User talk:Malvara~enwiki

Hi Malvara, the above is just a standard welcome-to-wiki template containing links to general info & wikipedia editing guides that you may find useful. And welcome also to WikiProject Mesoamerica (WP:MESO), I see you're one of Prof. Hoopes' KU anthro students. As well as whatever instructions and guides you may have been given for your course & activities here, pls feel welcome to ask questions of, or make any comments to, those of us in WP:MESO and we'll do our best to help out. Either at the WP:MESO discussion board, one of our user talkpages, or at the talk page of the relevant article. All the best, and cheers --cjllw ʘ  TALK 08:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

You can use space on this talk page to create or post a draft of a new entry on which you're working. If you would like for me to give you comments on an existing entry, please add a pointer to it on this page. Happy editing! Hoopes (talk) 16:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, I am an undergraduate student at the University of Kansas. I am a student of John Hoopes and this article on Mayan Midwifery is a class project we are currently working on. Please do not edit anything on this page until the project has concluded and we have received our grades. thanks****

Maya Midwives
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Childbirth is the final rite of passage that completes a girl's transition to womanhood in the culture of Maya peoples. Due to poverty in areas such as rural (Guatemala, women experience high rates of maternal death in childbirth. Many of the women who give birth in rural areas are treated by midwives, who do not have any formal training but who receive training in dreams and visions.

The traditional midwives that attend births are known as comadronas or iyom k'exelom, and experience 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.

Although midwives are held in high esteem for her sacred occupation, these women are also the object of resentment from their husbands and children as they must spend a great deal of time away from their families in order to fulfill their calling. Resentment from her husband stems from absences in his sex life because a midwife must frequently be abstinent in order to be ritually pure. Younger midwives take on more cases as they are able to move around and from place to place more easily which frustrates their husbands since they must remain abstinent.

Sacred Calling
Unlike other cultures in which individuals choose their occupational fields, the Maya people believe they receive a sacred calling from God through dreams and visions. This allows them to practice the specified occupation. Like shamans, the calling is divine and she can communicate with the supernatural world. These visions often include subtle hints that a woman is destined to become a midwife and can include visions of Santa Ana who is the saint of all midwives. Women often consult shamans who explain their calling to them, after they accept that they are to become midwives, they receive another series of dreams and visions regarding the birthing practices they must follow. Women who ignore their calling often fall ill and doctors are unable to determine a diagnosis for their ailments, they may even face death. One woman describes her ailments from ignoring her call, I started [dreaming] at a very young age, I was 10 years [sic] old....I was seeing puddles of blood...Then at 28 years of age I started to get sick...I had high blood pressure at 29...There [Guatemala City] they ran test on me and told me that there was nothing wrong with me, that I had no disease.

Sacred paraphernalia
In addition to receiving dreams and visions, woman 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. Stones are often given sacred powers and these objects are believed to be sent from the spiritual world as a sign for ones calling to midwifery. Some objects left in their path may also be the tools they need to perform parts of the birthing, including a penknife that is used to cut the umbilical cord.

Encounters with supernaturals
In addition to using special objects and having repetitive dreams, midwives may also be summoned to mountains or other sacred places where they may encounter supernatural beings. They are told by supernatural beings in their dreams 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 and she must accept it with the goodness of her heart.

Responsibilities
Midwives are responsible for the care women need during their pregnancies without any formal training, learning from their dreams. From these dreams, they receive 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.

Midwives learn to identify problems that can pose a threat for a healthy delivery and transport those women to nearby clinics and hospitals. Pregnancy and childbirth were both considered hazardous due to the complications that could occur that might put a woman or her unborn child at risk.

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. Among the prenatal care provided by midwives include periodic massages and examinations Midwives attending the delivery and tend to both new mother and child following the birth in the week of bed rest.

Rituals of midwifery
The midwife is the first to see the infant. Before a mother can bond with her new baby, the midwife must carefully interpret the signs that the child bears. She alone will judge what profession the child is destined to take. She must then carefully remove, dry and preserve the signs which will be protected by the maternal grandmother. Praying is key in the delivery of a child. A midwife begins praying as soon as she receives the call. She also prays before entering the house and before touching the pregnant woman. She must also pray to each of the four corners of the room which is said to house invisible guardians.

Interpreting signs at birth
There are many things that Maya midwives can interpret when a child is born. The Maya calendar is believed to foretell a child's future, as some days are more auspicious than others. The calendar is important for interpreting and shaping the child's destiny. However, the use of the calendar has declined in modern times. Despite this, midwives are able to foretell the life of a child based on the interpretations they can make from the markings on the umbilical cord and the amniotic sac. Based on the markings on the firstborn child, the sex, number and interval of future births can also be foretold. The most important markings are those of a future shaman (worms or flies clutched in the fist of a new born), midwife (white caul over the head, which comes from the amniotic sac) and a baby born with a double whorl in the hair on the crown of its head will endanger the survival of future siblings.

Protecting children
One ritual that must be performed is when subsequent children die. The Maya believe that the firstborn child (though to be often born with a double whorl on the umbilical cord) chases and eats the spirit of the {Infant|newborn baby]]. In an effort to save the newborn baby's life, the midwife wraps a live chicken in a cloth and tours the room with the eldest child praying to each of the four corners. The chicken is then beaten to death on the back of the eldest child (behind close doors and away from the newborn baby). The midwife then makes a soup with the chicken and the eldest child is forced to eat it in its entirety, even if it takes several meals to do. Now that you have a another little brother [or sister] you must not eat him; eat this chicken instead; its meat is like the flesh of your little brother; you must take good care of him and never frighten him.

Final rituals of childbirth
At the end of a week of bed rest for the mother, the midwife must perform her final cleansing rituals. This signals the end of her services. She bathes the baby and a new dressing is placed on its navel. She prays over the hammock in which the baby is to sleep. She asks that the baby be protected and that he not fall. The mother also receives purification in a semi-public hair-washing ceremony. The final ritual that must be performed is the sweeping and cleaning of the room before she leaves. The midwife then prays one last time, thanking the spirits for a successful delivery.

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

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Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)