Interesting :) My wife is now getting into healing oils (I'm not sure if that is the right term though) I'm sure there is a lot we can learn from ancient healing arts.
I remember when we were kids, my brother and I, whenever we're sick, our mom would first take us to a doctor, then proceed to the hilot just next door. LOL. She sure had all her bases covered.
Yes, I've heard that there in the Phillipines they have a massage of the uterus that can be done to the woman after the childbirth and sets the uterus back in the normal state. So, now I know the name. We didn't have any of such practitioners, but I had my grandmothers to explain me certain ways to make my physical existance easier.
Actually that was my point, that we shouldn't just throw away everything that was working well in the past and speed with the speed of light into some novel ideas and technologies - those ancient ones functioned without much technology. Because when everything like this gets forgotten then who is going to explain anything?
The hilot is just the tip of the iceberg here. :) there are a whole host of others that involve witchcraft and magic, the albularyo is an example. I draw the line at the hilot as the others are weird and can be damn scary lol
I read about it a bit in a book The Fortuneteller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani, there a some scary ones from the Phillipines in there, but the Phillipines don't seem to have the exclusivity on scary&weird in this area.