Spiritual Technology in Indigenous Birth: La Cuarentena

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Spiritual Technology

Hello Humans and sentient beings,

Thank you for being a part of the Diverse Universe where every month, we will consider how to be a spiritual being, with spiritual technology, living in a human body.

This month, I invite you to explore indigeous birth with me through the ancient worldview of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The Ōlmēcatl/Olmecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, Bènizàa/Zapotecs, Mēxihcah/Aztecs, and Ñuu Savi/Mixtecs developed rich childbirth traditions that tap into the cycles of time, reflected in their famous calendars and astrological systems.

From this worldview comes La Cuarentena, the forty-day postpartum period that honors the birthing parent, giving them space to heal and bond. We will also consider the Closing of the Bones ritual, a ceremony of closure and reintegration that symbolizes the end of the birthing journey and the return to wholeness.

The Mesoamerican worldview of childbirth supports the child's transition from the spiritual realm into the physical world. While attempts to "indigenize" indigenous birth in terms of health outcomes has failed, we can activate spiritual technologies, like La Cuarentena, that underpin traditional practices. Spiritual technology informs my life and has influenced all of my projects, including the utopian fiction duology Birth Rites and my research on postpartum sexual health.

Spiritual Technology in Birth

Spiritual technology encompasses the diverse tools, rituals, and customs people can access to connect with a higher realm, promote healing, and navigate significant life changes. These technologies work on the mind, body, and soul, connecting humans to each other and the natural world.

The Mayan Way of Childbirth and the Spiritual Journey of Birth

In Mayan tradition, childbirth is a sacred journey intertwined with the supernatural, not merely a medical procedure. During labor, the birthing parent's spirit embarks on a celestial journey to meet their child's soul, transforming birth into an epic journey. In highland Guatemala, the womb is metaphorically viewed as a coiled snake, with midwives using ritual objects like female head ribbons to correct the 'serpent womb's' positioning, ensuring a safe delivery and embodying the profound spiritual significance of this transformative experience.

Midwives, known as comadronas or iyom k'exelom, are selected through dreams and visions, serving as revered guides between the earthly and divine realms. This cosmic voyage of birth is intricately connected to the art of weaving in Mesoamerican cultures, where spinning, warping, and weaving metaphorically represent conception, pregnancy, and childbirth – both creating cloth and life are seen as weaving the fabric of society.

La Cuarentena: The Sacred Forty Days

La Cuarentena, a forty-day "quarantine," allows birthing parents to care for themselves following childbirth. During this time, the parent and child are nurtured by family and midwives, enabling the birthing parent to integrate the rite of passage.

This transformative journey allows the birthing parent to process their divine experience, bond deeply with their newborn, and gradually re-enter the rhythms of daily life, renewed and prepared for the journey ahead.

The Closing of the Bones Ritual

The Closing of the Bones ritual is a vital part of La Cuarentena. This ceremony is designed to call back the birthing parent's spirit into their body, realigning the bones and muscles that shifted during pregnancy and childbirth.

In this rite, the parent is wrapped in a rebozo, a traditional shawl, around the hips (never the waist). The rebozo promotes physical healing and offers opportunities for emotional and spiritual closure to the rite of passage. It supports a reconnection with the self, enabling the parent to care for the new baby.

Family and Community Impact

The resonance of La Cuarentena strengthens familial and community bonds. As elders support the new parents' journey, they imprint the future generation with cultural wisdom.

Post-childbirth rituals include practices such as giving steam baths to the birthing parent to replenish heat lost during birth, using symbolic objects like a father's belt to bind the child, and managing the placenta in culturally specific ways, such as burying it in a place of spiritual significance.

La Cuarentena: An Ethnographic Insight

La Cuarentena is rooted in both cultural and historical contexts. This period is characterized by specific behaviors related to diet, clothing, bathing, and sexual abstinence, along with beliefs about recovery and social support. Historically, Judeo-Christian traditions adopted some of these ideas, as outlined in Leviticus 12:1-5, which prescribes a period of seclusion and purification after childbirth.

During La Cuarentena, birthing parents can experience a profound life transition, using traditional knowledge to support the postpartum hemorrhage prevention protocols of Western medicine. The birthing process highlights the opportunity for cultural identity formation and development as a result of the experience.

Modern Takeaway

In our hyper-connected, tech-driven world, spiritual technology like La Cuarentena offer a poignant counterpoint to the one-dimensional clinical approach of Western medicine. These traditions honor our individual human experiencs as rite sof passage. By integrating the wisdom of La Cuarentena and the Closing of the Bones ritual we can care for one another and improve postpartum wellness for all people.

Reference

Vail, G. (2019). The serpent within: birth rituals and midwifery practices in pre-hispanic and colonial mesoamerican cultures. Ethnohistory, 66(4), 689-719. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-7683294