Childbirth Ceremony

Every Palauan woman undergoes the ngasech ceremony two to three months after the birth of her first child. A medicine woman gives her hot, cleansing baths for five to ten days, and on the last day, she dresses up in traditional clothes and goes out to meet her husband's family.

During a break from one of the many hot baths required for her ngasech, this mother nurses her baby daughter. The medicine woman gives the young mother a steaming hot bath, scooping up the water with a coconut shell and throwing it at her body. To protect the woman from scalding, oil and turmeric were applied to her skin. The baths are intended to rejuvenate the young mother's body, remove stretch marks, and "clean out the womb." The medicine woman rubs the woman with coconut oil and turmeric before presenting her to her husband's family.

Female relatives of the husband express their love for the mother by dancing up to her with dollar bills in their hands. A Palauan younger relative acting as an assistant collects the banknotes as "payment" for the strains on the woman's body in a plastic bag.