OIlie Moore in the O&D Grocery on Harkers Island 



Of kerosene, fatback and snuff 



Next time you get an earache, don't 

 rush to the doctor for some newfangled 

 antibiotic. Try an old fashioned 

 remedy from Harkers Island. A little 

 bit of the juice from cooked marsh 

 mussels should do the trick. Or, if 

 you're feeling adventurous, put a few 

 drops of urine in the affected ear. 



Those are two of about 50 home 

 remedies that anthropologist Marcus 

 Hepburn has collected as a sidelight to 

 his research on Harkers Island. Hep- 

 burn believes that medical folklore can 

 shed light on the traditional culture of 

 a region. 



A few of the remedies, he notes, 

 make use of herbs. Ground mullen leaf, 

 for instance, is frequently recommen- 

 ded for treating swelling from sprains. 

 And sassafras tea is said to have the 

 power to "break out the measles" in a 

 person suffering from the fever which 

 preceeds measles rash. 



But Hepburn has found that most 

 remedies remembered by islanders 

 make use of more readily available 

 items such as kerosene, fatback and 

 snuff. A long soak in a tub of hot water 

 and kerosene used to be the treatment 

 for chigger bites. 



"Most people remember hearing 

 these remedies from their parents or 

 grandparents," says Hepburn. "But 

 few people still use them." 



Charlie Russell is one exception. He 

 still swears by his remedy for babies 

 who are having trouble teething. Cut a 

 piece of Jerusalem oak into tiny seg- 

 ments, he advises. Then string the 

 pieces and tie the necklace around the 

 baby's neck. 



Hepburn believes that most of the 

 folk remedies used on Harkers Island 

 were popular in other sections of the 

 state, too. But some seem to have or- 

 iginated on Harkers Island. 



Take Ollie's salve, for instance. The 

 recipe remains a secret because OIlie 

 . . . died earlier this year without pass- 

 ing it on. Her daughter OIlie Moore 

 remembers that the concoction re- 

 quired cooking and contained kero- 

 sene, lard, paragoric and a few other in- 

 gredients. 



"She always called it her dream 

 salve because the recipe came to her in 

 a dream. I was small at the time and 

 my daddy had a place that wouldn't 

 heal on his foot." Mrs. Moore remem- 

 bers that the salve cured her father's 

 foot in a hurry. 



That was only the beginning. Word 

 of the healing powers of Ollie's salve 

 spread. "People would come to her 

 from all over when everything else 

 failed . . . She'd always keep one of 

 those tin coffee cans full and anybody 

 who came, she'd give them some," says 

 Mrs. Moore. 



Sure enough, life has changed on 

 Harkers Island. You don't know 

 everybody you meet anymore. Not 

 every family has a commercial fisher- 

 man in it. You can't walk out in the 

 back woods "of a dewy morning" to 

 shoot your dinner. 



But OIlie Moore is good testimony to 

 the fact that some things just don't 

 change. Her roots on Harkers Island go 

 back a long way. She was born there 

 and her grandfather was born in Dia- 

 mond City. 



To sum it up, she says, "I was born 

 and raised right on the waterfront. I 

 moved across the highway. And that's 

 as far as I want to go until I go behind 

 the Methodist Church in Vergie Mae 

 Cemetery." 



