Traditional Medicine:

A large tree in the center of Mogmog village shows scars where the inner bark was harvested for medicinal uses.

Hosay talks about local medicine on Ulithi:

“Before, our belief here is that when somebody becomes sick, we suspected that maybe a ghost or something caused the illness. We believed that maybe somebody played magic on the person who became sick. So we had local medicine before—there is a way to find the person, the right person, to treat the sick man. And when they find that, they said, ‘okay this is the guy that is going to take care of this.’ He’ll come and do what we think will the cure of the person who becomes sick. Sometimes when they say they have ghost, they give medicine for the ghost. That’s what I heard. But I never saw someone that was treated like that.

“Nowadays on Ulithi—I cannot say about the whole Outer Islands—I don’t think that we still have that belief. But we are still using some of our local medicines, and even myself, I have proved that some of our local medicines really work. And now we believe this Western way of treating people. Before, we didn’t allow men to deliver babies. But nowadays, no more a problem with that. Every O.B. case they bring to me, and I do the delivery. So we don’t have that kind of a problem any more."

“Sometimes we get things from dreams,” Stanley interjects. “Sometimes we get medicine from some kind of spirit that comes through your dreams, and makes you dream that somebody gives you a certain medicine, or tells you it’s a certain type of tree that you should go collect to cure some kind of sickness."

Young leaves of the mahogany tree are used to treat diarrhea.

“During my medical training,” Hosay continues, “we were talking about a medicine for this jellyfish. Because, from what I understand, Western medicine has nothing that you just apply on the skin and it will take care of that. But here I even saw some people that were stung by jellyfish, and it’s pretty bad. They just kept on coughing and coughing without having a chance to breathe. But that medicine, just like that! Just apply on the skin. Within seconds—it’s not minute—within seconds. And this medicine, it’s from a family and they don’t let people to know about this medicine. I know it because I saw the way they apply it. But I cannot say what plant it is.

“Some people, they were trying to sneak a way that they can get this medicine, because it’s very strong. I know some medicine for this jellyfish that we use. It also works, because myself, I was also stung by this jellyfish when I was young, and I know the medicine because they applied it on my face. That kind of tree is the same name of this island: Mogmog. They pound part of it, the red cup that holds the seeds. The juice comes up, and they get some coconut oil. They wrap the medicine in coconut mesh and dip that in the coconut oil to 'wet' it, and they apply it. That one works, but it take a couple of times, a couple of minutes, to respond with that one. That’s one kind of local medicine.

Coconut mesh is produced naturally by the coconut palm.

“Another one, they use it for cancer. And I don’t know that it really works or not. I had some cancer patients before, breast cancer. And this medicine, even now, there is a lady in Falalop, they diagnosed her breast cancer in Yap hospital, a couple years back. Then it was last year, the breast started to open up. So they tried this medicine on her, because she could not work anymore. She was very sick. And this is still working; now she’s walking around on Falalop. Now I learn about that medicine. I also heard that another lady here has a lump on her breast, taking the same local medicine, and I went and questioned her. She said, ‘yes, that’s the reason I take that medicine, because I know how to check my breast and I found out that there is a lump there, so now when I take that medicine, the lump is no more.’

“Somebody from here was in Saipan, and he was so sick the doctor thought that he was going to die. They were suspecting liver problem, hepatitis. His sisters called back here on the radio, and asked if somebody will know some medicine of the liver. So the people here, they told them the tree that they can use. So they used that medicine on that guy, and I think two weeks before he went for a check-up. So when he went for his check-up, the doctor said, ‘You’re improving. Do you have something besides this medicine that we give?’ But he hadn’t taken those Western medicines. He was just taking that local medicine. And now he’s walking around. So we don’t know whether his sickness is simply just getting better by itself, or because of the medicine.

“These things, I cannot really prove whether the medicine really works. I was wondering if there is a, there is somebody who can come and study these kind of leaves and see what kind of chemical we have in them and how it works. because I’m sure that some of this local medicine really work.”

Pacific Worlds > Yap: Ulithi > The Land > Forest