Tag Archives: Superstition

Navratras festival – not using sharp objects

Ritual:

There is a Hindu holiday, which occurs twice a year, called Navratras. It lasts 9 days. During these 9 days, people who fast do not use any sharp objects, except for a knife to cut food. People do not cut nails or hair or shave for 9 days. It is believed to bring bad luck if you use sharp objects.

Context:

JG is 59 years old and my mother. She grew up in India with a very religious Hindu family, before immigrating to the USA. She still practices Hinduism to this day, and follows all of the religion’s traditions, observes the festivals, and believes in its myths to this day. She tried to pass this on to me as a child, but her religious beliefs never really connected with me. She agreed to retell this celestial myth to me for this assignment.

Analysis:

The Navratras is a Hindu festival in which people worship Goddess Durga by fasting. Some people believe that Goddess Durga stood on the tip of a needle while fighting the evil forces – this is why sharp objects, like needles, are probably associated with bad luck. The festival has its origins in ancient Hindu texts and has been observed for centuries – this shows the great effort that many Indian cultures make to preserve their stories and traditions. This particular aspect of fasting is probably a form of making physical sacrifices, in the form of small changes in one’s everyday lifestyle, for the gods.

Wearing the same shirt to all tests in nursing school

Ritual:

When AH was in nursing school, she would always wear a specific Brett Eldredge shirt to tests. She believed that it brought her good luck.

Context:

I met the informant, AH, through friends when we saw Kelsea Ballerini together. She likes many other country artists as well, including Brett Eldredge. He is her favorite singer and he feels like a good luck charm to her. Plus, wearing his merch gives her a sense of comfort as she walks into stressful situations like nursing school tests. AH started doing this on her own early in her nursing school years.

Analysis:

I related to what AH said, as I have done the same with Taylor Swift shirts during big tests for school. The superstitious belief that certain things we wear, especially if we associate them with people we love, can bring us good luck is very common. Realistically, there is no direct link between what we wear and how well we do on our tests – there might be a correlation, but that doesn’t always equal causation. But, we like to think there is one in order to relieve our anxiety. It makes us feel like we have control over the results in more ways than we actually do. Of course, this is done after hours of studying, but when you value academic performance as much as AH and I do, you’re under the mindset that every little thing helps. Neither of us are very religious, but this ritual does reflect our belief in luck and superstition, to an extent. Our decisions about what to do, especially on important days like test days, aren’t always rooted in logic that can be proven.

Mexican Magical Practices

Text:

Egg Cleansing

Context:

Collector: “What is this egg cleansing and what does it mean to you?

Informant: “Egg cleansing is when you take an egg, typically a large white egg, and rub it all over your body to cleanse yourself. Any negative energy that currently has a hold in your life, will go into the egg and be absorbed, thus leaving you. After rubbing the egg all over yourself, you’re supposed to crack it in a cup of water and see how the yolk forms. If there’s spikes, or if the yolk looks almost spider-webby, then you did have some negative energy released into the egg. If there are no distinct, or sharp patterns, then there was no negative energy to cleanse from you.

Collector: “Have these sharp patterns ever occurred from your egg cleansing?

Informant: “Yes and it was so scary. It happened to be around the time that I injured myself during Volleyball practice and had to be out for the rest of the season. It was first time that I have ever had negative energy reflect in my egg cleanse, so Im glad it worked and healed my leg.

Collector: “When were you first exposed to egg cleansing?

Informant: “I’d say around when I was four years old. My grandma would do it to all of her children and grandchildren on Christmas day. She also does it to us when an ill occurrence has befallen us, such as maybe an accident, or just something unlucky.

Analysis:

This egg cleansing seems to be dependent on the use of the embryo within the egg, transferring the negative energy of one life force to an unborn life force, to purify one over the other. The cracking of the egg is a symbolic release of that energy back into the world. HR’s grandmother comes from a Christian background, and it’s interesting to see the presence of superstitious or magical practices within a religion like Christianity. The presence of egg cleansing likely comes from the fusion of European religion with indigenous practices, or some other ethnofusion of sorts. Latin America is one of the most, if not the most culturally diverse and mixed region in the world. It takes from the practices of Indigenous, European, and African cultures. Within my own Puerto Rican culture, we have a similar use for the egg cleanse, but instead it’s practiced on New Years eve. When the clock hits twelve, the egg that has collected your negative energies is tossed out into the street, signifying a purified beginning of the New Year. This is an example of monogenesis, as Mexican and Latin Caribbean customs share lots in common due to their similar colonized backgrounds.

Pag Pag

Text: 

After a Filipino funeral or wake, it is a widely held superstition that the mourner does not return immediately to their home, but instead stops at another location before returning home. That way, the spirit of the deceased cannot follow you home.

Context:

The informant is my 67, and was born and raised in the Philippines, and still continues to live there. After the funerals she attended in her youth, she was told by her parents and other elder family members that they had to go someplace else, and could not immediately return home. Usually, this other location was a restaurant, where family members shared a meal before going home after the funeral.

Analysis:

The term “pag pag” literally means “to shake off something”, usually used in the context of dust or dirt. In other contexts, this term could refer to dusting off your shoes before entering the house. However, this “pag pag” is more meaningful and symbolic in that the thing you must shake off before entering the house is the deceased spirit from the person laid to rest at the funeral. Filipinos have many superstitions surrounding the dead, pag pag being one of them, and act as a means of warding off evil spirits or malevolent forces. By stopping at another location before going home, you avoid leading the spirit of the dead directly to your home, which Filipinos believe will bring bad luck.

Chants for Good Luck

Context:

H is a spring admin freshman at USC, studying Music Industry. H grew up in Taiwan, but moved when she was 8 to San Jose. 

Text:

H: “Whenever I encounter something bad, I basically chant like something from Buddhism. It goes like ‘大慈大悲, 救苦救难, 管旭音菩萨’ (Pinying: da ci da bei, jiu ku jiu nan, guan yin pu sa; Translation: great mercy and great compassion, save the suffering, guan xu yin bodhisattva). It’s basically what I chant so they can give me power, something like that. I think it’s just telling them I’m in trouble, it’s not asking them to come to me, but I feel like they’re going to do something about it and that’s why I do it.”

Analysis:

H’s chant is something along the lines of a conversion, a superstitious charm that negates or balances out an event. In H’s case, the chant is religious, referring to a god in Buddhism, but meant to offset something bad in her life using her god’s power. Her chanting is ritualistic, in the sense that H will do it on the principle or possibility that her god may be listening, while not knowing if anything will change. Just the act of chanting, the practice of a charm that’s believed to give good fortune, makes her believe that good will come, which is a faith nearly more powerful than the tangible confirmation that there really is a god up there, in my opinion. H creates a sense of order for herself in the midst of a crisis or hardship through this learned chant, and always repeating it to herself, she maintains faith that her chant comes true. Essentially, her ritual chant is believed to bring good luck for her, therefore it does bring good luck.