linguistic:translation, structural:reformatting, stylistic:tone
Use in folk medicine

In Morocco, hoopoes are traded live and as medicinal products in the markets, primarily in herbalist shops. This trade is unregulated and a potential threat to local populations.

In Manipur, one of the states comprising Northeast India, the hoopoe is still used by traditional Muslim healers in a variety of preparations believed locally to benefit a number of conditions both medical and spiritual. Manipur abuts upon Myanmar and has been a cultural crossroads and melting pot of cultures for over 2,500 years. Its traditional medicine may thus reflect influences from an unusually wide area, including not only the Indian subcontinent but also Central Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and even the further-flung regions of Siberia, the Arctic, Micronesia and Polynesia. Ibopishak and Bimola record four Manipuri folk medicinal uses of the hoopoe which specify neither the body part of the bird used nor its method of preparation:

More specifically, it is believed that if an essence (method of preparation unspecified) prepared from the bird is dropped into the eye, it will remove superfluous eyelashes and strengthen the memory.

Furthermore the authors record the following local Manipuri beliefs concerning specific body parts of the hoopoe:

While Ibopishak and Bimola are unable to find any discernible effect of hoopoe tissue alone upon the dissolution of kidney stones, they do note that their experiments reveal that hoopoe tissue potentiates the effects of the Manipuri medicinal plant Cissus javana, when employed to treat such calculi (local healers use bird and plant in just such a combination for this purpose). Since, however, there was no control used involving the tissues of any other bird species, it remains unclear whether there are any medicinal properties peculiar to hoopoe tissue deriving from a distinctive chemistry.