The Birth House (29 page)
Authors: Ami McKay
Lavender
Flower of the Blessed Virgin Mother. Tea: for truth, faith and love.
Lemon
The juice of a ripe lemon will clear the head. Squeeze into your hand and
sniff!
Lobelia
A flower what knows. If a mama’s gone to cramps and letting go of blood, lobelia will tell her body what to do. If it can save the child, it will. If not, it helps her let it go. Cleans her out. Tea: lobelia, feverfew, red raspberry, catnip.
Tea and rest.
Mandrake Root
Balm of the bruised woman. Stand with your back to the wind. Draw three circles, clockwise, around the plant with a knife. Douse it with Mary’s Tears. Turn west to uproot.
Marigold
(calendula)
Marigold honey salve heals any burn or sore spot.
The maid what dances barefoot with the marigold will know the language of the birds.
Mary Candle
To loose an angel from her seat. See
Slippery Elm
.
Mary’s Tears
On May-eve, stretch a sheet between the trees. Place a stone in the centre so the dew will run down. Put your bowl underneath to catch the drops. At dawn on the first of May, gather it up in a bottle, singing this little song:
On the first of May Before the sun shines Mary gives up her tears For healing divine
Moon-bath
Lay naked in a crossroads in the light of the full moon. Makes the womb ripe.
Moon Elixir
Readies her for making babies. Steep licorice root, feverfew flowers, and bee balm in wine at the full moon. Cook it down slowly, never boil. Add cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar to taste. Makes a woman sweet and her man sweet on her.
Drink through the day to be sweet, ripe and gay.
Moss
From a good woman’s grave will bring you luck.
Mother’s Tea
Raspberry leaves, nettle, Melissa, dried apple, fennel.
Mouse Ear
Mouse ear tea will save your life. Cures bold hives when they’ve gone around the heart. Grows on rocks at the edges of fresh water.
No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.
Navel Cord Care
Grease a piece offine muslin with tallow, place on a shovel over a fire and scorch until brown. Cut small hole in muslin and pull the navel cord through. Pin bands around it to keep it snug, to prevent ruptures in the belly caused by crying. Leave for 3 to 6 days or until the cord stump dries and falls off. Goldenseal powder is good for drying.
Onion
To cure a cold, rub feet with onions. Bury them when through. Onion syrup (garlic, onions, molasses): Three times a day, makes all sickness go away.
Bain d’oignon et orge:
A bath of onions and barley will turn the worst illness.
Throw an onion after a bride and you’ll throw away her tears.
Pasque Flower
(
meadow anemone, pulsatilla
)
See also
Breech.
For a woman what weeps one minute and is sunny the next. For a woman who’s scared to be alone, who changes her mind with the wind. Warms the blood and makes her sweat. If that woman’s baby done turned breech, a dose in her Mother’s Tea can turn it around. Wrap the first blossoms in spring in a red cloth and tie it to the arm. Keeps away disease.
Patience Dock
Tie to the left arm of a woman who’s wanting a child.
Placenta
Bury the afterbirth with a scallop shell. Gives a woman at least a year before she gets with child again. Bury under an apple tree and the child will never know hunger. If a mother’s bleeding won’t stop, salt the thing, wrap it up in paper and throw it to the fire. Burns the blood away.
Quilling
Brings a child out when a mama’s gone tired. Take a quill, push pepper up in it. Blow up her nose when she’s hurting, and she’ll push the babe right out.
Quince
Heals sore, cracked nipples and is quite pleasant. Warm quince seed in a little cold tea until the liquid gets glutinous. Apply to nipples.
Raspberry
God’s gift to all mothers. Gives strength to her whole being. Her heart, her womb, her bones.
Sage
Helps with after pains. Careful! Dries up milk. Toads love it.
She who would live for aye, must eat sage in May.
The most horrible curse you can put on a woman is to kiss her on the cheek and tells her that things couldn’t get any worse. The minute you say it, they surely does.
Stop Bleed
Brew Mother’s Heart with bayberry bark to make a tea.
Stranger’s Face
Beware the stranger’s face. If a mama’s got it come upon her, get her to bed and get the baby out.
Slippery Elm
Brings the angel down. Anoint the Mary Candle three times round with the oil of slippery elm. Slip the end into her sweet spot. To stop gossip: Tie a yellow string around a branch. Feed it to the fire.
Weaning
Sage tea in the waning moon. To dry up the breasts after weaning, have her pull some of her milk onto a hot stone.
Willow
Knock on the willow three times three, no evil will follow thee.
Salve nos, Stella Maris,
Save us, Star of the Sea.
During the First World War, news from the front dominated newspaper headlines. Stories of the women’s suffrage movement became back-page items of interest. Other issues such as fertility awareness, birth control and the science of obstetrics were only briefly mentioned in large city papers (unless it was to report that Margaret Sanger had been arrested, yet again, for distributing information about family planning) and rarely, if ever, covered by small-town press.
A woman’s struggle to gain the right to choose what happened to her body was a silent issue, recorded in personal journals or through letters, one woman to another. Traditions, information and ideas about childbirth, as well as women’s health and happiness, were shared in the sisterhood of knitting circles and around the kitchen table. In small, isolated communities, the keeper of this wisdom was the midwife.
When I was young, I used to watch my mother so I could learn from her. I loved sitting with her while she cooked, sewed or gardened, and even while she was putting on her makeup. One thing I remember well was her end-of-day ritual of emptying out her pockets onto her vanity. A spool of thread, a note from a friend, bobby pins, a recipe card, a pine cone I’d handed her as a gift, a torn-out picture from a magazine—these treasures would sit on a mirrored tray, looking like they were ready to be presented to a queen. A reflection of her day, her art. When I sat down to write
The Birth House
, I realized that this was how I wanted to arrange my words, as well: by making a literary scrapbook out of Dora’s days.
I drew from many books and sources while writing, including
Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery
by Janet F. Kitz,
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812
by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
Giving Birth in Canada, 1900–1950
by Wendy Mitchinson,
The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction
by Rachel P. Maines,
Hygieia: A Woman’s Herbal
by Jeannine Parvati,
Herbs and Things
by Jeanne Rose,
Edible Wild Plants of Nova Scotia
by Heather MacLeod and Barbara MacDonald, and the wonderfully arcane
Science of a New Life
by Dr. John Cowan. Most invaluable of all were my conversations with residents, past and present, of Scots Bay.
