The Serpent Within: Birth Rituals and Midwifery Practices in Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Mesoamerican Cultures.
This article focuses on female-gendered activities in Mesoamerican culture and reveals a strong link between conception, pregnancy, and childbirth on the one hand and weaving and other activities that produce cloth on the other. Supporting evidence from sources such as codices painted during the Pos...
| Published in: | Ethnohistory Vol. 66; no. 4; pp. 689 - 720 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Duke University Press
Oct2019
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=139128416&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 139128416 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00141801 ENH jtl: Ethnohistory issn: 00141801 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2019 vid: 66 iid: 4 pid: 154 pub: Duke University Press artinfo: ui: 139128416 10.1215/00141801-7683294 ppf: 689 ppct: 31 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 139128416 tig: atl: The Serpent Within: Birth Rituals and Midwifery Practices in Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Mesoamerican Cultures. aug: au: Vail, Gabrielle affil: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. su: Birth customs Midwifery Ethnohistory Mesoamerican civilization Manuscripts sug: subj: Birth customs Midwifery Ethnohistory Mesoamerican civilization Manuscripts keyword: Maya codices Mexico midwifery childbirth Tz’utujiil Maya weaving Yucatec Maya Maya codices Mexico midwifery childbirth Tz’utujiil Maya weaving Yucatec Maya ab: This article focuses on female-gendered activities in Mesoamerican culture and reveals a strong link between conception, pregnancy, and childbirth on the one hand and weaving and other activities that produce cloth on the other. Supporting evidence from sources such as codices painted during the Postclassic period (13 to 15 centuries) in the northern Maya area indicates that these associations have a longtime depth, spanning at least a millennium. Ethnohistoric sources from highland Guatemala, paired with contemporary practices in that region, provide further insights into beliefs and rituals associated with childbirth and midwifery among prehispanic Maya populations. A review of colonial-period Nahuatl sources provides a comparative perspective for framing the Maya data within the broader context of pre-Conquest Mesoamerica. Despite the events that have transpired during the past five hundred years in this region, this study finds that many of the elements that were key to this conceptual framework during the Pre-Hispanic period continue to be important today, although their range is more restricted now than it was during the Postclassic and colonial periods. Striking commonalities, as noted, are those that link weaving activities with pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, objects and iconography related to women and birth—in the form of serpents, umbilical cords, and ropes—tie the act of birth to primordial creation events and highlight the association between midwife and creator grandmother. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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