The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion (39 page)

All of these topics seem like logical ones, but without training, most of us wouldn’t have a clue what to do if suddenly stuck in an arena to fight for our lives. Katniss, remember, enters the arena very well trained in plant identification, navigation, weapons, and hunting. She’s physically agile—imagine if Katniss was weak when sent into the arena!—and she reacts quickly and intelligently. Her mother is a healer, so Katniss knows a lot about natural medicines. As for the local terrain in the arena, if she’s not in a forest similar to the one in District 12, she has to learn how to cope just like everyone else. The same is true for the local weather, which changes at whim in the arena based on what the Gamemakers want to do to the contestants. How do you train for a poisonous gas fog, for example? Or for attacks by strange muttations?

In each of her two Hunger Games, and during the revolution in
Mockingjay,
Katniss always assesses the skills of her enemies and friends. She works with friends to overcome other groups of children during the Games; for example, helping Rue as much as possible and almost dying herself when Rue is killed.

According to the Army Survival Manual, you should do the following when confronted with possible death in the wild (
The U.S. Army Survival Manual,
3):

Of course, all tributes undergo survival training in the Capitol’s Training Center. To gain sponsors and lifesaving gifts, they must impress the Gamemakers and the crowds with the skills and charisma they bring to the Games. To make up for gaps in their survival knowledge, they must practice as much as possible in areas of deficiency. They learn combat techniques, how to build fires and ropes, how to use a wide variety of basic weapons. What’s missing is the element that may very well matter the most: native intelligence. And this is where Katniss excels. Sure, nobody can beat Katniss with a bow and arrow, but she’s truly extraordinary when it comes to the most critical survival skills.

M
edicinal herbs, sleeping syrups, morphling: all play key roles in the three Hunger Games books. Not only does Katniss know which plants to gather for eating and which ones to avoid, she’s lucky to have a mother who is, for all practical purposes, a medicine man, or as I think of her, a
medicine mom
.

On the flip side are the poisons, most notably, the nightlock berries used by Katniss and Peeta to fake-out President Snow and his cronies. But of keenest interest are the poisons that do not involve plants, such as the tracker jacker venom that hijacks Peeta.

Katniss’s mother is an expert with medicinal herbs and basically serves as District 12’s healer. In
Catching Fire,
she and Prim use all sorts of herbs to cure Gale after he’s whipped for possessing a turkey. As mentioned in chapter 2, “Repressive Regimes and Rebellions,” real-life governments have starved millions of their own people to death, they’ve stolen food from citizens, and they’ve mercilessly beaten people for infractions as ludicrous as “thinking” the wrong ideas. So it’s not a stretch that a regime as tyrannical as the Capitol would whip someone into unconsciousness over a turkey. Luckily for Gale, Katniss’s mother is a healer and knows how to use salves, bandages, sleeping syrup, and herbs to reduce inflammations. She even has syringes for injecting morphling, though it’s somewhat unclear how she maintains a supply of hypos and how she’s able to keep them sterile. In real life, doctors use sterile hypodermic needles once and then dispose of them. On the streets, used needles are a cause of infection and spreading disease.

All that aside, it’s lucky for everyone in District 12 that Katniss’s mother knows what she’s doing. She’s a medical healer, an herbalist really, whose methods aren’t connected to the idea of a God or gods or spirits of any kind.

In reality, cultures around the world have believed in faith healers and medicine men for thousands of years. The notion that one man can cure the sick and return life to the dead has been around for a very long time—since prehistoric times.

A shaman, for example, is a medicine man with magic-religious powers who cures human suffering by forming relationships with spiritual entities. The shaman goes into a trance, or spiritual state, and he asks the spirits how to heal the sick, raise the dead, and save the tribe or nation.

The word, “shamanism,” comes from the Russian evolution of the Tungusic word,
saman
. We could list many examples of medicine men and shaman in all cultures. One such example might be the Tatar people, who used the shaman for most everything. For example, to cure a sick child, the shaman would hold a séance to try and bring back the soul of the child. The séance could last six hours, maybe more, during which the shaman went into a trance, traveling to the lands of the spirits. The shaman would search for the sick child’s undamaged soul and ask spirits for a way to heal the child’s illness.

In keeping with the universal ideas throughout history of cosmic consciousness and the interconnection of human souls, the shaman traveled from one cosmic region to another for advice and help. He was able to communicate on a cosmic plane via the cosmic consciousness.

An herbalist such as Katniss’s mother doesn’t travel from one cosmic region to another. She simply knows how to use plants and medicines to heal people. It’s a form of folk medicine, and many modern laboratory-produced medicines are derived from natural plant sources or derivatives.

Since prehistoric times, people have used herbs to heal themselves of illnesses. The Sumerians practiced herbal medicine with thyme and laurel; the ancient Egyptians used mint, garlic, castor oil, coriander, and opium. The ancients of India used turmeric, and later more than 700 different plants for medicinal reasons. The ancient Chinese used as many as 365 medicinal plants.

The cat, Buttercup, is named after a plant; Prim is named after a plant; and even the name, Rue, refers to a plant.

While Katniss almost kills Buttercup, she ends up quite fond of the cat. When wild, Buttercup is scrappy, but when fed and cared for, she becomes almost affectionate. When raw, all buttercup plants are poisonous. When boiled or pickled—when cared for—the plants are safe for consumption.

The primrose is a delicate flower, and both the leaves and flowers are edible. Prim is cast as a delicate, innocent flower in The Hunger Games.

As for rue, it is a bitter herb that tastes horrible. The word is derived from the Greek
reuo
, to set free; historically, people used rue in an attempt to cure the plague, get rid of worms and fleas, and set the body free from other diseases. Chewing rue leaves may relieve tension headaches and anxiety.

Speaking of Rue, she chews green leaves and then applies the glop to skin in order to relieve the pain and sting from leech bites. Plantain leaves, which are common weeds, can take the sting out of bites. If you chew plantain leaves, then apply the glop to an insect bite, it’ll relieve the pain, swelling, and sting. Other leaves that work well include witch hazel, oak, willow, and maple.

Katniss’s first gift from a sponsor is a medicinal burn ointment (
The Hunger Games,
188). The cooling balm instantly eradicates her pain, and she knows it’s not an herbal remedy, but rather, a medicine made in the Capitol’s laboratories. Apparently, the ointment heals burns. Of course, we all know that cold water helps reduce the pain of burns, as does aloe vera. Sometimes, antibiotic creams are used, as well. This is all fine if you have a first-degree burn, such as a minor sunburn; or possibly even if you have second-degree burns with blisters. But for third-degree burns, where the skin looks charred, cold water and ointments aren’t going to help much: For extreme burns, you need medical assistance.