"Sometimes the Yoni Is Like a Jasmine Flower": The Vayattati's Hands in Twentieth-Century Kerala.

Abstract

In this article, the author relies on oral histories from vayattatis who worked in southwestern India over the course of the twentieth century and on archival research to examine the techniques and technologies that have been and continue to be a part of both pre- and postpartum care in southern India. The author tracks the wider social contexts and histories of this figure and examines how they came to learn, develop, and adapt their techniques of care for women and children through the generations. The author also examines how they constructed their corpus of authoritative knowledge as a necessary antidote to what they perceived as both the inaccessibility and technicism of biomedicine. The article also presents the vayattatis' own critique of technoscientific modernities and the toll they took on women's bodies. The article also examines how the vayattatis used unique local techniques including massage to facilitate postpartum healing and recovery.