Malay midwives and witches.
Social science & medicine (1982) January 1, 1984 W J Karim 13 citations
Among traditional Malay midwives (bidan kampung) in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia, professional rivalry and dissonance surface through oblique attacks of witchcraft accusations. A midwife is also an exorcist with skills similar to the Malay bomoh, but her knowledge of witchcraft is limited to diagnostic and curative rituals for spirit-possession in infants, children, young unmarried women, and pregnant mothers. Codes of professionalism depend not only on skill and experience but also on religiousness, benevolence, virtue, diligence, and fair-play. Witches are conceived as anti-Islamic, uncompromising, malevolent, and destructive. Government midwives who threaten traditional midwives' popularity are also labeled as witches. Midwifery and witchcraft, though structurally opposed in ideology and morality, exist within the same sphere of ritual and symbolic communication.