NATIVE WISDOM

 

39. NATIVE WISDOM

Two incidents, one in Africa and the other in South India’s tribal pocke, Attappadi.

The first scene is a rural area in interior Africa. A truck is parked on the side of the road, its driver inspecting the tyre. Suddenly a hissing sound is heard and the driver, covering his eye with his hand, is seen running back. A village woman sitting nearby, breast-feeding her baby, runs towards the driver and making him lie on her lap, drips a few drops of her breast milk directly into his affected eye.

She had seen a king cobra lying below the truck spitting its venom into his eyes. In the normal course if the venom fell into the eye, the sight would be gone instantly. But the woman knew that the best anti-dote to cobra venom was breast milk.

Later, when the driver was taken to a nearby hospital the doctors were aghast. His eye sight had not been affected, thanks to the native wisdom of the nomadic woman.

The second scene was at the traveller’s bungalow at Agali. We were visiting the tribal settlements as part of our IAS training. A Tribal Welfare Department official told us a story about an incident during one of his previous visits.

He said the tribals believed that smelling the leaf of a particular forest plant would make one dizzy and unconscious. So they avoided going near that plant. But the engineer in charge of the Traveller’s Bungalow was certain that there was no such plant. According to him it was all figment of someone’s imagination. He was prepared not only to smell that leaf, but even chew it and eat it.

A tribal boy brought a plant covered in sacks and coconut fronds. The engineer kept his word. He took one leaf, crushed it in his fingers and smelled it. And promptly fell unconscious.

Later he regained consciousness after the tribal headman brought some other leaves and crushed them and made him smell it.

We did not bother to see how much of this was fact and how much fiction. What we realised was that there was something in the two incidents narrated that we had to consider. Like word and its meaning, in the case of traditional medicine also, there was a co-relation between tradition and medicineman.

There were some old sayings we used to hear in our childhood. All of them were intended to make healthcare a matter of our daily routine. Today everyone has tension. Tension in the office and at home. Tension in the playground. In fact, tension everywhere. It is not without meaning that our grandma said, ‘stress begets distress’. Taking too much of food at night is discouraged by another saying that prescribes that the stomach should be only half full after supper. If the supper is heavy, another saying gives the remedy. After supper walk a mile.

For many ordinary illnesses in the past the remedy was found in the homestead itself. If there was fever, leaves of panikkoorka would be crushed and placed on the forehead. If it was not available, a wet cloth draped on the forehead would serve the same purpose. For minor cuts and bruises during children’s sports, an instant remedy was at hand. Take the young flower bunch of the coconut palm and scrape off the white fungus from its outer shell. Apply it on the wound. The child would run away to play in no time.

Such treatment may be given by grandfather or grandmother, neighbour or anyone else. The first person who is met becomes the medico.

I do not think there is anyone in my generation who had not drunk the pepper and ginger potion, a hot coffee concoction using dried ginger, pepper, jaggery and coriander, for the treatment of cold. No one in the past had any doubt what was to be done in the case of cough. Take some leaves of holy basil, crush them to extract the juice and mix it with lime juice and honey. Cough would flee.

I remember preparing a medicament in the past when a need arose. When I was in the high school, my headmaster was Fr Papias. I had great respect for him. When I reached college, he himself became our Principal. That was the time when a small moustache tentatively started growing on my upper lip. But I was too self-conscious to go before Fr Papias with that symbol of my new manhood. I desperately wanted to remove it but did not know how.

A neighbourhood friend suggested a way out. Take a little bit of turmeric paste and boil it in buttermilk. Make it lukewarm and then wash the face with it. The moustache will vanish. I tried it for one week. But my grandmother discovered my clandestine medication and asked me to stop it. Otherwise I would have perhaps lost forever that visible symbol of masculinity.

There were many bits and pieces of rural wisdom learnt during the young days which helped me in my later life. Once when I was at Chennai I received a frantic call from the local MLA Thomas Chazhikadan. A nest of wasps was disturbed somehow and hundreds of wasps were now attacking people of the locality. Something had to be done urgently.

I do not have any experience in handling wasps. The call came only because I was in charge of Forest department. Remembering that the tribals had a special way of dealing with such situations, I called the Conservator of Forests of Kottayam and asked him to seek tribals’ help. From my memory, I also suggested a treatment for the victims. Pluck some leaves of mukkutti ( Biophytum Sensitivum Linn), mix it in butter and apply it on the body. The stings will come off easily. It also helps to bring down the inflammation.

I do not know if anyone had acted on my prescription. But I was happy when I learnt that the doctor in the government hospital also suggested the same course of treatment.

In folk medicine it was toxicology that had all the glamour. The old saying was: If you are learning one branch of medicine, learn toxicology. If learning toxicology, learn it the hard way.

It was because poisonous snakes were abundant in Kerala that even police stations of the past had facilities for the treatment of snake bites. The most important institution in my birth place, Mannanam, was the seminary started by Fr Chavara Kuriakose Elias. There was a Brother in the seminary who was adept in snake bite treatment. Occasionally people would come there screaming and wailing, carrying a patient in a chair. After a few days of treatment the patient invariably would leave the clime, fully cured.

The Brother’s treatment was based on folk science. As soon as the patient was brought in he would put in his mouth a little of herbal paste covered in betel leaf. The bitter paste would taste sweet if the poison had affected the man.

Some ayurvedics might make the patient drink a concoction of pepper. If it tasted hot, as naturally it should, it would mean that the poison had not affected him.

Prayogasamuchaya, written by Kochunni Thampuram has a remedy for any severe case of poisoning. Modern researchers admit now that there is a scientific basis for Kerala’s traditional system of toxicology. But we do not approve of it. When foreigners frantically try to get patents on our folk medicine we merely ask them why they waste their time in taking patents on legends and hearsay.

When we watch indifferently as a mute witness to the transfer of such pearls of folk wisdom to other countries, don’t we hear the voice of our late grandma ‘the man leaning by the wall has walked off with the bribe’.