Galina Mamonova, About Folk Healing Methods
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Galina talks about how her grandparents healed people. In the olden days folk healers, who lived in every settlement, used special methods (domnkh). When I was a child, there were already no folk healers around anymore, and people were treated by medical assistants. In the past, when a small child got frightened of something and cried a lot, in the evening my grandfather used to put a cup of water, melt tin or lead in a pan, and then pour the metal into the cold water. The lead always took the form of what the child was afraid of, and my grandfather always correctly determined the source of fear. My grandfather never entrusted this ritual to others, and always did it himself. My grandmother also performed the ritual of amnya dol’g (substitution). She would take a piece of dough and rub the front and then the back of the patient with it. After having whispered some incantations to the dough, she could say what the reason for the disease was. After the ritual she would throw the dough into the rooftop for birds to eat.