Category Archives: Folk medicine

Folk Remedies: Sprite

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Beach, California
Performance Date: 4/11/2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

“My parents had me drink Sprite pretty much anytime I had a headache, chest pain—mostly stomach aches. I remember just drinking Sprite and sleeping more than going to the doctor… growing up. So usually stomach pain or headaches, things like that.”

Background Info: The informant is a close friend of mine in his early 20s. He’s lived in Long Beach, California his entire life and his parents are from St. Louis, Missouri and Brooklyn, New York. He is the youngest of three children.

Context: The informant cannot recall ever drinking Pepto Bismol when he was sick as a child—instead, his parents would give him Sprite to drink when he stayed home from school. He does not know the origin of this treatment but speculates that Sprite was the drink of choice because it’s carbonated. He recalls that his mother never bought soda for the house, so the only time A drank Sprite was at restaurants or when he was feeling ill. He does not drink Sprite when he’s sick now.

Thoughts: This is a pretty familiar folk remedy to me, except the drink of choice in my family was Sprite’s competitor 7 Up. I’ve also heard of alternate drinks, including ginger ale, coke, and other Sprite derivatives. Clearly, the carbonation is common ground between the different drinks, probably out of a rationale that the bubbly liquid has some sort of advantage over flat water or juice. Sprite also has a relatively mild citrus flavor, so it might be easier to get children to stay hydrated by drinking that instead of water. Lastly, soda is something of a special drink—A was not allowed to drink soda, so this might have been his parents’ way of turning something negative (being sick) into a positive experience (drinking something reserved for special occasions). This would also explain why the remedy isn’t practiced much past childhood, the same way that adults don’t ask for people to “kiss their boo-boos” better.

Egg Healing

Context:

MV is a 2nd generation Mexican-American from New Mexico. Half of her family is of Japanese-Mexican descent and much of her extended family lives in Mexico. I received this item from her in a video conference call from our respective homes. She knows about this practice from her nana (grandmother) but she has never had it conducted on herself.

Text:

MV: When someone gives you the ojo… the lady, this could be your nana, or like anyone really, they could get an egg and rub it all over your body, and then all the bad energy goes in the egg.

JS: What’s the ojo?

MV: The ojo is when someone puts the ojo on you, like… if I gave you the ojo you’d be getting some bad energy. It’s like I bewitched you.

…

You pray a little bit and then rub it over your body… you do the cross up here (draws a cross on her forehead with her finger) and then just rub the egg over the rest of your body.

And then some people even say if you crack the egg in a glass of water, and like you see a trail, like in the water from the yolk, that’s the bad energy. But some people don’t do that.

JS: So it has to be, like, a special someone?

MV: Yeah usually it’s the brujería person… a bruja, a witch I guess… all nanas are like that.

Thoughts:

The association of eggs with luck and goodness has long and deep roots. Venetia Newall provides a sketch of the various uses of eggs in ritual, magic, and belief: cosmological models, magical properties, the notion of resurrection, games and festivals emphasizing fertility and fecundity. (Newall) Her study focusses mainly on egg-lore in an Indo-European context but these significances resonate with our example here. The notion here is that eggs have healing properties, capable of dispelling and absorbing “bad energy.” The association of the egg with rebirth, shedding of old ways, fertility, youth, suggests that here, the egg is valued for its life-giving properties. Brujería likely has a long history that cannot be fully examined here but of note in this example is that the bruja, or intermediary, is always an old female – “all nanas are like that.” There is a kind of magic associated with older females which resonates with the egg as a symbol of fertility, the womb, and a source of life. In this variation, the catholic gesture of signing the cross on one’s body is present with some notable exceptions to the mainstream church’s gesture. The cross is made on the forehead, combined with the secular folk magic of the egg. This is not the gesture sanctioned by the catholic church as an international institution, but a gesture that incorporates elements of both secular, paganistic belief as well as religious reference: it is both Catholicism and Brujería, a mix of Christianity with a folk magic which the Catholic church has historically demonized. This healing practice is thus a way of combining multiple sacred traditions and forming a unique model of spirituality that sets secular magic against and alongside the hegemonic colonial forces of Catholicism.

Newall, Venetia. “Easter Eggs.” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 80, No. 315. (Jan. – Mar., 1967), pp. 3-32

Hiccup Remedies

Nationality: White American
Age: 56
Occupation: Media Relations Specialist
Residence: San Francisco, California
Performance Date: 4/27/20
Primary Language: English

Context:

I collected this piece of folk medicine from my mother (LP) during a particularly infuriating bout of the hiccups. She grew up in suburban Colorado in the late 20th century and learned these tricks from her parents. She has “had success with all of them” but wonders “if it is psychosomatic, like you think it’s going to work so it does.”

Text:

LP: you’re supposed to drink water like this (mimes drinking water upside-down), drinking from the back of the rim. You can also hold your breath, or eat a spoonful of sugar. And being scared, startled, when someone says BOO!

Thoughts:

With no surefire medical consensus on how to deal with hiccups, people have often resorted to folk remedies that sometimes seem farfetched. The hiccups (Synchronous Diaphragmatic Flutter) are a quite harmless and normal biological event. They often happen after eating fast or drinking carbonated beverages and amount to little more than an inconvenience, and since they often pass within minutes, it is not common to seek professional medical help to remedy them. Nevertheless, they are annoying, and we feel like we must do something to address them. In a brief experiment, I tested all the methods my mom mentioned: the upside-down drinking and the sugar had no effect. My mom even sat down to startle me, and while I was indeed startled, I continued to hiccup moments after. Ultimately, holding my breath, after multiple tries, worked to alleviate my hiccups. I believe that my informant’s thought on the matter, that these remedies are mostly forms of placebo, is convincing. All of these different techniques require you to do something unusual, something that takes concentration or stimulates the senses in a startling way. These remedies can distract someone, often to the effect of clearing the hiccups away. Since the remedies that doctors offer are often unsatisfactory, people have created a long list of folk remedies that employ the placebo effect to address this annoyance.

Healing an ear infection or ear ache

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 43
Residence: California
Performance Date: 3-28-2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background: Informant, B.B is a mother of 3, she knows about this home remedy because of her mother.

Main Piece:

Interviewer:Are there any kind of home remedies that you took from your mom and used on your kids?

Informant B.B: Yes, a remedy my mom told me about when my kids kept getting ear infections was to dampen a cotton ball and stick it in their ear. Then I would grab a paper and roll it up thinly, kind of using it like a funnel and lit it on fire. It sounds crazy but it would always work

Interviewer: What was the purpose of lighting it on fire?

B.B: I think it would “suck up” the pain from the ear, I am not too sure how it works and did not believe it would work at first but to my surprise it did.

Context: My informant is a family member, when I asked her about any home remedies she knows about, this one instantly came to mind. She used it plenty of times, because of how effective it is.

Thoughts: This home remedy sounds a bit dangerous, because of the fire but I suppose the purpose of the paper is to act as a funnel and keep the fire away from direct contact with the ear so with a parent doing it, it should be safe. It is interesting how it sounds like a crazy remedy but actually works.

La Vicks / Vaporu

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 43
Residence: California
Performance Date: 3-28-2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background: Informant, B.B. is a Mexican American mother of 3, who turns to home remedies before going out to buy medicine.

Main piece:

Interviewer: Is there any alternative to medicine that you’ve used?

Informant, B.B: Yes, my mom always claimed vicks vapor rub was the answer for any sickness. So when I had kids I began to use it too

Interviewer: What kind of sickness is it for? How does it help?

Informant, B.B: Usually for a cold, or congestion is when we would use it. When we noticed our kids had a runny nose, we would get the vapor rub and put a dot of it under each nostril. If we noticed they had a cold and a cough, we would rub it on their chest. My mom always told me that it helps by opening up the lungs allowing them to breathe.

Context: A interview between me and my family member. I asked her about any folk medicine or folk remedies she knows of or any she has personally used.

Thoughts: Vicks vapor rub has become a meme in the latino community because latina mothers first recommendation when their kids get sick is usually vicks.