to eat almost immediately. The party really got underway about noon when the grandfather of the child cut his hair for the first time. The grandfather then tied up the hair in a khadag and said a word of blessing.

After that the rest of us took turns cutting the child's hair, then gave him some money and a small gift. There was plenty of food and the eating never really stopped. We left about the time that they broke out the vodka and starting toasting the child. Of course, the child was not allowed to drink any alcohol.

We anticipate being invited to several more of these as our friends' children grow older. Please pray for wisdom as we try to direct these traditional ceremonies to God. Our neighbors are not Christians yet, and therefore we did not have an opportunity to suggest any changes to the ceremony. Perhaps if a Christian performed the ceremony they would want to take the opportunity to dedicate their child to God and ask His blessing on their child. Your prayers to the God of all wisdom for insight as our Mongolian Christians approach these ceremonies would be appreciated.