Indigenous Birth

Ancient Ceremony to Modern Customs

Elizabeth Mendoza
HIST 1010
November 30, 2017
Birth as a Ceremony
According to Gonzales (2012), rituals affect belief and cognition in humans,
but they also impact the limbic system of our brains, so then rituals become
felt as practices are ritualized.
Robbie Davis-Floyd talks about rituals in birth too, across cultures and types
of birth. This is true even in, or especially in, medicalized, Western births.
Some of this ceremony still exists in modern birthing practices, though
arguably, much of it has been diminished through domination of the body
and technology.
Rituals and ceremonies around birth within Indigenous cultures have deep,
traceable roots possibly even as old as human history.
Much of their significance has been lost as Mesoamerica became de-
Indigenized over the last 500 years, but some of the rituals themselves and
their ties to deeper meanings still live within modern curanderos, parteras,
and families.
Common Mesoamerican Indigenous Themes
Cultures across time have viewed life through different paradigms, or
viewpoints.
Balance
Male/Female (non-gendered names for Creators, balance of genders on codices,
mens role in birth)
Hot/Cold
Sustos/Limpias
Cosmos/Earth
Necessity
Many traditions were created out of what was available and easy, but ritual was
added to make it meaningful (for example, cords were burned with fire (a
candle) because most houses had this available, but not the means to have
metal instruments or to sterilize them). It actually works out that this heat is
optimal in the balance needed for postpartum to close to the cold/open uterus.
Common Mesoamerican Indigenous Themes
The importance of ceremony and ritual Pre-Columbian Tlazolteotl
Symbolism
sacred olla
Tlazolteotl (took on many forms: cuaucihuatl (eagle woman),
cihuacoatl (a serpent))
ombligos
Weaving and webs as an organizing principle (less linear than
Western cultures tend to favor; we are all connected; life is a
web, birth feeds into death, which feeds into birth)
Spiders (because of their webs) and butterflies (because of
their web designs on their wings) were associated with
wisdom; often depicted near birthing scenes and women
Symbols associated with rituals (like herbs and brooms)
The P lacenta, Cord, and Navel
This is a very significant triad honored and respected throughout
Indigenous codices and rituals, as equally important as the birth itself.
It is even associated with the origin of Mexico navel of the moon or the
place of the center
Was the cactus in Mexicos origin story really a tree of life/placenta?
The placenta was honored as the newborns sister, other mother, or first
bed. Even the language shows this. It is born, not afterbirth, as we regard
it today.
The placenta is revered as a tree of life, signifying the connection of us
all back to the land.
In more recent times, corn tortillas are often consumed in the
postpartum period as a homage to the placenta.
The P lacenta, Cord, and Navel
The P lacenta, Cord, and Navel
Ropes and cords were honored throughout
Indigenous cultures, as a nod to the umbilical
cord.
Images of cords that occur naturally (squash
vines, for example) were revered and
replicated in imagery throughout cultures.
Snakes were seen as wise and powerful.
Other human-created symbolism of cords
existed in braids, cords, and fajas worn around
womens waists, verticals ropes with which to
birth (an ombligo tying women to the
cosmos), and on ball courts, for example.
The P lacenta, Cord, and Navel
Dnde est tu ombligo?
Ombligo (placenta, cord, and/or navel stump) is
buried with ceremonial ash from the hearth and
rosemary on family land.
This is seen as a return from and to the earth
It is a way to claim land or a landmark (a tree or a
creek, for example), not in a possessive manner
because the earth belongs to us all, but as a
permanent connection to the land, something that
roots you there forever.
Sustos y Limpias
Principle of curanderismo, but with its roots in Indigenous cultures
Soul sicknesses (sustos) can manifest in many different forms
Limpias can serve as a way to cleanse the soul and the body of ailments
and there are many ways to carry them out.
Sweat lodges (expecially preconception)
Sweeping with a broom
Sweeping with herbs
Baos or ceremonial baths of the new mother and newborn
Swaddling so babies do not get sustos when they startle
All of these are used outside of the perinatal period too.
Arrival of Europeans and Impacts on Birthing Culture
Indigenous Mesoamericans were very tied to the earth and their own
system of making sense of the universe.
Created and documented calendars; the entire culture was surrounding the
body and its connection to the earth

Europeans used these exact same principles to dehumanize, exploit,

and desecrate Indigenous peoples and their rituals.
This was true in birth too, as then-current European principles of
controlling women, their knowledge, and their wisdom of bodies and
healing/birth were quick to spread to Mesoamerica, especially when
used to help further colonization goals against Indigenous peoples.
Arrival of Europeans and Impacts on Birthing Culture
Women were often seen as a balance to men
in Indigenous cultures, and honored as keepers
of wisdom and healing. Much of the
symbolism used by these types of women and
in the perinatal period were the exact same
ones that Europeans detested in their own
societies.
Midwives were the perfect target for
persecution
Strong, wild women/witches
Sweeping/brooms/limpias
Honoring serpents and other devilish animals
Arrival of Europeans and Impacts on Birthing Culture
The devil teaches the midwives.
The majority of cases on record during the Inquisition named women
(midwives, maestras, healers) as the perpetrators of superstitious
behavior.
Midwives public rituals celebrating birth were used against them.
Public floggings
Naked, desecrated bodies on display
Indentured servitude (sometimes within hospitals)
However, there is evidence that largely, Indigenous midwives simply
ignored persecution and attempts at regulation or did not let it affect
their practice.
Arrival of Europeans and Impacts on Birthing Culture
Indigenous people did not give up all of their rituals Post-Columbian Tlazolteotl
during colonization, but instead, they often masked
or evolved their own traditions into Catholic ones,
placating European oppressors during the
Inquisitions, but still retaining some of their own
autonomy and power.
Use of tobacco and peyote during preconception
ceremonies and birth (transitioned to calling it herba de
Mara)
Continuing the symbolism of cords and sashes to signify
pregnancy (la Virgen began being portrayed with a cord
around her waist)
Oral tradition could not be controlled.
Also, power is more over private domains, like in the home
and over sexual issues, not publicly like mens.
Arrival of Europeans and Impacts on Birthing Culture
Throughout time, Catholic traditions did seep into Indigenous
cultures and curing principles (often not voluntarily)
Mal do ojo
Velas compuestas
There is some thought that this merging of healing principles is the
basis of curanderismo.
However, even then, curanderismo was not just seen as mestizo
medicine or for the poor/uneducated
Although families, women, and parteras in Mesoamerica and the
Southwestern U.S. who practice certain rituals today may not realize
their roots in Indigenous practice, most did originate there.
Displacement of Indigenous Medicine
Parteras & Birthing Customs
Similar paradigms and themes about births have transcended time
Midwives are seen as sacred because of their knowledge, connection
to the body
Divine mothers, priestess
Sometimes, in the beginning of healing prayers, people invoke ancestral
midwives from their family.
Some believe they dont need purification upon death because of their sacred
role (in the Heavens burning copal incense?)

Parteras often worked to deliver hundreds or thousands of babies,

often without much payment (or in frijoles, maize, etc.).
They served many roles family counselor, lay doctor, minister, etc.
Parteras & Birthing Customs
Common partera principles; many seen pretty commonly today in
some form
Importance of touch and massage
Abdominal massage for induction, turning baby (with or without a rebozo)
Clean diet, light exercise, herbs (cinnamon, anise, chamomile, mint)
Protection during the eclipse (metal over the belly to prevent cleft palate)
Drink water that gold jewelry had been boiled in
Hot/cold prinicples applied
Faja/fajero (white cloth and a gold coin around the navel or other purposes)
Olive oil to massage a postpartum belly and breasts
Cuarentena
Temescalli (traditional sweat bath) beginning at 15 days postpartum
Avoid heavy, hard-to-digest foods
Parteras & Birthing Customs
Grandmothers role
Birth support
Prayers (often the rosary)
Chooses a place to plant the ombligos
Mens role
Calling/hollering to the baby to come out
Lighting and keeping the sacred fire (to introduce warmth and continue the
presence of grandfathers)
Saying prayers
Plan ceremonies
Present children to the sun
Plant the ombligos
Ceremonies remind of these roles and the importance of both parties in birth
Parteras & Birthing Customs
In the U.S. Southwest, parteras continued to catch babies of families
of all races, but especially Latinas, well into the 20th century.
There were booms in mining towns (often rural and working class,
which is seems as though doctors at the time were not interested in
and could not keep up with) and in barrios.
Sometimes in conjunction with religious organizations in the 1900s.
Parteras were either licensed early or just allowed to work under the
radar throughout much of the early and mid 20th century.
It was not until the 1970s when a different demographic of women showed an
interest in becoming midwives and via different routes that Southwestern
states started seriously regulating and licensing midwives.
References
Arellano, A.F. (1997, September/October). Traditional midwifery:
Partera practices. Retrieved from:
https://www.motherearthliving.com/health-and-
wellness/delivering-tradition
Gonzales, P. (2012). Red medicine. Tucson, Arizona: The University of
Arizona Press.
Preciado Martin, P. (1998). Songs my mother sang to me. Tucson,
Arizona: The University of Arizona Press.
Torres, E. & Sawyer, T.L. (2005). Curandero: A life in Mexican folk
healing. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico
Press.