Tag Archives: good luck

Red Eggs on Easter

Background: The informant is a 75 year old female. She grew up in Illinois, attending both high school and college in the state. Her parents were immigrants from Greece and she grew up in a predominantly Greek neighborhood. Her religion was Greek Orthodox which is where she picked up many different traditions.

Context: Upon calling for Easter, the informant was in the middle of dying an egg, to which she promptly gave the background information for.

Text:

MC: It’s a very Greek tradition to dye the eggs a brilliant red. The dye is extremely heavy and I would recommend using gloves because it will stain your hands.

Me: What does the red represent?

MC: I believe… it’s the blood and sacrifice of Christ. Also, each person is supposed to tap the eggs and whoever has the one egg that doesn’t crack, that person will have good luck for the rest of the year.

Analysis:

Informant: The tradition holds a sacred place in her heart because it is related to her childhood.

Mine: It seems that many traditions are related to luck but they vary in some way. It makes sense that that person whose egg doesn’t crack would have good luck, because cracking would represent something breaking. The red of the egg is a very beautiful color and to hear it represents the blood of Christ was initially surprising. The blood of Christ is likely chosen to be dyed upon an egg because an egg represents the start of new life, and Easter is the day that Jesus was resurrected. Eggs are extremely popular in folklore as new life is a concept that is returned to multiple times.

Coin in the Cake

Background: The informant is a 75 year old female. She grew up in Illinois, attending both high school and college in the state. Her parents were immigrants from Greece and she grew up in a predominantly Greek neighborhood. Her religion was Greek Orthodox which is where she picked up many different traditions.

Context: Upon calling for Easter, the informant was in the middle of dying eggs, but she gave multiple examples of what is good luck for Greek.

Text:

MC: A tradition I used to do in the Greek Orthodox Church when I was younger was that a yeast cake would be made. Sometimes people would put eggs around the cake, to symbolize Easter, but that wasn’t always the case. However, there was a very important step when baking the cake. In the dough was placed a single coin. Then after the midnight mass, we would be cutting up the cake, and whoever gets the gold coin would be given good luck for the rest of the year. We had many traditions giving luck.

Analysis:

Informant: She is very proud of her culture and traditions, and is especially happy that the Greeks have many traditions for good luck.

Mine: The ending statement stands out and brings up the question as to why there would be so many traditions surrounding good luck, especially for the Greeks. It could be that since civilization has been around for so long, they have undoubtedly faced many hardships, and by focusing on good luck rituals, it allows for a more optimistic view on the world, rather than focusing on the past. Additionally, the two most notable good luck Greek traditions surround Easter, the red egg and the coin in the egg. The hope coming along with Jesus’s resurrection may help contribute to an overall feeling of good luck.

To see another variation, Stanonis, A. J. & Wallace, R. (2018). Tasting New Orleans: How the Mardi Gras King Cake Came to Represent the Crescent City. 6–23.

The 11:11 Game

Informant Information – SI

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 20
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: Los Angeles, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 20, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant grew up playing this game with their sister. They started playing this game as children and still play when they are together at their parents’ house. This information was shared with me in an in-person interview. 

The 11:11 game is played by the informant and their siblings; they began playing it as children and still play as adults when they are all together at their family home. 

If someone notices that it is 11:11am or pm, they must announce the time and shout out a task, such as standing on a chair or knocking on wood. Everyone that wants to play will then complete the task and then shout out a different task. 

Players should try to complete as many tasks as possible before the minute ends. Playing this game and completing these rituals is supposed to bring the players good luck. 

Analysis:

In this game, the time, 11:11, is ritualized. Participants must perform a prescribed set of actions, hoping that they will produce a desired result, good luck. As in other rituals, the bounds of acceptable behavior become flexible– while it might be strange to stand on a chair at another time, it is encouraged at 11:11.  

Black American Food Tradition: Eating Black Eyed Peas on New Year’s

Text:

KJ: “So, basically, on New Year’s Eve every year, my mom does it in my house, but it’s a very common Black tradition, you make black eyed peas. It’s food, so you can put whatever you want in it, but the traditional thing is to put a ham hock in it, which is classic, Black food for holidays in general. At least my mom starts making them either the day before New Year’s Eve, or on New Year’s Eve, so it can marinate all day. You eat them on New Year’s Day, and it’s supposed to be good luck.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old Black American college student from Montclair, New Jersey. She said that this tradition is common among Black Americans. KJ said that this food holds cultural significance not only because it’s traditional, but also because enslaved Black people ate it. Since black eyed peas and ham hocks were seen as undesirable foods, enslaved people were able to cook with and build a food culture around them. She said that Black people now consider these eating this dish good luck because it nourished enslaved people enduring oppression and violence.

Analysis:

 In his essay about the globalization of and continued imperialist legacy within Indian cookbooks, Arjun Appadurai wrote that “Eating together, whether as a family, a caste, or a village, is a carefully conducted exercise in the reproduction of intimacy… Feasting is the great mark of social solidarity,” (Appadurai 10-11). As is the case for many ethnic and folk groups, food can be an important means by which Black people connect to each other and to their histories. Familiarity with certain foods or food traditions like eating black eyed peas on New Year’s Day can spark recognition and community between individuals of similar backgrounds. Moreover, the food acts as a kind of tangible link to this group’s heritage.

Black American food traditions are specifically important because they symbolize the ethnic group’s history both of brutalization and of resilience. Enslaved people’s ability to transform the most undervalued ingredients, like ham hocks, into delicious food and common culture, which enslavers sought to strip Black people of, is a source of pride and an emblem of ancestral strength for Black people today. Many groups partake in good luck rituals on New Year’s Day. I think that this food is considered good luck because it nourished enslaved people through the horrors of oppression, so people hope it can sustain them through any hardships of the upcoming year.

Appadurai, Arjun. “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 30, no. 1, 1988, pp. 3–24., https://doi.org/10.1017/s0010417500015024. 

Rituals for Nervous Flyers: Getting on the plane with your right foot and touching the ground after kissing your hand

Text:

SP: “I always get on with my right foot, and I bend down and kiss the ground of the plane. I kiss my hand and put my hand down on the ground of the plane. Getting off, I kiss my hand and put my hand down to the floor.”

Context:

The informant is my grandmother. She is an 83-year-old woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent who was born in New York City and currently lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey. SP is an extremely anxious flyer and has been for her entire life. She said that she has done these rituals since the first time she flew on an airplane when she was a young girl. Though she doesn’t remember specifically learning or coming up with these rituals, she remarked that the Pope kisses the ground when he gets off a plane, so she expects it was inspired by that. She said that when she does this ritual, specifically kissing the ground, people often stop or look at her. At this moment, she usually tells the flight attendant that she is a very nervous flyer.

Though my grandmother is the only person in my family who has a fear of flying, I was always encouraged by other family members, who make a ritual out of doing so, to step onto airplanes with my right foot.

Analysis:

It’s interesting to me how these rituals for flying on airplanes seem to be derived from other folklore or cultural practices. I imagine that the idea of it being good luck to get onto a plane with your right foot is connected to the phrase “starting off on the right foot,” which is an expression used to indicate that someone or something is starting in a positive way. Thus, this ritual can literally be seen as starting a flight off on the right foot. Moreover, my grandmother described how the Pope kisses the ground when he gets off a plane, which may have inspired her in this ritual. She may have seen him do this on television or in the newspaper. However, the act of kissing one’s hand and touching an object is a common gesture done during a blessing. For example, in Jewish culture, parents place their hands on their children’s heads when doing the blessings for sons and daughters. Moreover, on certain holidays, rabbis carry Torahs around the synagogue so that congregants can touch it with their prayer books. Sometimes people kiss their books after touching the Torah and some do it before, so this ritual can be seen as an individual blessing the Torah, blessing themselves through their contact with it, or both. Thus, my grandmother my grandmother kissing her hand and then touching the ground before flying can be interpreted as her blessing the plane so that she will have a safe flight.

I didn’t know about my grandmother’s ritual of kissing her hand and then touching the ground of an airplane upon boarding and exiting. Upon speaking to her about it, I realized that this may be a way to convey how she feels to the people around her. She said that she often uses flight attendants’ confusion at her performance of this ritual as an opportunity to tell them that she’s a nervous flyer. For this reason, I think that this ritual may serve a practical purpose as an emotional or spiritual one. Because she communicates her fear, the flight attendant may be more inclined to be caring or considerate to my grandmother, perhaps soothing her anxiety.

These good luck rituals are deeply comforting to my grandmother. She has never been in a plane accident, so she has no reason to believe that these rituals don’t work. Though my other relatives are not afraid of flying, I think they partake in the ritual of getting on the plane with your right foot similarly because it has never been disproven, so they have no reason not to. I also think that they do this out of an emotional impulse to feel close to my grandmother and to carry on her endearing idiosyncrasies.