Svetlana Suktueva, About Traditional Medicine

Svetlana talks about medicinal diet, animal blood, an antidote made from a sheep’s skin, herbal therapy, the medicinal properties of melted butter, medicinal water and a place called Single Poplar where people perform various rituals. This is her story: Kalmyk folk medicine originates from the Tibetan. It is based on three principles, including 1) acupuncture, 2) burn-off and 3) bloodletting. The Kalmyks have traditionally been nomads and received everything from their livestock, including food, clothes and materials for their dwellings. Mutton is used in dietary medicine. The Kalmyks kept four kinds of sheep. In dietary medicine people usually use merino’s meat. I heard this from many people, including my grandmother. In the past, the Kalmyks treated many ailments with mutton soup. People still do. For old people, it is healthy to have this soup at least once a week. We, Kalmyks, are nomads and grow up eating meat, whereas the Russians grow up on vegetables. Let me tell you about a healing method called ‘shilin shim’ (lit. ‘juice from a bottle’). In my native village of Khar-Buluk there lived an elderly woman who was often sick, felt sleepy and had low blood pressure. My grandmother filled a 3-litre jar with fatty mutton, closed the jar and hung the jar over a pot of boiling water. When the meat in the jar absorbed some steam, she took the meat out and squeezed around 200 grams of juice out of it, then added butter and gave the mutton juice to that old woman. After drinking it, the woman recovered. I also witnessed how blood was used in healing. The blood of a sheep born in May – such sheep feed on juicy grass – has to be dried, before using it. Other animals whose blood is used for medicinal purposes are wolves, hares and saiga antelopes. Boiled water with a saiga horn is good for fever. I also witnessed people mix sheep’s blood with butter and smear it on sores to cure scrofula. Whilst modern medicine is powerful and there are many good doctors, traditional medicine is also helpful. Once I saw an antidote ...