Medicine Tokelau believed that disease was caused by malevolent gods or by the offense of tapus. According to Turner, there was a specific god responsible for the disease. Only by offering mats to his priest could the sick be cured.
The priest then prayed to the god and massaged the affected part of the sick person with coconut oil. This healing obviously had to be accomplished by the spiritual power imparted by the god, for Turner says:
He didn't use any particular oil. When he sat down, he called someone in the family to give him some oil and, dipping his hand in the cup, passed it gently over the coin two or three times.
When an epidemic, kuanga mai aitu (disease of the gods), spread rapidly or ringworms afflicted more than the usual number of people, they believed that the gods of other islands had sent the disease upon them. By decree of the chief and the priests, the village unites to drive the disease from their island. First, each inhabitant of the village collected some feathers and a piece of coconut shell which he burned to make a rough model of a canoe.
Then they gathered at the village end of the beach and began a walk towards the sea. old bowls or coconuts, knocking over rocks and logs around houses and pounding any object until they got to the water's edge.
Here they set the feathers like sails in their model canoes and launched them out to sea, supposedly carrying on board the spirits that had inflicted the epidemic. Through this pantomime and magic, the disease sent to them was transmitted to another island.
In each community there were healers (matai fau) and assistants (fofo) who were neither priests nor prophets of the gods. They treated the sick according to prescribed methods based on theories about what was happening in the body when particular symptoms arose. This tradition has been passed down from parent to child and is still practiced today by the descendants of the ancient native doctors.
All people have general knowledge of household remedies and freely practice coconut oil massage to remove body aches and pains. But doctors are relied upon in any serious matter because of their greater knowledge.
The Chief Medical Officer's Tokelau Medicine Kit included: a set of lancets (nifomanga), shark teeth attached to glow sticks to open ulcers and cut flesh; a bottle of coconut oil (niulolo); and some leaves, roots and pieces of bark. These drugs were usually bought in the bush and prepared as needed.
Medicine Tokelau: massages
Coconut oil massage is the general treatment for all aches and pains, it is the basis of Tokelauian medicine. After intense work or when a person is extremely tired, it is customary for two young girls or boys of the house to massage (lomilomi) and hit (tukituki) the whole body. In case of illness, whatever the cause, the painful part is rubbed.
Besides the relief that massage usually provides, it is believed that pain and fever can be erased. The pain travels to other parts of the body, from the stomach to the arteries and veins, and can be pushed back by massage.
Massage for a febrile headache is intended to move the fever away from the head, through the neck, and back to its seat in the lower abdomen. The doctor begins by rubbing the neck in a downward motion with the tips of his fingers over the jugular vein. He then works on the forehead, starting with his fingers deep in the socket and against the bridge of the nose and stroking upwards and outwards over the eyebrows and temples.
The strokes continue upward and outward, moving progressively higher from the center of the forehead until the hairline is reached. Then the massage moves to the "center of the head", a point measured from the tip of the nose to the point on the top of the skull by stretching the thumb and the tip of the second finger. With the thumbs resting on this point, the masseur rubs the sides of the head with the fingertips and pulls up the occipito-parietal suture and back down to the occiput in the neck, rubbing this part well.
In the next step, it rubs the back muscles along the spine until it reaches the lower back. Here he rubs on the sacrum "putting the fever in its place". He ends up cauterizing the two muscles that go from the neck to the shoulder.
Arm and shoulder pain is believed to be centered on the scapula (ivi sa). Pressure applied with the thumbs to the center of this bone and a few inches down the arm from the shoulder is thought to relieve pain. This is followed by cauterization along an artery in the axillary region, through which the pain is supposed to pass into the arm. For inflammation and swelling of the axillary region, common in the early stages of filariasis, a ring of five spots is cauterized, surrounded by lighter burns.
If the pain is localized in the upper arm, the elbow is cauterized twice inside and once outside. For forearm pain, the wrist is cauterized three times in a line on the back and again on the inside.
Pain in the chest is eliminated by massage and cauterization. The rub begins at the shoulders and moves along the collarbone to the sternum, then along the intervals between each rib, massaging away from the sternum to transport the pain down the back. Finally, pressure is applied by the hands to the diaphragm.
Earache is treated by massaging along the anterior edge of the mastoid process, along the lower mandible away from the ear, then down the edge of the ear to the auricle, which is pulled several times to extract the pain that was forced into it. .
For neck stiffness, the masseur kneads and rubs the neck muscles downward, continuing pressure along the inner edge of the shoulder blade. At the end of each stroke, he holds his fingers down and pulls the skin taut, preventing the cause of the pain from re-entering the neck. When he has finished the massage, he cauterizes the stiff part of the neck in three places. A sore throat is relieved by massage and by drinking oven-heated coconut juice.
Hydrocele in the scrotum, caused by heartworm, is not uncommon in men. To relieve enlargement, the scrotum is massaged until it breaks. Massage is also used to enlarge the scrotum, in some cases even pulling it up to the knees. It is believed to be a relief and to cure it from further swelling.
In Tokelauan medicine, the newborn is massaged daily by a woman in the household and by the mother as soon as she is able. The main goal is to create a well-shaped body with straight limbs. Particular attention is paid to the head and nose to ensure a natural formation, although the bridge of the nose is often pinched to make it high.
No attempt is made to alter the natural shape of the occiput or to flatten the sides of the nose, as is the practice among the Tongans. The child is carefully laid on one side then the other to avoid flattening one side of the head more than the other. The buttocks are shaped to give them their full roundness and the genitals massaged to make them well shaped and to avoid swelling of these parts later in life.
This is an attempt to avoid the advanced symptoms of filarial infection. It is also made for older children who continue to wet their carpets past an age when the habit has to be overcome. The anus is gently depressed during the first months of life to prevent a drop of this part in old age.
A broken bone is fixed by careful massage. It is wrapped in soft padding
Medicine Tokelau: cauterization
The moth (pita) (Tinea imbricata), known throughout the southern islands as the "Tokelauan moth", was introduced to Tokelau by an infected Gilbertese named Peter who came to Fakaofu on a whaler. The indigenous name for the disease, pita, is taken from his name. It is rampant in the islands and covers the whole body of many natives. A second form of ringworm (lafa) darkens the skin.
Tane, also common in Samoa and Tonga, leaves light pigmented spots on affected body parts. These three forms of skin diseases are treated in the same way. Ringworm is first rubbed with coconut oil, then burned with a wick made by chewing a piece of pandanus root to loosen the fibers and twisting it into a small rope after it has dried.
Wounds that manifest as yaws are sometimes cauterized with fuses, but they are usually scalded. A coconut cup with a small perforation in the base is filled with boiling water and placed over the wound. Hot water falling on the wound reduces inflammation.
For lung disorders in which the patient breathes quickly and with difficulty, the upper abdomen is cauterized. Nine burns in three vertical rows are made under the ribs; the first between the base at the breastplate and the navel, and a row on each side. Each point is cauterized twice. The physician palpates with the flat of his hand, and if the affliction appears to be deep in the chest, judged by the throbbing in the patient's back, the cautery is applied along the spine.
The first burn is made just below the neck on the cervical vertebra, the second four fingers' breadth below, the third the same distance below the second. The cautery is applied at two points on either side of the junction of the sacrum and the lowest lumbar vertebra; a burn is made on the back of each knee and ankle. It is believed that an artery (ua) runs from head to foot and if the line of it is followed by cauterized spots, the flow of disease can be stopped.
Medicine Tokelau: treatments
In Tokelauan medicine, wounds are washed with water and covered with a ball of maile leaves that have been chewed and mixed with saliva. If the wound is bleeding profusely, it is covered with taususu leaves as a styptic compress and then bandaged with narrow strips of braided kie pandanus.
In Tokelauan medicine, abscesses are treated with hot compresses of nonu leaves cut into small pieces and wrapped in the fibrous stipule (kaka) of a coconut leaf. The compress is dipped in warmed coconut oil and gently pressed around the rash to expel the pus.
A little of the compress is left on the head of the abscess as the massage and pressing continues. When the wound is in good condition, it is opened with a shark tooth lancet, tapped by the operator with a light stick.
In Tokelauan medicine, headaches are cured by massaging the head and applying an ointment made from eight maile buds and a young root of fala pandanus, the thickness of a man's finger and half an arm's length, pounded into a coconut cup (ipu).
Earache is relieved by pouring into the ear and then extracting an extract made from the bark of the tausunu tree.
The growth on the conjunctiva of the eye, usually the result of irritation from an eye infected with conjunctivitis, is scraped off with stalks of lau puka leaves. For conjunctivitis and other eye inflammations, an extract is obtained by squeezing the pulp scraped from a coconut leaf midrib.
The outer surface of a young leaf is removed and the fibrous pulp is scraped into a receptacle. The juice or sap is expressed through the tissue-like stipule of the coconut leaf.
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