Midwifery in Maya society
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Midwifery is a women's profession that assists women from pregnancy to newborn care. In some traditional Maya communities, a goddess of midwifery is invoked, and midwives are generally believed to be assigned their profession through signs and visions. In pre-Spanish Yucatan, the aged midwife goddess was called Ixchel.
Childbirth is the final rite of passage amongst the Maya that completes a girl's transition to womanhood.
Many of the women who give birth in rural areas are treated by midwives who do not have any formal training but who are believed in Maya religion to have received training in dreams. The traditional birth attendants are known as comadronas or iyom kʼexelom, and receive prestige for their practice.
Midwives in Maya societies are responsible for the ajtuj ("pregnant woman") and her unborn child throughout the pregnancy as well as the week of bed rest following the birth. Unlike other societies in which individuals choose their occupational fields, the Maya people believe that they receive a sacred calling from God through dreams which allows them to practice their destined occupation. The calling is divine and the midwife can communicate with the supernatural world.[1]
Though midwives are held at high prestige for their sacred position in society, these women are often also subject to resentments from their husbands and children as they must spend a great deal of time away from them in order to act as midwives. Midwives must abstain from sex, which sometimes creates difficulties with their husbands.
In Maya society, it is believed that midwives receive their calling from God in a series of dreams. These visions are believed to often include subtle hints that a woman is destined to become a midwife and can include visions of Saint Anne who is the saint of all midwives.[2] According to the Mayan religion, in addition to receiving dreams and visions, women also tend to find small items in paths that are symbols and objects related to midwifery. The objects are often small unusual stones that resemble the shape of a face, shells, marbles or broken fragments of archaeological figurines.[3] Stones are often given sacred powers in the Maya religion and are believed to be sent from the spiritual world as a sign of one's calling to midwifery.[2] It is also believed that some objects left in a midwife's path may also be the tools they need to perform parts of the birthing, i.e. a penknife that is used to cut the umbilical cord. Women often consult shamans who explain their calling to them, and after the women accept that they are to become midwives, they are believed to receive another series of dreams and visions regarding the birthing practices they must follow. In addition to these special objects, and the repetitious dreams, it is believed that they may also be summoned to mountains or other sacred places where they may encounter supernatural beings.[3] Mayans believe that women who ignore their calling often fall ill, and if doctors are unable to determine a diagnosis for their ailments, they may even face death. They also believe that they are told in their dreams by supernatural beings that they will receive gifts from the families of the children they deliver, and that they must not be greedy; because many will give what they have, it must be accepted with a goodness of heart.[4]
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Responsibilities
Midwives are responsible for the pregnant women during their pregnancies without any formal training or learning except for what they believe they receive from their dreams. These dreams are believed to contain visions from the spirits on how to properly examine women, massage a woman, feel for the position of the fetus, measure dilation, cut the umbilical cord, how to pray and how to foretell a child's future by the markings on its umbilical cord.[4] Midwives believe that in these visions they also learn to identify problems that can pose a threat for a healthy delivery and transport those women to nearby clinics and hospitals. Midwives are summoned around the third to fifth month of pregnancy and visit at monthly intervals for prenatal care, until the final month of pregnancy when they begin visiting on a weekly basis.[5] The prenatal care provided by midwives includes periodic massages, examinations, attending the delivery and tending to both new mother and child following the birth in the week of bed rest.[1]
