Huichol Indian Birthing Procedure
by Liv | Published on June 12th, 2007, 5:21 pm | Arts
Random find here, and oddly alarming for men I suppose, although this might solve the problem of dead beat dads, rapists, and those one night stands.
The following artwork is titled "The Father Assists" and is apart of the San Francisco museum collection. At first glance you think it's a space abduction; but upon closer inspection you realize, it's actually a birthing ceremony. Yep, there's mom, and the mid-wives, and the baby... wait! What's that? Dad in the attic? With ropes tied to his testicles?
Yes it is.
How The Husband Assists in the Birth of a Child:
According to the Huichol tradition, when a woman had her first child the husband squatted in the rafters of the house, or in the branches of a tree, directly above her, with ropes attached to his scrotum. As she went into labor pain, the wife pulled vigorously on the ropes, so that her husband shared in the painful, but ultimately joyous, experience of childbirth. (Berrin 1978: 162)
