Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Memorate: A Coworker’s Ghostly Encounter

Context:

Informant N is the collector’s supervisor in the technology department of USC SCA. He is 27 years old and grew up in Denver, Colorado until age 7, when he moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. His father’s family is from the “deep south,” and his mother was “an army brat” who lived mostly near the east coast. N’s family has been in the US “since the mayflower,” and his ancestry is mostly German, Northern English, and Welsh. He now lives in Los Angeles, CA and is a singer/songwriter, as well as an employee of the film school’s technology services.

Text:

Informant: “Okay so when I was a kid, my mom – in the first floor, this was like a three story house, the house was like a hundred years old if not more. Um, classic brick style home, it was in Denver. And there was a doctor who lived in the house with his um… I think she was a distraught person, probably back then. Like she probably had some mental illness that was untreated and you know, back then they kind of skewed those people into obscure…”

Collector: “What year was this?”

Informant: “Oh this was like 30s (…). So she was a well-known pianist at the time and she eventually committed suicide in the house and the house was also a historical site. So the house is old, there have been people who lived there who had some musical connection and there was the suicide and you know… There was a couple times growing up where I would hear the piano play and my sister would hear the piano play while we were upstairs and my mom wasn’t home playing the piano nor was my dad or whatever, or we had a babysitter at the time. So there was just a couple weird moments in that house where the piano would be playing and we’d go downstairs and it would stop playing so whether that’s true or not I don’t know but I remember it and my sister clearly remembers it and to this day it’s very bizarre to me and it makes me feel a little… (*informant trails off*)”

Collector: “How did you find out about the woman who died?”

Informant: “My parents – my mom found out about it after they bought the house. The history of the house.”

Collector: “From who?”

Informant: “I think from a neighbor’s family or something. (…) It was like a local thing so it was kind of weird. (…) The piano that was in the house was over a hundred years old at the time.”

The informant also mentioned that his sister, who was 8 or 9 at the time of the piano incidents, is “still perturbed” by them to this day. He also mentioned that he experienced what he called “typical ghost stuff” – that he would hear dogs barking at nothing, and that one of the room’s in the house (his sister’s room) was specifically colder than others. His family checked and made sure that “the piano wasn’t a player” piano (a self-playing piano), and noted that the music he heard was notably classical, and that the woman who had died was a classical pianist.

Interpretation:

N’s ghost story seems pretty typical upon first glance, but I find it interesting because of both his personal context and folkloric trends in memorates. For one thing, the informant seems to truly believe that all of this happened and that something supernatural was going on because his sister also experienced it. He mentioned her multiple times throughout the story and when he was providing more context, and we’ve talked a number of times about how people tend to believe what their peers, family, friends, etc do. What’s more, his family heard about the woman who supposedly died in the house from a neighbor, making this particular figure almost a local legend. While I wouldn’t label her a full-on urban legend for lack of popularity or name, the story about her being mentally unstable and her death in the house is legend-like. She has the traits of one as a woman believed to be mentally unwell and responsible for a haunted area. The apparent ghost is not necessarily true, but there is a negotiation of sorts about whether to believe it for the informant, his family, and his neighbors. This woman’s story lines up with a lot of what we know about ghosts – having unfinished business of some sort (to play music for others), hauntings that happen when things don’t go as they should (her suicide), and the idea that ghosts’ have property even after death (the piano). This story is definitely a memorate for the informant, who seems unsure whether he believes in ghosts entirely, but is fairly convinced that something happened in this house, and still finds it inexplicable and bizarre 20 years later.

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ UFO Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “There was an incident that happened when my parents were traveling to Del Rio Texas. They were in the middle of the desert headed for DR when they noticed a bright light shining behind their car they thought it was another car coming up behind them with their high beams on or maybe a bright light from a train. My dad as afraid to pull over for fear that it might be something nefarious. Needless to say they traveled 20 miles or so and they still had the light shining on their car. After traveling a bit farther the light shifted to above the car and  suddenly the light disappeared and everything was dark again. My mom said that she was pregnant with me and they were freaked out about what had occurred. There were a large number of ufo sightings in that area during that period of time. No one could explain what had occurred!”

Interpretation:

My grandpa mentions that this happened to his parents when there were common UFO sightings in the area at the time. Based on what I know about my family, this happened either in 1949 or 1950, right before my grandpa was born. I find it interesting that a bright light alone was enough to convince my great grandparents that a UFO may have been traveling alongside them. This memorate doesn’t involve contact with any actual ‘alien’ creatures or strange technology – just a bright light – but the popularity of alleged UFO sightings in the late 40s and early 50s is definitely at play here. My family members were probably more likely to believe that what they saw was a UFO or alien spaceship because that was a common occurrence in the community around them. A quick google search provides many results for Texas alien sightings in those years. Although this memorate doesn’t reference a specific legend or named figure, aliens in general function similarly to legends – in that there is a negotiation of belief surrounding them and peoples’ ideas about them are influenced by their peers. It’s also notable my grandpa was told this happened while his mother was pregnant with him – he is a staunch believer in the supernatural, as was his mother.

Folk Belief: On Money and Hands

Context:

Informant E is a 21 year old USC student studying American Studies and Ethnicity. She identifies as Chicana and and was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles area. E is a junior at the university and is the interviewer’s roommate.

Text:

E: “So if my right hand – the palm of my right hand – is itchy, I put it in my pocket, because it means I’m gonna get money. If the left palm/hand is itchy, that means I owe someone money. So I have to scratch it.”

Interviewer: “Did you learn this from someone?”

E: “My family.”

A friend, also in the room: “If you scratch it does it mean that you don’t owe them money?”

E: “Like I’m not gonna get – it could mean, like, ‘Oh I have to pay rent soon,’ so it’ll start itching. Or I have to go pay someone back because they took me out to go eat. So then that means I have to get them back.” “If I scratch my hand, I don’t have to pay them back. Sometimes.”

Interviewer: “So who taught you this?”

E: “My grandma and then my grandma taught my mom and then me.”

Interpretation:

E’s folk belief is a kind of self-soothing ritual and, though a bit more complicated, I would compare it easily to knocking on wood or throwing salt over one’s shoulder. It’s clearly been passed down to her as familial knowledge. I did search for more information online and found that the superstition originates in the Caribbean which, although not part of Latin America, is close to it, and the belief itself seems to have spread easily throughout the world. I find it interesting that this belief has to do with hands, as I feel there’s a through-line in history. Bartering relied heavily on hands, and handshakes or palms are often symbols of such agreements. Trade and bartering then became money or payment, which is still then associated with hands, and is what I would argue led to this superstition. In general, money obviously is a good thing to have and a bad thing to lose, so this self-soothing ritual can be comforting and seems so common because of that universal truth about the value of money. The scratching part of this belief makes it a ritual or a form of jinx (re: like knocking on wood) in my opinion, as the participant is doing something tangible, as if to put the belief into effect.

Moroccan Evil Eye

Informant Details

  • Gender: Female
  • Occupation: Student
  • Nationality: Moroccan-American

Folklore Genre: Folk Beliefs/Superstitions (magic)

1. Text

The informant explained a common curse in her culture (the evil eye) and the talisman used to prevent this curse. The evil eye gaze is when someone looks at you with jealousy, and it causes bad fortune. To protect herself from the evil eye gaze, the informant wears jewelry that is decorated with charms that look like eyes. (pictured below) The informant calls this type of jewelry “evil eyes” because they are talismans used to ward off the evil eye gaze. A superstition surrounding this practice is that when the evil eye talisman breaks and falls off, it has done its job protecting you. In addition to the evil eye talisman, the informant’s mother burns sage around her and recites surahs and bismillahs from the Quran. These rituals are also meant to ask Allah for protection against the evil eye.

Image: an evil eye talisman attached to a hamsa hand given to the informant by a friend

2. Context

The informant learned of the evil eye gaze and the evil eye talisman from her mother, who is from Morocco. She has received many evil eye talismans from older family members as well. These practices are performed often, especially when you have good fortune or someone compliments you in an envious tone.

3. Analysis

The evil eye talisman is an example of sympathetic magic because the jewelry is made to look like an eye, which represents the evil eye glance. In International Folkloristics, Dundes says “With homeopathic magic, we have ‘like produces like,’ such that one can enact through mimetic imitation the desired event or outcome.” (222) Since the talisman resembles the eye, this form of magic uses the principle of homeopathic magic. The evil eye belief suggests the cultural idea that jealousy is malevolent and causes misfortune. In this culture, being the subject of envy is seen as a bad thing. It also suggests the cultural belief that fortune can be fickle and blessings may be taken away as quickly as they are given.

Palestinian Evil Eye

Informant Details

  • Gender: Male
  • Occupation: Student
  • Nationality: Palestinian-American

Folklore Genre: Folk Beliefs/Superstitions (magic)

  1. Text

The informant explained a common curse in his culture (the evil eye) and the practices done to protect against this curse. The evil eye can be inflicted when someone is jealous of you, when something good happens to you, or when someone compliments you and doesn’t say mashallah. Most often the evil eye is caused by jealousy. To guard against the evil eye, people keep talismans that look like an eye called nazars and hamsa hands. These can be worn as jewelry, hung in the car, and placed in the house in rooms where guests visit. Wearing blue can protect you from the evil eye. Sage is also used to ward against the evil eye. The nazar is typically worn as a necklace or a bracelet with lots of circular beads that resemble eyes. The beads are blue with a black circle in the middle. One superstition about the nazar is that it should be given as a gift because it is bad luck to buy one for yourself. When the nazar breaks, it isn’t effective anymore. It breaks because it has protected you from someone’s jealousy. Once it is broken, you can’t wear it anymore because it holds on to the negative energy. 

2. Context

The informant learned this belief from his older family members from Palestine. In the first grade, his aunt gave him a nazar because he was being bullied by other kids. His aunt is from a town outside of Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine. Generally, the rituals that ward off the evil eye were done when people expressed jealousy or negativity towards them.

3. Analysis

The nazar is an example of sympathetic magic because the jewelry is made to look like an eye, which represents the evil eye gaze. The nazar uses the principle of homeopathic magic – “like produces like” – because it resembles an eye. The evil eye belief suggests the cultural idea that jealousy is malevolent and causes misfortune. It also suggests the cultural belief that fortune can be fickle and blessings may be taken away as quickly as they are given. In this culture, being the subject of envy is not viewed favorably. The superstition that a nazar must be received as a gift represents the belief that fostering strong interpersonal bonds protects people from misfortune. This suggests a cultural value of community and loyalty.