Author Archives: Macias

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 56
Residence: Riverside Ca
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

When I was little and I had an earache, my mom would take a cotton ball and dip it in warm olive oil that she had heated up to soothe the pain and make it feel better. It was also supposed to make the earache go away too. I know a lot of other kids had their parents do this too but I know my mom had gotten it from my grandma.

I’ve never had an earache so my mother never did this to me but after further research, I’ve learned that it is bad to put olive oil in anyones ear so I don’t know that this would be folklore I would pass on. I do know that this was a common way of soothing the pain.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 56
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/12
Primary Language: English

Your grandmother used to make your uncle and I do this any time we got a splinter or any time one of us had a cut anywhere that got infected. What you do is you take adhesive tape and put it on the infected area. Your grandma swears by it, she thought that if you did this, the sticky part would ‘suck’ out the splinter or puss and heal whatever was hurting.

This method was taught to me when I was little, and I also swear by it. Since my mother taught it to me I tell my friends to do this when they get infections and things like this.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

How to get rid of warts

My grandmother  from Kentucky told everyone she met this. She believed that if you had warts, if you peed on a dishrag and buried out in the street, soon the warts would disappear. She made everyone in the family do it whenever they found a wart and swore by it working.

This being my great great grandmother, passed this superstition belief down for many years so maybe there was some truth to it when she did it. It was probably coincidence that she somehow thought to pee on a dishrag and bury it in the street when her warts went away.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

How to get rid of a cold

My ex-husbands mother from Oklahoma in the ’40’s used to give this to the kids when they got a cough or a cold. But the kids didn’t dare to get sick around her for fear of actually having to take this medicine. What you do is you take turpentine, honey, and the white off of chicken poop and mix it together. You give it to the sick person and they should be better in no time.

I do not actually know if this works because my grandmother didn’t know for sure, but it sounds like poison and I think the children were scared out of getting sick when they knew this is what they had to eat/drink to cure themselves

Folk Cooking

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

How you are supposed to cook a ham.

When a customer was coming over, Cindy bought a ham, cut it in half then put it in the oven. She likes to cook for a hobby so I’m sure she believes this gives it a better flavor or something. One day I asked her why she did that before she cooked it and she said “well, you do, why do you do it?” I told her it was how my mom did it, and even my grandmother. After I had asked her I remembered that I had asked my mother the same thing, she told me it was because when she was little, her mother had to cut the ham in half to cook it because it wouldn’t fit in the small oven any other way.

I had never heard this before until one day in folklore class, many people mentioned knowing that people in their family did this too. When I spoke to my grandmother and she was regailing me with stories, she mentioned this. I laughed because I now recognized it, but I also thought I should add this to my folklore collection because everybody else talking about it used a roast and my grandma specifically said they did this when they cooked hams; a little variation.