Sinahal, Mayan Midwife

(Sinahal, señora de los partos)
Glenny Torres | Documentary

2023 | 77 minutes | Mexico

A portrait of Mayan midwives practicing ancestral, herbal birth care, enshrouded in community trust and resistance to modern medical norms.

Synopsis

Sinahal, Mayan Midwife, directed by Glenny Torres, offers an intimate portrait of Doña Crispina and Doña Rafaela, experienced Mayan midwives whose herbalist knowledge and tactile approaches to prenatal care—likened to “ultrasounds with their hands”—highlight ancestral medical practices deeply embedded in community life.

Operating predominantly in Yucatán towns such as Mérida, Chumbec, Hocabá, Celestún, and Progreso, they serve both local residents and foreigners seeking natural childbirth.

Through observational footage and in-depth interviews, the film examines the cultural significance of Maya midwifery, Indigenous epistemologies, and the intergenerational transmission of healing arts—and how these coexist and resist within a modern medical system. This work is compelling to scholars of ethnomedicine, Indigenous studies, gender, and cultural resilience in Latin American ethnographic cinema.

Reviews

“The work rescues the vision of humanized childbirth, that the woman can decide how to give birth, that she can say 'I want to have it here in my house, with my husband or with my mother holding my hand or with my son' because I have seen births where the older son helps to take out his brother. What we want is for the public to feel the intimacy and purity of this traditional Mayan midwifery, in addition to the fact that ancestral medicine speaks of a great respect for nature” – A Sánchez, La Jornada Maya

Citation

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Cataloging

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Keywords
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Clips
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DIRECTOR: Glenny Torres

NATIONALITY: Mexico

YEAR: 2023

GENRE: Documentary

LANGUAGE: Spanish; Maya; Indigenous languages; Other languages

COLOR / B&W: Color

GRADE LEVEL: High School, College, Adult

SUBTITLE/CC: AVAILABLE

AUDIO DESCRIPTION: NOT AVAILABLE

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