Monthly Archives: May 2021

Quack Diddly Oso (Childhood Game)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Island, NY
Performance Date: 4/18/21

Overview

The informant grew up in Long Island, New York and remembers playing this game throughout elementary school and middle school. It was usually played in big groups at social school gatherings (like field trips, recess, etc). 

The Game

2+ players sit in a circle with their right hand on top of the left hand of the person on their right. They chant a rhyming song and clap their hands in a wave around the circle. Whomever has their hand clapped on the last word of the song is eliminated, and players continue until there’s only one person left standing. 

The chant: “Quack diddly oso quack quack quack, from San Diego, eggo eggo waffle, Dolora, Dolora, potatoes on the floor-a, go 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10”

Collector’s Thoughts

I also played this game as a kid, but I remember a different variation. Instead of “potatoes on the floor-a” we said “I’ll kick you out the door-a”. I’m sure there’s so many other iterations of this game, and I hope to find more of them!

Annotation

For another version of this game, see: https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/folklorearchive/2019/06/03/quack-diddly-oso-clapping-hand-game/

The Guardian Angel

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Island, NY
Performance Date: 4/18/21

Interview/Overview/Context:

Interviewer: “I remember you mentioning a crazy story from when you were young. You were in the car with your mom.”

Informant: “Yes! I think I was about seven or eight. We were in Florida, where a lot of our relatives live.”

Interviewer: “So you were in the car, where were you driving?”

Informant: “We were coming home from a family party, actually. It was really late and we were driving back to our hotel. We were so tired at that point. I fell asleep on the ride home, and the crazy part is that my mom swears she fell asleep, too. When she woke up, I was still asleep in the car, and our car was parked at our hotel.”

Interviewer: “Woah, that’s so freaky. What does your mom think about it?”

Informant: “My mom always says that it was a guardian angel that brought us home. We were with so much family that night, I think it was my grandma looking over us. I don’t know, I find it very comforting.”

Thoughts

I’ve heard of a lot about belief in “guardian angel” presences. Throughout my childhood, people would say that their deceased relatives watched over them and protected them, and when something crazy would happen, they would cite their savior as their guardian angel. Oftentimes, these people were religious. As a non-religious person, I wonder how many other non-religious people also believe in guardian angels.

The Girl in the Bathroom

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Island, NY
Performance Date: 4/18/21

Main Description

The informant describes the story of the little girl said to haunt her high school’s bathroom. The girl’s name was Pearl (a name derived from her high school’s mascot’s name), her cries could be heard between flushes, and she became the joking scapegoat of most high school girls’ problems. 

Informant’s Opinion

“Pearl wasn’t a scary ghost at all… more of an inside joke that everyone could bond over. Like, ‘Your hair’s looking bad? Pearl must’ve had something to do with it.” I’m really curious about where she came from though, because every girl knew about her but no one knew anything about her. How did she die? Why did she haunt the bathroom? No one knew.”

Thoughts

This story reminds me of Harry Potter‘s Moaning Myrtle: a girl who died in the girls’ bathroom and who provides comic relief throughout the Harry Potter series. I would assume that the girls of the informant’s high school watched Harry Potter and then wanted to create their own Moaning Myrtle in their bathroom, and in doing so they were able to iterate authored literature and create folklore from a copyrighted source.

The Woodland Spirit

Nationality: American
Age: 82
Occupation: Retired Writer
Residence: Philippines
Performance Date: 3/4/21
Primary Language: English

Story

Short Version: The informant encountered a malevolent woodland spirit. 

Long version: A few years ago, the informant was out wandering in woodlands a little outside of his property. He was wandering around trying to find a place to relieve himself. He found a clearing that seemed private enough and he did his business. As he was leaving the area, he suddenly felt an energy pick him up and drop him on his shoulder. He’s felt shoulder pain ever since. 

Informant’s View

“I’m certain that it was a woodland spirit. You know, I trespassed onto its property, I disrespected it by going pee, and it punished me. Or maybe not punished– it asserted its power over the land. I make sure I don’t go there anymore.”

Thoughts

This story reminds me of traditional warning tales: someone did something wrong, they were punished, and now they never do that thing again. It is even more interesting than a traditional warning tale, however, in that it weaves in elements of magic, too. There was no human force that hurt the informant, but rather a shapeless magical presence, similar to a ghost. Thus, the informant speaks not only of a warning tale, but also of magic folklore.

Fortune Telling From a Cup of Turkish Coffee

Nationality: Turkish
Age: 24
Occupation: Graduate Student in Computer Science at USC
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/17/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

When my friend first read my fortune out of a cooled cup of Turkish coffee, I was told that he saw angels, tigers and trails in my future. He’d been using a Wikipedia article to help him read our fortunes, but he seemed excite to be sharing this experience with me and my other friend, who had never had our fortunes read in this way before.

Turkish coffee is very dense. It’s more like espresso than coffee, and because of this one only consumes a shot-glass or specialized tiny coffee mug. The person drinking Turkish coffee leaves a small layer of coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup and turns the cup over on a saucer to cool. The grounds may slide down the sides of the cup as they cool and solidify, which the reader then uses to tell the drinker’s fortune.

*

“This is very embedded in the Turkish culture. So it’s not something that you learn somewhere else, it’s around you all the time. You know, you grow up with your mom, your grandma, you know, the aunts and the ladies on the balconies, everyone does it. ” The speaker said as we sat in the Nuka Turkish Cafe in Westwood months after that initial reading in our home. He mentioned that shapes in a coffee mug might look like numbers or scenery.

“There are places in Turkey where you would go to visit like an actual medium. Well, those are self-proclaimed mediums. But the interesting thing is, I’ve been to certain mediums that would have incredibly accurate fortunetelling. Like, they will give you a lot of information about your past and your future. And very often, I’ve met people and I have had friends who have these professional medium fortune telling them, like their fortune telling actually becomes true in the future. And so it’s an interesting thing. And I really don’t know that side of it that well. It’s very supernatural. And I just feel like some people actually do have that supernatural talent to be able to use this. “

The speaker added that Turkish mediums also use tarot and palmistry to tell fortunes, and that this tradition is quite old. “The Turkish army that my father is, is a part of has an insignia on it that says before Christ, 200 something. It’s a 2200 years old army.” He added that before Christianity, many Turkish tribes practiced paganism. “

“We have a Turkish idiom that says, “Don’t believe in this fortune telling. But like, don’t live without it… it’s an integral and cultural part of our lives. But we also live in a society where, you know, we are aware that fortune telling is not a very scientific method… So it’s, it’s more of a fun sport at this point than actual people believing in it. It’s more it’s more fun than it’s taken like serious.”

*

The speaker was happy that we had come to visit him in the Nuka Cafe, and he pretended to be annoyed that I was recording his thoughts about fortune telling. When I asked him where he first saw fortune telling, he mentioned that much like a baby doesn’t remember their first steps, he doesn’t remember where he first encountered this tradition. Another friend mentioned that the speaker’s past fortune came true, and later that day he read another cup of Turkish coffee. He told our third friend that he saw a world map and a wedding.

This is important to me because much like the speaker, I enjoy fortune-telling tools but don’t really believe in them… unless something else changes my mind about their accuracy. I first came across the idea of fortune-telling from tea or coffee in the movie Coraline, and I showed the speaker the section of the film that includes fortune-telling after we had done the first reading in the house. I enjoyed having my fortune read and will not believe it while simultaneously “keeping it in mind.”

This seems to be a largely female craft. The speaker is interested in Turkish folklore and could not remember the meanings of symbols he described to us the first time he performed this tradition using Wikipedia notes.