Tag Archives: predicting the future

Future Spouse String Initial

Context: I had a string hanging off my jacket when Informant pointed it out and told me this piece of folklore. I asked informant to repeat the lore to me so I could record it.

Informant: “I heard from my grandma that when you have a little string hanging off from your clothes, that you have to pull it off and then throw it behind your shoulder. The you find where the string landed, and it should make the shape that is the initials of your future spouse.”

Background Information: Informant did not necessarily remember when their grandma had told them this, but they knew that she had. Informant did not necessarily believe in the validity of the folklore, but enjoyed doing it and sharing it with others anyway. The informant’s grandmother, however, is apparently a very avid believer in the lore.

Thoughts: The folklore is interesting, and something I have heard before. The folklore serves as a fortune telling device, and displays the notion that things which we attach to our physical selves (clothes), can embody ourselves and our lives. The folklore is a fun game to play as well as a serious predictor of the unknowns of the future. Either way, it is a comfort to its practitioners.

Estonian Tin Prognostication

Background: My informant, HS, is a 52-year-old professor at USC. She was born and raised in Estonia and moved to the United States when she was twenty. Her mother and father were both physicians in Soviet Estonia. Even though she no longer lives in Estonia, she still stays connected with Estonian tradition through her involvement with the Los Angeles Estonian House and still speaks the Estonian language with family and friends. She also happens to be my mother.

Context: One lunch, during quarantine, I decided to sit down and interview my mother about interesting Estonian folklore she was aware of and has experienced.

Main Piece: “At the winter solstice, which also is in Christianity right, but at the darkest point of the winter, and when we knew the new year was gonna start, or at least traditionally that indicates that a new year was gonna start, we melted tin and then we would pour it, like… y’know, bit by bit and put it into a cold or room temperature bucket of water which would solidify it. And then take sort of the mini sculpture out of the water and try to interpret it. If you saw something that looked like a horse, then that would mean that, y’know, you would get a new horse or get a new calf that would make it and become a working horse for the family. Or anything else, if you saw a baby or… um y’know a tool, where you would maybe say, I don’t know, my son is gonna become a uh…. or if there was obviously a sword looking thing then it would be like, OH this is an ominous sign of enemy armies coming again. It would be kind of a time to, uh, to interpret, to predict what was going to happen in the next year”. 

Interpretation: I was never aware of this tradition. What stuck out to me the most about this sign superstition was that it is based more in nature then something like luck or magic. Estonian culture is extremely down-to-earth in the sense that it is simple and not very extravagant, and also in the sense that it deals a lot with nature and earthy materials like tin and rock rather then more luxurious materials like gold and diamonds. While some cultures look into a crystal ball for signs of the future, Estonians put molten tin into a bucket of water if you get what I’m saying. This superstition is a reflection of the down-to-earth nature of Estonian folk culture and how Estonians look to more natural occurrences for signs.

MASH – A Game to Predict Your Future

Item:

E: MASH is- is a game, um, where it stands- it stands for mansion, apartment,

S: (simultaneously with ‘E’) shack, and house

E: and then there were different categories.  And how I played it you could always customize your categories, but it was usually always something along the lines of the pet you’re gonna have, the car you’re gonna have, your job, your husband, or wife, blah blah blah blah

S: Who’s gonna be your husband, or wife.

E: How many kids you have, that was a popular one. And then you would, um…

S: Salary!

E: You played with salary? That’s terrifying

Q: That’s a little too high stakes!

S: We were really hardcore middle schoolers man

E: And then you would write it all down.  And then you would, um, you would say start and go and you would draw lines until you said stop and that would be the amount of times the person would just go down the list counting and crossing things out, and then whatever was left was, uh, your prediction for your future life.

 

Context:

This piece was collecting while hanging out with friends from the University of Southern California and we all began to talk about the games from our childhoods or school days.  Some of us even played them again now as college students, including but not limited to MASH as described above.  After this exchange, we proceeded to play a few rounds of MASH choosing the following categories: husband/wife, occupation, husband’s/wife’s occupation, salary, husband’s/wife’s salary, car, number of children, place, and pet.  The person whose future was being predicted chose three things to place in each category and the others in the room chose the last, usually an unfavorable choice, for a total of four items.  We also restricted the husband/wife options to those who were in the room at the time.  The counting number was determined by me drawing lines until the person said stop, then I counted through the categories back-to-back, crossing out the one I landed on each time.  Once I finished the categories, I counted through MASH at the top and then we read out the person’s future to the room.

The two informants were both females, and a majority of those who chose to play were female as well, but the person whose future was predicted was male.  The two informants grew up in different places and we have age differences of a few years between each of us.  ‘S’ in the exchange above grew up in Michigan and primarily played this game during middle school.  ‘E’ in the exchange above grew up in California, and mentioned how she would play the game with her friends at “every sleepover ever.”  There was a general consensus that primarily it was girls that would play MASH.

 

Analysis:

I played MASH quite a bit as well while going to middle school in Virginia.  It was mainly just a fun way to pass the time at that age.  The fact that it was so widespread and so popular for a period of time may be because it is an easy pen and paper activity that is simple to learn, customize, and pass on, but I believe there is another reason why it was so popular, especially during middle school years.  At its core, MASH is a game about predicting the future, and this practice existed long before the game existed.  People have a desire to predict the future so that they have more control over it and can decrease their anxiety about what may come.  Especially for middle schoolers, when most children are now going through puberty and beginning a transition into adolescence and eventually adulthood, there can be great uncertainty about the future.   MASH, then, becomes an unconscious way to plan out and/or predict the future in a completely low risk, zero consequence, and even humorous environment.  There may be even a hint of belief in its prediction power for some, indicated by how you would primarily put choices you wanted under each category.  Furthermore, the particular anxieties can be extrapolated from the categories chosen.  These categories may be completely trivial and entertaining (e.g. Type of Pet) or they can reveal desires regarding social class (e.g. Salary, MASH) and gender roles, particularly for females (e.g. Number of Children, Occupation).  Even the common addition of an undesirable choice to each of the categories, when it is known that there is a possibility it may be picked, indicates an awareness that the future may not always be in their favor.  On the surface, MASH may seem like just a funny way to pass the time and be entertained due to the improbable nature of the results, but all things considered, it seems to be a way for middle-school age children to overcome their anxieties about the future in a time where they are going through a number of changes, both physical and psychological.

 

Additional Informant Data:

The informant data for the interlocuter denoted by ‘E’ is included in the section above the item.  The same data for the other informant is included below.

‘S’ – Nationality: USA; Age: 26; Occupation: Ph.D. Student; Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Primary Language: English; Other Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew

Coffee Grinds – Predict the Future?

The informant was telling me how Greeks used the dregs from coffee grinds to read the future:

Informant: In some cultures they read tea leaves, but in some cultures they read coffee grinds.

Me: huh

Support: dregs from the coffee

Informant: They took the dregs turned over a little cup and turned it three times, and then they read the inside of the cup – what dripped out – and read what they would see “oh your gonna take a trip, oh you’re gonna get married, oh this or that”

Support: they always said I was going to get married, but here I am!

 

Context: 

The Informant is a Greek woman who was born in the United States. She currently lives in Carmel-By-The-Sea, CA. Though she was not born in Greece, her parents immigrated to the US and she was born into a very Greek community in Phoenix, AZ. The performance was held during an Easter party, in front of her younger sister, who provided supporting information, as well as me.

Analysis:
This was completely new to me, as I had never heard of this ritual and only faintly heard of the tea leave predictions. I think it is really interesting how different cultures share so many similar traditions and patterns, and while they are similar they are also very different. It also raises questions about why cultures come up with these practices, seeing that they are not always accurate, but fascinating nonetheless.