Baba was Right All Along
Ukrainian Folk Medicine
Orysia Paszczak Tracz
Every nation in every corner of the world
has its own folk medicine. And, in every
nation, it was generally women – whether
the Italian Nonna, German Oma or Ukrainian Babusia – who were the retainers of
this knowledge.
While it is true that
neither medicine nor pharmacology
totally ignored the knowledge behind folk medicine, traditional medicine and
science are only now catching up to what our ancestors have known and practised
for centuries. Baba was right all along
about natural remedies and plants.
Many of the old-fashioned
or forgotten remedies are now being revived.
One can think of many such remedies that are now being advertised as a
major discovery.
Folk medicine, according to the Encyclopedia
of Ukraine, is the “store of empirical medical knowledge and practical
preventative and therapeutic methods used by the people for the prevention and
curing of disease.” In
Folk medicine is a blend
of medicine and ethnography. To study it, we must use many sources from
linguistics and archaeology to folklore as well as botany, chemistry,
pharmacology and other sciences. A book
called Ukrainska narodna medytsyna (Kyiv, 1994) approaches it from this
perspective as its author, Zoriana Boltarovych, was an ethnographer
specializing in Ukrainian medicine.
From linguistics, we can
trace the names of diseases and plants and learn much about early medicine. For
example, skin diseases must have been quite widespread in the pre-Slavic age
(500 AD or so) judging by the fact that Ukrainian and other Slavic languages
share common names for such diseases.
Also, the Slavic languages share common names for more than 10 plants
basic to folk medicine.
The Ukrainian names for
certain plants are wonderfully descriptive; their names tell you exactly what
they are to be used for. Examples include: chystotil (“body cleanser;”
or chelidonium, used in treating cancer ), borodavynyk (“wart remover,”
from the word, borodovka, for wart ) and padyvolos (to strengthen
hair, literally meaning “hair falling”).
Some names describe the
plant’s appearance, others its perceived origin. However, when investigating various plants,
it’s important to know its scientific, Latin name, because common folk names
can be misleading. Sometimes the same name is used for more than one plant. According to the book Ukrains’ki narodni
nazvy roslyn (Plant Names in Ukrainian Vernacular, New York: UVAN, 1973) by
Natalia Ossadcha-Janata, babka is used for 15 different plants.
Proverbs, rituals, folk
songs, incantations and curses often refer to the use of plants in folk
medicine. For example, the verse of one
song “porizala-m pal’chyk ta bolyt, zelenyi lystochok ne hoit, potsiluie mylyi
zahoit” makes reference to the use of a green leaf for healing.
The forms of folk
medicine include internal and external application of a medication,
physiotherapy, massage, and psychological healing (including magic). The ingredients of medication are commonly
plants, minerals, animal and their products, water, heat and a combination of
these.
In folk medicine, God and
the supernatural were thought to have played an important role in the onset of
disease. The Hutsuls, the mountain
people of the
In time, specialists who
used practical, magical and spiritual healing evolved, villages and towns had a
baba-povytukha, a woman who swaddled babies, a branka, a type of
midwife who catches a baby being born, and a kostoprav, one who fixes
bones. Traditionally, these jobs were hereditary.
With the recent increased
interest in natural and alternative remedies, we are rediscovering what our
ancestors have known for centuries.
Orysia Paszczak Tracz is
a Winnipeg-based writer, researcher and lecturer with a particular interest in
Ukrainian traditions and ethnography. This article is an abridged version of a
lecture, presented by the Toronto Ukrainian Genealogy Group and St. Vladimir
Institute in