The temazcal between past and present

Abstract

The present work is part of a reflection on the phenomenon of the Maya Resurgence and, in specific, on its request to integrate traditional medicine with that of official medicine. The work outlines a discussion of the traditional practices of the Guatemalan comadronas during child-birth and attention was primarily focused on the temazcal. Through historical and religious analysis, the meanings this institution represented in Pre-Columbian times were investigated and their evolution through time, if only summarily, were outlined. In a dialectic rapport with the world vision that the Occidental brought, the temazcal changed, according to the results obtained through our analysis, from a theatre of combat with the underworld, to a place where indispensable “heat” was unleashed to warm the mother in childbirth, who during her delivery reaches her maximum state of coldness (Guatemala), or a mystical place in which contact with Mother Earth is experienced (Mexico).