Levana is a birth and childhood deity.
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She was the goddess who oversaw the lifting of the child by the midwife immediately after birth in symbolic contact with Mother Earth. Squatting or kneeling was a more typical birthing position in antiquity than it is now; like di nixi. The infant was then delivered to the mother after the midwife cut the umbilical chord, as is sometimes shown on sarcophagi. Next, a grandmother or maternal aunt held the child in her arms while massaging the baby’s lips and forehead with a finger covered with lustrous saliva in an effort to fend off the evil eye.
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