Description

These forum posts are from the old “Ranchos Archives” which was part of a Yahoo Groups system that operated between 2003-2006. This was a hybrid of electronic mailing lists and internet message boards. The files are “Read Only” and many of the users of the Yahoo Groups are not part of the new NuestrosRanchos membership, so keep this in mind when viewing these message posts and replies.

information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

The forty day tradition following childbirth is quite ancient.  It is part of the Mosaic Law, the Law of Moses, and appears in the Old Testament in the Bible.  Without a doubt the ancient Hebrews and other people of the Middle East practiced this tradition, including in Anatolia, modern day Turkey. 

 

Either because of Jewish tradition or becuase the Spanish Christians were adhering to the fact that for 40 days after Jesus was born, Mary was considered unclean according to Mosaic Law.  After the 40 days were over, both the mother and child were purified.  Here's the Biblical verse:

 


Luke 2:22-24 22And when the forty days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him [Jesus] up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord), 24and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.
 
 EL DÍA DE LA PRESENTACIÓN

A los cuarenta días del nacimiento de Jesús, María y José se levantaron temprano. Era un día normal en el que María haría su primera visita al templo como se acostumbraba entonces que cada mujer hiciese después del parto. Pusieron carga en una bestia, tomaron al niño y se pusieron en marcha hacia el templo de Jerusalén. José llevaba un par de tórtolas en una canasta...

 
 
The forty-day threshold belief;

People in Anatolia call any sickness experienced by the mother or the baby and any failure to regain health within 40 days of giving birth as "the falling forties" or some similar name such as name; "kirk basmasi", "kirk düsmesi", "kirk karismasi", "logusa basmasi", and "aydas". It is a common belief that a number of living things and objects will harm mother and newborn baby in the forty-day period after birth. Practices and measures to prevent the 'falling forties' are very common.

In order to prevent the 'falling forties';

- Mother and baby are not allowed out for forty days,

- Care is taken not to bring together women and newborn babies who have not passed through this forty-day period.

The falling forties in a baby used to be related to poor development and weight loss. Various religious and magical practices were considered to be a remedy to prevent the falling forties.' Nowadays, such practices are almost extinct.

Forty-day precautions;

Washing the mother and child within 40 days of birth to prevent them falling ill within that period is known as "making the forties". It is commonly referred to as "kirklama", or "kirk dökme" and "kirk çikarma".

The practice is commonly carried out on the 40th day after birth. This period differs according to region, however, and may be carried out on the 7th, 20th, 30th, 37th, 39th or 41st day. Although there may be some differences in procedure in different regions, the aim is the same.

"Making the forties" is still a common practice today as in the past among those customs and practices related to birth.

 

 
 
 
Hope this helps.
Steven H.
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Peggy Delgado

To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 23:32:39 -0700
Subject: RE: [ranchos] Re: information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

I have a coworker who is of Indian descent and they, too, have a similar custom.  The new mother stays abed and the relatives do all the housework, preparation of food, etc.  The mother is not allowed to do anything but take care of the newborn.  The duration of this custom is 40 days.
 
Peggy Delgado
-----Original Message-----
From: ranchos@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ranchos@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Emilie Garcia
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 3:06 AM
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Re: information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

When I was working at a hospital in Silicon Valley, we hired several Vietnamese immigrants (mostly women) as interpreters.  They too have the custom of the new mother not leaving her bed for an extended time (how long I can't remember).  During this period the mother was waited on hand and foot by her family and served her meals at bedside to eat alone.  They were mostly Buddhists.  How curious that such a custom is practiced world-wide!  I wonder if the Bible or the Koran or Buddhist, etc. teachings all dictate that practice for new mothers?
 
Emilie Garcia
Port Orchard, WA. 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Puentest
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Re: information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"
 

Was it literal or was it not. I bet that in different time periods this
rule went from being widely practiced to not. Let's find out.

okay many people have relatives they are visiting when they go to
Mexico. . .let's start asking the old ones what they remember. We don't
need to make this the center of our investigation but a couple of
questions in passing makes for keeping the conversation interesting.

a civil discussion like this is so interesting. . .thank you all for
participating.

joseph

v.h.villarreal wrote:

>I really doubt that this is an accurate interpretation or a widespread
>practice even in the old days.  "Guardar reposo por 40 días" or
>resting for 40 days wasn't supposed to be taken that the mother should
>stay in bed, not taking a bath, etc. rather that she should "keep the
>husband away from her bed for 40 days", if you know what I mean... 
>
>Victor
> 
>






Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com






YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS








information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

I have a coworker who is
of Indian descent and they, too, have a similar custom.  The new mother
stays abed and the relatives do all the housework, preparation of food,
etc.  The mother is not allowed to do anything but take care of the
newborn.  The duration of this custom is 40 days.
 
Peggy
Delgado
-----Original Message-----
From: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:ranchos@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Emilie
Garcia
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 3:06 AM
To:
ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Re: information on
records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

When I was working at a hospital in Silicon Valley, we hired several
Vietnamese immigrants (mostly women) as interpreters.  They too have the
custom of the new mother not leaving her bed for an extended time (how long I
can't remember).  During this period the mother was waited on hand and
foot by her family and served her meals at bedside to eat alone.  They
were mostly Buddhists.  How curious that

old world remedies

thank you Linda for the wonderful story of your gr-grandma Tula. .
.great story about her skills and knowledge. We have truly lost a lot of
knowledge when our old people pass away without trying to learn as much
as can from them.


My Grandmother Virginia Diaz (dob: Dec 15, 1886 Las Animas, Jalisco) was
a curandera of sorts. She knew some medicines but not as in depth as
I've heard others describe, but she did learn the art of midwifery. I
heard a story of how my sister went into labor and was going to the
hospital but stopped by to see my Grandma on the way. My Grandmother
said that the child was improperly positioned and if my sister wanted
her to repositon the child. Of course my sister said yes and by a series
of hand manipulations with my sister laying in a blanket that was being
pulled to put pressure on my sisters stomach the child was persuaded to
reposition properly. My sister said that she then went on to the
hospital and had a very very easy birth considering it

Fee

True that you can't keep people out without password protecting it, 
but typically people won't find your site unless you advertise 
somewhere.  Believe me, I've set up a couple of sites and monitored 
the activity and the only people that accessed the site were those 
that I gave the URL to.  One site was for a family reunion and 
another was for my daughter's girl scout troop.  People were not 
exactly flocking to those sites.

I don't know if you read the bottom of the info page on genealogical 
society pages, but here is what it says:

"IMPORTANT: After you have your site up and operational, please send 
the URL of your homepage to websites@.... The Websites 
Webmaster will add you to the Guest Pages Index at RootsWeb, which 
should help increase the amount of traffic your page receives." 

The above implies that unless we give Rootsweb the URL to our site we 
would not be added to their index.  That means that doing a search on 
the Rootsweb pages would not find our site.  The

information on records

My maternal grandmother was always known to us as Felicina.  She was 
not even aware of the fact that her legal "civil" name was Evangelina 
until she was required to obtain an official birth certificate for an 
immigration or social security process.  Thank God that the person 
working at the registrar was smart enough to look around a bit and 
find her certificate under her "other" name by matching her parents, 
place of birth, etc.  I think that she even had her birthdate wrong 
by a few days.  Her civil name was Evangelina and nowhere in her 
civil record did the name Felicina appear.  I think this is a pretty 
common phenomenon.  The other is the six brothers whose name 
is "Jose" but each goes under some other name such that "Jose de 
Jesus" is called Chuy, Jose Antonio is called "Tonyo" and Jose 
Francisco is called "Pancho".  


--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, Alicia Carrillo  wrote:
> This is so interesting and too much of a coincidence.
>  
> My tia who´s my

old world remedies

I just talked with my relative who's mother, Paula Castanon (1896) was 
the midwife, she said her mom would help the Dr. in there town near 
Fresno Ca. for births and that was in the 20's, 30's and 40's. She 
also mentioned that here stateside we get 6 weeks pregnancy leave... 
that's 42 days so is it just an old world custom?  

She also said her Mom did ventosas. People would come to her home when 
they had muscular problems. She was good at massaging backs, arm and 
ankle sprains and she also used special herbs but my relative couldn't 
remember what they were.. I had never heard that word before so I'm 
still learning!

Linda in Wa.



information on records & "Guardar Reposo 40 días"

In a message dated 7/22/2005 8:51:13 P.M. Central Standard Time,
raices_regias@... writes:

I really
doubt that this is an accurate interpretation or a widespread
practice even
in the old days.  "Guardar reposo por 40 días" or
resting for 40 days
wasn't supposed to be taken that the mother should
stay in bed, not taking
a bath, etc. rather that she should "keep the
husband away from her bed for
40 days", if you know what I mean... 

Victor, actually I think that you both are correct.  I grew up with
the same tradition, that the women had to stay IN HER HOUSE, DO NO PHYSICAL
LABOR during the first 40 days.  In extended family situations, the mother
or spinster sister would come, help with the older children and do the cooking
and cleaning.  It was generally believed that if you did not take care of
yourself during this critical time period, it would make you weak (perhaps even
die), and could possibly affect you from having future children.  The men
accepted this

old world remedies

it would seem the the women of the world over time 
developed "traditions" that worked to keep them healthier, happier 
and connected with other women.  Birth control didn't exist as we 
know it and large families were the rule both by religion and by 
economics in Mexico. It sounds like 40 days worked the world over.

My fathers aunt was a midwife in the district of Jerez Zacatecas.  
She learned her trade from her mother, Gertrudis Caldera (1869).  It 
was a mixture of religion and Indian medicines.  If someone died, 
she knew all the litanies by heart and was always called and never 
failed to go, she spend hours teaching her daughter to recite them 
by heart too. In El Durazno she was also the one who directed 
preparing the body for burial.  She delivered babies, fixed aches 
and pains, gave us Yuerba-Buena for tummy aches and had a remedy for 
everything. She was a blend of superstitious and religious. In doing 
the genealogy I find her Garcia ancestors were Indio and her Alcala

String around the waist

The following is an excerpt from another website that describes Cambodian customs.  When I was working at the hospital, I noticed a distinct physical resemblance between some of the Mexicans and the Cambodian interpreters.  Now here is a description of a similar custom found in Mexico---the string around a pregnant woman's waist.  It is coming back to me somewhat--what that pregnant woman told me about wearing a string around her waist--I believe she said it was to ensure a good pregnancy.
 
Emilie
 
********************************
 
 Many Cambodian villagers believe that a pregnant mother and new born infant are vulnerable to the attentions of mday daem, a spirit who is considered to be the mother of the child in a previous life.  The previous mother is thought to be still emotionally attached to the child.  If the original mother finds fault with the current mother, either during pregnancy or once the baby is born, the spirit mother will try to take the baby back, and this will