Category Archives: Folk medicine

Watermelon Seeds Make You Pregnant

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Informant (C): Remember at Walton’s when we used to have watermelon and I refused to eat it and said I was allergic?

Collector (J): Yeah

C: I was never actually allergic and I actually really liked watermelon, but when I was at school some other dumbass kid told me that people got pregnant from eating watermelon seeds so I was crazy paranoid about like, being a child mother, and so I just avoided it like the plague because I didn’t want a kid.

J: Really?

C: Yeah, because, like, my mom was pregnant like my sister and the kid said “oh she probably ate watermelon” and I was like “what?” and they were like “well, like, she has a watermelon in her tummy” or whatever and my dumbass just fell for it. I thought that, like, if you swallowed the seed, you would grow a watermelon in your stomach and then the baby would form in the watermelon. Like now I know that’s ridiculous, but like it was believable as a kid because I didn’t know about sex. I guess that kid’s parents or someone told them that because they didn’t want to explain the whole “your mom and dad had sex” thing. But yeah, after I learned about sex I started eating watermelon again.

Context: C and J met at a summer camp (Walton’s). At the end of each camp session, there was a camp-wide barbeque where watermelon was served.

Analysis: Like the informant said, this belief likely started as a way to wholesomely tell kids how their mothers got pregnant. Instead of explaining puberty and sex, the narrative of having a woman swallow a watermelon seed is easier to explain to a child. It also makes physical sense, because a pregnancy belly does approximate the size of a small watermelon. The inside flesh of the watermelon also arguably could resemble human flesh, which is why it is so believable that a baby can be formed in it. There is also something to be said about the association of fruits and fertility, with the human and plant lifecycle often being associated with each other. The cyclical nature of life as both human and watermelon allow a further association to be made with the human gestation period. Overall, the idea that pregnant women are carrying watermelons and are pregnant because of watermelon seeds isn’t that far-fetched from the eyes of a child who has no knowledge of sex.

Lemon Juice as Hair Dye

Nationality: Canadian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Toronto, Canada
Performance Date: 4/11/2019
Primary Language: English

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Informant (C): I don’t know if this is like, “folk” or whatever ’cause I think it really works, but like, before I started dyeing my hair with, like, real dye, I would put lemon juice in my hair in, like, streaks and then I’d go outside and sit in the sun and wait for my hair to get lighter. Like, I’d do the streaks to get highlights because I didn’t want to be totally blonde, but I wanted something other than just… brown. But like yeah, I’d always see a difference, I mean, it would take a few hours and like multiple lemons, but, like, I’d definitely be blonder afterwards, which was nice because I never actually had to buy hair dye or, like, get yelled at by my parents because it was “natural” or whatever. But after, like, sophomore year, I just stopped giving a shit and went to Hot Topic to actually dye my hair.

Context: The informant is a natural brunette, but frequently dyes her hair, typically red, but originally experimented with blonde highlights. This was a common practice around the school the informant and collector attended. The collecter herself also participated in this practice but didn’t see the same results as the informant.

Analysis: This “beauty hack” is a common belief among young, brunette women who are attempting to lighten their hair. Many online blogs and websites endorse the belief and recommend that those interested put lemon in their hair and sit out in the sun. The belief is that the acidity of the lemon reacts with the sun, creating a bleach-like effect. At the same time, lemon juice is viewed as less harmful than actual bleach and is “healthier” for the hair. This view makes sense, as lemon juice isn’t created in a lab like most artificial hair lightening products. This belief places an emphasis on the “natural” alternative to larger, corporate solutions to lightening hair. It’s a way of outsmarting the beauty companies and embracing a natural way of dyeing one’s hair, which gives the person who used lemon juice a unique story of how they achieved their beauty look. In a way, this practice creates an identity for those who do the practice as natural beauty experts who are savvy enough to avoid the corporate norm of beauty products.

Carsickness Remedy

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Sacramento, CA
Performance Date: 09/04/2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

The informant (ST), a 19 year-old friend attending USC, is of Korean descent on her mother’s side, and grew up in Sacramento, California. She revealed to me an interesting home remedy of her mother’s while discussing alternative medicine and acupuncture over lunch.

Note: The initials ST denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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ST: “Korean medicine is so weird. I used to get carsick when I was little, and my mom used to make me drink this, like, black … dirt liquid. [laughs] I don’t know.”

A: “Dirt? Like, from the ground?”

ST: “Well, she didn’t like, scoop it up … [laughs]. She bought it at this, like, medicine place, but … it was dirt!”

A: “Real dirt? Like soil? Mixed with what?”

ST: “[Laughs]. Yeah! Water. Hot water.”

A: “Did it taste like anything?”

ST: “It tasted awful! Because it was dirt!”

A: “[Laughs]. But did it work?”

ST: “I don’t know. I never felt carsick after. I don’t know if I was, like, distracted by how bad it tasted [laughs], or if it was, like, placebo or something. But I never felt carsick afterwards.”

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I found this remedy immensely interesting because it flew in the face of what I accepted to be true about medicine; incorporating dirt and the uncleanliness it connotes into healing seemed counterintuitive to me. However, as I did some research, I found many scientific studies that supported the idea of “eating dirt”–more specifically, of ingesting the beneficial soil-based organisms present in dirt, which our current obsession with sterility in our food and homes has left us lacking, leading to weaker immune systems. The most fascinating part of this story to me, however, was that the remedy worked despite my friend’s doubts about its actual effectiveness as medicine. Growing up, my parents would try to cure me and my sister of our carsickness by playing road games with us (e.g. I Spy, etc.), and although they never gave us any actual medicine, the distraction they provided from our carsickness made it more bearable. I would be interested in doing more research to know if this “dirt liquid” can actually provide relief from carsickness or if it is, as my friend suspects, simply a diversion tactic.

 

Garlic and milk to cure a cold

Nationality: Ethiopian
Age: 47
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Performance Date: 03/11/19
Primary Language: Amharic
Language: English

The informant is my mother, who is originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she grew up with her eight sisters. When she was visiting from Washington, D.C. where we currently live, I asked her and my aunts how they used to cure colds when they lived in Ethiopia. She shared this interesting anecdote with me.

Note: The initials NG denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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NG: When I was younger, some people used netch shinkourt ena whetet [garlic and milk].

A: woah, really? why? isn’t milk bad for you when you have a cold?

NG: I don’t know. Maybe, actually.

A: Did it ever actually work?

NG: [laughs] I don’t think so.

A: So why do you think people do it?

NG: I don’t know! It’s, you know, it’s nice to feel like you’re doing something to help. [laughs]

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I thought this was a funny example of the fact that some beliefs are unfounded, but are performed simply because they are tradition, or because the belief that the remedy will work is enough for those who perform it. Science has actually proven that there is no actual way to cure a cold, which means that in this way, every cold remedy will work, because the cold will go away by itself in a few days and you can attribute this to whatever remedy you used. I also thought it related to the fact that we like to feel some amount of control when we’re in a situation in which nothing can be done, because although we know there is no way to cure a cold, we all have cold remedies and things we do to try and “cure” ourselves.

Ginger and dough for colds

Nationality: Afghani-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/19/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Dari

The informant is a 20-year-old friend from Los Angeles, CA whose family is Afghani. He volunteered this remedy during a discussion about cold remedies with a few of our friends.

Note: The initials JJ denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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JJ: In my family, we use ginger and dough for sore throats and colds.

A: Dough? Like bread, dough?

JJ: Yeah. Sweet dough. You mix it, and then you turn it into a ball–ok, first, you add some sugar, flour, water…so you have your dough, and then you wrap it around a piece of ginger, and then you cook it.

A: In the oven?

J: No, in a pan. Just until it’s hot and crispy. And then, when you eat it, that’s supposed to help with your sore throat. I think it’s the ginger that does the actual, like, healing.

A: So what’s the point of the dough?

J: I don’t know. I don’t think it actually does anything. It’s like, just to make a…like, a container for the ginger. Because we didn’t want to eat straight-up ginger, so it was to make it taste better.

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Ginger is used in a lot of cultures for cold remedies; my mother makes ginger tea with honey for my sister and I when we are sick, so hearing ginger cited in another cold remedy didn’t surprise me. What I did find interesting was the dough; my friend included the dough as PART of the cold remedy, but also admitted that it actually served no purpose. Ginger was what was actually used to “cure” the cold, but the dough had always been included as part of the remedy when it was given to him. It reminded me of the many ways that parents try to make unpleasant things more pleasant for their children, not only in terms of medicine but also in general–for example, my mother used to put sugar at the bottom of my cups of milk to get me to drink them, and I know that some parents sing songs to their children to distract them when disinfecting scrapes and minor wounds.