106 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



mechanisms for creating social relationships between 

 individuals. 



The most important of all the types of ceremonial 

 kinship is that based on baptism. The child is bap- 

 tized by the priest according to the usual ritual of 

 the Church, and actual baptism takes place at the 

 font to the right and just inside the main entrance to 

 the church. Children are baptized at almost any age 

 under 6, depending upon when their parents feel 

 financially capable of organizing the fiesta and the 

 ceremony, and there is no feeling of compulsion, as 

 in some North American Catholic families or com- 

 munities, that the child must be baptized within 8 

 days after birth. Following the church ceremony a 

 large meal accompanied by copious drinking — in 



short, the typical Moche drinking-and-eating house- 

 hold fiesta — takes place with all friends of the family 

 invited. (In these affairs, noninvitees are not en- 

 couraged "just to drop in.") 



The statuses involved in a system of baptism 

 relationships are illustrated in the diagram in figure 

 7. They may be described as follows: (I) The 

 child being baptized, who is the ahijado of the god- 

 parents; (2) the godfather; (3) the godmother; 

 (4) the nurse {ama de pila) who carries the child 

 in her arms from the house to the church and 

 return (pi. 25, middle {right)); (5) the child's 

 father; (6) the child's mother ; (7) the godfather's 

 wife; (8) the godmother's husband; (9) the 

 nurse's father; and (10) the nurse's mother. The 



A - O 



nurse i 

 father 



nurse's 

 mother 



compadre corned re 

 relationstiip also 

 generalizes between 

 these persons and 

 other adults 



A 



Godmother's 

 husband 



- comadre I comoariera depila - 

 corn pad re I companero de gna 



;A = O- 



Godmother 



compadre s 



child's 

 father 



'^£'^~ 



child's 

 mother 



compadre - 

 ccnadre - 



'A 



nurse 



Figure 7. — System of relationships involved in baptism compadrasgo. 



