ABSTRACT
Folklorists, anthropologists, and oral historians have long understood that myths and folktales can condense millennia of historical events into stories that are transmitted from one generation to the next; they are, in essence, forms of stored and transmittable collective memory. Myths give coherence and meaning to the lives we live by situating our existence within a larger, cosmological context. Evolutionary anthropology has shown us that our current diet, lifestyle, and reproductive patterns are quite different from those that produced the selective pressures under which humans and human childbirth evolved. Over recent decades, the interventions that were introduced into the birthplace during industrialization have multiplied as more and more countries have embraced high-tech, invasive procedures.
