Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Apple Valley CA
Performance Date: 4/10/12
Primary Language: English

Since my grandmother has been a nurse all her life, she somehow managed to learn numerous home remedies and folk medicine that she swears by to this day that she also learned from her mother which seem to work better than modern medicine for some.

One of the more interesting remedies she seems to go by involves earaches. She believes that if you have an earache what you need to do is blow cigarette smoke into the infected ear and it is supposed to help the ear heal quicker. This is one of the craziest folk remedies I’ve ever heard of to date, it seems that cigarette smoke would hurt the ear because of the chemicals but maybe there is some ingredient that helps ears.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 54
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/12
Primary Language: English

A common household fix for back pain.

When my mother was little my grandmother and the same for my father, would take a regular drinking glass, heat it with a match, then slam it down on the part of the back that was in pain. This was said to suck the pain out of the area for immediate relief. This is something I had never heard of until discussing folklore with both of my parents in which they both agreed that this is what their mothers would do because someone somewhere had told them it would work and take away back pain. I’m sure this method could be used other places than just the back but this is where it was usually used.

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: Hispanic
Age: 54
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/12
Primary Language: English

How to cure a child of their erratic behavior.

Whenever a child is acting crazy or erratic and the parents are embarrassed or something of their behavior or they were being made fun of for how they acted or something, what you are supposed to do is crack an egg in water and put it under the bed. When you check on it in a couple of days and if the egg dissolved in the water, then the child was supposedly cured of whatever their behavioral problem was.

I’d never heard of this before but apparently, this was supposed to work when children were acting crazy.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Apple Valley CA
Performance Date: 4/10/12
Primary Language: English

An old way of getting rid of a cough, cold, or congestion is something my mother used to do for me when I was little. You make a mustard plaster from dry mustard, water and flour. You are supposed to rub it on your chest and it makes you sweat so you can get better faster.

I had also never heard of this before my grandmother telling me about it but after looking it up online I found that it is a commonly known folk medicine belief. There are many websites that explain what happens and how this remedy works.