KOE F gra n t p a rtn e r sp otl i ght OMIECH
Traditional Maya Midwives Protecting Women’s Health
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OMIECH midwives exchange medicinal plant knowledge. Photo by Filiberto Sebastián Luna Icó.
Micaela Icó Bautista (Tzotzil) and Susannah Daniels The Organization of Indigenous Doctors of Chiapas (OMIECH) was formed in 1985 by Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Ch’ol Maya health promoters and traditional doctors. Our objective is to revive, develop, systematize, and defend traditional Maya medicine. The Women and Midwives Section of OMIECH is made up of 51 traditional midwives from 4 municipalities and 8 communities of the Highlands and Northern regions of Chiapas, Mexico. We implement workshops that reinforce the intergenerational transmission of our traditional midwifery within each family and community. In these workshops and the Women and Midwives Section regional meetings, we discuss topics including maternal mortality; care during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum; and the conservation and defense of medicinal plants and animals. In recent years, our work has focused on developing strategies to stop the public policies that threaten the survival of traditional Indigenous midwifery in Mexico. The following is a portrait of a Tzotzil midwife narrated by the Women and Midwives Section’s coordinator, Micaela Icó Bautista. 26 • www. cs. org
s young girls, jtamoletik (traditional midwives) dream that they will be midwives. God (in Tzotzil, Kajvaltik, Jtotik, Ch’ul totik ta Vinajel, Ch’ulme’tik ta Ch’ul Balumil) gives us a sign through our dreams. He/ She gives us the materials we will use. We learn from our dreams and by attending the births of our own children. We also learn from more experienced midwives, our grandmothers, mothers, and others. When a woman seeks us out, it is our duty to give her and her husband advice. Depending on the patient, whether she is ill, tired, or malnourished, we will see what she needs. We tell the husband how he can help his wife. Some midwives are also j’iloletik (healers, “she/he who sees beyond”). Healers are able to communicate directly with their patient’s spirit. They diagnose their patients by feeling their pulse. This diagnosis is important, because some women do not want to tell us when they have problems. During a pregnancy, we have to ask for the protection of our patient three times. The healer knows how to prevent and treat illness that is the result of envy or an encounter with an evil spirit. In her prayer, the healer speaks to both the woman and the baby, and she speaks to God. Midwives who are not healers also know how to pray and ask for protection for their patient. The woman also has to speak with God so that all may go well in her pregnancy. She has to speak to Him/Her, deliver herself to Him/Her, every day. One cannot forget to do this. By the fourth month of pregnancy we can tell whether the baby is well positioned. We give the mother an abdominal massage whenever she needs it. In this way we monitor her until her pregnancy is full term. Sometimes the mother or the baby is rebellious. We correct the baby’s position and within no time it has moved again. This has meaning for us campesina women. When a baby is malpositioned it is because we set down our firewood without untying the tumpline, or because we left the batten in a crooked position on our loom. The baby copies what we do in our day to day tasks. This is why midwife-healers perform both “the secret” and prayer. They have different ways of performing the secret so that the baby will remain in the right position. What we want is for women to come see us at the beginning of their pregnancy. This is for the benefit of both them and their family. Some midwives go from village to village to see the mothers who are going to give birth. This is why our work is important for women, our communities, and ourselves: we prevent maternal deaths. There are medicinal plants not only for treating and managing complications, but also for preventing them. When some women go into labor, they suffer a lot of pain because coldness has entered their body. We lay them down on a petate (straw mat), check their abdomen, warm it and massage it, and the pain goes away. When the baby is almost crowning, the mother squats down and we put a faja (wide woven belt) around her waist. If the baby is a little malpositioned, you have to get a
