Pow-Wow Folk Healing

To Ascertain whether a Sick Person will become well again.

Cut a piece of bread, rub the patient's teeth therewith, and throw it before a dog. If he eats it, the patient will recover. Otherwise, the disease is dangerous.

Or

To Ascertain whether a Sick Person will Die or not.

Take a piece of bread, place it before the sick one's brow, then throw it before a dog. If he eats it, the patient recovers; if he rejects it, the sick one dies.

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For Dysentery and Diarrhea

Take the moss off of trees, and boil it in red wine, and let those who are affected with those diseases drink it.

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To Destroy Warts

Take blossoms of the walnut tree, rub the warts with them, and they will soon heal.

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To Cure Weakness of the Limbs

Take the buds of the birch tree, or the inner bark of the root of the tree at the time of the budding of the birch, and make a tea of it, and drink it occasionally through the day. Yet, after having used it for two weeks, it must be discontinued for a while, before it is resorted to again; and during the two weeks of its use it is well at times to use water for a day instead of the tea.

Or

Take Bittany and St. John's wort, and put them in good old rye whiskey. To drink some of this in the morning before having taken anything else, is very wholesome and good. A tea made of the acorns of the white oak is very good for weakness of the limbs.

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For Deafness, Roaring or Buzzing in the Ear, and for Toothache

A few drops of refined camphor-oil put upon cotton, and thus applied to the aching tooth, relieves very much. When put in the ear it strengthens the hearing and removes the roaring and whizzing in the same.

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For Vomiting and Diarrhea

Take pulverized cloves and eat them together with bread soaked in red wine, and you will soon find relief. The cloves may be put upon the bread.

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A Salve to Heal Up Wounds

Take tobacco, green or dry; if green a good handful, if dry, two ounces; together with this take a good handful of elder leaves, fry them well in butter, press it through a cloth, and you may. use it in a salve. This will heal up a wound in a short time.

Or

Go to a white oak tree that stands pretty well isolated, and scrape off the rough bark from the eastern side of the tree; then cut off the inner bark, break it into small pieces, and boil it until all the strength is drawn out; strain it through a piece of linen, and boil it again, until it becomes as thick as tar; then take out as much as you need, and put to it an equal proportion of sheep-tallow, rosin and wax, and work them together until they form a salve. This salve you put on a piece of linen, very thinly spread, and lay it on the wound, renewing it occasionally till the wound is healed up.

Or

Take a handful of parsley, pound it fine, and work it to a salve with an equal proportion of fresh butter.

This salve prevents mortification and heals very fast.

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A very good Recipe for the Colic.

Take a spoonful of olive or sweet oil, pounded crab eyes, and four carefully dried and pulverized peels of oranges, dis­solved in good, warm wine. It relieves the pain immediately.

Or

Take a few bay leaves and soak them in brandy in a warm room. As soon-as the colic is felt, take from one to four spoonfuls of this remedy.

Or

Take half a gill of good rye whiskey, and a pipe full of tobacco; put the whiskey in a bottle, then smoke the tobacco and blow the smoke into the bottle, shake it well and drink it.

Or

Take a white clay pipe which has turned blackish from smoking, pound it to a fine powder, and take it. This will have the same effect.

For Arthritis or Pains in the Limbs.

Take two handfuls of fresh juniper berries, bruise them, boil them in a pint of old wine, add a glassful of brandy and put the whole in a cloth that is folded four times, and this apply to the place where the pain is located.

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Against Violent Headaches.

Iron herb hung around the neck, or the essence thereof sprinkled upon the brow and temples, will cure the most violent headaches.

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An Amulet against Cramp.

Take white root of rhubarb, pulverize the same, and fill with such powder a square pouch made of linen,
about three thumbs in size. The patient should carry the pouch on a string around his neck that it will touch the bare skin in the neighborhood of the stomach.

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A Good Salve for Itchy Hands.

Take meadow rue, boil in olive oil, mix a little bees-wax therewith, so that it becomes a salve. Grease the hands with it, and soon they will be all well.

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For Hysterics.

Take dried chicken manure, grind it to powder, and give a pinch of it to the patient in a prune. It is a quick remedy.

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For all Sorts of Swellings.

Take white sulphur, pound it fine, put it in good beer or wine, add one-fourth part vinegar thereto, also one-eighth olive oil, let it boil, and with this the swellings anoint.

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For the Cough.

Take juniper berries, sugar bread and wormwood. Cook to­gether, and apply warm over the stomach.

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How to Draw out a Thorn or Splinter.

Take carrots bruised with honey and make a powder there­of. Put over the injury, it will draw the substance out and soothe the pains.

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To Remove Bruises and Pains

Bruise, thou shalt not heat;
Bruise, thou shalt not sweat;
Bruise, thou shalt not run,
No-more than Virgin Mary shall bring forth another son. + + +

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Remedy for Burns

"Burn, I blow on thee!"--It must be blown on three times in the same breath, like the fire by the sun. + + +

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Cure for Headache

Tame thou flesh and bone, like Christ in Paradise; and who will assist thee, this I tell thee [name] for your repentance sake. + + + This you must say three times, each time lasting for three minutes, and your headache will soon cease. But if your headache is caused by strong drink, or otherwise will not leave you soon, then you must repeat those words every minute. This, however, is not often necessary in regard to headache.

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This is said to be usable and effective by anyone, not just practicing Pow-Wowers. It is also said to be effective over great distances.

Ezekiel 16.6

And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

Remedy for Toothache

Stir the sore tooth with a needle until it draws blood; then take a thread and soak it with this blood. Then take vinegar and flour, mix them well so as to form a paste and spread it on a rag, then wrap this rag around the root of an apple-tree, and tie it very close with the above thread, after which the root must be well covered with ground.

Or

Take a new nail, pick with this the tooth till it bleeds, then take this nail and insert it in a place where neither sun or moon ever shines into, perhaps, in the rafters of the bin in a cellar, toward the rising of the sun; at the first stroke upon the nail call the name of him whom you design to help, and speak: Toothache fly away, by the second stroke: Toothache cease, pain allay! +++

Or

Cut out a piece of greensward (sod) in the morning before sunrise, quite unbeshrewdly from any place, breathe three times upon it, and put it down upon the same place from which it was taken.

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How to Tie Up and Heal Wounds

Speak the following: "This wound I tie up in three names, in order that thou mayest take from it heat, water, falling off of the flesh, swelling, and all that may be injurious about the swelling, in the name of the Holy Trinity." This must be spoken three times; then draw a string three times around the wound, and put it under the corner of the house toward the East, and say: "I put thee there, + + + in order that thou mayest take unto thyself the gathered water, the swelling, and the running, and all that may be injurious about the wound. Amen." Then repeat the Lord's Prayer and some good hymn.

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When Anyone is Sick

Remedy to be applied when anyone is sick, which has effected many a cure where doctors could not help.

Let the sick person, without having conversed with anyone, put water in a bottle before sunrise, close
it up tight, and put it immediately in some box or chest. lock it and stop up the keyhole; the key must be carried one of the pockets for three days, as nobody dare have it except the person who puts the bottle with water in the chest or box.

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A Sympathetic Remedy for Fever.

Walk to a nut tree before sunrise, cut therefrom a piece lengthwise, write your name upon a paper, and put it in the empty space made by the cut, and speak: Nut tree I come unto thee, take the seventy-seven different fevers from me, I will persist therein in the name of God, etc., and while pronouncing this, place the cutling in its place again, that it may grow again together. It helps at once.

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To Restore Manhood.

Buy a pike as they are sold in the fish-market, carry it noiselessly to a running water, there let whale oil run into the snout of the fish, throw the fish into the running water, and then walk stream upward, and you will recover your strength and former powers.

Or

Take a new fresh laid egg, if possible, one that is yet warm. Pour whale oil over it, and boil the egg in it; the oil then should be poured into a running water, stream downward, never upward, then open the egg a little, carry it to an ant's hill, of the large red specie, as are found in fir-trees forest, and there bury the egg. As soon as the ants have devoured the egg, the weak and troubled person will be restored to for­mer strength and vigor.

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To Destroy Warts

Roast chicken-feet and rub the warts with them; then bury them under the eaves.

How to Fasten or Spell-Bind Anything

You say, "Christ's cross and Christ's crown, Christ Jesus' colored blood, be thou every hour good. God, the Father, is before me; God, the Son, is beside me; God, the Holy Ghost, is behind me. Whoever now is stronger than these three persons may come, by day or night, to attack me." + + +

Then say the Lord's prayer three times.

Or

After repeating the above, You speak, "At every step may Jesus walk with (name). He is my head; I am his limb; therefore, Jesus, be with (name)."

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A Good Remedy Against Calumniation or Slander

If you are calumniated or slandered to your very skin, to your very flesh, to your very bones, cast it back upon the false tongues. + + +

Take off your shirt, and turn it wrong side out, and then run your two thumbs along your body, close under the ribs, starting at the pit of the heart down to the thighs.

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Security Against Mad Dogs

Dog, hold thy nose to the ground,
God has made me and thee, hound!+ + +

This you must repeat in the direction of the dog; and the three crosses you must make toward the dog, and the words must be spoken before he sees you.

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For Gaining a Lawful Suit

If anyone has to settle any just claim by way of a law suit let him take some of the largest kind of sage and write the name of the twelve apostles on the leaves, and put them in his shoes before entering the courthouse, and he shall certainly gain the suit.

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To Compel a Thief to Return Stolen Goods

Early in the morning before sunrise you must go to a pear tree, and take with you three nails out of a coffin, or three horse-shoe nails that were never used, and holding these toward the rising Sun. you must say:

"Oh, thief, I bind you by the first nail, which I drive into thy skull and. thy brain, to return the goods thou hast stolen to their former place; thou shalt feel as sick and as anxious to see men, and to see the place you stole from, as felt the disciple Judas after betraying Jesus. I bind thee by the other nail, which I drive into your lungs and liver, to. return the stolen goods to their former place; thou shall feel as sick and as anxious to see men, and to see the place you have stolen from, as did Pilate in the fires of hell. The third nail I shall drive into thy foot, oh thief, in order that thou shalt return the stolen goods to the very same place from which thou hast stolen them. Oh, thief, I bind thee and compel thee, by the three holy nails which were driven through the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, to return the stolen goods to the very same place from which thou hast stolen them. + + + The three nails, however, must be greased with the grease from an executed criminal or other sinful person.

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A Benediction For All Purposes

Jesus, I will arise; Jesus, do thou accompany me; Jesus, do thou lock my heart into thine, and let my body and my soul be commended unto thee. The Lord is crucified. May God guard my senses that evil spirits may not overcome me, in the name of God the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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To Win Every Game One Engages In

Tie the heart of a bat with a red silken string to the right arm, and you will win every game at cards you play.

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To Retain the Right in Court and Council

Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judeorum.

First carry these characters with you, written on paper, and then repeat the following words: "I (name) appear before the house of the Judge. Three dead men look out of the window; one having no tongue, the other having no lungs, and the third was sick, blind and dumb." This is intended to be used when you are standing before a court in your right, and the judge not being favorably disposed toward you. While on your way to the court you must repeat the benediction already given above.

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Protection of One's House and Hearth

Beneath thy guardianship I am safe against all tempests and all enemies, J. J. J.

These three Js signify Jesus three times

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To Release Spell-Bound Persons

You horseman and footman, whom I here conjured at this time, you may pass on in the name of Jesus Christ, through the word of God and the will of Christ; ride ye on now and pass.