Skunk Cabbage Folklore

Last weekend I was walking through a park near my house and saw that this plant was growing near some streams:

It is of course skunk cabbage. Technically it's eastern skunk cabbage, or symplocarpus foetidus if you like Latin. There's also a western skunk cabbage that grows in the Pacific Northwest. Skunk cabbage gets its name from the pungent odor it releases when its leaves are damaged or when it flowers very early in the spring. I don't know if pungent is strong enough a word - its odor is reminiscent of skunk spray or rotting meat. One of the chemicals that produces its odor is cadaverine, which is also the chemical that makes rotting corpses smell.

When I saw the skunk cabbage I thought, "There must be some interesting folklore about this plant." And there is. Skunk cabbage was used by several local Indian tribes for medicinal purposes.

Before I list those purposes, I just want to say this: DO NOT TRY ANY OF THESE CURES. I am not a  doctor and am not recommending using skunk cabbage to heal anything. I am simply listing this folklore because I find it interesting.

The Micmac claimed that skunk cabbage could be used to stop headaches, while the Mohegan believed that rolling and chewing a raw leaf would prevent convulsions or epileptic fits. The Abenaki used it to reduce swelling, while the Malecite, who live in extreme northern Maine and Canada's Maritime provinces, also used it for unspecified medicinal purposes.

Again, I wouldn't try any of those remedies because parts of the skunk cabbage plant can be poisonous.

 

Those uses for skunk cabbage came from local tribes. Several Indian tribes outside of New England also used the plant medicinally and for magic. For example, the Iroquois would apply skunk cabbage leaves to a dog bite. This was done not just to heal the wound, but also to make the biting dog's teeth fall out. I was bitten by a dog once and understand the impulse behind this practice.

The Iroquois also used skunk cabbage to increase fertility by passing it over a woman's genitals, and also to fight really bad body odor. For the latter, they would dry the leaves into a powder and rub it into their armpits like deodorant.

Much like the Iroquois, the Menominee of Wisconsin also use skunk cabbage to treat wounds. However, they used it also for tattoos:

Tattooing was not employed by the Menomini so much for the design as for the treatment of diseases, being a talisman against their return. The medicines were tattooed in over the seat of the pain. Not all of the herbs used were identified, for the writer did not see them growing. Among them were powdered birchbark, charcoal pigment, skunk root, deer's ear root (Menyanthes trifoliata L.), red top root (Lobelia cardinalis L.?), black root (unknown), and yellow root, probably Oxalis acetosella L. The medicines were moistened and tattooed into the flesh with the teeth of the gar pike, dipped in the medicines. The various colors stay and form a guard against the disease. (Huron Smith, "Ethnobotany of the Meonmini Indians," Bulletin of the Public Museum of Milwaukee, December 10, 1923)

I think it's wonderful that the world is full of such interesting folklore. We are surrounded by amazing things if you just know where to look.

*****

Most of the information for this post came from the Native American Ethnobotany Database.

New England Folk Medicine: Job's Tears

A few weeks ago I was in the Caribbean on a group tour. We visited a lot of beautiful lush islands, including Dominica.

While we were in Dominica we took a bus high up into the hills (really high!) to see the Trafalgar Falls. After parking we trekked off down a trail through the rainforest to see these two two falls, one of which is hot from volcanic activity, while the other is quite cold. We took photos, admired the foliage, saw a land crab hiding in its hole, and then headed back to the parking lot.

Adjacent to the parking lot was a souvenir market where a bunch of local women were selling their wares. I looked at soaps, hot sauce, small raffia animals, etc. Nothing really stood out. Then I noticed one woman selling what looked like necklaces made of spices and white beads.

"Smell it," she said. "It will keep your closet fresh. It has cocoa beans, nutmeg, bay leaves, turmeric and ginger."

I inhaled. It smelled like autumn in a chocolate factory. 

"What are these white beads?" I asked.

"Those are Job's tears," she said. "They grow down near the river banks here."

Job's tears?

"I'll take it!" I said. Actually, I took three, because they were three for five dollars, which seemed like a bargain.

If you think you've stumbled onto the wrong blog, rest assured there is a connection to New England folklore. Job's tears were used in 19th century New England folk medicine.

Job's tears are technically the seed of the coix lachryma plant, which is native to Asia but now grows in warm climates worldwide. When the seeds are harvested they become hard and white. Mostly used for decorative purposes, various systems of folk medicine also prescribe them as cures for different ailments.

In late 19th century New England, for example, it was believed that teething children should wear Job's tears to soothe their teething pains. The folklorist Fanny Bergren documented this in Boston, Portland, Maine and in Boston, Cambridge, and Peabody, Massachusetts.

A pharmacist in Peabody sold them in his store specifically for this purpose, but local mothers also believed they could prevent or cure sore throats and diphtheria. Bergren notes that one mother brought in a string of the beads she had purchased and showed them triumphantly to the pharmacist. The beads, which were white when she bought them, were now dark and stained.

She explained to the pharmacist that the dark stains had been caused when the beads drew the diphtheria out of her sick child's body and into the necklace. The pharmacist, however, suspected it was just dirt from the child's neck.

I'm not sure why people thought Job's tears would cure sore throats and diphtheria. I suppose I can understand the connection to teething babies, since the small white beads resemble baby teeth, but the sore throat connection is unclear to me. If you have any information on this please let me know!

The plant and its beads are of course named after Job, the Biblical character who suffers miserably after God and Satan decided to test his faith. They heaped a lot of suffering upon him, and although he wept a lot Job did not lose faith in God. Job's tears are also called Saint Mary's tears, Christ's tears, and David's tears. With all those Biblical connotations its no surprise they are often used to make rosaries, which seems like a better idea than using them to heal diphtheria. We now live in a world with effective vaccines, so maybe if I lived in the 19th century I would think otherwise.

I found much of the information for this post in Fanny Bergren's article, "Some Bits of Plant-Lore" in the Jan. - Mar. 1982 issue of The Journal of American Folklore.

Spiders, Toads, and Common Plantain: Folklore Right Under Your Feet

Writing this blog encourages me to see the world in a different way. New England is full of interesting places and stories. Almost every town has its ghost or witches, its haunted cemetery, or its anomalous rock formation. There's something unusual lurking everywhere.

Sometimes it's hiding right under our feet. Last week I went for a walk in the Arnold Arboretum. I was hoping to find a mountain ash tree, but the Arboretum has over 15,000 (!) plantings and I never located one. However, I did find this plant.

It's the common plantain, also known as greater plantain, snakeweed, Englishman's foot, and a host of other things. If you speak Latin, you'll call it plantago major. The ancient Roman's called it planta, which means "the sole of man's foot," because it supposedly followed the Roman legions wherever they marched. You probably have some in your yard or growing out of the cracks in your sidewalk.

Here's a story about the plantain from a the 1798 edition of The Farmer's Almanack:

A toad was seen fighting with a spider in Rhode-Island; and when the former was bit, it hopped to a plantain leaf, bit off a piece, and then engaged with the spider again. After this had been repeated sundry times, a spectator pulled up the plantain, and put it out of the way. The toad, on being bit again, jumped to where the plantain had stood; and as it was not to be found, she hopped round several times, turned over on her back, swelled up, and died immediately. This is an evident demonstration that the juice of the plantain is an antidote against the bites of those venomous insects.

Now, I'm not saying this battle between a Rhode Island toad and spider never happened, but the famous Dutch writer Erasmus included a very similar story in his Colloquies, which were written in the 1500s:

I have heard it told by those that have seen it, that there is the like Enmity between a Toad and a Spider; but that the Toad cures himself, when he is wounded, by biting of a Plantane Leaf.

Perhaps toads across the world all know the efficacy of plantain against spider venom, or perhaps this is a very old folk story that made its way from Europe to New England. Either way, its inclusion in The Farmer's Almanack indicates the high regard English settlers had for common plantain.

In addition to spider bites, over the centuries plantain has been used to treat dysentery, earaches, kidney disorders, and open wounds. Although originally native to southern Europe, plantain has spread across the world. Just as the Roman legionnaires carried it out from Italy, the English settlers carried it to North America.

Because of this the Native Americans gave it the names Englishman's foot and white man's foot, an invasive species brought by an invading nation. However, stories also say that the plant's ability to cure rattlesnake bites was first discovered by a South Carolina Indian. This discovery added another name, snakeweed, to plantain's long list of pseudonyms and spurred that state's legislature to reward the Indian (from Matthew Robinson's Family Herbal, 1863).

I don't know anything about the dangers or benefits of using plantain to treat illnesses or injuries, so I'm not going to recommend it for anything, particularly not rattlesnake bites. If you're bitten by a rattlesnake call 911! But I will recommend looking down when you walk around, because you never know what interesting piece of folklore you're stepping over.

Goldenrod Folk Medicine

Nothing says "Happy late summer!" like a congested head and a scratchy throat. I unfortunately have a cold (blech!), but I know many people also suffer from pollen allergies at this time of year. There are lots of wildflowers blooming in the parks, meadows, and along the roadsides. So pretty, so irritating to the sinuses.

One wildflower that sometimes gets blamed for summer allergies is goldenrod. I can remember people complaining about goldenrod pollen when I was a kid, and I sometimes still hear that complaint. Well, apparently we are all wrong. According to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to New England, the allergies ascribed to goldenrod are actually caused primarily by ragweed.

Don't fear this goldenrod plant!

Perhaps the following will further help rehabilitate goldenrod's reputation: in 19th century New Hampshire, goldenrod actually was believed to prevent rheumatism. That's arthritis to us contemporary Americans.

If you look at the stem of a goldenrod plant you may see a small swollen lump or gall. This gall is caused when an insect (usually trypeta solidaginis, a type of fly) lays its eggs in the plant. After the egg hatches a small larva will live inside the gall until it matures, crawls out, and flies away.

In New Hampshire it was believed that carrying one of the galls in your pocket would prevent rheumatism. These so-called "rheumaty-buds" were only effective while the grub inside them was still alive. Once the grub died you would need to get another gall. (It seems kind of cruel to carry these grubs around just so they could die, but I don't think 19th century rural folk were too concerned with the pain and suffering of insects.) I'm guessing the galls were considered effective against rheumatism because they resemble the swollen joints arthritis sometimes causes, but I'm just speculating.

I've poked around a trying to find information about the life-cycle of trypeta solidaginis, but without too much luck. From the little I found it appears the galls can usually be found in the autumn. I would suggest examining, but not plucking, a gall. Let the trypeta solidaginis live its life!

And if you are suffering from rheumatism or arthritis, please see a doctor. 

I found this little tidbit about in Fanny Bergen's article "Some Bits of Plant-Lore" from The Journal of American Folklore, Jan. - Mar., 1892.

Healing With Seventh Sons in Modern Vermont

Earl Fuller of Rochester, Vermont had asthma for much of his life. He tried various medical treatments but nothing ever really worked.

Then one day one of his co-workers suggested he go see Henry Pare. He said that Pare was the seventh son of a seventh son, and had been given the gift of healing after praying to St. Theresa.

Folklorist Jane C. Beck interviewed Earl Fuller in 1980 about his experience with Henry Pare:

He took my shoe off - didn't take my stocking, I had a silk stocking on with my best shoes. He felt the bottom of my foot, pulled my toes, wiggled them. Finally he rubbed up and down on the center of the foot, then he put his hand up on my knee and says, "all right." I asked him how much I owed him and he says a dollar. "Well," I says, "I'll give you five." And he says "no, I won't take but a dollar. That would ruin my strength." So he took just one dollar. I was breathing just as easy as could be and you know, I went home.

Earl's asthma vanished for seven years, but after a minor surgery it came back. He returned to Pare, who without asking any questions said he couldn't help. "You had an operation and they've cut the nerve off that I work on. They've disconnected the the nerve I work on."

Henry Pare died in 1967 at the age of 76, but according to Jane Beck another seventh son carries on a similar tradition. Roger Beliveau of Troy, Vermont also heals people, and has built a large statue to thank the Virgin Mary for his gift. Unlike Pare he charges more than a dollar, and suggests people pay what they can.

The cultural continuity between the 20th century seventh sons and 18th century healer Isaac Calcott is striking. All three are seventh sons of seventh sons, and heal in ways that are outside the boundaries of accepted medical practice. Of course, there are differences. Calcott healed using his saliva, while Pare manipulated his patients' feet. Pare and Beliveau were both practicing Catholics and claimed their powers came from  God or the saints. Calcott didn't derive his powers from God -  it was just enough to be a seventh son.

Personally, I'm the second son of a first son, so I'm not going into the healing business. People are having smaller families these days. I wonder if seventh sons are going to be harder to find?

The information about Henry Pare and Roger Beliveau is from Jane Beck's "Traditional Folk Medicine in Vermont," which appears in Medicine and Healing. Volume 15 of the Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife.

Healing the Weapon and the Wound

If you were cut by a sword in 17th century New England, either a family member or a village healer would take care of the wound. They'd clean it with water, bandage it, and possibly smear it with a salve containing herbs and animal fat.

If you were lucky, a highly skilled doctor (like John Winthrop Jr.) would also apply a salve to the weapon that injured you. Putting the salve on the sword would magically heal the wound it made on you.

This seems a little implausible to a modern New Englander, but the so-called weapon salve was grounded in a widely held view of the universe. This worldview claimed that if everything in the universe is connected, then the sword that cut you had a particularly strong connection to you. The weapon salve takes advantage of this connection to heal you at a distance.

This blog has a recipe for a weapon salve from the 16th century text Archidoxis Magia. Ingredients include human fat, moss that has grown upon a human skull, rose oil, linseed oil, and human blood. The ointment should sit for a while after it has been mixed. When someone is wounded, the doctor should dip a stick in their blood and then insert the stick into the ointment. The ointment is now ready for use.

Doctors in Europe and New England debated the efficacy of the weapon salve. Some claimed it didn't work, but those who claimed it did had a variety of reasons as to why. Some claimed it worked through magnetism, while others claimed it was the harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Some thought it was just the work of Satan.

I learned about the weapon salve a while ago and thought it was just another piece of folk magic that had long since disappeared. But I was wrong! The practice, or one very similar to it, survived until at least the 1980s in parts of Vermont.

Jane C. Beck, director of the Vermont Folklife Center, has interviewed many Vermonters about their traditional medicine practices. She collected the following piece of lore from a woman in Hyde Park, Vermont:

Similarly, it was believed that a nail that had been withdrawn from the foot, must be treated as well as the puncture wound itself. While salt pork was applied to the wound, the nail was carefully greased, wrapped up, and put into the warming closet where it would stay an even temperature. Today these supplementary measures are considered in holistic terms - treating the psychological mind as well as the body.

Although no skull-growing moss is involved, the theory is the same. Treating the item that injured you will cure your wound. I have no clue how the weapon salve evolved into this folk magic about the nail, but I think the continuity over 300 years of history is amazing.

I got the information about the weapon salve from Walter W. Woodward's Prospero's America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606 - 1676 (pages 195 - 196). Jane Beck's article "Traditional Folk Medicine in Vermont" appears in Medicine and Healing. Volume 15 of the Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife.