Monthly Archives: May 2019

Ethiopian bogeyman

Nationality: Ethiopian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Amharic

The informant is my 18-year-old cousin, who was born and raised in the United States but has Ethiopian parents. She told me about a character called Soyo, which is an Ethiopian bogeyman character used to scare children.

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“So, Soyo is basically this character, like a scary kidnapper character, that parents use to scare their kids. It’s basically like the Ethiopian version of Slenderman…and kind of, also, like, “stranger danger” So, like, if you’re being bad, or misbehaving–like, when I was little, my mom used to make me come inside at night by being like, “oh, if you keep playing outside after it gets dark, Soyo is going to come get you.”

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This bogeyman figure is an example of the concept of “ficts” as introduced by Von Sydow: these characters are fictional creatures that adults make up to scare children, or to teach them how to behave (examples include Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but also bogeyman characters like this one). I thought that Soyo was an interesting example of children’s folklore in that it does not exist in the world of adult belief, but it is almost exclusively told by adults to their children rather than told between children; children would not have these characters if adults did not use them as lessons for their kids. The purpose that this particular character serves is to teach children not to trust strangers, but is also a convenient way for parents to scare their kids into obeying them. I also thought it was a cool reaffirmation of Dundes’s idea of “multiplicity and variation,” because every culture seems to have a bogeyman character (La Llorona in Mexico, for example, or, as my cousin mentioned, the more recent example of Slenderman).

Enkoye Totit–Ethiopian bedtime story

Nationality: Ethiopian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Amharic

The informant is my 18-year-old cousin, who was born and raised in the United States but has Ethiopian parents. She told me about Enkoye Totit, bedtime story her mother and aunts told her when she was little.

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“So, Enkoye Totit is this little monkey character who keeps getting in trouble. It’s a bedtime story that parents tell their kids. It’s like, there’s not really one specific story I can think of about Enkoye Totit, but she’s a character that you can insert in any story. Totit means, like, little monkey. It’s like a diminutive of “tota,” which means monkey. That’s what parents call their kids. Like, it’s a nickname for kids when they’re being silly or misbehaving but not actually doing something that bad. Like if you keep annoying your mom, she’ll call you Tota.”

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The fact that “monkey” is both a word referring to the animal and an term of affection for young children in Amharic is interesting, because it allows these stories to become self-insert stories for the children they are told to. Because Enkoye Totit is a stock character and not one from a specific story, it allows parents to plug this character, as an extension of their own children, into many different plots that will be vehicles for lessons they want to teach their kids. This is also reinforced by the characteristics of a monkey–small, mischievous, intelligent, inquisitive–most of which are also applicable to children. At the same time, because there are actual monkeys in Ethiopia, this fact might be less obvious to Ethiopian children, since the stories are based on a monkey that they could actually encounter, but because both my cousin and I were raised in the United States where monkeys do not live in nature, the metaphorical nature of these stories becomes more apparent.

Garlic and milk to cure a cold

Nationality: Ethiopian
Age: 47
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Performance Date: 03/11/19
Primary Language: Amharic
Language: English

The informant is my mother, who is originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she grew up with her eight sisters. When she was visiting from Washington, D.C. where we currently live, I asked her and my aunts how they used to cure colds when they lived in Ethiopia. She shared this interesting anecdote with me.

Note: The initials NG denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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NG: When I was younger, some people used netch shinkourt ena whetet [garlic and milk].

A: woah, really? why? isn’t milk bad for you when you have a cold?

NG: I don’t know. Maybe, actually.

A: Did it ever actually work?

NG: [laughs] I don’t think so.

A: So why do you think people do it?

NG: I don’t know! It’s, you know, it’s nice to feel like you’re doing something to help. [laughs]

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I thought this was a funny example of the fact that some beliefs are unfounded, but are performed simply because they are tradition, or because the belief that the remedy will work is enough for those who perform it. Science has actually proven that there is no actual way to cure a cold, which means that in this way, every cold remedy will work, because the cold will go away by itself in a few days and you can attribute this to whatever remedy you used. I also thought it related to the fact that we like to feel some amount of control when we’re in a situation in which nothing can be done, because although we know there is no way to cure a cold, we all have cold remedies and things we do to try and “cure” ourselves.

you can see ghosts through dogs’ ears

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Doctor
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/18/19
Primary Language: English

The informant, a middle-aged family friend from New Jersey, heard this folk belief from a friend at a sleepover party when they were young.

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“Alright. So there’s this old, sort of like, folklore thing. I remember learning this when I was a little kid. Well, not learning, because I don’t think it’s true, but that one way that you’re able to see ghosts is that if you kind of stand behind a dog and look, like, above its head, right between the dog’s ears, right where the dog is looking, and if there’s a ghost there, it will appear.”

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I thought this was an interesting extension of a generally held thought that animals are more in tune with the spiritual world in a way that humans are not, possibly because they have more developed senses (hearing, sight, smell) than humans do. Specifically, dogs are thought to be very intuitive, and are sometimes regarded as “guardian spirits” who help guide humans through their lives. People often reference dogs’ “sixth sense” and their ability to recognize evil or nefarious presences in their owners’ lives. Because unlike humans, animals do not distinguish between things that are considered “real” and “imaginary,” it is possible that they can see things that we can’t because we filter out things we don’t understand, while they accept everything they see without judgement.

Ginger and dough for colds

Nationality: Afghani-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/19/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Dari

The informant is a 20-year-old friend from Los Angeles, CA whose family is Afghani. He volunteered this remedy during a discussion about cold remedies with a few of our friends.

Note: The initials JJ denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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JJ: In my family, we use ginger and dough for sore throats and colds.

A: Dough? Like bread, dough?

JJ: Yeah. Sweet dough. You mix it, and then you turn it into a ball–ok, first, you add some sugar, flour, water…so you have your dough, and then you wrap it around a piece of ginger, and then you cook it.

A: In the oven?

J: No, in a pan. Just until it’s hot and crispy. And then, when you eat it, that’s supposed to help with your sore throat. I think it’s the ginger that does the actual, like, healing.

A: So what’s the point of the dough?

J: I don’t know. I don’t think it actually does anything. It’s like, just to make a…like, a container for the ginger. Because we didn’t want to eat straight-up ginger, so it was to make it taste better.

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Ginger is used in a lot of cultures for cold remedies; my mother makes ginger tea with honey for my sister and I when we are sick, so hearing ginger cited in another cold remedy didn’t surprise me. What I did find interesting was the dough; my friend included the dough as PART of the cold remedy, but also admitted that it actually served no purpose. Ginger was what was actually used to “cure” the cold, but the dough had always been included as part of the remedy when it was given to him. It reminded me of the many ways that parents try to make unpleasant things more pleasant for their children, not only in terms of medicine but also in general–for example, my mother used to put sugar at the bottom of my cups of milk to get me to drink them, and I know that some parents sing songs to their children to distract them when disinfecting scrapes and minor wounds.