Health Tips from Effie - Alaska

People with far greater ability than mine have explored the health benefits of natural healing remedies that boggle the mind of modern science.  Herbs, spices, fauna, flora, and animal parts have not been scientifically analyzed or proven neither by my own research nor in most cases by the medical community.  The fact that Effie Hadley, my friend and an elder of Buckland, Alaska believes them to be true is good enough for me.

Although western health services have been active in bush Alaska for a long time some residents still resort to traditional medicines to cure some basic health issues.  “Because it gets so cold hp here,” Effie told me once, “People get sick a lot.  It was worse a long time ago.  The doctor was not always available and people had to use traditional methods of getting well.  There are certain leaves and plants that we use that help ear aches, tooth aches, and even labor pains.  We would either boil them and drink the liquid and chew the leaves, or apply the liquid directly to the soar or even chew the leaves and place the chewed leaves directly on the pain.  Many of the plants around here are also used to put directly on cuts, bruises, and boils while applying some sort of pressure.  Even breast milk is used sometimes.  Stink weed is pretty good on things and even helps clear a stuffed up nose.”

Effie said because Buckland had a modern health clinic, staffed with trained health aides and a visiting doctor and dentist every couple of months, the art of natural healing was gradually being lost.  Some home remedies get passed along to the next generation but each year it gets less and less.

The procedure that always seemed to work she told me was mostly rejected by the younger people now.  The tried and true method of curing a soar throat, “hardly gets used any at all any more,” she says.

“For soar throats we would take a long strip of blubber, usually from the beluga or sometimes a seal.  The healer would have the person swallow part of the strip while the healer held on to the tip.  He or she would instruct the person to make swallowing motions with their throat while the healer moved the strip back and forth.”

This procedure was repeated Effie said until a thick mucus substance from the blubber was unleashed, covering the inside of the throat.  “When this happened, the healing began.”

I told Effie that I thought I would go ahead and toss out my Hall’s Menthol Cough Drops now and she replied with a faint teasing smile, “That would not be a good idea; I don’t think they have beluga or seal in Arizona or Missouri.