Quilombo de Praia - MG, 2015
“Mãe de Pegação” is how Crispiana Barbosa Lima (92 years old) is known in her community at Quilombo de Praia. Being a midwife her whole life, she had given birth to almost everyone in this picture. Those who weren’t delivered by her hands were replacing several hundreds who were. Up until this moment, Mother Piana had performed 2014 deliveries, all successful, and without the loss of any mother's life.
Piana is a direct descendant of enslaved people. She arrived in Matias Cardoso with just one year old. After becoming a midwife, she performed hundreds of births using only her traditional knowledge. She is an important midwife in the region and in the State, being called for complicated births and being assisted by conventionally trained doctors.
Meeting Mother Piana made me speechless in face of such wisdom and experience. What I wanted the most was to sit down and listen to her talk for hours on end and record all her experience.
In 2016, Mother Piana received the Maria da Cruz Medal, a tribute given by the Governor of Minas Gerais to female personalities for their valuable cultural, social and economic contribution. At the time, Piana said: “In 1952 I had my first delivery. I learned it all alone and I have had more than two thousand births since I was 23 years old. I never imagined seeing the governor here and rewarding me for this memory of life that I have ”.
Piana is still alive and active. Since then, her almost century-old hands have brought two more small lives to the world.
Meeting Mother Piana made me speechless in face of such wisdom and experience. What I wanted the most was to sit down and listen to her talk for hours on end and record all her experience.
In 2016, Mother Piana received the Maria da Cruz Medal, a tribute given by the Governor of Minas Gerais to female personalities for their valuable cultural, social and economic contribution. At the time, Piana said: “In 1952 I had my first delivery. I learned it all alone and I have had more than two thousand births since I was 23 years old. I never imagined seeing the governor here and rewarding me for this memory of life that I have ”.
Piana is still alive and active. Since then, her almost century-old hands have brought two more small lives to the world.
