By Jonatas Dornelles
Anthropologyst

It might go unnoticed but pregnancy comes enshrouded in mystery, rituals and bias, even at these days and age. The maternity-pertained rituals undertaken by the natives of Trobriand isles in the past, for instance, not only revealed its magnitude for the community but also a clear and present concern towards bodily aspects revolving pregnancy.

The amazingly richness of magic and symbolic patterns of such rituals as meant to render the woman invulnerable against witchcraft that, accordingly with local beliefs, has always followed childbirth.

Within the social sphere, however, the intrinsic public ceremonial emphasized the significance of motherhood for the family and the community itself.

In one of such rituals eight women would kneel down solemnly in front of a rug whereupon the ritual garments of the mother-to-be would lie. The skirts and robs made of banana leaves were covered with bits of luscious foliage from an herb that bears tulips as whitish as the snow itself.

Bending over they’d hold still while reciting a spell. The goal was to make their breath conveyed the magic words underneath their clothing. The spell would impart their eagerness to improve the pregnant figure. The skin paleness was linked to esthetic attainment as far as the natives concerned. Whence the following stages were meant to render the gestate skin cleanse, whitish and smooth.

Not so long ago, in some Brazilian towns, as it so happened, during pregnancy the pregnant woman would be kept away to prevent exposing her ungainly shape. Then loose fitting clothing would be worn by them from the fourth month onwards, which could disguise their bulging belly. Showing off their shape on the beach was considered inconceivably senseless. This demeanor became old-fashioned upon improvement of social customs. The pregnant women would go to the sea-side and swimming pools totally unconcerned, could wear pants and dance without the slightest hint of disapproval.

Nonetheless, certain neglect tendency of the woman herself towards her own body would be noticeable to date. An evidence of such negative outlook towards the body is the minimizing streak that most pregnant women and so-husbands may display when the bodily changes imposed by the pregnancy itself become noticeable. The woman perceives her body as shapeless without attractive to render itself desirable to her husband’s gaze.

This frame of mind is linked to the stigma that the bodily changes may never retrieve past childbirth; then some definitive aesthetic drawback would be set in. Never mind grown concern with the supposedly irreversible changes for her sexual organs.

Without fully understanding how such minute aperture could give passage to a three kilo baby, she thinks that the pregnancy would deform her body forever.

This fear aside from a rather superficial outlook could bear some profound symbolism. Better still, her concern of changing as a person upon the motherhood pursuit would be always lurking around. Perhaps may never come to recover her old identity and turn out to be someone else with more to loose than profit from it.