Perinatal Rites in theRitual of the Bacabs, a Colonial Maya Manuscript

Bibliographic Data

ID2741663
AuthorsTimothy W Knowlton (0000-0003-1463-6977, Berry College, corresponding author), Edber Dzidz Yam (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social)
Year2019
Volume66
Issue4
Pages721-744
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnohistory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1801 • E-ISSN: 1527-5477
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00141801-7683312
OpenAlexW2977103308
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited30

Pregnancy and childbirth were among indigenous Maya women's most dangerous life experiences, with very high maternal and perinatal death rates from pre-Hispanic times through the first decades of the twentieth century. This article contributes to the knowledge of colonial Yucatec Maya women through the interpretation of documentary evidence of three indigenous rites meant to facilitate women's perinatal health and successful childbirth. This evidence is contained in the eighteenth-century collection of healing chants known as the "ritual of the bacabs." The chants include those for cooling the steam bath used in indigenous perinatal treatments, for difficulty in childbirth, and for rites surrounding the disposal of the afterbirth. Through an analysis that combines philological approaches with ethnographic interviews of contemporary Maya speakers, this article provides new insights into the intersection between ritual and culture-specific notions of the body among the colonial Maya

Archaeology · Childbirth · Colonialism · Ethnography · Ethnology · Indigenous · Maya · Pregnancy · Sociology · Anthropology · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Latin American and Latino Studies · Latin American history and culture