‘Women are not brave enough’; Semelai male midwives in the context of Southeast Asian cultures

Abstract

[...]most Semelais today cannot grow food or rely on forest resources, and must depend upon cash income from their own rubber holdings or from wage labour. According to Mead and Newton (1967:192), 'In most cultures, daughters, sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law, co-wives, and other relatives and friends are regarded as the natural helpers of a woman during the childbearing process'. [...]a person who was standing on the ground could not hand a cigarette to someone sitting in the house. [...]of government education and propaganda, Semelai thinking in regard to birth may have moved from a sense of its routineness to a dread of crisis situations beyond the reach of government services.