The custom described in the text by Phya Anuman Rajadhon is presented as it was traditionally practiced in Central Siam. The head of an infant was shaven as part of the khwan ceremony celebrating its survival and welcoming into the family. Some of the hair over the soft part of the infant's skull was left to grow into a topknot, to be cut in another ceremony when the child came of age. The author associates the custom with Indian cultural influence in the distant past, and documents its relationship to Buddhist practice. The second text and the photographs from the author's family collection documents the continuation of the practice among modern, urban families, but also shows its modification in modern times. The author reports that it has become much less common among contemporary families, amounting to a tiny percentage of the children in the author’s primary school. In addition, the topknot was cut at a much earlier stage in the child’s life, at the age of about 6-7 years, assuming that some of the children still wore it in the primary school.

The text describing the custom is from the 1968 book by Phya Anuman Rajadhon (1888-1969) Essays on Thai Folklore. The author is a prolific and well regarded literary figure and university professor. Although he did not receive formal academic training in anthropology, his writings have constituted a major source for anthropologists and others on customs from Siam, the traditional name for Thailand. The second text and photographs are from the baby photo album on a website by Thailand’s most prominent teenage blogger, Panrit "Gor" Daoruang (1986- ), who began an online diary at the age of twelve, and chronicled his own life and aspects of Thai culture and contemporary life. The site also teaches both English and Thai language through stories, quizzes, and audio files. The site attracted the attention of the Office of the National Culture Commission for its value in promoting Thailand’s image to a worldwide audience.

The text and photographs above describe a traditional Thai birth ritual that celebrates the child's reaching the milestone of one month old, at which time its survival seems more assured than at birth, and it becomes a full-fledged member of the family. Before the infant is one month old, according to tradition, it may have belonged merely to spirits. At this time, a Buddhist monk cuts the infant's hair. "Fire hair" refers to the hair with which the child was born and that grows until the end of its mother's postpartum period of lying in, or lying near the fire as Phya Anuman described the custom. The photograph shows the monk cutting or shaving the hair. The hair is placed on a small raft made of banana leaf and set afloat. The second part of the ceremony involves tying unspun cotton threads around the child's wrists and ankles.

This ceremony of the "khwan," the soul or life spirit, is a prominent object of ritual, and the text describing the custom is from Phya Anuman Rajadhon's (1888-1969) Customs Connected with Birth and the Rearing of Children (1948). The author is a prolific and well regarded literary figure and university professor. Although he did not receive formal academic training in anthropology, his writings have constituted a major source for anthropologists and others on customs from Siam, the traditional name for Thailand. The photographs are from the baby photo album on a website by Thailand's most prominent teenage blogger, Panrit "Gor" Daoruang, who began an online diary at the age of twelve, and chronicled his own life and aspects of Thai culture and contemporary life, and teaching both English and Thai language through stories, quizzes and audio files. The site attracted the attention of the Office of the National Culture Commission for its value in promoting Thailand's image to a worldwide audience.