This study primarily covers the efforts of Nahua women “tepalehuiano” (midwives) to maintain dominance in the areas of conception, contraception, birth, and neonatal care until the start of the twentieth century in Mexico. Jaffary chronicles the relentless incursion of Hispanicized, licensed male physicians who introduced birth by caesarean section, forceps, chloroform anesthesia, and a maternity hospital in the birthing of children. She uses as primary sources criminal and Inquisition cases that identify practices and viewpoints about conception and abortion from indigenous times to the start of the nineteenth century. Jaffary also consults ethnohistorical accounts, medical-history studies, and governmental legal codes to round out her findings.
The best chapter in the study discusses indigenous midwives’ methods and their expertise in herbal remedies. Unfortunately, most of the practices of the indigenous tepalehuiano were not recorded in many documents, though two midwives testified in court proceedings to ascertain whether young women...