The temazcal, from the Nahuatl temazcalli, house of heat, is a low domed structure of adobe or masonry, built to hold heat and steam produced by pouring water over stones heated in an external fire before being brought inside, a technology attested across Mesoamerica well before European contact and still built and used today, particularly in Mexico and parts of Central America. Its use has never been purely medicinal or purely religious in a way that separates the two categories cleanly, since Mesoamerican healing traditions generally treat physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing as a single interconnected system: a temazcal session is sought for postpartum recovery, general healing, purification before other rites, and simple ordinary wellbeing, often prescribed or overseen by a traditional healer, and the practice sits comfortably alongside, and has often blended with, curanderismo, the broader Mexican and Mexican American folk healing tradition.
Patron association with the sweat bath in Aztec religion centred on Temazcalteci, grandmother of the baths, an aged goddess linked to both the sweat bath itself and to midwifery and healing more broadly, reflecting the temazcal's particular historical importance around childbirth, both to prepare a woman for labour and to aid postpartum recovery, a use that remains prominent in traditional practice today.