Marsidudu, a model of maintaining the ethnicity identity beyond traditional practice of warming up postpartum mothers

Abstract

Warming up the body of a postpartum mother is a common tradition in Asian countries, including Indonesia. This local tradition, marsidudu, turns out to be very much connected with the maintenance of the ethnic identity by the members, including when they no longer have the domicile in their original area. In a new place, the spirit to maintain the identity is conducted through the medium of a postpartum mother’s body and with the support of different power relation between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law in conducting the marsidudu practice. This unique ritual keeps an interesting narration, not only about the traditional practice but also about the insight on how an ethnic keeps maintaining itself.

Keywords:

• Postpartum
• traditional practice
• identity
• mother’s health

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Lincoln Geraghty, School of Media and Performing Arts, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

SUBJECTS:

• Social Sciences
• Anthropology - Soc Sci
• Arts & Humanities
• Humanities
• Cultural Studies
• Medicine
• Health and Social Care
• Health & Society

Background

The tradition to warm up a postpartum mother has been known since a long time ago and has been practiced in Asian countries (Withers et al., 2018). In China, this tradition is called ‘doing the month’ and believed to have been conducted for more than two millennia (two thousand years) (Holroyd et al., 1997). This practice comes from a belief that the first month after giving birth is the crucial stage for a mother in labour. For nine months of pregnancy, a body of a mother is believed to be in the state of having unbalanced energy. Thus, the period of month has to be used to return the energy balance in a body of a mother (Ding et al., 2018).

The practice is also widely spread in all over Indonesia’s area with a variety of different names for it. The practice can be found in Gayo ethnic in Aceh, with the name bedaring (Fitrianti et al., 2015). The tradition is also found in Timor, with the name se’i (Handayani & Prasodjo, 2017). In the Halmahera Island, Maluku, this tradition is called bafufu (Wakhidah et al., 2022). Moreover, in the areas of North Sumatera and West Sumatera, this tradition is called mararang, marapi, mandandang, or marsidudu (Dewi et al., 2020; Muary & Amelia Sembiring, 2022; Silalahi et al., 2022; Sitorus et al., 2017; Susanti, 2018). Even though the names are different from one area to another, the main principle of all those is to provide the heat from outside the body of a postpartum mother.

In this tradition, a postpartum mother goes through a special ritual. When doing marsidudu, a postpartum mother is sitting down or lying down in a special bed. Then her body, particularly her reproduction organs, is exposed to smoke or fire coming from the burning of leaves or local plants. According to Sinambela, any woman who does this practice will apply a warm compress on her body, and that compress consists of hot water boiled with local leaves and oil. Moreover, she will be sitting down on warm cloth as well, and this cloth has been soaked with spices (Sinambela, 2019). This practice is conducted every day for 30 to 40 minutes, for at least 40 days.

This tradition is very much related with the society’s perception on the mothers’ body condition when they are pregnant and in labour. There is an assumption that during pregnancy, the mother’s body is in a cold condition. Therefore, it is necessary to have a special therapy to restore the balance of cold and hot conditions so that the mother can be healthy again. Hence, the hot or warm temperature coming from the burning of wood or spices is considered to be able to resmoothed blood streams (Muary & Amelia Sembiring, 2022).

Besides having a health risk due to the unmeasurable heat temperature, this practice also produces dust from the burning of the wood or leaves, which usually cannot be cleaned until this practice is completely conducted. The dust threatens the health of the woman conducting this practice and the health of the newborn, who is typically with his/her mother in a small room with minimum ventilation (Fadzil et al., 2016; Muhammad Wafiuddin Wa’ie et al., 2020; Sinambela, 2019). However, what remains as a question here is that why they are still practicing such a tradition, even though they are no longer connected with the area where they were born and raised (Yeh et al., 2014). In their new domicile, in an urban area, where the modern health facilities are really completely available, why do the members of an ethnic keep attempting to conduct this quite unique post-partum treatment?

Until today, the existing literature only observes this from the conflict between biomedical perspective and these traditional practices (for example, Bazzano et al., 2020; Groark, 2005); however, very few studies learn deeply on the most solid and strongest reason on why such practices are still carried out, particularly in Indonesian context.

This paper reviews on the survival of this tradition called marsidudu. The study will map the motive behind the survival of this practice and explain the existing social mechanism which allows this traditional practice to be carried out with the absolute obedience. By revealing the reason(s), the marsidudu practice will be able to be understood more comprehensively.

Method

This research applies the qualitative approach that collects the data by using an in-depth interview in order to dig deeper into this research topic. There are seven mothers that have done the practice of marsidudu and have the domicile in Medan to be interviewed. The interview topic is about the implementation of marsidudu in the past and the behaviour control mechanism of such a practice.

These informants were approached by the researcher through a kinship relationship with one of the initial informants. This initial informant helped introduce, accompany, and provide personal insight on the research questions. Through her, the authors could build a good rapport with other informants. She played a role to bridge the relationship with the rest of informants by communicating with the informants language, approaching them with their local manner, so that they did not mind going through in-depth interview with the authors. These informants fulfilled the criteria determined, which are (1) having conducted marsidudu at least after giving birth to one child and (2) having the domicile in Medan for more than 5 years. In addition, it was emphasized that the informants did the marsidudu in Medan, which also became an important criterion to select an informant. Based on those criteria, the initial informant then helped explore to discover informant candidates. The informants were found generally because there are communities of Mandailing ethnic in Medan. By contacting the leaders of the communities, with the help of initial informant, we could discover the informants. All the interviews were conducted in the informant’s house in several meetings there. There were the informants interviewed twice, but in average most informants were interviewed three or four times. This happened because these informants had their own activities like working, taking care of their family, and doing social activities. Information dynamics given by the informants seemed to already reach saturation point from several early informants interviewed. Nevertheless, we still continued with the interview up to the 7^th informant. The interviews were carried out using the Indonesian language or Mandailing dialect (see the attached interview guidance).

The data management started with making the transcription of the interview data. Afterwards, the coding process was conducted toward all the data using NVivo. The themes deriving from the coding process were then selected by considering the research objective. The data that had been collected were managed in accordance with the main theme questioned. All the informants were requested for their availability to participate in this research by using a verbal consent, despite the fact that the authors already obtained the ethical approval by Faculty of Medicine, HKBP Nommensen University Number 469 A/KEPK/FK/I/2023.

The research was conducted in Medan, one of the cities in Indonesia that is very heterogenous. Meanwhile, the ethnic of all the informants is Mandailing ethnic. The Mandailing original ethnic is originally located in the area of the southern part of North Sumatera Province, around 450 km by land trip.

Informant identity

All of the informants have the background of Mandailing ethnic and were born in Mandailing. The informant demography profile can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Respondent demography profile.

Name	Age	Number of children	Occupation	Length of marriage	Length of having the domicile in Medan
Sampe Khairani	35 years old	3	Traded	18 years	15 years
Subaidah	48 years old	3	Housewife	30 years	23 years
Mawarni	37 years old	2	Housewife	15 years	33 years
Syarifah	43 years old	3	Housewife	20 years	19 years
Asliah	46 years old	2	Traded	26 years	24 years
Wiwis	36 years old	2	Tailor	7 years	8 years
Khairani	46 years old	4	Traded	24 years	37 years

Most of the informants have had their domicile in Medan for more than 10 years, except for one person who has just been living there for eight years. This means that they have been living far from their birth place for a very long period of time. Around four informants have a full-time job, while the other four are unemployed. The age of the informants is all above 30 years old.

Ritual implementation

Before carrying out marsidudu, some spices are put together into a frying pan and then cooked using wood or coconut husk. Those spices generally consist of patchouli leaves, citronella leaves, lime leaves, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. After the spices produce smoke, still by using the frying pan to cook them, they are then put under a seat or a bed where a hole has been made. In that place, a postpartum mother, by using a sarong covering from her neck to the rest of her body, carries out marsidudu. In her position of sitting upright, she receives the smoke from the frying pan containing those spices so that it reaches her body, particularly her womb. The process takes place until the mother sweats, usually around 30 minutes, every day.

For the informants, marsidudu is a way to get rid of the dirty blood from inside the body, which will be dangerous for the health of the mothers if it is not out. Mrs. Wiwis told us her experience.

After carrying out that marsidudu, I no longer have the problem of peeing; if I am not mistaken, it was a week after I gave birth and there was dirty blood like blood clots coming out. I believe it was because of doing marsidudu since in that therapy our private parts received the smoke after we gave birth so it might be the cause of those blood clots to come out.

The dirty water inside the body is not only blood. There is also sweat, which is considered as the source of discomfort and cold inside our body. Mrs. Syarifah, a housewife, stated that In doing this marsidudu, our body is warmed up so that our sweats will keep coming out; after giving birth, our body becomes unstable unlike before giving birth. Our stamina becomes less, and we can become tired easily. Moreover, the weather in Medan is unpredictable; sometimes it rains, sometimes it does not. So if we carry out marsidudu even during the rain, we will not feel cold because we have been warmed up and our sweats have been out, so our body will feel good.

The effects of marsidudu for mothers are told by Mrs. Khairani as follows, So if we have carried out this marsidudu, plenty of our sweats will come out, especially if we have given birth, our stamina will be less unlike before, so we need to get rid of the poisons inside our body in order for us to be healthy again.

After the process of smoking is completed, the mother is allowed to take a bath using herbal medication also made of spices, which is rubbed on her hands, legs, and also belly, and it is believed to be able to help warm up the body. That is how the tradition is carried out every day for a postpartum mother using spices and conducted in a place provided. All of the preparation of spices, cooking, and the help to carry out marsidudu are usually done by her mother-in-law or her sister-in-law.

Hot vs. cold

The tradition of marsidudu is very much related with the insight that since being pregnant up to the labor time, a pregnant woman often feels cold. The cold feeling will very much influence the health of the woman who is going to be in labor.

Mrs. Asliah told her story when doing marsidudu, …. After giving birth, we usually feel feverish and cold, but I did not experience that; in fact, after doing this marsidudu, my body felt better fast, and I could do the trading soon after giving birth compared to other female traders who had just given birth.

The same story was also told by Mrs. Sampe, who works as a trader. So I was told by my mother-in-law about this marsidudu and she told me that this tradition would make my body recover its health sooner. At first I did not really care about it, but after I tried it, it is true what my mother-in-law has told me. I have had three children already so far. After giving birth to the first and second ones, I did not feel the pains in my body. That is why my mother-in-law asked me to do marsidudu.

The stories from these two informants above reveal the fact that the tradition of marsidudu makes them do their activities as usual sooner than expected. As traders, they of course have to deal with customers every day, and those two informants really want their bodies to recover fast. They have to quickly interact with their customers again because those customers can move on to other traders if the places where they usually buy things are closed for too long. The informant named Mrs. Sampe, in another part of the interview, revealed that in only four days she could already be independent, could take care of herself, and no longer needed the help of others.

Besides that, according to the informants, practicing marsidudu turns out to be able to make the healing process of the wound due to stiching after giving birth become quicker and easier. According to them, when doing marsidudu, there is heat coming out, and the wound due to stiching at the reproduction organ will dry out faster.

Mrs. Syarifah told the benefits she felt when practicing marsidudu. She said, I felt the good side effect especially after I just gave birth, so there were still some scars of stiching due to giving birth. Those scars dried up fast. I made sure about that again to the midwife whether the scars had truly dried up and the midwife confirmed that it was true. The practice of marsidudu made the scars of stiching dry up fast, even though we just felt the heat during the practice. But it is good for our body. So after giving birth to my third child, I also practiced marsidudu because it made my body feel good and my scars of stiching dry up fast.

Identity

Practicing marsidudu is very much related with the tradition of Mandailing ethnic. The tradition has been known for a long time and keeps on being practiced because the informants keep using their experience in the past as their reference, although right now they have lived far from their original area (hometown). Mrs. Subaidah told her experience.

Well what can I say? I used to live and was raised in my hometown until I had two children who were also born there. So when I was in my hometown after giving birth, my mother prepared marsidudu for me starting from my first child and my second child. After giving birth to my first and second children, we moved to Medan. A few years later, I gave birth to my third child. Before my third child was born, my mother had passed away. So after giving birth to my third child, I also continued practising marsidudu, but it was not my mother who prepared it. My husband and I prepared it. Fortunately, my husband and my mother-in-law are also Mandailing ethnic people, so we all know how to practice this marsidudu. It is because this is already a tradition from our hometown for the women who have given birth to practice marsidudu. Thus, if we did not practice it after giving birth, we felt that there was something missing and we did not feel good about it. The same goes with the birth of my fourth child as I practiced marsidudu too after giving birth.

The statement from Mrs. Subaidah above is very interesting. Those people keep preserving the tradition considered to provide comfort and faith because it is part of the tradition of Mandailing, their ethnic. Even though they live far from their hometown and now they are living in a city, the faith toward the importance of preserving the tradition of their hometown remains strong.

Not far different from Mrs. Subaidah, Mrs. Asliah said that I have practiced marsidudu since I gave birth to my first and second children. After I gave birth to my two children, I practiced marsidudu. Actually I know about this marsidudu because I used to live in my hometown. Almost all people in my hometown practice marsidudu. So in my hometown, most of the people work as farmers. Thus, I saw the women there a week after giving birth could go back to work because of practicing marsidudu. So because of that I also practiced marsidudu and even now when I live in Medan, I still practice marsidudu.

Mrs. Asliah talked about her life experience in her hometown and felt that even though she is now living far away from her hometown, marsidudu remains important. Marsidudu remains the ‘agenda’ carried out in her daily life right now in Medan.

Marsidudu as identity resistance

To practice marsidudu in the middle of a multicultural city is certainly not easy. The equipment and spices for the practice are hard to find because in general the plants used can only be found in a very far location. However, this is not an obstacle. Mrs. Sampe talked about her experience on it.

Actually I did this marsidudu because my mother-in-law asked me to. Thus, this is because my mother-in-law is from Mandailing ethnic and lives in a countryside in South Tapanuli. So every time I was about to give birth, she came to Medan just to take care of me. She was staying for one to two weeks here to take care of me.

The kinship relationship with a mother-in-law turns out to be beneficial to preserve this tradition. The mother-in-law of Mrs. Sampe came all the way from her own hometown to ensure that the tradition of marsidudu remains to be conducted by her daughter-in-law. She brought with her the ingredients of marsidudu needed by her daughter-in-law. Moreover, indeed the presence of a mother-in-law cannot be easily refused. In fact, based on the experience of the informants, their mothers-in-law become the source of marsidudu practice. Mrs. Wiwis talked about her experience on that.

At the beginning I did not know about this marsidudu. Even though I am from Mandailing ethnic, I did not know how to practice that. So I did this marsidudu due to being forced by my mother-in-law. That is because my mother-in-law would be angry at me if I had not done this marsidudu. So whether I like it or not, I had to do it.

The narration above shows us how importance it is to practice the identity value as Mandailing ethnic, which is in this case via the practice of marsidudu. If we refer to the hometown meant by Mrs. Sampe and Mrs. Wiwin, the location of South Tapanuli is about 8 to 12 hours by land trip. The encouragement for their daughters-in-law to apply marsidudu made those mothers-in-law willing to go through that long trip to be able to help their daugthers-in-law practice marsidudu for several days. The mothers-in-law would like to make sure the tradition of marsidudu is conducted well by their daugthers-in-law.

Discussion

The practice to warm up the body of a postpartum mother like marsidudu mentioned in this paper provides very strong information on the preservation of traditional beliefs in many ethnics on human body, where it is viewed that it has to be in a balanced position, which is between the hot and cold conditions (Yeh et al., 2014). The body of a postpartum mother is in a condition dominated by coldness. If this cold condition lingers, it is risky to make unwanted things to happen both for now and in the future toward the health of the mother. Therefore, by using charcoal, hot water, smoke, hot steam, cooked together with certain plants, the body of a postpartum mother can be restored to the ideal body balance so that the mother can recover and do her activities normally (Liu et al., 2015). As we have observed from the insight of the informants, marsidudu provides a good effect so that the mothers can recover and return to their routine activities. Those informants really believe in the benefits of the practice of marsidudu.

What is interesting in this research is that the informants often mentioned that the term marsidudu is related to their hometown, referring to the location where they come from (their original area), in which they no longer live for years (Table 1). The narration of ‘hometown’ literally refers to something obsolete, old, and irrelevant with the modern era. However, even though the tradition is considered from their ‘hometown’, they keep doing it anyway. The informants expressed that as ‘people from a countryside’ they keep believing in the benefits of practicing marsidudu.

This condition does not directly show confirmation that the tradition from their ‘hometown’ is more beneficial than the medical progress in a ‘city’, which is their place of domicile now. The belief in the benefits of marsidudu shows disbelief in the biomedical procedure in the treatment of postpartum mothers.

The narration on the practice of marsidudu believed in by the informants is a seen practice, a thin description, borrowing Geertz (Geertz, 1973). The practice is a traditional knowledge according to the users, containing goodness for them. Hence, it is not surprising if the practice to warm up the body of a pregnant woman tends to continue to be done even for the next pregnancy by those mothers (Muhammad Wafiuddin Wa’ie et al., 2020). According to the mothers who participated in marsidudu, they felt that their bodies were fresher faster, allowing them to resume to their activities more quickly.

Nevertheless, this traditional practice is not the only practice preserved. Traditional practices are ways for every ethnic to keep preserving their tradition (Fadzil et al., 2016). Their identity is no longer in a physical form (Shennan, 1994), but it is also in ritual practices. In this paper, it is seen how Mandailing ethnic preserves their identity with a very unique way. The pregnancy process and postpartum women become the media to keep materializing self identity as Mandailing ethnic. Hence, what is really preserved is not the practice itself but the self identity as an ethnic member. This is what is called as ‘thick description’ from the practice of marsidudu (Geertz, 1973).

The life development enables many ethnic members to do migration, leaving their hometown behind. The pressures on every ethnic member living far away from their original area often emerge due to modernization or in the name of progress, but the identity embodiment process carried out without physical pressure makes every ethnic member practice behavior considered being able to represent themselves and their identity with full of pride (Bourdieu, 1990, 1998). In a place far away from their birth place and original community, they show their very strong self determination.

The migration done by the informants since many years ago does not really make them leave their identity (Creed & Ching, 1997), and it does not necessarily make them have to come back to their hometown (Christou, 2006); on the contrary, the identity resistance mechanism in a new place provides them strength to keep holding on to their true identity. Marsidudu is a social ‘weapon’ to keep surviving as a Mandailing ethnic member.

For that reason, those who live far away from their ‘hometown’ have to make sure their obedience to carry out the tradition. In addition, the presence of a mother-in-law from their ‘hometown’ to take care of her daughter-in-law is a way to make sure that true identity is maintained. The obedience relation of a mother in labor as a daughter-in-law toward her mother-in-law has the background caused by a position difference where the mother-in-law always has a higher position than her daughter-in-law. A mother-in-law in a family concept in Indonesia places a very central position, and she even often dominates the family decision (Zaluchu, 2018, 2022). The arrival of a mother-in-law from the ‘hometown’, with the reason to take care of her daughter-in-law and to bring spices for the practice of marsidudu, shows the power domination owned by a mother-in-law. The final goal of her coming is clear, and that is to make sure the tradition showing identity of an ethnic is carried out and continued on, even though her children and in-laws no longer live in the ‘hometown’.

As a result, there is no other way, as delivered by Mrs. Wiwis, other than to become obedient and to follow the ritual of marsidudu. As physical obedience happens, the obedience toward norms and true identity as Mandailing ethnic indirectly remains being preserved, not with force but through the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. A mother-in-law is not just a social agent monitoring the implementation of this marsidudu tradition but also an important figure to make sure the true identity values do not shift in the middle of the urban modernization and the health treatment progress existing in a city.

The present research conducted is limited to merely one specific ethnic. Besides just one ethnic, the study also does not cover other aspects which might be applied to preserve identity by Mandailing ethnic. We highly recommend other future studies to reveal local cultural wealth, explored in-depth, to uncover how local traditions remain to be preserved by ethnic members while keeping the interaction with a wider community.

Conclusion

This paper has explained that the ritual of a traditional practice for postpartum mothers is still carried out. The community practicing it keep surviving because it is related with the effort to keep maintaining the ethnicity identity and even to show their prideness toward their own true identity. Every ethnic has their own effort, carried out without any force, implemented normally, and oftentimes via the relationship dynamics between social agents so that the identity of an ethnic remains to be seen and survives.

Interview guide

1. How long have you been living in Medan? Why did you move from South Tapanuli to this city? What was your main consideration?

2. How is your interaction with your ethnic? What kind of activities do you do to show the interaction? Are those done routinely? Do you join an organization related to your ethnic?

3. How do you use the language of your ethnic? What about at home? In daily communication? In social activities?

4. When did you give birth? Who helped you? Where did you give birth?

5. Did you do the traditional ritual of marsidudu? To which child? Was it different from one child to another? Why was it different?

6. How did you do marsidudu? What ingredients did you need and who helped you obtain them? What ingredients did you need to have them shipped to Medan and who helped bring them to you?

7. Where did you obtain the knowledge on the importance of marsidudu traditional ritual? What positive things related to your health do you know so that you have to do marsidudu? Have you ever discussed another option of treatment with a health worker? What is your opinion on marsidudu and why did you still decide to do it?

8. How is the perspective of your neighbours, family, or relatives on the importance of marsidudu? Have they suggested it? Or have they forbidden it?

9. Do you know the reason why marsidudu has to be done? What problems do you think will occur if marsidudu is not done by a mother just giving birth? Will there be problems with her baby? Where did you obtain the information on those problems? Who has told you all that information and why did you have to listen to them?

10. According to you, how is the quality of your health after doing marsidudu? According to you, is your good health quality caused by marsidudu or by other things?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rizky Fadillah Lubis

Rizky Fadillah Lubis is a young researcher at Universitas Sumatera Utara. She graduated from Department of Social Anthropology and have involved in some research in local tradition. Currently, she is immersed in the practices of anthropology within the context of plantation communities in the Tapanuli Selatan Region, where the ancestors of the informants in this research belong to the Mandailing tribe.

Fotarisman Zaluchu

Fotarisman Zaluchu is a senior lecturer at Universitas Sumatera Utara. Graduated from University of Amsterdam (PhD), The Netherlands and University of Leeds (MPH), United Kingdom. His research and activities have been related to maternal health. Currently, the main focus of his research is the social context of maternal and child health issues.

Sabariah Bangun

Sabariah Bangun is a senior lecturer, has a long time career in gender and women reproduction health. She is still serving as speaker and researcher in women’s health.

Irfan Simatupang

Irfan Simatupang he is a senior lecturer at Universitas Sumatera Utara, graduated from University of Indonesia (PhD). He is mainly focusing his research on local politics and tradition.