Midwifery is a women's profession that helps women from pregnancy to newborn care. Midwifery also has a religious role. Midwives are believed in the Maya community to be assigned their profession from God through signs and visions.
In ancient myths, the Goddess Maya of obstetrics is called Ixchel.
Video Midwifery in Maya society
Maya Midwife
Childbirth is the last ritual among the Maya to complete the transition of a girl to an adult woman.
Many women who give birth in rural areas are treated by midwives who have no formal training but who believe in the Maya religion have received training in dreams. Traditional birth attendants are known as comadronas or iyom k? Exelom , and receive prestige for their practice.
Midwives in Mayan communities are responsible for ajtuj ("pregnant women") and their unborn babies during pregnancy and rest weeks after birth. Unlike other societies in which individuals choose their field of work, the Mayans believe that they receive a holy call from God through a dream that allows them to practice their doomed occupation. The call is divine and the midwife can communicate with the supernatural world.
Although midwives are held with high prestige for their sacred position in society, these women are often also the victims of hate from their husbands and children because they have to spend much time away from them to act as midwives. Midwives should distance themselves from sex, which sometimes creates difficulties with their husbands.
Maps Midwifery in Maya society
Holy Call
In Maya society, it is believed that midwives receive their call from God in a series of dreams. This vision is believed to often include subtle clues that a woman is destined to become a midwife and can include the vision of Saint Anne who is the saint of all midwives. According to Maya religion, in addition to receiving dreams and visions, women also tend to find small objects in the pathway that is a symbol and object associated with obstetrics. They are often unusual small rocks that resemble faces, shells, marbles, or fragments of damaged archeological statues. The stone is often given a sacred power in the Maya religion and is believed to be sent from the spiritual world as a sign of a person's call for midwifery. It is also believed that some objects left in the midwife's way can also be the tools they need to do the parts of labor, the folding knife used to cut the umbilical cord. Women often consult with shamans who explain their vocation to them, and after women accept that they will become midwives, they are entrusted to receive a series of other dreams and visions of labor practices they must follow. In addition to these special objects, and repeated dreams, it is believed that they can also be summoned to mountains or other holy places where they may meet supernatural beings. Maya believes that women who ignore their vocations often get sick, and if doctors can not determine the diagnosis for their illness, they can even face death. They also believe that they are told in their dream by supernatural beings that they will receive gifts from the families of the children they show and that they should not be greedy because many who will give what they have must be accepted with kindness.
Responsibility
Midwives are responsible for pregnant women during their pregnancy without formal training or learning except for what they believe they receive from their dreams. These dreams are believed to contain visions of spirits on how to properly examine women, massage a woman, feel the position of the fetus, measure widening, cut the umbilical cord, how to pray and how to predict the future of the child with signs on the umbilical cord. Midwives believe that in this vision they also learn to identify problems that can pose a threat to healthy deliveries and transport the women to nearby clinics and hospitals. Midwives are called around the third month until the fifth pregnancy and visits at monthly intervals for prenatal care, until the last month of pregnancy when they start visiting each week. Prenatal care provided by the midwife includes regular massage, examination, attending labor and caring for the mother and child just after birth on a rest week.
Birthmark
There are many things that the Mayans believe can be interpreted when a child is born. The Mayan calendar for divination, or "holy calendar," is believed to foretell the future of a child, as it is a few days more profitable than others. Calendars are important in Maya society to interpret and shape the future of children. However, Maya also believes that midwives can predict a child's life based on interpretations they can make from signs on the umbilical cord and amniotic sac. They believe that based on the signs of the first birth, gender, number and intervals of future births can also be foreseen. The most important sign is a future shaman (worm or fly held in the hands of a newborn), midwife (white overhead coat, coming from the membranes of amniotic fluid) and an infant that will endanger the siblings' survival (born with multiple threads in the crown).
Ritual
The midwife is the first to see the baby and before a mother can bond with her baby, the midwife is expected to carefully interpret the signs that the child is carrying, and she will then interpret what profession the child is destined to. He must then carefully remove, dry and preserve the signs that will be protected by maternal grandmother. Praying is considered key in sending a child, and as soon as the midwife is informed of the birth, he begins to pray. She is also expected to pray before entering the house and before touching a pregnant woman. He also had to pray for each of the four corners of the room that was said to be the home of the invisible guardian. One ritual must be performed when the next child dies, because it is believed that the eldest son (often born with a double circle on the umbilical cord) chases and eats the spirit of a newborn. In an effort to save the life of a newborn baby, the midwife wraps the live chick with a cloth and walks around the room with the eldest son praying to each of the four corners. The chicken is then beaten to death behind the eldest son (behind a closed door and away from a newborn). He then makes soup with chicken and the eldest son is forced to eat it as a whole, even if it takes several meals to do so. At the end of the bed rest week, the midwife must perform a final cleaning ritual, which marks the end of his ministry. The baby was bathed and new clothes were placed over the sea, and the hammock where the baby slept was prayed. He asked that the baby be protected. The mother also received purification in a semi-public hair washing ceremony. The last ritual to be done is to sweep and clean the room before he leaves. He then prayed for the last time, thanking the spirit for a successful delivery.
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Source of the article : Wikipedia
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