Abstract
Indigenous midwives and female healers who treated infants and children in late-sixteenth- century Guatemala were medico-religious specialists who mediated the natural and supernatural realms to treat child illness. Their socially critical roles are examined through the lens of an Inquisition investigation in the tributary Maya town of Samayaq in colonial Central America into indigenous and mixed race women’s use of divination as a strategy to treat child illness, and in particular mollera caída, or fallen fontanel.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Medicine and the Inquisition in the Early Modern World |
Publisher | Brill |
Pages | 159-176 |
Number of pages | 18 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789004386464 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789004386457 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2019 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Medicine
- General Arts and Humanities