3 Pow Wow Epilepsy Cures

• 1. Take a turtle dove, cut its throat, and let the person afflicted with epilepsy, drink the blood.
• 2. This remedy is only effective it the subject had never fallen into fire or water:

Write reversedly or backwards upon a piece of paper: “IT IS ALL OVER!” This is to be written but once upon the paper; then put it in a scarlet-red cloth, and then wrap it in a piece of unbleached linen, and hang it around the neck on the first Friday of the new moon. The thread with which it is tied must also be unbleached.

• 3. To cure fits or convulsions:

You must go upon another person’s land, and repeat the following words: “I go before another court–I tie up my 77-fold fits.” Then cut three small twigs off any tree on the land; in each twig you must make a knot. This must be done on a Friday morning before sunrise, in the decrease of the moon unbeshrewdly. + + + Then over your body where you feel the fits you make the crosses. And thus they may be made in all cases where they are applied.

From: Pow-Wows, or Long Lost Friend, by John George Hoffman, [1820]