Author Archives: Brooke Turpin

Italian Christmas Eve

Nationality: Italian/American
Age: 55
Occupation: Masseuse
Residence: Nantucket, MA
Performance Date: April 22nd, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is my best friend’s mother. She comes from a very Italian family, and learned a lot of folklore from her own grandmother. She is a fascinating woman who has traveled the world. She has a wide knowledge of Native American history and folklore. She is involved with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a diverse group of women from around the world who are devoted to prayer. She lives on Nantucket, so I was able to Skype with her one day to talk about things she has learned from her Italian heritage, in particular, as well as her other vast knowledge of folklore from around the world.

 

[On Italian Heritage]

Informant: “In Italy, they didn’t have Santa Claus. For Christmas…on Christmas Eve… they had their big Christmas dinner and children would lay out an article of clothing on the front lawn. The story was that the three wise men would come and leave them a little something, an orange or some candy, or something really small. It was always something small, simple.”

 

 

How Butterflies Came to Be

Nationality: Italian/American
Age: 55
Occupation: Masseuse
Residence: Nantucket, Ma
Performance Date: April 22nd, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is my best friend’s mother. She comes from a very Italian family, and learned a lot of folklore from her own grandmother. She is a fascinating woman who has traveled the world. She has a wide knowledge of Native American history and folklore. She is involved with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a diverse group of women from around the world who are devoted to prayer. She lives on Nantucket, so I was able to Skype with her one day to talk about things she has learned from her Italian heritage, in particular, as well as her other vast knowledge of folklore from around the world.

This is a story that she learned from one of the Indigenous Grandmothers whom she was following.

Informant: “…from the Southwest, the Papago Indians. I learned it from one of the Grandmothers, but it’s a myth about how butterflies got their color. Very beautiful… It is said by the Papago that on a late summer day, an old man was out for a walk and he saw children playing, and he became sad as he thought that it was late summer and soon the trees would become cold and he felt sad and he wanted to save the flowers. So, he put some leaves and petals in a bag and golden sunlight, birdsongs and pine needles… and then he called the children over and gave them the bag and when they opened it butterflies flew out. They danced and sang and the birds became jealous, saying that the songs belonged to them. The man decided they were right and gave the songs back to birds, but butterflies still dance and sing as they fly, but they do it as quietly as they fly.”

 

I love hearing myths about how and why things came to be, especially myths from Native American tribes. They are each unique, and it’s amazing how every tribe has a different story about how something in the world was created. I remember in the Native American class, which I took with Professor Thompson last year, we read many myths and legends. The same story would be varied and changed by each different tribe. My informant talked a lot about how she has noticed this as well, saying that tribes all have their own version of a creation story, for example, of how the world came to be.

Italian Superstitions

Nationality: Italian/American
Age: 55
Occupation: Masseuse
Residence: Nantucket, MA
Performance Date: April 22nd. 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is my best friend’s mother. She comes from a very Italian family, and learned a lot of folklore from her grandmother. She is a fascinating woman who has traveled the world. She has a wide knowledge of Native American history and folklore. She is involved with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, a diverse group of women from around the world who are devoted to prayer. She lives on Nantucket, so I was able to Skype with her one day to talk about things she has learned from her Italian heritage, in particular, as well as her other vast knowledge of folklore from around the world.

 

[On her Italian Heritage]

Informant: “I’ll start with my Italian Hertitage because it’s very familiar to me. For example, the Italians were very superstitious for one thing,  I can remember my Great Grandmother would say she could tell the sex of a baby if they used a needle like a pendant over the woman’s belly, if it spun in a circle it meant it was a girl and if it went in a straight line it meant it was a boy. The other one I remember distinctly was my Grandmother said you can never open a gift before the actual date, you should never open it before you birthday because it’s bad luck. I remember being with my mom with her mom once and her mom was not happy about the fact that my mom opened a gift too early… and we left the house and we got to the bottom of the hill [in Italy] and the brakes didn’t work on the car and our car went out into the highway! The present was to blame.”

 

The Scottish Play

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Actress
Residence: Los Feliz, CA
Performance Date: April 14th, 2015
Primary Language: English

My good friend, informant, was a theatre major at USC. She has been very involved with theatre throughout her life, especially attending various theatre camps in middle school and high school. Camps have a lot of lore surrounding them, so I believed she might have some theatre superstitions to contribute. I called her on the phone and asked a bit about theatre suppressions. Another thing she had to contribute was one superstition that I was already well aware of. This is a bit of a famous one:

 

Me: “Any others?”

Informant: “Well, the Scottish Play… are you recording my version? [Laughs] I hope I don’t get it wrong.”

Me: “Tell me!”

Informant: “You are NEVER supposed to say the word Macbeth in a theatre. It is terrible luck. If you must refer to the play, you call it the Scottish Play.”

Me: “Why is it bad luck? I always heard that but I never knew why people think it’s bad luck.”

Informant: “I know some people think the play itself is bad luck or cursed. But I also know just saying it is supposed to bring bad luck to the actor who says it. If you say it… you leave the theatre and spin around three times. That’s the cure we’ve come up with.”

Me: “Have you ever said it?”

Informant: “No!”

 

This is, of course, a very popular superstition — many of us, even those outside of the theatre world, have heard variations of this.

 

[For other versions of this superstition, check out the Steppenwolf website, “Theatre Superstitions: Volume 1”. Steppenwolf is one of the nation’s leading theatre companies]

Mexican Proverbs

Nationality: Italian/American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC off campus
Performance Date: April 27th, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant used to travel a lot with her mother when she was younger. They have a home in Sayulita, Mexico, where my informant has been many times on vacation but when she was in 4th grade, she and her mother went to live there for the entire summer.

Informant: “I just remember a lot of these from when I lived there. Some of them are really funny. Like, I remember this one guy who was sitting on the street… We somehow got in conversation with him…he said something like, if a guy is too short for a girl it doesn’t matter because everyone is equal in bed. Something funny.”

Me: “Do you remember the actual sayings of any?”

Informant: “Oh yeah. Para tonto, no se estudia which means one needn’t study to become a fool. I actually bought a book, full of Mexican proverbs, like… Las conversacion es al pasto del alma….conversation is food for the soul. The book is at my mom’s house.”