A day in the life of an Aztec midwife - Kay Read

Join the Aztec midwife Xoquauhtli as she tends to her patients and honors the warrior goddess Teteoinnan at a festival ushering in the season of warfare.

--

The midwife Xoquauhtli has a difficult choice to make. She owes a debt to her patron Teteoinnan, the female warrior goddess at the center of the Aztec seasonal festival, who must be kept happy or she will bring bad luck. Xoquauhtli should participate in the festival today, but one of her patients could go into labor any minute. Kay Read outlines a day in the life of an Aztec midwife.

Lesson by Kay Read, directed by AIM Creative Studios.

Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Francisco Amaya, Daisuke Goto, Matt Switzler, Chhunheng Veng, Leonardo Monrroy, Sumedh Ghaisas, Guhten, Amer Harb, Dowey Baothman, Norbert Orgován, Shafeeq Ansari, Gabriel Balsa, Maryam Sultan, Bethany Connor, Jeremy Shimanek, Adam Foreman, Sebastiaan Vleugels, Lâm Nguyễn, Mark Byers, Bradley Heinold, Monkeypatcher, Laurence McMillan, Connor Roberts, Dmitry Neverov, Tonya Ratliff-Garrison, Avinash Amarnath, Eric McDaniel, Cristian Cristian, France Lipužič, EdoKun, Rare Media, Rayo, Faizan, Elizabeth Gu, Nazmul Idris, Po Foon Kwong, Siobhan O'Connor Gwozdz, NinjaBoffin, Jesse Jurman, Josue Perez Miranda, Jan-Erik, Scott Markley, Kaitlyn holland, Elija Peterson, Michele Lynn Rose, Jai Prasanth, Vack91, David Lucsanyi, Xavier dupont and Marisa Miller.

[lorim]

The art style is always so gorgeous and appropriate for each video. It amazes me how you can get so many great artists each time.

[LogicalMan]

"Congratulations! It's a warrior."

[carlosgeonzon]

The way the baby popped out of her mother's womb. I wish i was born like that.

[NitemareMoon]

Midwife: "Birth is a curse and existence is a prison."
Baby: "put me back."

[lauragg]

"Sending her to this place of burden and torment" that line describes the world perfectly.

[joshuaychung]

If a priest offers you a piggy back ride up a pyramid, run the other way.

[SreeramNR]

"To begin the new season, and feed the gods she will be *beheaded*, symbolizing how corn is cut in the fields."

That escalated real quick.

[dkpsyhog]

I love how Ted-Ed doesn’t wave away ancient civilizations by treating their beliefs as ridiculous superstitions, but instead respects their culture by taking all the mythologically-based traditions (“we do this because the gods do this” et cetera) as fact just as these people would have.

[miriamlogan]

The week would be much better if we also called our days things like "7-Monkey."

[sheedokdeedok]

aztec midwifes are really doing it all, both midwife duties and god serving duties and honestly queen behavior

[snowylilac]

the midwives just casually beating up physicians

[mordecailevi]

Please made "A day in the life of...."
-an Incan/Mayan/Aztec priest
-a Russian serf
-an Abbasids scholar
-a Japanese shinobi/ninja
-an Ottoman concubine

Or "History vs. ..."
-Tamerlane
-La Malinche
-Oliver Cromwell
-Margaret Thatcher

[thomaslai]

For the sake of being tasteful this video neglected to discuss what happened to women who died in childbirth: the widowed husband would take his deceased wife to the Temple of the Princesses, where he and the midwife would have to guard her corpse for four days against theft by warriors. Should they fail, the warriors would claim her corpse and use her hair and left middle finger to decorate their shields.

Mexica women who died in childbirth were conceptualized as warriors in their own right, battling the forces of nature to contribute another member to their empire. Therefore, portions of their bodies taken as trophies were powerful talismans aiding warriors in battle.

[sainaro]

I love learning about ancient civilisations! Thank you!

[IdeasInspiration]

Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlán, the ancient capital of the Aztec empire.

[piyushdhore]

Well that sacrifice in the end was a bummer.

[Absolutelysupreme]

*Ted-Ed's animation team is putting Disney and Pixar's teams to a threat*

[anonymousyearsago]

I love how encouraging the midwife is, and also brutally honest about our world.

[ruizaannencarnacion]

"The Lord and Lady of the Ninth Sky breathed life into her, sending her to this place of burden and torment."


Sounds about right.

[wherethesunsets]

The animation is so on point I wanna cry. You see these paintings in every museum with Aztec/Mexica expositions. I love how the TED creative team creates this ambience as accurate and close to the culture as possible.
Thank you I felt my country in this short story.