I still did not realize how intense an agitation this book had stirred up in me. I realized it hours later when at last I managed to fall asleep and dreamed that I was once again a boy in the town where I was born, and that I had an irresistible desire to see my children. A team of photographers spent eighteen months in seventy three countries amassing the images in the book. Birth and Childhood begins with an explanation of the systems and beliefs intended to give our lives structure and meaning. In the village of Ekundu-kundu in Cameroon, West Africa, a mother paints her face and the face of her son to ask for blessing and protection.
Yemeni mothers go into seclusion with their infants for forty days.
When he lands safely, the hazard has passed and the babies have been symbolically prepared for a safe passage through childhood. In the photograph, it doesn't seem like he can possibly land without catching one of their tiny foreheads with the heel of his boot. All of the rites of passage are specific to each culture, and I'm glad that my children won't have to endure a similar ritual. Which brings us to St. Bernard's Church in Brooklyn, New York, where a child is being baptized. Having been to many functions at that very church in my childhood, I try to assess the image objectively.