S5E209 - The Mexica Midwife: Birth and the Cosmic Cycle

In the shadow of the conquest, Mesoamerican childbirth was a battlefield of its own. This episode follows the Mexica midwife, the tlamatlquiticitl, whose rituals and knowledge guided women through labor in an empire where every birth echoed the cosmic cycle. We explore the tonalpohualli's role in naming, the sweat lodge's purifying heat, and the fate of the mocihuaquetzque — warriors who died in childbirth and earned a place in the west. Lucas and Luna trace how these practices survived the Spanish invasion, blending with Catholicism in ways that still resonate in Mexican traditions like the cuarentena. They confront the violence of...