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Ossman & Steel’s Classic Household Guide to Appalachian Folk Healing: A Collection of Old-Time Remedies, Charms, and Spells
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- updated:
- status: to be worked
- folk medicine, regional
- native plants, plant medicine
publisher:
ISBN:
9781578637539
date:
pages:
152
description:
A long-treasured but forgotten classic of folk healing, with an introduction and commentary by the author of Backwoods Witchcraft and Doctoring the Devil.
Ossman & Steel's Guide to Health or Household Instructor (its original title) is a collection of spells, remedies, and charms. The book draws from the old Pennsylvania Dutch and German powwow healing practices that in turn helped shape Appalachian folk healing, conjure, rootwork, and many folk healing traditions in America. Jake Richards, author of Backwoods Witchcraft and Doctoring the Devil, puts these remedies in context, with practical advice for modern-day "backwoods" healers interested to use them today.
The first part contains spells and charms for healing wounds, styes, broken bones, maladies, and illnesses of all sorts. The second part includes other folk remedies using ingredients based on sympathetic reasoning, including sulfuric acid, gunpowder, or other substances for swelling, toothache, headache, and so on. These remedies are presented here for historic interest, to help better understand how folk medicine evolved in America.
It is Jake Richard's hope that reintroducing this work will reestablish its position as a useful household helper in the library of every witch or country healer.
Ossman & Steel's Guide to Health or Household Instructor (its original title) is a collection of spells, remedies, and charms. The book draws from the old Pennsylvania Dutch and German powwow healing practices that in turn helped shape Appalachian folk healing, conjure, rootwork, and many folk healing traditions in America. Jake Richards, author of Backwoods Witchcraft and Doctoring the Devil, puts these remedies in context, with practical advice for modern-day "backwoods" healers interested to use them today.
The first part contains spells and charms for healing wounds, styes, broken bones, maladies, and illnesses of all sorts. The second part includes other folk remedies using ingredients based on sympathetic reasoning, including sulfuric acid, gunpowder, or other substances for swelling, toothache, headache, and so on. These remedies are presented here for historic interest, to help better understand how folk medicine evolved in America.
It is Jake Richard's hope that reintroducing this work will reestablish its position as a useful household helper in the library of every witch or country healer.
places:
citation (CMOS):
Jake Richards. Ossman and Steel’s Classic Household Guide to Appalachian Folk Healing: A Collection of Old-Time Remedies, Charms, and Spells. Newburyport, MA: Weiser Books, 2022.
Other Resources
- The Physical Anthropology and Genetics of Marginal People of the Southeastern United States
- 1850 U.S. Census – Subdivision 32, Hancock County, Tennessee
- 1840 U.S. Census – Morgan County, Kentucky
- Melungeon Voices S4 E3 – Joshua Outsey
- GodPretty in the Tobacco Field
- The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery