Tag Archives: sage

White Sage Tea

Age: 21

1. If you have a cold you should drink white sage tea.

2. This participant, born and raised in San Diego, recounted the fact that while she was growing up, her family was very much into holistic medicine and would often give her and her siblings various teas and “natural remedies” for any sickness. One specific medicine she remembers was white sage tea. Whenever she had a cold or a cough or just generally complained about feeling ill, her parents would give her a hot cup of white sage tea to make her feel better. She very distinctly remembers the flavor – she said it tasted incredibly “herb-y” and “earthy” and that she used to complain about the taste until her parents would agree to at least add honey or some type of sweetener to appease her. While growing up, the participant states that she never really thought about the origins of this treatment and simply thought it was normal. Now grown up, however, she has since learned that the treatment is rooted in local customs and traditions of the Kumeyaay – a tribe that has historically inhabited the San Diego area. Although she stated she never actually asked her parents why or how they came across the remedy, she assumes it’s just through the fact that they had always been tapped into holistic remedies, they probably just encountered the remedy through the local community.

3. Interviewer’s Interpretation: Natural remedies or holistic medicine is something that has existed for generations, outdating modern medicine by centuries. This specific interview reveals how localized these practices often are. I myself also have parents who are fairly tapped into the world of holistic medicine, and yet despite this – having not grown up in San Diego – I was completely unaware of white sage tea as a remedy. Although this is a fuzzier distinction to make in the age of technology and globalization, since holistic medicine is not necessarily a mainstream practice, I would argue that it still relies on one’s local environment and historical communities on its upkeep and continued practice.

Sage Burning

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

“I believe in like burning sage to purify your home. I use sage and herbs. When I’m feeling like negative energy or negative stuff starts happening. I believe that it’s something someone else is doing to me or spiritually happening to me, so I burn sage and bless my house.”

Where did you learn about this?

“I learned about this kind of stuff until I lived on the Hoopa reservation. I never learned about this stuff before moving. I started opening up spiritually when living up there. I was aware of this stuff because my mom was clairvoyant.”

Can you please tell me about how you burn the sage? 

“Protection of house. You burn sage and pray and intent. Clearing things. Things happening in your home, you burn sage. Thanking your home when you live in your house because your house is a living energy. It protects your family. It is a safe haven. I also use it for my crystals. I ground myself and I saw a prayer. I usually say Our Father. I mix my Christianity beliefs within my medicine because that’s the one true god i believe in. I walk through the house and open doors and windows and say the Our Father on each part of the house. And I blow it on myself and the house before I blow it out. I also do crosses on door entrances.”

Context: The informant identifies herself both as a Spiritualist and a Christion. She spent a portion of her 20s in Hoopa, California where she learned a lot of spiritualism from the people she met and connected with on the reservation. She has a mixed background of European and Native American ancestry.

Analysis: Burning sage to purify your home is a commonly recognized Native American ritual that has been adopted by many Spiritualists in the US. Through this practice, the informant is connecting to her roots, which have been lost within her own family. Often, Native American ancestry can be eradicated in European family lines, so many people try to reestablish those connections with that part of their identity. Through this reconnection, the informant also blends her Christian beliefs that have been dominant throughout her entire life. Her approach to sage burning shows the complex ways we blend folk beliefs with religion and spiritualism.

Looking specifically at the act of burning sage, the informant identifies the symbolism in the home, how the home is meant to protect us. Sometimes homes can be believed to be haunted or negative energies might enter the home. Sage acts as a way to contract these spooky unknowns in our homes. As ghost stories tend to be centered around property, sage smudging also focuses on property, cleansing the home to be a safe and welcoming space rather than an ominous one. 

Sage to Prevent Spirits from Haunting Property

Text 

Informant: “My mom had many experiences with ghosts. During her twenties, she was constantly moving apartments and had strange experiences in each of them. Doors would open and shut. At night figures appeared and then disappeared. She could hear voices when no one was around, stuff like that. So the next time she moved, she burned sage in the apartment. Now I do that whenever I have to move into a new home. You are supposed to burn sage because you don’t know who’s been on the land. People’s spirits stick around. I think people linger when their spirit is lost and they can’t move on because they’re stuck. People get stuck. Sage will scare out the old spirits.”

Context

The Informant is a 48-year-old Black-American woman. She learned this ghost prevention ritual from her mother and passed it on to me. The Informant interprets this ritual as a way to cleanse new spaces of old spirits. 

Analysis

The Informant and her family are from America, a country that emphasizes individualism, private ownership, and the right to property. This nation’s philosophy stems from John Locke’s individualist ideals in the Second Treatise of Government. In the Treatise, Locke writes that “every man has a property in his own person” and he can take ownership in anything that comes from “the labour of his body, and the work of his hands” (Locke 5:27) In America, the home is where one manages both properties: bodily and physical. The physical property is maintained through household labor (ex: mowing lawn, mopping floors). Homeowners maintain their bodily property through facilities inside the home (ex: stove to cook, bath to bathe). A home is a place where personhood and physical property mingle (ex: homeowners decorate spaces to reflect personal tastes). In short, individuals are strongly tied to property in American culture. Thus when a homeowner dies, it can be difficult for a new person to move in and feel “at home.” Burning sage can be seen as a way to ease the transition between homeowners. The ritual clears out the old spirits to create a clean slate. A blank canvas to welcome new identity, personalization, and labor.

Peruvian Folk Speech- Salar Tu/La Casa

Nationality: Peruvian, American
Age: 43
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 04/27/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Content:

M: Me, I: Informant

I: The saying was “Salar tu casa,” like salt your house, but in Spanish it means that someone is, put something like a bad omen on your home

M: Oh ok

I: Kind of like the thing like that 

M: okay that’s good , like sal-ar

I: Salar la casa

M: and that’s used to say what?

I: It’s like, the house is cursed, or bad omen on the house.

M: Oh okay

I: and then that can also be like lets say um if someone who doesn’t have good will towards you or harbors bad feeling toward you and you let them into your home, then when they leave, they leave that that bad behind

M: Ohh

I: So you are supposed to purify you home like with sage or with holy water, if you have holy water blessed by the priest and you have it at home. You are supposed to pray and clean your home.

Original Script: Salar la casa

Phonetic script: sa.ˈlaɾ  la ‘ka.sa (Spanish is a phonetic language)

Transliteration: To salt the house

Translation: Someone put a bad omen/luck on your home/ your house is cursed/ your house is jinxed.

Context: This folk speech was used and taught to my informant by her Peruvian mother during her childhood when someone with ill will tainted the house with their ‘badness.’

Analysis: In order to understand this folk speech to its fullest is to understand what ‘Salar’ means. Literally speaking, ’Salar’ means ‘to salt.’ However, to salt in English has a much more limited scope than the meaning in Spanish. In Spanish, on top of the English meanings, it can also mean “to spoil,” “to bring bad luck,” “to jinx,” and even “to ruin.” Thus, the proverb is referring to these forms of ‘to salt’ in Spanish. In trying to understand a proverb, it is important to fully translate the words to express their true meaning. To cleanse the house of the bad luck and badness, holy water is used or sage is burned. This makes sense given how Peru is predominantly Roman Catholic but also believes in shamans and some of their practices.

Icky Tea

Nationality: Minnesota-white
Age: 40s
Occupation: Artist
Residence: Altadena, CA
Performance Date: April 23, 2012
Primary Language: English

The informant talked about a folk remedy she learned from her mother and passed on to her children.
“You make it at the first sign of cold symptoms: scratchy throat, watery eyes, aches.
It is equal parts bay leaf, sage, and cinnamon. The cinnamon at the bottom gets all slimy like snot.
I had drank all the water at every rest stop from utah to minnesota and I had got some sort of water sick or something. Originally it had cayenne pepper and lemon in it too. That was practically un-drinkable. Now we separate it out into cayenne and lemon then the tea.
My grandma said if I didn’t get better in 12 hours, they’d take me to the hospital because I was like, 12 and really sick. But we upped the dose and I she got better really quick.
Now we take the cayenne as a pill,  drink lemon-honey tea and do the rest of the icky tea in a cup.”

No one quite knows what about this works but, I tried it last time I was sick and it worked like a charm.