WOMEN ARE NOT BRAVE ENOUGH by Rosemarie Gianno

Semelai male midwives in the

context of Southeast Asian cultures

The Semelais are an Orang Asli or aboriginal people who share a common

language and culture in Peninsular Malaysia. During the twentieth century,

there were both male and female Semelai village midwives. In contrast to assertions that only men could deliver babies (because only they

knew the proper spells to welcome the baby into the world), some women claimed

skills as midwives. In some neighborhoods, women had attended enough births

to established their role as 'custom.' In others, however, 'custom' deferred to the

husbands of pregnant women. The disagreement was not just about roles; men

were more likely to emphasize the spiritual status of the newborn, whereas women

relatives (officially assisting or otherwise) worried about the health of the mother .

Birth attendance in Semelai culture

'Midwife' in Semelai

The older Semelai word for midwife, mudem, itself provides insight into the

ritual role a midwife is expected to play. Mudem also meant, and continues

to mean, 'circumcisor'. This Semelai word appears to derive from the Malay

word modin 'circumcisor'.4 Modin, in turn, is derived from the archaic Malay

word muadzin, which means 'caller to prayer' (Wilkinson 1932,1:147), which

itself comes from the Arabic muezzin, 'caller to prayer'.

In 1963, mudem meant 'midwife' (Hoe 2001:113) as well as 'circumcisor'

in Semelai (Hoe 2001:81). In 1980, when I asked for the word for midwife,

Semelais invariably responded bidan (cognate with the Malay word for 'midwife').

However, in the flow of conversation they, especially older people,

often used the word mudem instead of bidan. 

How does a person become a midwife?

Semelais believe that there are certain magical omens and amulets (cnroh 'met

things') that an individual can (or must) encounter, usually in the forest, that

confer a certain fate or ability (Atkinson 1989). For midwifery, one omen

would be seeing a banana flower open. Another would be a cascade of water

from a forest tree (thought to be the water from a mati?anak (vampire spirit

of a woman who died in childbirth) bathing her child). Such an encounter is

believed to imbue the person with the power to become a midwife. However,

to retain this power, the experience must remain secret. Therefore, it appears

that fate or luck can dictate whether one believes one has the spiritual backing

to become a midwife. Thus, men, who are much more active in the forest,

stand a greater chance of encountering these phenomena.