MammaPrimitiva Pathway to Traditional Midwifery is dedicated to Margaret Charles Smith and all Traditional Midwives and Indigenous Practitioners who came before us.
The Traditional Community Birth Workers Council preserves and protects cultural/indigenous sovereignty including Traditional Community Birth Worker which is also Indigenous Practitioners as we continue to carry the knowledge and exercise our self- determination to protect our rites/rights. This council shares cultural practices and ancestral knowledge from our families and cultural/ indigenous traditions passed down orally, preserving the accountability of TCBW. The council has responsibility to teach and protect birthing traditions, protect our food, medicinal plants, water and land and fights for our rights to govern ourselves and uphold the legacy of our elders. We are committed to carrying the torch and bringing in the next generations of TCBW. We promote these efforts as a world concept to protect our children and all life.
Mission and vision
We support traditional midwives, traditional birth attendants, birth workers and the diversity of cultural/indigenous practitioners to preserve traditional midwifery and cultural/indigenous sovereignty. We collaborate with other natural practitioners to create a working model for continuity of healthcare in our communities.
We are a broad collaboration of practitioners and families locally, nationally and internationally working to promote food, land and cultural sovereignty. We realize that each woman has a central role in all aspects of her ceremony of birth. Promoting non-traumatic healthy birth is the beginning of the many challenges we face. We support access to relevant diverse health care options throughout life. It is a right for people to affect change in their surroundings that protect and promote ancestral knowledge.
MammaPrimitiva Pathway to Traditional Midwifery
Name
With the greatest of respect, Clare chose the name many years ago.
Mammana was the name given to the midwife in the dialect of her ancestors, the people of Sicilia, coming from the Northern Africans, the Moors. It comes from the word, Mamma.
Mamma is a primal sound. The aaaa in mamma is the primal sound that mothers make when they birth their babies and mamma is name that babies give to their mothers.
The word Mamma is connected to the breath, the life force, that connects us to our ancestors and to the greatest of all mamma, mother earth.
Primitiva predates the concept of traditional, and represents the original ceremony of birthing in the most primal way. Primitiva shares the same root as primal.
Dedicated to traditional midwives who kept our old ways alive, ancestral knowledge
Traditional midwives never relied on machines, drugs and modern technology to control birth, but rather utilize age old traditional methods. Ultrasound affects our ancestors in the oceans, killing them and causing deep hearing problems their language which depends on a high pitch more developed that humans and is harmful for our babies. Traditional Midwives and Traditional Birth Attendants listen to the beat of the the baby in safe ways, as was always done traditionally. We share their words as we had the opportunity to teach and be with some of the previous generation of traditional midwives. Their stories they told and taught continues to guide our work. The ancestral gift of Motherwit, as Onnie Lee Logan, a friend and a southern grand midwife said, “What I know about deliverin babies came from motherwit, common sense,” God gave it to me.” We stay with tradition, that remains the same.
Ms. Margaret Charles Smith, a traditional midwife, mentor and a dear friend said in her book, Listen To Me Good.“Not surprisingly, many midwives described their roles as witnessing birth, not managing deliveries." Midwives told women, "Let nature take its course " "When the apple is ripe it will fall,” and “ A baby’s got to come on its own time, honey.”This way of thinking led midwives to encourage women in labor to “keep a stumbling, keep a moving, doing something, if it ain’t nothing but walking, stirring around.”Traditional midwives knew that the baby knew how to birth and we helped the mom to realize this and through her journey. As Ms. Margaret would say, “kind words go a long ways, they sho do.”
Native American Traditional Midwife Indigenous Practitioners Ulla Matilda Mitchell, Nettie Shawaway and Sylvia Wallulatum who inspired and taught Clare so much since she was a young woman, Ms. Onnie Lee Logan and hundreds of Traditional Midwives from Ayiti, South America who have shared their ways with Clare. Their years of education, along with many other traditional midwives knowledge is here in MammaPrimitiva Pathway to Traditional Midwfery teachings. With all humility we ask you to stay humble as you learn with us as we work hard to uphold their legacies.
Ullas Nettie, Matilda and Sylvia ...Clare was blessed again and honored to assist the birth of their great granddaughter Mai'ina Q'msaliya Sahme and her mother, their granddaughter Shmaumpt Sweetwater Sahme in January 2020.
We are grateful to have many Traditional Midwives in MammaPrimitiva from all over the world.
The Traditional Midwifery Indigenous Practitioner Council holds the responsibility of accountability for Traditional Midwives and Traditional Birth Attendants.
Council
Clare Loprinzi, Traditional Midwife, Gardener, Grassroots Activist, Dancer
Cynthia Ellis, Lubafu Isieni, Cultural Ambassador Belize
Louise Benally, Indigenous Practitioner, Environmental and Human Rights Activist
Phindile Xorile, Dancer and Keeper of Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Maria Luzmila Moran Estrada representing 129 TCBW ;49 Quechua Parteras, 80 Birth Attendants
Raymonde Agella Ayisyen Indigenous Practitioner,Community Birth Worker
Beverly Breech, Author "Am I Allowed?", long time Welch Birth Activist (now in ancestor world)
We are thankful for the website contributions of Traditional Birth Attendant Rosie Carter Suso