Cultural Customs Around the World on Burying the Placenta

As celebrants we often prepare and perform Naming Ceremonies for parents and they will often want to include a ritual involving the burying of the baby’s placenta, perhaps under a tree or a rose bush or in a pot with a shrub or rose bush to symbolise that as the placenta provided nourishment for the baby so it will provide nourishment for the tree or shrub.


This is becoming more popular in New Zealand amongst Pakeha and perhaps this is because traditionally, Maori bury the placenta within their native soil. In the Maori language, the word for land and placenta are the same: whenua.

However there are also many such customs in other countries around the world and in the Southwest of America, the Navajo tribe of native Americans have the custom of burying a child's placenta within the sacred Four Corners of the tribe's reservation to symbolically bind the child to his or her ancestral land and peoples.

Some cultures place a symbol of their people with the placenta when burying it, to ensure the child’s bond with it’s heritage and the indigenous Aymara and Quecha people of Bolivia believe the placenta has its own spirit. They ritually wash it and it is then buried by the husband in a secret and shady place. They believe that if this ritual is not performed correctly it could mean that the mother or baby may become very ill or even die.

The Ibo people in Nigeria and Ghana believe a baby’s placenta is the dead twin of the live child and bury it with full funeral rites, whilst Filipina mothers often bury the placenta with books, in the hope that their child will grow to be a clever child.

In the Hmong culture of Southeast Asia, the word for placenta can be translated as "jacket," as it's considered a baby’s first, special clothing. Apparently they bury the placenta outside, because they believe that after death, the soul must retrace the journeys undertaken in life until it reaches the burial place of its placenta jacket.

So many of the rituals we are now using are of course founded in the past and as celebrants, it is empowering to know that we are helping to continue these ancient rituals as part of the ceremonies we take today.

Compiled by Wanda M. Brittain
President - Celebrants Association New Zealand Inc.
Naming Workshop CANZ Conference 2009