UNUSUAL MEDICINE

 

Even as late as the early 1800s, that is, 120 years after Spanish colonization, our ancestors turned to some very unusual (for us) remedies for illnesses, using the things available to them at the time.

Unusual things such as diseased body parts and animal poo.

French visitors to Guam in 1819 wrote down their observations, describing some of these unusual cures. Some of these remedies used things that only came after Spanish colonization, such as some animals. But the principles probably went far back to pre-contact times.

Access to western medications was very limited, so one has to keep in mind that necessity is the mother of invention. When one is sick, one takes what one can get.

TÅKE' BABUI

One Chamorro lady fried pig feces in oil and applied the paste to the part of her body that ached. She boasted how the pain went away. The French doctor remarked that it was simply the heat of the fried manure that did the trick.

The Frenchman only had to remember that the ancient Romans and Egyptians also used fecal matter, both human and animal, in various cures. The Romans, for example, considered that animal manure was good fertilizer. It made the land grow and produce. So perhaps it could also heal the human body. Cows and other ruminants ate herbs that were known for their healing properties, so the digested herbs in cow manure could possibly heal as well, so they thought.

Another Chamorro took canker sores that had come off and boiled them in water till half the liquid evaporated. In one gulp, she drank the brew and cured her stitches, which are cramps or aches around the abdomen or sides.

SPIDER'S WEB

To cure indigestion, rice flour is grilled with spider's web (tararåñas or tiraråñas), and then the powder is added to water and the patient is given this to drink.

Perhaps less distasteful, to us, were other ingredients used in remedies such as grease, charcoal and the soot of burnt shells.

In addition to these, our ancestors had recourse to the many and varied plants that had curative benefits. Although some of these plants are very bitter to the taste, we wouldn't find them as strange to consume as tåke' babui or tararåñas.