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Removing Warts
(This was originally posted on the BIG CLUE thread of the Other Blackfoot board.)
My grandfather was able to remove warts. In fact, he removed one from me and one from my then girlfriend. When he did it, I didn’t believe that he could do it. I’d regarded him all my life as a teller of tall tales. However, while visiting grandpa Albert once during the mid 80s, he noticed warts on my and my girlfriend’s arms.
Grandpa says, “I can take those off if you want.”
I said, “Sure, why not.”
Grandpa went out to the shed in the back of the house and came back a few minutes later with something in his closed hand.
Garandpa says to my girlfriend, “Give me your arm.”
My girlfriend holds out her arm to grandpa and he begins rubbing the wart on her arm with the secret object concealed in his closed fingers, all the while softly speaking some mumbo jumbo gibberish (or, speaking some language I’d never heard before). In 10 seconds he was done and then he did the same to me.
He said, “Now go on about your business and forget about your wart. After two weeks, the next time you look, it’ll be gone.”
Like I say, I regarded grandpa as a teller of tall tales and I didn’t put any stock into his mysterious hocus pocus wart removal ritual. But then, after about a month, while at my girlfriend’s house one Saturday night, she says to me, “My wart’s gone! Your grandfather’s magic worked!”
I looked at her arm and sure enough it was gone. Then I looked at my arm, and to my amazement, my wart was gone also.
True story.
p.s.- I never saw what he held in his concealed hand but it felt hard and smooth. My father said it was a small animal bone but I’m not sure how he knew that.
I later asked grandpa how he did it but he said that if he told anyone, he’d lose the power. He did however say that he would pass it on to my father before he died and that my father in turn would pass the power on to me. But, sadly, he died about five years later without ever telling my father the secret.
p.s.s.- My father says that my grandpa could also “talk the fire out.” “Talking the fire out” is the ability to somehow remove the heat from a burn such that it never blisters. I have no idea how it’s done, but dad says he witnessed grandpa “talking the fire out” of a person at least once.
p.s.s.- Does anyone know anything about something called “Conjuring?” Apparently, grandpa belived in conjuring. My father won’t speak of it. He says it’s evil and for the weak minded. I’m guessing it’s like voodoo or fortune telling or something similar. But what I really want to know is if conjuring is rooted in Indian traditions or African traditions? Or both? And what is it exactly.
My great-grandfather did the same thing with warts, only he used a concoctin that included raw onions. He would rub it on, say some mumbo jumbo, and the wart would come off soon after.
I was hoping that someone might know if this is a common NA practice or if it might be specific to a certain tribe or group.
My great-grandfather refused to pass this information on because he felt there was no need for it anymore…that really saddens me because I would have loved to questioned him about everything. My parents and grandparents never cared to ask.
I found this while doing a google search:
http://www.indianchild.com/wart_removal.htm
home remedies for wart removal
Apply vitamin E oil to the surrounding skin, then crush a clove of raw garlic, place it on the wart, and cover it with an adhesive bandage. The raw garlic causes a blister to form, and the wart generally falls off within a week. Apply vitamin E oil to the area to help it heal.
Chop one raw onion in a dish, cover with salt and leave overnight. Apply the resulting juice to the warts twice a day, until warts disappear.
Cut fresh pineapple into thin slices. Apply to warts several times a day until they are gone.
Apply the milky juice exuding from the stems of figs and leaves..
Notice this is an Indian website (natives of the country of India, not Native American).
From http://www.soupsong.com/fonion.html
Columbus, it’s been said, planted the first great crop in the Dominican Republican–from thence it spread to Mexico, down to Central and South America and up to North America. The Pilgrims weren’t taking any chances, though. They brought onion seeds with them and planted them near Plymouth Rock.
It has been prized medicinally, for ills as various as dog bites, earaches, and stings of “venomous worms.” It’s been rubbed on British and Shaker heads, hundreds of years apart, to prevent baldness. It has also been regarded as a cure for warts: cut an onion in half, rub it on the wart, tie the onion halves back together, and bury them. When the onion decays in the ground, the wart reputedly disappears.
Once again, modern science ends up, to some degree, catching up with folklore. Onions contain Prostaglandin A-1, a potent agent to lower blood pressure. And their anti-bacterial qualities–wow! can completely sterilize the lining of the mouth and throat after just five minutes of chewing raw onion bits.
If you promise not to laugh at me…I’ll tell you what i knwo about “conjuring”…it is not from family personal experience BUT instead is from actually watching the “extras” on a DVD that my teenager watched with me one “girls nite”…the movie is titled “The Skeleton Key” (2005) and the DVD extras I found just fascinating…teh movie is a horror/creepy/sad and kinda corny one but it was a fun watch….anyhow…the Conjuring is mentioned and historically, they indicate that it is a African Voodoo and Hoodoo ritual. Good link about the origins of the Africanese Voodoo experience: http://www.swagga.com/voodoo.htm
Hoodoo info can be read at link:
http://www.mamiwata.com/hoodoo.html
(Scroll down to the main page LINK that says: What is Hoodoo to be taken to a page explaining this Africanese tradition/religion/practice).
Conjuring…though related…is , modern day I believe rooted deeply in southern , and specifically New Orleans based churches etc and is also African in nature…a neat lil linky loo article about Conjuring can be found at:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_2_116/ai_n15384194
Happy reading….interesting stuff! Blessings~~~~Laurie
In West Virginia my grandfather told me that you could remove a wart by dipping it in stump water. I had two warts on my wrist. I walked up into the woods on a spring day until I found an old tree stump that had some standing water in the stump. I put my wrist into in for about 10 seconds. The next day the warts had fallen off and there was no scar left behind. Why did it work? I don’t know, but my grandparents were believers in natural remedies from the trees, roots and plants of the area. The few she used on me worked. That’s all I know. it didn’t cost a thing, so if you have any warts, go find yourself a tree stump where the water has pooled after a rain. As for “talking the fire out”, get the Foxfire books from your local library. they are books of collections of stories, recipes and other Appalachian culture. Some of those have accounts of people who can cure burns. they do it with a prayer with a specific Bible verse and people swear that those who get this gift have been used to heal burns. They have another name for it, but I can’t recall it at the moment. As for the conjuring. You’d best stay away from that. It is evil. it is calling on the spirits of the dead. It is an occult practice and nothing you want to involve yourself with. Freaky scary and evil.
I am from North Carolina, and came about this page because I was curious as to how my great aunt does this very same thing. From what she has told me, and what I have heard is she can pass the information, and the steps to removing warts and “taking the fire out” ONLY if the person she is telling is the opposite sex, and younger than her. If she tells a woman or a girl it wont work. she would have to tell a younger male; however, she could tell a younger male, and that younger male could tell a younger female. I have had the wart removal done on myself, and in fact it did work. I also whitnessed it when she preformed the act on my cousin in her very front yard, and a month to two months later the wart had gradually shrank, and vanished.
My Ma was from the hills of North Carolina, and would offhandedly mention that stumpwater was a cure for warts, among other things.
At the same time, being a Christian women, she always had an eye out for anyone in the neighborhood that might be a practicing witch. She had identified two that I know of and warned me to stay clear. I later learned that one of them had become my Mother in Law. Ay caramba! Listen to your Mama…
That witch probably put a spell on ya to make ya marry her daughter. The stump water does work, I have had a favorite stump for over 50 years. If you do it wrong you can go blind though, my hearing is gone too, maybe it was blonde instead of blind!
Gavin, what you describe could be similar to what my gr grandpa used to do. (Also sounds very much like what Coharie Roy described) He removed several warts from my hand when I was small. Never had another one since. Before he died, he passed this gift down to his son’s wife.
What part of NC are ya from?
Also remember many years ago when my uncle burned his leg real bad…as in caught it on fire. We were visiting when an elder woman they had called to come “take the fire out” showed up. Kids were scooted out of the room, so could not see what took place. But could hear my unc hollering in pain as she worked on him. Leg healed ok, as far as I know.
Three Crows, yes it might work but I can’t put the incantation on here due to the graphic nature. I am sure you can make up your own! However; no warranty is expressed or implied, and if itching, redness, swelling of the legs or hair loss occures, contact your health care provider immediately and leave town! But yes, it should at least remove the wart from her nose.
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