Folk Healing, Birth, Death, and Cultural Practices: Essay Analysis

This essay delves into the realm of folk healing, exploring its practices and customs in contrast to modern medicine. It examines the origins of folk healing in primitive societies, highlighting the roles of witchcraft, magic, and religious beliefs in understanding health and disease. The essay focuses on the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos, detailing its historical roots in Mesoamerican and Spanish cultures, and its significance as a celebration of ancestors and the cyclical view of life and death. It further analyzes the rituals associated with birth and death, including the preparation of altars and offerings, and how these practices relate to folk healing. The essay emphasizes that folk culture, including its healing methods, is often passed down through generations and is distinct from contemporary societal norms. The essay concludes with a discussion of the unique aspects of folk healing, contrasting it with modern medicine and highlighting the importance of cultural context in understanding health practices.

Running Head: FOLK HEALING
Folk Healing
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1FOLK HEALING
Folk culture signifies a culture that is traditionally always practiced by a small,
homogenous rural group who live in relative isolation from the other groups in society. These
traditions that they follow are usually handed down to them by their ancestors. This essay will
study the folk ways of healing and the Mexican tradition ‘Dia De los Muertos’.
The ‘Day of the Dead’ or the ‘Dia De los Muertos’ is a Mexican holiday where the
Mexicans welcome back the spirits and souls of their dead ancestors (Gutiérrez, Rosengren, &
Miller, 2015). This reunion is celebrated by drinking and eating delicacies. This day is a blend of
the Mesoamerican culture, European Religion and the Spanish culture. This holiday is usually
celebrated every year on the 12th November. This day is celebrated in Mexico and as well as the
Mexican people who live in the United States of America. This ritual goes back to almost 3000
years back (Hoffmann & Rinaudo, 2014). The Aztecs and the other Nahua people who currently
reside in central Mexico hold a cyclical view of the entire universe (Olko, 2014). According
these cultures they see death as an integral part of the life. According to their culture, a dead
person was thought to travel to Chicunamictlan, which is the land of the dead. They say that the
soul has to travel to nine challenging levels, which is a journey that spans across several years.
This journey has to be taken so that the soul of the person reaches the final place of resting which
is Mictlan. In the Nahua culture, the ritual that honor the dead is traditionally held in the month
of August, family have the task of providing water, food and the necessary tools that might help
the deceased in their complicated journey. This was the inspiration behind the current Day of the
Dead. On this day, people usually leave food and other offerings on the grave of their ancestors
and loved ones and set them on a makeshift altar which is known as ofrendas among the native
people. This is what composes the ‘Dia De los Muertos’ in the folk culture.

2FOLK HEALING
The traditional or folk medicine originated from the primitive man’s attitude towards the
various natural events. Witchcraft and magic played an important role in folk healing (Mace, et
al., 2018). These put a lot of importance on witchcraft, magic and religious beliefs, the causes of
ill-health and disease were explained by various external factors that cause harm to the body. In
the traditional societies, the opinions that people had on health and disease were born out of the
folk culture. Folk medicine is different from modern medicine. According to traditional
medicine, the cause of any disease and the reason why a person falls sick is because of some
magical and mystical events. Generally in folk healing, the patients are treated at their own
homes and hardly are they taken to hospitals. Certain medicinal plants and herbs are used in their
treatment and thi what characterizes folk healing
This essay concludes that folk culture is different from any form of practices and customs
that are present in modern societies. These customs that are followed by the folk people are
usually handed to them from their ancestors. These customs are still followed among the native
people of each country.

3FOLK HEALING
Reference
Gutiérrez, I. T., Rosengren, K. S., & Miller, P. J. (2015). Día de los Muertos: Learning about
death through observing and pitching in. In Advances in child development and behavior
(Vol. 49, pp. 229-249). JAI.
Hoffmann, O., & Rinaudo, C. (2014). The issue of blackness and mestizaje in two distinct
Mexican contexts: Veracruz and Costa Chica. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic
Studies, 9(2), 138-155.
Mace, R., Thomas, M. G., Wu, J., He, Q., Ji, T., & Tao, Y. (2018). Population structured by
witchcraft beliefs. Nature human behaviour, 2(1), 39.
Olko, J. (2014). Alphabetic writing in the hands of the colonial Nahua nobility. Contributions in
New World Archaeology, 7, 177-198.