When the Spanish arrived in the New World in the mid-16th century, Mesoamericans were practicing several different kinds of water purification rituals that involved young children. Bernardino de Sahagún reported that the Aztec midwives ritually bathed newborn children, invoking the cleansing power of the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue. Implicit in the practice was the assumption that infants may inherit evil and impurity at birth, as can be seen from the words the midwife spoke during the ceremony.

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The Codex Nuttall, a preConquest painted picture book from the area of Oaxaca, Mexico, shows what appears to be a Mixtec baptism by immersion. The drawing depicts a woman underwater emerging from a tortoise shell, an iconographic statement of rebirth (see the accompanying illustration).