Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Folk Medicine: Acne Remedy

Nationality: Slovenian/Mexican
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: University of Southern California
Performance Date: April 4, 2011
Primary Language: English

The informant heard the following folk medicine remedy for acne from her father.

The concept is that the person with acne is supposed to cut a chunk from an aloe plant and smear it on his or her face: “I used to have really bad acne [laughter] so have a li’l so when he was younger and so my [her father’s] sister—his [her father’s] mother would tell them to put aloe vera, like the plant, all over their faces and stuff, ‘cause it’s s’posed to be like, healing for cuts and stuff like that, g—and inflammation, so’e—sh—my aunt especially would do that, so, that’s . . .”

The informant says she has never tried it “cause [she doesn’t] own an aloe vera plant, but . . . [laughter]”

However, she believes that the remedy would work: “I think it’s a good idea, I mean, it seems like it makes sense—things I’ve seen on TV and stuff, seems like—natural remedy thing would work, so, yeah.”

Acne is caused by the buildup of dirt and oil in the pores, so it seems unlikely that this remedy would work and more likely that it would just further clog the pores with plant gunk. A pimple is not a wound like a cut to be soothed, and although a pimple stinging from having been scratched open might feel better, it probably wouldn’t go away any faster. Acne is associated with puberty, which is a liminal stage and might therefore be irritating to the sufferer as a signal that he or she is not quite one thing and not quite another.

Folk Etymology – Arizona

Nationality: American - Caucasian
Age: 67
Occupation: Caregiver
Residence: Whittier, CA
Performance Date: 22 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“When Pancho Villa, that is when American troops were chasing Pancho Villa across the border in a, in a series of skirmishes the Mexicans heard the Americans singing the song ‘Green grows the lilacs’ which was a popular st-st-st uh, song turn of the century. And so what the Mexicans heard was not ‘Green Grows the lilacs’ but they heard green – gringos. They said it really fast, ‘gringos’. So that’s what I, where I heard that that came from, was gringos.”

The informant is a 67-year-old caregiver residing in Whittier, California. He has divided most of his life between California, Iowa, and Colorado but lived in Phoenix, Arizona for a few years.

The informant said he heard it when he lived in Phoenix back in the 50’s when he was in late elementary school. He said it was closer to Mexico then (perhaps meaning that he was closer to Mexico then). The context that this folk etymology came up was my sister was showing pictures of her honeymoon in the Mexican Riviera and she mentioned that she felt like a gringo when she was down there as she didn’t speak any Spanish. We got to talking about the difference between the terms ‘gringo’ and “americano’ and the informant rattled off this little tidbit. He had told us this etymology before and with gusto, which likely indicates that he believes it is true.

The informant is a bit of an encyclopedia of random knowledge that he likes to spout off, and this etymology is likely one of those facts. I personally had believed the informant for many years until I asked him where he learned it and if he had corroborated this story. He learned it from someone else and hadn’t cross-referenced for veracity. I personally think it’s interesting how sure he is that his story is true. I think it’s interesting that this story would make the term seem fairly harmless. It’s just a linguistic mess up – so when someone calls another a gringo it’s just a local term for someone. And yet I have spoken to a few Spanish-speaking people, one in particular who was Dominican, who said she wouldn’t call her friends gringos – so apparently the term has negative connotations, yet this etymology makes to reference to the negativity surrounding the word.

Chili Peppers, Folk Medicine – Mexican

Nationality: Mexican American/ Slovenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student - Neuroscience
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I used to get sick at lot, like in high school with like, ah, chest congestion and all that lovely stuff. ‘Cause it’s, I guess, cold in the East Coast. So, uh, and I, and my parents would tell me, ‘oh, you should just eat chili peppers’ like red chili peppers ’cause their spicy.’ And you know my mother would always say, ‘So you father’s mother’ – so I guess my grandmother, ah, ‘she never never used to get sick ’cause she would always eat chili peppers.’ You know, and she said, “you know that’s the good thing about Mexican people they would eat all these chili peppers so they would never get colds and stuff like that.’ So, I don’t know why my mother would say that because my mother’s not Mexican, my Dad is. So he would say the same thing but my mother, being my mother, would really try to push that. I think she heard that from my Dad and just took off from it.”

The informant is from Arlington, VA. She said that she thought the concept of eating chili peppers to keep away a cold or to fight a cold made sense. The chili peppers likely kill the germs (i.e. a cold) and clean out the system. Though she has never tried it, she said it might work.

I think her analysis of why her Slovenian mother and not her father repeated this bit of folklore was telling. It seemed her mother may have had a more maternal instinct for trying to make sure her children were healthy and so grasped at this as a chance to do just that. She also may have seen this bit of folklore as a way to control something that was more than likely a great deal out of her control – that her daughter seemed to have a predisposition to getting colds in a cold climate. It may have relieved her that there was some way to help her daughter out there. I think it is also telling that Andrea has never tried this – that says to me that her Mom may have been trying to relieve some anxiety rather than truly cutting up some chili’s and putting them on a plate for her daughter. The informant’s conclusion that it makes sense that it would work may come from her theoretical biology knowledge as learned from her Neuroscience major.

Chili Peppers

Rose water

Nationality: German-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles and Irvine CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Some spanish

“After I turned sixteen, every time that I came over to my grandma’s house she would always have like this vial of rose water with her and she would just be like, here you  need to put this on so you can find a boyfriend. That was like her thing, she believed rose water was a bringer of love because it was made with roses. And, now every time I smell it I think of her because it, it’s just kind of her, it was like her little obsession kind of thing about me finding a nice boy who would be attracted to this smell. So if she helped me then it would be faster. Well she’s from Georgia and she was a debutante, she was all of, like every stereotypical southern kind of girl and so I’m pretty sure she heard it from her mom, who it’s been kind of like a tradition they passed down sort of.”

Flowers symbolize new youth and fertility.  It makes sense that a debutante would pick up on this, and pass it on to her daughters and grand-daughters.  The scent of flowers are almost intoxicating.  Perfumes often have flowery and rosey scents because of this.  Wearing the scent from a bright red flower is like an advertisement to potential partners that one is young and beautiful.  There seems no better way to try to attract the attention of a young man by using a rose smelling perfume or rose infused water.

Wood Carvings – Iowa

Nationality: Czech American/ German American
Age: 93
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Whittier, CA
Performance Date: 22 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“He was in a installing a gas, a-a- gas in a basement, or hot water heater and he didn’t know it but it was, the pilot light was still on – he light a match and the explosion was pretty bad. He was burned all over and one hand was burned real bad. But he started to carve things to get his hand flexible and those are from him.”

Why would it help his hands when asked why he thought it would help his hands she answered: “It flexed it, it gave his hand exercise…maybe somebody said if you exercise your hand it will be more usable and it was. Originally it was kinda like a claw [she shows me her hand in a clenched-claw shape] it was really bad.”

The informant as well as her father were born in rural Iowa and are of Czech decent – more specifically Bohemian decent. The informant is a 93-year-old housewife who has lived in the Los Angeles area since the 1950’s.

When asked who told him that whittling would help his hands grow in dexterity the informant didn’t know. In fact, I asked several members of the family and no one knew. The informant and others in the family reacted defensively when I asked, answering right away that it did indeed help him. When I asked where he got the designs from the informant said that she thought he just got them out of his head.

Whittling is a common American pastime, especially around the 1920’s and 30’s (Reynolds 80). This was the era that the Czech American folk artist was whittling away, starting with his wife’s broom (much to her dismay). This carving of whatever piece of wood could be found was observed also in a Folk Art Museum in New York state (Rita 19). As far as the folk remedy for a severely disabled hand, the origins of this are less clear. C.J Reynolds, D.D.S in a Popular Science article from April 1924 mentions that whittling helped with improving his “manual dexterity” so key to his profession as a dentist (80). The pieces picture above actually somewhat resemble some of those picture in the article. Something particularly striking about the pieces is their clear use of geographic shapes such as squares and triangles. After doing some research I found that the dominant use of these shapes are similar to those used in chip-carved spoons found in Eastern Europe – which were also carved with a simple knife (Sentance and Sentance, 118). These spoons, however only took small chips of the wood out, leaving the surface nearly flat still while the angles in the above pieces are far more three dimensional. This three dimensional quality more resembles the totem poles made by Native Americans and the walking sticks made by African Americans in the south( Sentance and Sentance, 24-25; Burrison, 70). In this way these pieces can be seen as a mixture of both old world and new world influences.

On another level, these wooden carvings are entering our family as cherished folk objects whose story has been passed down four generations now. My grandmother offered each of her over a dozen grandchildren a few of the more than 50 that she has left. It is almost a mark of family identity that we know that our Czech grandfather made them. The story itself could perhaps be seen as a family member triumphing in the face of adversity by making something beautiful in order to counteract this terrible explosion that happened.

Burrison, John A. Shaping Traditions: Folk Arts in a Changing South. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000. 70.

Reif, Rita. (1975, April 12). Antiques: wood carving: 139 ‘varied’ findings in new york state on view at folk art museum. New York Times, p. 19.

Reynolds, C.J., D.D.S. “Fun and Profit in My Jack-Knife.” Popular Science. April 1924, 80.

Sentance, Bryan, and Polly Sentance. Craft Traditions of the World: Locally Made, Globally Inspiring. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2009. 118-119. Print.