Category Archives: Folk medicine

Steam Inhalation in Asian Medicinal Practices

Main Piece:

Informant: Essentially, it’s where you take a pot of water, and you put some herbs… Herbs mainly found in a lot of Asian stores or Asian medicinal stores, and you would boil it… And then you would take the pot, you set it on the ground, and then you either sit on the floor or take a stool…

Me: And, I think I know where you’re going with this: You take a blanket or some type of sheet, you put it over the pot and your own head, and you kinda lean your face down over the pot, right?

Informant: Mhm, yeah. And you just sit there for as long as you want. Usually like ten minutes. And just like steam with the herbs… I personally never used it before… but whenever I see our parents use it, they usually do this when they feel sick. So, it’s like an at home remedy.

Me: I would assume for sinuses, congestion… I have engaged in this type of facial steaming.

Context:

This was performed over FaceTime call with my older sister, a junior majoring in Kinesiology at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her and I are both in our respective bedrooms, and it is late at night. I asked her to speak about this steaming practice we had in our family.

Analysis:

This is very similar to other folk medicine practices, especially sauna rooms. Perhaps, this evolved from other steaming practices in America, Europe, and/or Japan. As opposed to a full body steaming, this is really just for the face. This concept may seem “foreign” to others outside of Asian countries, but this was actually a practice I was very familiar with. Therefore, I didn’t recognize it as folklore because I thought everybody did it. I started asking my roommates and my friends and was absolutely dumbfounded! This at home remedy for sinuses and congestion has become cross-generational amongst me and my family, and I can’t wait to share it with others.

Black Tourmaline Crystals

Main Piece:

SP: My black tourmaline piece… It actually is my first, like, large and most expensive crystal I bought in my collection— Black tourmaline is known to be, like, a protective stone. And I have like lots of little pieces that I kinda just carry around with me all the time. A lot of people use it with clear quartz cause clear quartz acts as like an amplifier, so it’s like amplified protection. I think of it as like cleaning my energy and my space. I have little pieces sometimes in my pocket, when I’m just going out, and I have one that I like tie to my bag, my everyday bag.

Context:

Performed over a FaceTime call. One of my roommates friends, a high school senior. She is in her bedroom in Alameda, California. She obtains crystals from the shop she works at and various crystal stores in the Bay Area and from online shopping.

Analysis:

Crystals have long since been used for cosmetic as well as medicinal practices. I know that one of the first few societies to use crystals as spiritual charms was Ancient Egypt. This practice has carried itself over to the West, and is also used in witchcraft and Paganism. I have often wondered if the younger generation has incorporated them into their beauty routines and self-healing just because they are aesthetically pleasing to look at. The informant houses a massive crystal collection in her home, and she says that this protection charm is one of the most common and is what got her into crystals. The fact that she carries around multiple of them in her everyday life really reflects how people and religions can attribute so much meaning to material objects. It’s quite beautiful.

Tree People of the Philippines – Dwende

Text and Context

DA (informant) – We have the dwende in the Philippines (I think a lot of cultures have them, even Guam). They’re kinda like dwarves and they live in anthills, tree stumps, stuff like that, which is why growing up we were taught to ask for permission before entering the woods.
My mom told me my brother got really sick to the point that they had to go to the hospital, but they couldn’t tell what was up. Apparently he peed on a tree stump and it pissed off the dwende living under it and it cursed him. He was fine in the end though. (laughs)
Interviewer – How were you supposed to ask permission to enter? And what might happen if you didn’t? Similar to what your brother experienced?
DA – You would say, “Tabi tabi po” which basically means “excuse me.” And yeah, it’s so you don’t get cursed in case you happen to disturb their home by stepping on them or something.
Interviewer – Is there anything you can do to lift the curses of the dwende?
DA – Yeah! Witch doctors (in the Philippines: albularyo, in Guam: suruhanu). First they see what’s causing whatever you’re feeling. Usually with melted candle wax and a bowl of water: they let it drip and the hardened wax would form into who caused it. And they tell you what to do based on that. But I don’t really know much about this part.
DA – I remember whenever I got sick as a kid, my mom and my grandma would bring me to an albularyo. She would do this ritual with candles over my head, but I don’t remember much.

Analysis

The informant was telling me about where they had grown up, including the Philippines and Guam, spurred on by an art project that drew upon magical creatures.
The dwende are little tree spirits who, if you disrespect, will cause harm to you, but if you are polite to them, they will leave you alone. I have heard similar stories of the tomten from my own Swedish heritage, who could cause trouble if the inhabitants of the house did not leave them offerings or respect the coexisting tompte.
Belief in the dwende demands respect and politeness for nature, as a dwende could be under any tree one passes. Dwende curses could be lifted by healers who had mastered traditional remedies and were also deeply woven into the traditional Filipino culture. There is a particular saying that can grant you access to these spaces without harm, which lets the dwende you mean no harm to them.

Lickey Doo

Story: My family on my dad’s side, they have passed down a tradition called lickey doo-n i don’t know how it’s spelled… I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you or not… You can only learn it Christmas eve by candlelight and you can only learn it from the matriarch of your family because our family is Jewish so we go by the matriarchs are the boss. When my great grandma taught my father how to do it, it was christmas eve, and she was giving him instruction on how to do lickey doo because someone in the family was sick. They wanted to take care of that person…I … I don’t know all the details of how it’s learned because I haven’t had my session yet… I think how it’s done is you need a bowl of water, you need to do a blessing with oil in the water, um, you need to in some way anoint someone with that oil, um, there’s a prayer that you sing, you CLAP! Your hands together(informant claps) you rub them really fast like this (informant rubs hands together) and you pretty much – lay hands (demonstrates) on someone to administer the magic. I’m a chronic migraine sufferer, and when I was a kid my father would do lickey doo on my head to make it feel better!

Context: The context of this interview was in person in a sculpture yard. The informant watched as I made something with my hands, and in return told me their folklore.

Thoughts: When asked why this is significant to her, the informant says that finding magic in the world around them has been really important to them throughout their life. They also appreciate the matriarchal tradition to pass down the ritual. She learned all of this from her dad, who apparently only remembered a good bit of it because a celebrity on TV said it during an interview while he happened to be watching it.

Analysis: Despite this, I could not find anything about lickey doo on the internet. However, I found some ancient mesopotamian hand rubbing magic that echoed the informant’s. They read, “‘Where have you turned to?’—you recite over the oil [and you anoint yourself?]. 4 [The incantation] ‘To loosen [evil muscle]’—you recite three times over the salve….The incantation ‘Head disease, star, like in heaven’—you rub his temples…. The incantation ‘I recite the incantation for the trial of all gods’—you sprinkle water on the sick person”(Barbara). The links between the material usage is apparent, and the text goes on to instruct the spellcaster to rub nearly every part of the ill person’s body. Despite the informant’s Dutch and Jewish roots, I still believe this connection is important and possibly shows influences from other cultures to create this home remedy for illness.

Bibliography:

Barbara B Ö CK, Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Cient … https://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/125130/1/Ritual_of_Rubbing_2003.pdf.

Vicks as a Cold Remedy

Background information: My mom is a second-generation Filipino-American, meaning she was born here in the US. Her parents immigrated from the Philippines when they were both relatively young, and my mom’s family grew up with a lot of relatives in San Francisco, CA. 

Mom: When you guys were young and you would get sick, I always made sure to put Vicks on your chest and back. You take a lot of Vicks and cover your chest and back with a layer of it and then put face cloths over it. It seals it and it helps you work through congestion and breathing. It clears out your sinuses so it gets easier to breathe. And then you also put Vicks on your feet and put socks over it.

Me: Why on your feet?

Mom: It helps to…suck the sickness out from your feet. The socks help seal it too.

Me: Why did you do this for us?

Mom: My mom always did it for us, and I know my grandma did too. I remember being sick and my grandma seeing me and asking my mom “Did you do this? Did you do that?” always talking about using enough Vicks on us (laughs). I think a lot of Filipino moms know about this one. Your lola knows about it too.

This medical practice is definitely something very specific to Filipino families, as I remember asking my friends if they knew about putting Vicks on their feet, and very rarely did people know what I was talking about. As a child, even though it was uncomfortable, I knew that Vicks would help me get well again because my mom and grandma felt so strongly about doing it as soon as I showed any signs of having a cold. Despite this being a practice of folklore that families pass down on their own, it feels like an “official” medical practice just because I’m so used to doing it.