Folk Medicine/Remedy:

When someone has hiccups, they should drink water hunching over from the farthest side of the glass, and then the hiccups will go away. 

Context: 

The informant learned this folk remedy from her father when she was very young. She doesn’t have many home remedies within her family, so she always remembers this one very vividly whenever she has hiccups. She also remembers very vividly the times that her father helped her with this remedy growing up.

Analysis:

This, like many different folk remedies and medicines, is not easily proven to work through science. Regardless, the informant says that it has always worked for her. Whether this folk remedy is placebo or has truth to it, it tells us that the remedies that families and communities pass on to each other stick around not only because of their proven effectiveness as a cure or remedy, but also because of the memories that they create and how they bring people together. 

This folk remedy is an example of a ritual that carries just as much value in its effect of bringing groups together as it does in actually serving its original purpose. Further, remedies like this hiccup remedy continue to be passed on, again, not just because of their effectiveness in curing hiccups, but because of the sense of identity and community with which they provide their practitioners with the memories made in the act of sharing them.