A functional analysis of southern folk beliefs concerning birth

Abstract

Childbirth is universally recognized as one crisis period in the life cycle and receives varying degrees of interest and emphasis in folk belief; thus in the rural South, while not as widely acknowledged, perhaps, as elsewhere, such beliefs are still much in the folk tradition. Although many of the practices are said to have been fostered by country doctors of the past, apart from the debatable psychological benefits, few, if any, modern physicians would give them clinical credence. However, folk beliefs often function symbolically and thus express many basic values germane to a given culture. The birth beliefs presented here are analyzed in such a context and there emerge several health attitudes plus expressions of such social phenomena as male-female sex roles and the overlap between folk and orthodox medicine.