Birth, marriage, death

Dawn is just breaking. It is still early in the day and the mother is attempting to recover from the birth while her newborn cries in the little wooden crib next to her. Her older children play happily on the floor, carved toys strewn around. The mother is happy that her neighbour has brought clean laundry.

This is what the morning could have looked like in a room where a woman has just given birth, as re-enacted here in the dwelling from Wattwil SG (931). Even though doctors and hospitals existed in the 19th century, it was normal for women in rural communities to give birth at home, assisted by midwives or experienced female neighbours.  Miscarriages were common and infant mortality rates were high, owing to a lack of medical knowledge and the hard everyday life that mothers had to endure.

The birthing room is also the lying-in room, as demonstrated by various items such as the midwife’s bag, the metal tub and the family cradle. Mothers were recommended to take things easy for at least a week. However, rural communities needed every worker they had, so mothers often had to recommence their work at home and on the farm shortly after giving birth.

As soon as you reach the first floor of the house, you’ll hear the rhythmic sounds of someone praying the rosary in the adjacent room. Male and female relatives and village-dwellers fulfil their duty of holding a vigil over the body and praying for the deceased.

In the dwelling from Erstfeld UR (721), visitors are able to see a re-enactment of a room in the Catholic region of Central Switzerland, where a young girl has died. The rituals and traditions depicted are intended to help the person in question have a "good" death and make the grieving period easier for relatives to bear. Praying the rosary aloud is just one of many traditions followed by those of the Catholic faith when a loved one dies. Other customs, such as covering windows and furniture with white cloths, receiving sacraments associated with death, such as confession or the last rites, and displaying crucifixes, also serve to ensure the salvation of the deceased. In the 19th century, people in rural areas gave a good deal of thought to the notion of a "proper" death.