Article ID: CBB742129282

“Speaking with the Fire”: The Inquisition Confronts Mesoamerican Divination to Treat Child Illness in Sixteenth-Century Guatemala (2018)

unapi

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. Keywords: female healers – divination – child illness – fallen fontanel – Inquisition – Maya Indians – Guatemala – Latin America

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Article Maria Pia Donato (2018) Medicine and the Inquisition in the Early Modern World: Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 1-13). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB742129282/

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Authors & Contributors
Carey, David, Jr.
Abu-Rabia, Aref
Behrens, Susan Fitzpatrick
Boyden, James M.
Few, Martha
Fiolhais, Carlos
Journals
Asclepio: Archivo Iberoamericano de Historia de la Medicina
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
American Historical Review
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Comparative Studies in Society and History
Environmental History
Publishers
Berghahn Books
Editrice Morcelliana
Tulane University
University of California Press
University of Toronto Press
University Press of Colorado
Concepts
Medicine and religion
Indigenous peoples; indigeneity
Inquisitions
Medicine
Medicine, traditional
Healers
People
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de
Quevedo, Francisco
Castelo Branco, João Rodrigues de
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
20th century
Ancient
Early modern
18th century
Places
Guatemala
Spain
Portugal
Mesopotamia
Venice (Italy)
Italy
Institutions
Rockefeller Foundation
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