Tag Archives: folk medicine

Coin Rubbing / Cao Gio

Main Piece: Coin Rubbing / Cao Gio

“It is a piece of traditional Asian medicine and the prospect of it is, you take a coin, usually a bigger coin such as a quarter or silver dollar, and you use some type of oil or liquid that you can apply like vaporub, take that and you apply it to your skin, not to the coin, and it is performed on somebody’s back when they are feeling sick or cold. You put the coin on the persons back and you kind of scrape. There are a few variations, but for my family it has been that you go along the spine and outwards on both sides of the back. It leaves streaks on your back and the more red the streaks are after doing it continuously, that is the level of sickness that you have. The purpose of it is to get the bad blood to rise to the surface which is supposed to heal the sickness.”

Background Information:

The informant learned this performance from his parents. Both the informant and his parents are Vietnamese and this is a traditional Vietnamese ritual for healing those who are sick.

Context of the Performance:

This is performed on a person who is sick or is cold. It is a traditional medicine, so this would not be performed on somebody who is not sick.

My Thoughts:

I think that this is a very interesting folk medicine and I am very curious to find out whether it works or not. There are many different folk medicines, some of which work and some do not. If a folk medicine is proven to work consistently, it is taken into the field practicing professional medicine. This folk medicine reminds me of bleeding a person to get rid of the bad blood inside of them, but that was proven to not be an effective way of curing somebody from a sickness. Both are aimed at getting rid of the bad blood inside of a person, although bleeding a person literally rids the body of blood whereas this folk medicine only brings blood to the surface of the body, but it still remains underneath the skin.

Annotation:

For more information and versions of traditional Vietnamese coin rubbing, please see below.

Yeatman GW, Dang VV. Cao Gío (coin rubbing). Vietnamese attitudes toward health care. JAMA. 1980 Dec 19;244(24):2748-9. doi: 10.1001/jama.244.24.2748. PMID: 7441861.

Northern German Cough Remedy

Context:

The informant, AH, grew up in a small village in northern Germany and learned this cough remedy from her mother.

Main Piece:

Mix crushed onions with brown sugar and let it sit until the juice is pulled out. That resulting juice helps with coughing.

Analysis:

This type of cough remedy seems to be pretty common in northern Germany, as I have heard other onion and brown sugar based cough remedies from people who grew up in different villages in the same area. This form of cough syrup is safe for kids and accessible, which makes it very convenient for rural mothers. I do not know how or why this remedy works, but I do recognize a sweet syrup base as a common form for cough remedies, usually paired with something very sour or bitter.

For reference, this piece of folklore collected is a cough remedy that uses lemon and honey, and contains additional insights about similar sweet syrup + sour or bitter ingredient cough remedies: “Folk Medicine, El Salvador,” Iris Park, USC Digital Folklore Archives, September 10, 2020, http://folklore.usc.edu/folk-medicine-el-salvador/.

German Wart Treatment

Context:

HH is a retired former housewife who lives in Westergellersen, a small village in northern Germany.

Main Piece:

“Knüpfe soviele Knoten in ein Band wie du Warzen hast. Dann vergrabe das Band bei Mondschein unter einem Stein. Wenn der Faden zersetzt (verfault) ist werden die Warzen verschwunden sein.”

Translation:

Tie as many knots into some string as you have warts. Then bury the string under a rock by moonlight. When the string has decomposed, the warts will have disappeared.

Analysis:

This practice is a folk magic ritual that utilizes the Homeopathic principle. The knots on the string represent the warts, and the decomposition of the string metaphorically decomposes the warts along with it. An interesting note here is the need to perform the burying part of the ritual under moonlight. The moon is a highly magical and superstitious symbol in many societies, and is widely associated with magic, and especially women’s magic (though the moon is a masculine noun in the German language).

The rock under which the string must be buried does not seem to bring anything specifically auspicious or magical, but could serve multiple other purposes. First, placing the string beneath a rock would help speed up the decomposition process, as it creates an environment where organisms can more easily break down the string than if it was in an open space. Next, the rock weighs down the string and keeps it in place. If the string is anchored beneath a heavy object, it’s less likely to move around due to environmental factors like weather, or be taken and moved by an animal. Finally, placing the string beneath a certain rock makes the burial site easy to identify, which is helpful for tracking the decomposition of the string.

Love binding

Context:

B is one of my close friends and has connections and friendships with all kinds of people. Shes heard of many practices and stories from friends that have performed these practices themselves or through others. She heard of this practice through her cousin who had a friend that actually performed this.

The context of this piece was when we were talking about some superstitions we had heard of or practices and B mentioned her cousin had recently told her this one.

Text:

B: “Uh this one is a little gross like nasty kind of but hey, you asked. So my cousin told me that she has a friend who did this on her husband. She’s just weird like that but whatever. So its said that if a woman gives a man some of her blood, like her….period blood, then he’d be in love with her forever and not fall for anyone else. And that’s what my cousin said her friend did because he used to be such a flirt with all the girls but now he’s like a puppy on a leash.

Me: “Wait, the guy just willingly drank something like that?”

B: “I’m sure some guys are into weird stuff like that but nah my cousin’s friend was sneaky with it. She put her own period blood into some spaghetti she made for him. Her you know, stuff mixed in with the sauce so he couldn’t taste it. But apparently it worked for her because she says she feels like he’s bonded to her or something like that, I don’t know”

Analysis:

This interview really surprised me because I had never heard of something like this existing or even being done to a person.  This folk content also piqued my interest because I found it to be an example of Homeopathic magic. In this piece, the desired outcome is for the person receiving the blood to change their external temptations and become devoted to the giver of the blood. In order to do that, my informant’s cousin’s friend put their bodily fluid into an edible substance, which is supposed to symbolize the receiver’s connection to the giver. I think this could also possibly be contagious magic as the practice requires a physical secretion from the giver’s body in order for it to be completed

Mal De Ojo

Context:

J is a first generation Salvadorian-American and has made friends with different kinds of people from different cultures. She heard this one from a close friend of hers and tries to employ it now in her everyday life.

The context of this piece was during a shift at work after attending some customers. These customers had a baby with them.”

Text:

J: “Oh gosh I was so scared I looked at that baby for too long! She was just too cute you know. Like I told myself not too but I just like babies too much”

Me: “Why were you trying to not stare? I don’t think the mom would’ve minded, she seemed nice during the transaction.”

J:  “I didn’t want to give the baby mal de ojo. I don’t know if you heard about what that is but my friend told me about it. Apparently, its like a illness you can give to cute little babies. But its not like coughing on them or anything like that. She told me that if you look at a baby for too long it’ll make them fussy and like sick. I guess its like, like your stare is too strong or something and it ends up making the baby cry. Even if you don’t try to give them like a strong start it can still give them ma de ojo so I just try to look a little but not for too long. Or you can just touch like their hand and it’ll go away, or that’s what my friend told me about it.”

Analysis:

The mal de ojo is a folk illness and its translation into English is “evil eye.” This folk illness primarily affects children and babies are usually the most vulnerable. This belief is that a simple look or a stare can cause symptoms of bad luck, sickness and even death. As J said, infliction of mal de ojo does not have to be intentional for it to be given to a child. Treatment and prevention vary in different regions. For example, in Mexico it is thought that the person admiring the child can prevent the malady by touching the child while in the Caribbean touching the child is thought to exacerbate the problem. A folk remedy to this illness is the performance of an egg cleaning. I found this interesting because I had heard of this folk illness before, so it was interesting to hear it from J’s perspective and see in person how she handled avoiding it.