Author Archives: Rachel Channell

Lucky Pennies

Text: 

L: “So for luck, your godmother [T], from the Massachusetts area, came from somewhat of an Irish background and she had a tradition of throwing pennies. She would throw pennies in everywhere, whether it was your house, whether it was your room, whether it was in a card she closed, whether it was in a car…”

Me: “For a moment I thought you were going to say a fountain.”

L: “She would throw it into a fountain, but she was not limited to fountains. Believe me. You know, drawers, rooms, books. And her tradition, which I believe is an Irish tradition, is that you throw pennies into the area you want so that you are blessed with good luck and good fortune and no lack of money. So basically, it’s a good luck charm. And to this day, you can even verify it with dad that we’ve found pennies in every corner of her townhouse.”

Context: 

L is my mom. Her close friend, T, who is also my godmother, was of Irish lineage. L learned this tradition from T in her 30s and while T practices this tradition a lot, L did not. When asked why she responded, “Because I had the annoyance of picking them all up.” When asked about interpretations L said T believed placing a penny causes good luck in that area compared to the belief of picking up a penny for good luck on the day it was picked up. T would never pick up a penny she found and considered it bad luck if someone did.

Interpretation:

Hearing about this tradition was interesting as I am personally used to the “If you pick a penny up, all the day you’ll have good luck.” This is the opposite with a giving penny tradition. Online there are various traditions about lucky pennies, and many specifically Irish ones too (Some listed here: https://silverbranchheritage.ie/heads-or-harps-penny-traditions/). I can’t find anything exactly like what T did but there are the older traditions of wishing wells and fountain pennies, some where if animals were sold as a market the buyer would give the seller back a penny that would become a lucky penny, and more. Abiding by such a tradition as T’s shows one’s giving nature and some belief in superstitions.

Walking on Knees

Text:

S: “There’s a big one actually. They like do it in my dad’s hometown a lot and in a lot of Mexican hometowns where like there’s like a main cathedral or like church and that one has to do with like praying to God for like good fortune. So like whenever there is something you pray to God for like really, really, badly for. Like in terms of super superstitious, I know a lot of sick people have done this. Like ‘Oh God, like let this surgery go well’ or like chemo, for example, ‘Let this chemo go good and I’ll be cancer free in the next year’ and blah blah blah, like ‘Oh please God, I’d do anything!’ And once this happens, in terms of superstition. Once like God, I don’t want to say grants their wish, but like, you know, God wills whatever they prayed for to happen, they now have to walk on their knees to the church. So usually at the church there is this big like entrance way to the church and sometimes it starts ever further. Like you have to go crawl on your knees from the road like a mile or so away from the church, and the road is rocky so your knees are like busted, torn to shreds, and walk all the way to the alter where the Virgin Mary is and offer like a flower or light a candle of something, you know? Or that’s like a really big thing they’ve done in like my hometown. My dad actually did it himself but like here, when I was like younger he had a health scare I think, like ‘Please let this be good’ and once it came like it was ok, like he carried me, I was like four I think, he carried me in his arms and he crawled to the alter holding me. So that’s like a very big one.” (omitted a fair amount of “like”s)

Context:

S is a Mexican American born in Long Beach, California. His parents are from Mexico. S knows of this tradition through his parents, with some personal experience by his father as spoken above. The “hometown” spoken of towards the end of the text is El Sabino Guanajuato. S’s take on this tradition is that it’s religious, serious, and also represents faith in a sense. He also uses the term “superstitious thinking” from his psych class to describe it.

Interpretation:

This action is like praying but almost also like making a deal with God. It could be a luck ritual with the physical performance part of this ritual being the crawling/walking on knees to the alter in a church. According to my mom, my grandmother also did this when my uncle got drafted. He came home safely so my grandmother got on her knees and crawled to the alter. This ritual goes to show how religion and belief could also work with superstition to give luck (good luck/blessings in this case).

El Día de los Muertos

Text:

S: “[T]here’s Día de los Muertos which is Day of the Dead. So for that we like have an alter in our house, which is basically just like pictures of all our dead relatives and we light candles and then we… pray to God that there like in a better place. A lot of the times we go to like the cemetery and we bring like food, their favorite food and we place it at like their grave and like tombstones and that’s you offering up the dead person’s favorite food. I forget what the reasoning is, you might want to research into that, but it’s like so they have something to remind them of their old life, comfort food? I’m not sure but you take their favorite food to their grave site.”

He later told me he celebrates it on November 2nd, but November 1st is celebrated too however that’s only for saints/angels.

Context: 

S is a Mexican American born in Long Beach, California. His parents are from Mexico. S celebrated this holiday since he was little as his parents taught it to him with one of his earliest memories of Día de los Muertos was celebrating it with and for his grandmother. S’s take on Día de los Muertos is it’s about preserving history and keeping traditions alive. 

S: “I like to think about it in terms of like when someone passes there’s a chance they’re not going to be remembered by like history you know? Like so few people get remembered by like the things they contributed to the world. Even historical figures, no one really likes… they just learn about them because you have to, no one really remembers as much. And when it comes to your family, you’re the only person who’s going to remember them. In terms of history, you know, they’re just going to be washed away like they didn’t really exist, so I guess it’s up to you to keep their memory alive and just make sure like the things they did while they were alive matters to you and it means something as a way to keep them like they’re still here, you know? Cause when you die, you’re gone, but your memory lives on and I guess that’s a way to make sure their memory doesn’t also die and they still live on through that which I guess is a big part of Day of the Dead and stuff like that.”

Interpretation:

Día de los Muertos is very much about honoring and remembering loved ones. They can be for family members, friends, idols, etc. however important ones are mostly for family members. As S explained, people celebrate this holiday to keep their loved ones alive in spirit as despite being physically gone. The concept of offering foods at graves and alters with pictures of the passed away is similar to the idea Valk explained with ghosts haunting family members and being territorial. Though the spirits of those who passed away here are tied to their graves and alter photos and are not hostile but almost guardian-like. 

La Llorona

Category: Legend/Tale (Depends on if the person believes in spirits, but more of a Legend)

Text: 

Summary: If a child cries too much they would be taken by la Llorona. La Llorona is a crying woman who does something bad to bad children. “[I]t’s always a woman and … she’s [always] weeping and generally 9 times out of 10, it was always involving children.”

*for more details read script below

Context:

L is my mom who was born in Mexicali, Mexico and then moved to the US with her family when she was young. She heard about la Llorona from her parents and interprets the story of la Llorona having to do with females crying and children misbehaving.

Interpretation:

This oikotype of la Llorona doesn’t have to do with water like Carbonell says is included in many Llorona stories. Instead this Llorona focuses on females crying and children misbehaving, which are themes in other oikotypes as well. In a sense, this version seems similar to the Boogeyman but with a crying aspect. It does go with what Carbonell says is the more common role of la Llorona since she plays a role as the bad guy.

L implies that la Llorona kidnaps children with the part about the Olympics. This is more common with other oikotypes of la Llorona and the name itself shows hispanic identity since it’s in Spanish. On the other hand, there is the more unique interpretation L takes of la Llorona with her siblings when one of them cries a lot. Instead of calling someone a cry-baby, her siblings use la Llorona instead, which may also be a coincidence since “a female who cries” is literally the same name for la Llorona, the figure in legends. Since L’s family uses it to keep children from crying after a certain time it means that L’s family values one’s toughness and ability to adapt quickly rather than sympathise.

Interesting Side Note:

  • L also implies that la Llorona can be an aspect of God’s punishment on bad children in the latter part of the conversation.
  • As a Mexican American, I know parts of Mexican and Hispanic culture from my mom but definitely not all. I didn’t even know about la Llorona until I learned it off the internet and then asked my mom about her. Having this conversation let me know why my mom didn’t bring up these stories: they’re replaced by other, “American” folklore like “Stranger Danger!”, the Boogeyman, etc. Said replacement is an interesting side note.

Script:

Me: Ok, so what was this about la Llorona, like what-what’s the kind of story and then I guess how did you have it in your childhood and life?

L: So la Llorona, I grew up with it. My parents introduced it to us and I am the youngest of four and generally when the topic of la Llorona came up, it was not a good thing. Ok? You try avoiding having la Llorona brought up and the way it was brought up in my childhood was if… and I am the youngest of four siblings and if you got hurt, there was what parents would deemed an appropriate amount of time for you to sit there and ball your head out and cry and, you know, appropriately, you know, let people know that you’re hurt and you’re crying. But then if you went on beyond that reasonable amount of time and you were just doing a drama and you were just playing it up and you reached the excess point, they would politely say, ‘look enough is enough and if you don’t stop you’re crying at this point you’re going to be visited by la Llorona.

Me: And by they you mean your parents?

L: Your-your- no. My parents would say you’re going to be visited by la Llorona. And la Llorona is always a woman, as implied you know, from the verb, you know, weeping and it’s a woman plural, I mean it’s feminine because it’s la LloronA.

Me: Ends with an A.

L: So it’s always a woman and it’s always- she’s weeping and generally 9 times out of 10 it was always involving children. Ok? So that’s how I heard of la Llorona. That’s how it was used, but even amongst our siblings, even among siblings, it was not a good thing to be nicknamed or to be called out being la Llorona. And you would do this to push your siblings’ buttons, to get them irate. And that was the point where yeah- let’s say you pushed them, or you shoved them, or you skinned yourself playing soccer or-or you got a big bruise and you were just endlessly crying for no, you know, I mean ya it hurt, but then you’d go on and on and on. Well then, we would just nickname them like, you know, la Llorona. ‘If you don’t shut up about this, you know, you’re just la Llorona.’ It was a nickname amongst our siblings. More appropriately among us females because it’s a woman who’s weeping.

Me: So you and Tia [P].

L: Yes, me and Tia [P], and so my parents would use it, not a good thing. I would use it among siblings as a nickname, you know, kind of picking on you… to shut up… stop with the crying when it was excess. You would use it amongst siblings and me as an adult with you, my kids I really never had the occasion to use it. I contemplated it at times… but…

Me: Instead, dad would just be like, ‘No phone privileges!’

L: *laughs* Ya, I mean it-it’s- here in the United States you have other methods of controlling kind of, you know, bad behavior or excess, you know, crying or excess, you know, brooding. The only time I really contemplated it was as- as- a sign when we would go to the Olympics and we were among hordes of people and we really, I mean it would have just been a nightmare if any of you had actually gotten lost at one of the Olympic events with the thousands of people there. To hold tie to always, you know, be by a parent but we never really had to. There were other methods to do it. But that was the one time I kept saying, you know, maybe this is the time to bring out la Llorona just to instill the fear of God in them that they really, really have to hold on to a parent or else they’re going to get lost in the thousands of people…

Me: So like stranger danger.

L: Yeah, but I didn’t have to because we had stranger danger and I even saw that parents would put those little long leashes, I call them leashes and that’s probably not the appropriate name…

Me: *snorts*

L: But the little backpacks, right? With these long cords to attach to the parent or attach to the arm of the kid so the child doesn’t get lost. But we never even had to do that. So again, la Llorona, it was useful when I grew up by my parents, and it was not a good thing, and we used it growing up amongst ourselves as nicknames just to… uh…

Me: Mess with each other?

L: Yeah, push each others’ buttons. And again, as an adult I didn’t really have to use it because I had other methods other ways to try and curb that bad behavior or quiet that behavior we wanted.

Me: Gee thanks.

L: *laughs* Alright any other questions on la Llorona?

Me: Um…. Nope… not really. Gracias.

L: Ok, de nada.

When the resident house ghost wants pop soda too.

Category: Legend/Tale (Depends on if the person believes in ghosts or sees them as fanciful creatures)

Text: “[D]uring the middle of the night my family members would often go to the fridge, get a glass of pop, go back to bed. So when that would happen, whatever family member would do that, you know go down the stairs, open the fridge, get the pop, go up the stairs, go back to bed, every single time, afterwards there would be the sounds of that same thing happening but no one was doing it. Like it was-it was, there was a ghost that haunted the house and the ghost did other things but this goes whenever someone would do that afterwards. They would walk down the stairs, open the fridge, pour the pop, and then walk back up the stairs, but there was no one no one doing it. But it made the same exact noise and people could hear it from their beds. … And the ghost did other things, but yeah. They eventually moved out of the house cause it was creepy”

Context: 

V is a college student who’s been told this story by family members who live in Hazelwood, PA. She interprets this story as an unresolved, creepy mystery of the house saying it could possibly be haunted by a ghost. She is not sure the identity of the ghost.

Interpretation: Ghost stories often deal with ownership according to Valk. This story is the perfect example of that since the ghost “haunts” the house V’s family lives in. However, V’s family is unsure who the ghost is, so the ghost is not of a known person or ancestor of V. This latter sentence crosses out a different common aspect to ghost stories. Though it may be a ghost of the prior house owner sine Valk also mentions ghosts possibly appearing due to changes in property owners. Telling this story shows some belief in the supernatural.

Script:

(V told this story to an audience of 3, one of which was me)

V: This is a story from my family in Hazelwood, PA. I think I’ve told you this before [P], but I don’t think I’ve told you… but anyways so it’s like this-this old house had been in the family for a while my family’s been in Pennsylvania like since, it was like-it’s in Pittsburgh, PA in the borough called Hazelwood but they’ve been there since like-like pioneer times. Like we traced it back like ancestry and my family’s lived there forever. Anyways so it’s really common to drink like pop soda instead of water, it’s like gross, but so during the middle of the night my family members would often go to the fridge, get a glass of pop, go back to bed. So when that would happen, whatever family member would do that, you know go down the stairs, open the fridge, get the pop, go up the stairs, go back to bed, every single time, afterwards there would be the sounds of that same thing happening but no one was doing it. Like it was-it was, there was a ghost that haunted the house and the ghost did other things but this goes whenever someone would do that afterwards. They would walk down the stairs, open the fridge, pour the pop, and then walk back up the stairs, but there was no one no one doing it. But it made the same exact noise and people could hear it from their beds.

Me: Mystery unresolved? 

V: Yeah that-that’s it. And the ghost did other things, but yeah. They eventually moved out of the house cause it was creepy, so yeah. That’s my story. That’s what I got.