“Other teas that are very good for treating empacho are raíz de Valeriana and estafiate. You may chew a sprig of sage, that is very soothing too. Te de canela, te de manzanilla—I usually recommend to children for empacho, they are very mild teas and very good for curing their little tummyaches!”

Aigre (internal draft): “Anyone at anytime can be susceptible to air, which is another way of saying ‘catching a draft,’ only it’s on the inside. Aigre can even be caught by the dead! But in their case it is a matter of a bad spirit entering their bodies and not just the wind that sometimes causes headaches, an earache, stomach pain, and so on. In the case of the dead catching aigre, we used to have the custom of putting pieces of cotton soaked in alcohol in all their orifices to ensure their protection from such invasions, back in the days when one laid a body out at home. Now they take your people off to a funeral parlor and who knows what they do to them there. Anyway, you see now how easy it might be to mistake aigre for something much more complicated like empacho when the person comes to you simply complaining of a pain in the stomach.

“Usually the point is to ‘warm’ the person up, with teas if they are children, a nice massage with alcohol, and if they are gente grande, you can even give them un tragüito!” doña Felicia herself was not averse to a little drink now and then, at which time she liked to “toast” with the following verse:

Un doble y un sencillo
quitan cualesquier resfrío.

Si es grande la pena,
copa llena;
si no se quita
que se repita.

Contra todo mal, mezcal.
Contra todo bien, también.

A double and a single
get rid of any chill.

If the grief is big,
fill the glass;
if it remains
fill it again.

Against all bad, mezcal.
Against all good, as well.