Excerpts from: “To Warm the Blood, to Warm the Flesh: The Role of the Steambath in
Highland Maya (Tzeltal-Tzotzil) Ethnomedicine” by Kevin P. Groark*
We always need the pus [steambath]. If there were no pus, we could not cure ourselves. .
. . That’s the way it is. We heat the pus, it makes steam and warms us, and always cures
us—we will always use it in this way. We use the pus, medicinal herbs, and shamans [in
order to cure ourselves]. This is how we live, how we grow . . .
—Xun López Kalixto, Chamula, 1992
In Oxchuc, the steambath is an important therapeutic tool in household level preventative
and curative medicine. The primary function of steambath therapy is to “warm the flesh
and the blood,” to expel pathogenic “cold winds” from the body, and to restore the vital
“heat” or “warmth” that is necessary for a long and healthy life. Most common health
conditions are treated within the family unit in this small mud structure, usually in
combination with a wide variety of medicinal herbs and animals. In the course of this
project, more than100 steambath-associated remedies (derived from 63 plants and 7
animals) were identified. These herbal and animal preparations are regularly used in
conjunction with the steambath in the treatment of at least 32 discrete health conditions,
ranging from mild cases of stomachache and diarrhea to such severe conditions as
rheumatism, edema, and madness. The most important use of the steambath, however, is
in the treatment of obstetric and gynecological disorders, the promotion of lactation, and
the restoration and maintenance of fertility following childbirth….
In one of the earliest descriptions of therapeutic steambathing, Fray Bernardino de
Sahagún wrote:
[In the sweatbath] the sick there restore their bodies, their nerves. Those who are as if
faint with sickness are there calmed, strengthened. They are to drink one or another of the
medicines, as has been mentioned. And one who perhaps has tripped and fallen, or who
has fallen from a roof terrace; or someone who has mistreated him—his nerves are
shattered, he constantly goes paralyzed—there they make him hot. When he has endured
the sweat bath, the body, the nerves, are somewhat relaxed. There they manipulate him,
they massage him. Once again as [this] is done, he there becomes strong
To this day, the steambath continues to be used in the treatment of diverse health
conditions, especially those resulting from an imbalance of “hot” and “cold” in the body.
The steambath cures by restoring “warmth,” thereby eliminating illnesses that can be
“sweated out.” Herbal remedies are often administered in conjunction with the
steambath, either before entering, during bathing, or immediately after exiting. While
bathing, the sick person is usually accompanied by an assistant who flagellates his body
with a bundle of leaves in order to “drive out the illness” and “strengthen the flesh.”
Among the Aztecs, the individual who fanned the sick person was always of the opposite
sex. The elite are even reported to have had special “fanners,” the majority of whom were
dwarfs or hunchbacks.
Today, as in the past, the most important therapeutic use of the steambath is during
childbirth and in the treatment of various obstetric and gynecological disorders. Before,
during, and after childbirth, a midwife enters the steambath with the parturient and
administers a series of massages and herbal remedies to speed delivery and facilitate
postpartum recovery. At the time of the Conquest, many Nahuatl groups gave birth in the
steambath, but today this practice survives only among certain highland Maya groups in
Guatemala, particularly the Quiché. The warmth of the bath is considered essential to the
well-being of both mother and child in the period immediately following birth, and an
extended postpartum steambathing regimen is still observed in many communities….
According to many Oxchuqueros, the steambath was created by the ancestors specifically
to protect women from cold during these high risk periods, and constant reference is
made to conception, childbirth, and the restoration of fertility in any discussion of female
steambathing. While much of the therapeutic significance of the steambath has
disappeared in the highlands, the female preventative and postpartum steambath regimen
persists in almost all municipalities….
In order to restore her body to a state of warmth, renewing her fertility and physical
strength, the new mother follows a rigorous postpartum regimen of steambathing and
ingestion of “warm medicines.” This regimen is designed to restore and purify the blood,
promote lactation, calm the pains that follow birth, and to rewarm the flesh, blood, and
womb, thereby restoring an appropriate amount of heat to the woman’s body. If the
postpartum steambath regimen is not followed, the woman will suffer a variety of
gynecological disorders, culminating in an extended period of reversible infertility….
If the woman is having difficulty expelling the baby (or placenta), the midwife will
administer a hot tea made from the shell and tail of the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus
novemcinctus), or more commonly, from the tail of the Virginia opossum (Didelphis
virginiana). These medicines induce strong uterine contractions, causing the infant to slip
easily from the mother’s body….Immediately after giving birth, the woman enters the
preheated steambath to bathe. An hour later, after the bath has cooled to a safe level, the
infant joins the mother inside. She drinks a “warm medicine” (k’ixin pox) that was
prepared by her husband or the midwife, then rubs a small quantity of the decoction over
the lips of the infant to help warm his body. These warming teas consist of a principal
herbal or animal ingredient boiled with black peppercorns (Piper nigrum) and cloves
(Eugenia caryophyllus). Many women add distilled cane liquor (pox) and sugar to
increase the “heat” of the drink. These are the most significant and widely known
remedies used in the steambath and, like childbirth, are intimately associated with it.
Every morning and evening for three or four days the mother drinks these decoctions, and
every evening at dusk the steambath is reheated for bathing. During this period the
woman remains in the bath day and night and is relieved from all household duties.
In Oxchuc, the two most common medicines given to speed delivery in cases of
protracted labor are made from the toasted tail and shell of the nine-banded armadillo
(Dasypus novemcinctus) and the tail of the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana).
Both animals are characterized by odd reproductive habits: Nine-banded armadillos
regularly give birth to litters of identical quadruplets, and the opossum produces 10 to 20
offspring per year (no doubt owing to its 13-day gestation period, one of the shortest in
the animal kingdom]. While these reproductive anomalies undoubtedly influenced their
therapeutic use, the tail of the Virginia opossum has demonstrated uterotonic action in
recent laboratory and clinical trials. T his action probably derives from the presence of
prostaglandins, which are known to be oxytocic in very small doses….
*Citations omitted from original text