Betel Nut & Pepper Leaf as Medicine

I don’t know about you, but even as I had personally been a beneficiary of modern medicine a couple of quite serious times during the past decade of my adult life, up until now I cannot forget a kind of “folk medicine” (if we may call it that) that had saved me a lot of trouble a number of times several decades ago when I was a child.

The medicine consisted of betel nut (muma in Isinay; bua in Ilocano; nganga in Tagalog), a piece of pepper leaf (called duwew in Isinay; gawed in Ilocano; ikmo in Tagalog; samat in Kapampangan; buyo in Bicol; mamin in Bisaya; ching chu in Chinese), a pinch of powdered river-shell lime (epu in Isinay; apog in Ilocano and Tagalog), and someone to chew these into a sticky polstice.

It was that simple. Or so I thought, for several decades -- until very recently.

Muma, the betel nut (Areca catechu)

That “very recently” came when I paid a surprise visit to Mrs. Primitiva Benitez Castro (Auntie Tibang for short) in one of my increasingly frequent visits to my hometown Dupax.

A reed-thin but formerly sturdy Isinay woman now in her nineties, Auntie Tibang didn’t recognize me at first, as she has only one good eye left. And so, when I embraced her in her wheelchair, she half exclaimed to my “accomplice in crime” for the surprise visit, Merlie Rodriguez-Castro: "Siran tiye?" (Who’s this guy?)

But when she heard my voice as I asked (in Isinay) how she was doing, she was teary-eyed as she went into a litany of how her arthritic legs has kept her confined to a wheelchair, preventing her from visiting her granddaughter Jona by her late iyuvot (youngest child) Ambeth Fernandez in Dagupan City, and keeping her from visiting her eldest son Andres in Quirino Province.

When I asked her what’s her secret for having lived long, outlasting in fact my Uncle Ermin and my father (who died one year after the other when they were in their early eighties), Auntie Tibang mentioned something like she loved dining once in a while on the meat of fruit bat (pani-i in Isinay; paniki in Ilocano; kabog in Tagalog).

It was when Auntie Tibang was telling how mapput (Isinay for “good for nothing”) and maro^lot (heavy eater) one of her previous household helps was, that I caught a glimpse of a shiny-leafed vine profusely clinging on her pader (concrete fence).

The vine was the betel leaf or duwew – an indispensable ingredient in the indigenous “chewing gum” called muma.

Duwew, the pepper-leaf (Piper betel) vine

As if on cue, my seeing the plant immediately conjured images of those days when Auntie Tibang would use muma to cure my hives, welts, or other such skin allergies that I acquired often as a consequence of having accidentally touched hairy or spiny caterpillars (or what I love to call “baby butterflies”).

You see, when I was a boy, I was a little bit of what they call in Isinay tiyapong (bulakbul in modern Isinay and Tagalog). I’m not sure if it was a case of hyperactivity on my part then or just plain defense mechanism against being assigned as baby-sitter to my sisters. But I always wanted out of the house when I have read all the pages of the latest issue of the Bannawag Ilocano magazine or when Papa had not finished his turn yet in Uncle Ermin’s latest issue of the Philippines Free Press. 

The call of the free and sunny outdoors reached fever pitch in summer when you could hear the grass singing and the cicadas and the birds in the trees alternately taunting the slingshot-itchy boy in you. If not the wangwang (river), the pasto (pasture land) and the payaw (ricefields) of Daya/I-iyo, my stomping grounds were mostly in the vicinity of Pitang behind our house in Domang. 

I loved to spend hours in Pitang, particularly the gitaw (semi-forested meadow) there, as it had plenty of guavas, sapang, kamiring, sarisay, mangoes and sompalo free for the eating. Besides, the atittino^ (dragonflies), the durun (grasshoppers), and the mantetteyav (birds) in that part of Dupax seemed to be very tame. 

Naturally, in my gallivanting in that bit of paradise, whether alone or in the happy company of other boys in the neighborhood, I would often be so carefree I didn’t mind if the bushy nooks I crept into were “guarded”  by bangbangawan ("baby butterflies"), kamiring leaves, and other such organisms and plants that cause allergies. 

At first, I would make do with Johnson's Baby Powder and/or Vicks Vaporub as medicine. But later, when the welts and itchy protrusions wouldn’t go away, I discovered that a very effective doctor for naburuwan cases was my Auntie Tibang.

Of course, the sight of the slimy saliva along with pulp bits of the betel nut and pepper leaf poultice would certainly stir to life the squemish person in you as you see them spread like paint on your infected skin. It is what they used to call in Manila Tagalog: “Kadiri to death.”

But just try getting stung by hairy and spiny caterpillars one of these days. Try getting to suffer for several hours the super itchiness of it all. And when all modern ointments and expensive creams fail, this time try the bloody-red juice of the muma direct from Auntie Tibang’s magical mouth... Lo and behold, the itching on your body parts would soon vanish after a couple or so minutes!

When I last saw her, Auntie Tibang revealed for the first time one more secret ingredient to her medicine: the prayer “I Believe” (or the Apostle’s Creed). “Mu manuttuwa a,” she said, “da^dan daat Apuwar an Dios si lom-an.”

Roughly translated, what she meant was this: Have faith and the Lord God of all will do the rest.

Merlie Rodriguez-Castro with Primitiva Benitez-Castro

Reunited -- the patient (Isinay Bird) and the healer (Auntie Tibang).

Dupax Medicine for Skin Allergies

(NOTE: This piece was inspired by an allergy I acquired while vacationing in my hometown Dupax del Sur last April 27-May 2, 2011.The allergy was caused by my having eggs and nymphs (see photos) of the tailor ant (abu-os in Iluko, eja in Isinay, karakara in Tagalog) for dinner on April 30. Even if the itch lasted only for the whole night -- and even if it made me panic quite a bit and led me to send frantic text messages to a cousin in the neighborhood, my daughter Leia who was at Cagayan de Oro at the time, and two of my sisters who also happened to be away in Manila at the time -- at least the event brought back memories of how life was when I was growing up in the hills, fields, rivers, forests, and meadows of Dupax.)

Top photo: Uncooked tailor ant eggs and nymphs being sold at the Dupax del Sur market in Domang at 25 pesos per atado (in this case about 1/4 kilogram by my estimate). Lower photo: The cooked variety (Mama used little oil, garlic, tomato, and salt for this one) -- I ate with gusto the one on the right, including the ones with wings (probably the worker ants or soldier ants) that I first separated on the rim of the saucer. A couple of hours later, while everybody was asleep, my fingers and the back of my ears started to itch like they were stung by dozens of mosquitoes. To "stay alive" I drank around six glasses of water and stayed calm by watching replays of the wedding of William and Kate on TV.

Pity boys and girls of today who have not experienced climbing trees for their fruits or even only for the sheer joy of being above ground, looking at the surrounding from a new vantage point, and swaying up there on a shaky branch with the breeze.

I was fond of climbing trees as a boy – guava, tamarind, mango, staraple, santol, sarisay, duhat, anonas, guyabano, siniguelas, langka, sarena, alukon, kapok, bitnong, akasya, avocado, bugnay, ar-arusip, tebbeg, mabolo, banaba, katuray, daldaligan. Also coconut, bamboo, buri, anahaw, bua, papaya, sapang, banana, and tangan-tangan (jatropha).

I climbed these trees/bamboos/palms for all reasons – to taste their ripe fruits as the case may be... to inspect bird nests... to test my Tarzan skills... or just for the fun of it. As a result I often got exposed to itchy objects, like the budo (trycombs?) of the atattaru, bangbangawan, and other such butterfly larvae or worms. 

Apart from falling along with a branch of a fruit-laden bignay tree (the branch I was enjoying purple fruits on broke off from the trunk and went down with me riding like on it as on an airplane) once, on a few occasions I also also got stung by the trees' natural security guards – tailor ant, wasps (alaksiyot,alumpipinig), stinging big ants (abubbulij), honeybees. Lucky for me, I was never victimized by tree-dwelling snakes and the deadliest larva of them all -- the sambrid (tu^bu in Isinay; mamaso in Tagalog) -- of which I heard stories about healthy carabaos dying after ingesting the green and hot-stinging larva usually attached on the grass.

If I had not been forewarned, I would have also climbed taboo trees like the ones Ilocanos call lupaw (lipang kalabaw in Tagalog; also called tu^bu in Isinay), the leaves of which are said to cause burning pain when they come into contact with the skin. I was also careful not to touch the leaves of the kamiring tree whose peanut-sized fruits looked like miniature kasoys and looked irresistible and indeed tasted sweet when they turned yellow then orange when ripe.

Of course, I never did get brave enough to climb the strangler fig (balite in Ilocano; balitiyon in Isinay; balete in Tagalog). As I mentioned in a previous essay here in this blogsite, the balete is believed to be a haunted tree. Where I lived, I remember that even the most foolhardy among Ilocanos and Isinays in Dupax then did not dare push their luck too far insofar as this tree was concerned.

Aside from tree-dwelling agents, however, I was also exposed to some more sources of itch. For instance, the green juice coming out of the mouth of grasshoppers was itchy if it got in contact with your skin. I personally discovered this not so well known fact because aside from climbing trees in the neighborhood, I was also fond of taking care of martines birdlings (donated by my Calacala neighbors and Pudiquet uncles).

To feed my bird pets, I would scour the grazing grounds in Pitang all day to run after grasshoppers with a swatter. There were no plastic bags then, dear reader, so I put my insect collection in one of my shortpants’ pockets (another is always reserved for marble-sized pebbles for my slingshot), and pretty soon I would feel my leg (where my grasshopper pocket was) become itchy as the insect saliva seeped through the cloth.

Even carabaos and dogs were sources of itch. In the case of carabaos, more than twice my love for riding the friendly farm animal made me so stubborn I ignored the warning not to ride on a newly bathed carabao with no jute sack (langgotse) mantle between my raw legs and its hide, particularly if the beast was newly barbered. Called rarasa by my Ilocano grandmother, the allergy on my legs and buttocks would soon turn into ugly scabies when not treated. (Now it can be told: this was how I got to acquire the ugly scars on my buttocks, scars that make me ashamed to try on skimpy swim trunks or to try the G-string in public.)

As for the dogs, the itch one gets from them is through contact with the grass where they chewed blades to cleanse their innards of toxic matter. "Nakapayatka iti nagaraban ti aso" (You stepped on a grass grazed by a dog), Mama would say when I complained of ultra itchy toes at night.

So what did we do when we acquired skin itch from the flora and fauna we got exposed to when we played outdoors?

Home Remedies for Skin Itches

If at home, first to the rescue would be powder. Mama always had Johnson's Baby Powder for my sisters while Papa had Talcum powder that he used after having a haircut. As if to attest to its efficacy, my sisters also always sought the soothing comfort of the powder each time they had bagas ti ling-et (literally "fruit of perspiration") on their backs, especially during the hot summer months.

For more malignant rashes or hives, Mama’s Vicks Vaporub always came in handy. She always had the ointment around for my sisters’ colds. She would rub their backs and necks with Vicks and all night the blankets and all of the house would smell of the medicine. I found the ointment very effective not only for minor itches caused by contact with larvae but also to cure scratches I got on my arms and legs for climbing trees or playing in the grassy outdoors too much.

Also handy was the kerosene used to keep our Hasag or Petromax and kingke (gas lamp) burning. In my case, I would dip the tin bomba used to pump gaas from the Rizal kerosene can into a brown gallon jar; then I would hold the oiled part with one palm, then wipe the kerosene thus acquired on the affected part of my skin, toes, fingers, etc..

Other Antidotes

Also useful as remedies for skin allergies when there was yet no doctor in Dupax were the following:

• denatured alcohol -- We always had a bottle the contents of which I loved to pour on a small container with reed-thin tube that I used to light the Hasag.
• coconut oil -- Called lana in Ilocano; laro in Isinay; langis-niyog in Tagalog, we believed that the most effective ones for medicine are those produced during Good Friday.When in I-iyo, this was my first aid whenever I would acquire skin rashes or allergies.
• vinegar -- We often had the Rose brand of artificial vinegar sold by the roving Chinese grocer Ko Peng; but we found the suka ti basi (sugarcane vinegar; sukang Iloko) more effective.

Aunti Tibang’s Muma

I don't know how many of my fellow Irupaj (Dupax natives) especially those living in Domang have tried this, but the most effective remedy when you get skin allergies due to contact with itchy worms is saliva mixed with muma, especially the one from Anti Tibang (Primitiva Benitez Castro). 

The muma is of course what you call the product when you chew gawed ken bua (betel leaf and betel nut), often with a pinch of lime (apog in Ilocano and Tagalog; epu in Isinay). The resulting "ointment" would be what we call in Isinay mampaavij (kadiri in Manila Tagalog lingo). But I swear to the efficacy of the treatment.

I would run to Auntie Tibang each time I would be mabangbangawan while climbing sarisay (aratiles tree, scientific name: Muntingia calabura) for its saccharine ripe fruits or, alternatively, for its green fruits that I used as "bullets" for my toy gun. I would go to her when I would be makamiring after gathering sapang in Pitang when I passed through there from the Gabaldon school.

When I visited Auntie Tibang last March, I jogged her memory about it and she said even Papa and Uncle Ermin (now both deceased) didn't believe her at first but later got converted to her muma medicine. She said it was effective only to those who have faith and added that before chewing the betel nut and the duwew (also called pepper leaf; gawed in Ilocano; ikmo in Tagalog), she would pray the "I Believe" -- in Isinay, of course.

Grandmother's Remedies

Over in I-iyo, the farming village where I grew up as an Ilocano, my Inang Baket (Feliza Lacandazo Pudiquet) also had her own remedies for skin ailments that made her a doctor in the barrio of sort by young women who were conscious of their beauty and attractiveness to barrio suitors.

If the suspect causal material was the kamiring, Inang would ask her patient to go gather a twig with the leaves. She would hang the twig above the dalikan (earthen stove) and said the itch would go away as soon as the leaves would turn dry. Of course, she would caution the curious cat in me never to touch it.

If it was a case of barkes (ring worm; eczema), my grandmother would pull a blade of the cogon grass she always grew among her ornamental plants on a discarded kerosene can. She would trace the periphery of the affected skin, as in measuring the width of the damage, mumble something which up to her death she never revealed, then knot the cogon leaf she used and hang it above the dalikan. She would send the patient home and advise her to come back after one week.

As far as I can recall, my Inang Baket's patients never came back, so I guess the kamiring and the cogon remedies were effective.

Burning the Suspect Food

This advice was given to me only by Manong Tirso Agbanlog when I mentioned that I failed to watch the orchestra competition part of the fiesta the night before because I developed itchy rashes on my fingers, the back of my knees, and behind my ears. I said I have taken a platito-ful of abuos eggs and nymphs for dinner and later I thought I was being bitten by mosquitoes, but when I looked – hives! 

He said he also had dinner of the said tailor ant nymphs, also bought (like Mama) from Nacia Lacandazo. What I should have done, he said -- and this was seconded by another Ilocano, Manong Cario Guillermo -- was to burn the ants with wings, mix the charred remains with water, then drink the concoction.

Remedy from a Bird

The items above bring to mind what I witnessed in San Roque, Northern Samar, in 2004 or so when I was working with the World Bank-funded Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM) Project. While showing us the durian and cacao saplings he has planted for his upland agroforestry, a Waray farmer got bitten by a spider and pretty soon his affected arm started to swell and he was twisting in pain and said he had to go home. His companion tied a sort of tourniquet on the man’s arm then accompanied him back to the village downhill fully an hour’s hike away.

When we assembled to discuss our evaluation findings later in the afternoon, the spider-sting victim was already there, looking as if nothing happened. He showed me the tiny red puncture of the spider bite and, indeed, it looked like just a pin prick. 

When I asked what he did, he said he had this bird feathers he kept for such purposes. He burned some of the feathers as medicine. I’m not sure now whether he applied it as ointment on the bite or swallowed some of it, or both. What I recall was that he refused to tell what kind of bird he took the medicinal feathers from. -- charlz castro