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CHILDREN |
| When
a child came down with stomach worms, it was customary
to call a neighbor woman who would flail the air with
a pair of scissors around the child’s abdomen. |
| This
action was supposed to charm the worms and drive them
out of the child’s body. At the same time she
would utter this incantation: one, two, three, four
worms, etc., kill the worms near this heart. |
*** |
It
was believed that, if a child pointed to a rainbow,
his finger would become infected and that jaundice
was directly connected with the rainbow.
|
| To
cure this disease, the patient had to go at night
to a certain crossroad with an earthen pot containing
rue mixed with other magical herbs. |
|
The next morning, the first person who went by and
inadvertently broke the pot drew the disease on himself,
thus freeing the victim from the disease. |
*** |
| It
was customary to wean babies only during odd months,
and to take them out of swaddling clothes in their
fifth month. |
*** |
|
|
| To cure children from the mumps, it was customary to draw on their
necks the Star of David with a marker pencil, making sure not to
lift the marker from the skin during the process. |
*** |
| To make sure the child grew a thick head of hair, the first haircut
occurred when the moon was in its crescent phase; to prevent head
aches and to thicken the hair of the older ones, it was customary
(even today) to give a haircut on the first Friday of March. |
*** |
| To ward off possible blindness, the nails of the newly born were
not cut before the third month of life; to assure happiness and
riches, a coin was placed in his hand while cutting a thumb nail. |
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