Coyolxauhqui Another Scientific Book for Indigenous Societies: A Partera's Perspective

This book is written using an Indigenous Perspective. The need to decolonize the myths of Coyolxauhqui arose while sitting in Cultural Anthropology courses at California State University, Los Angeles. During these courses, the dehumanization and belittling of indigenous scientific knowledge by Western European academia awaken my indigenous roots, and my Partera’s perspective to decolonize the erroneous perception of indigenous accomplishments and the erroneous definition given to Coyolxauhqui. Linda Tuhiwai Smith encourages indigenous researchers to retell our indigenous scientific accomplishments from a decolonized framework.

Smith argues that research done from an insider’s perspective is a form of community empowerment because an insider is not distorting the knowledge of that community being researched. The purpose of the work is to argue that indigenous societies developed scientific methods, theories, publications, and scientific discoveries just like Western European discoveries. Second, this work revises the image of Coyolxauhqui by correlating it to the solar system, to the female reproductive system, and the phases of labor and delivery. And lastly, the discussion of the various themes attempts to take a gender neutral position by using the word WombIN instead of woman/men.

[This copy is the 2nd edition]