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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2741663
AutoresTimothy W Knowlton (0000-0003-1463-6977, Berry College, autor correspondente), Edber Dzidz Yam (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social)
Ano2019
Volume66
Fascículo4
Páginas721-744
Data de publicação2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthnohistory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0014-1801 • E-ISSN: 1527-5477
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00141801-7683312
OpenAlexW2977103308
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas30

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