“Depending on what type of illness you have, we have different, strange cures. The most traditional one for my family is, if you’re feeling sick, usually, stomach ache or fever, or something like that, uh…well my mother – er – both my mother and father, used to rub me down with an egg and they would pray while they were doing this. Then, you know, once they got finished, you know, rubbing me down with the egg, you know, they’d put water in a cup and crack the egg into it. After that they’d ‘read’ what the white stuff in the cup, you know, said in it. My dad is the actual one that does the readings, because he can – well, me and my older sister have always wondered how can tell what signifies what. Then the tradition is, I think, three days after you let it sit out, you flush it down the toilet. But when you do that, you can’t look at it when you flush it. You have to turn away and throw it into the toilet and flush. ‘Cause otherwise, the sickness will come back to you, is what they say.”

This specific cure is one that I have never heard of before and it strikes me as fascinating because it requires more than one person as two separate pieces of the ritual must be carried out at the same time. In learning this from his mother and father, my informant seemed very convinced that this type of folk medicine would be beneficial and for him it has been! Modern medicine better watch out as cultural remedies are once again on the rise.