Author Archives: Amelia Getahun

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.

Cantonese hospitality custom

Nationality: Cantonese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bangkok, Thailand
Performance Date: 04/24/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Cantonese, Thai, German

The informant is a USC student and friend of mine from Bangkok, Thailand whose family is Cantonese. She came over to make dumplings at my house, and while we were eating, she kept putting dumplings on my plate for me. This is what she told me when I asked her why she was doing that.
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“In cantonese culture, when you’re sharing a meal with someone, you would have all the plates with food on them, for example, like all the dumplings would be in one plate–if you’re sharing dumplings with someone, you would always take the dumpling, dip it in the sauce, and put it on their plate, and then you would get one for yourself. And when you finish yours, you put another one on their plate. And then, when you get to the last one, you have to put it on their plate, so they get to eat it.”
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I found that this was an interesting custom that seemed to reflect something I have seen in many cultures, specifically non-Western ones; many cultures emphasize the importance of serving others before yourself, or respecting others before yourself. I have seen this reflected in my own Ethiopian culture, which emphasizes the importance of attending to others before yourself in almost everything from serving food to giving houseguests your bed and sleeping on the couch or floor. This custom is also part of a larger customary lore that exists almost everywhere but seems to emerge more when people move away from their home countries: when engaging in the customs of hospitality from their native countries, they are expressing a sense of nostalgia for that community, for the “old country.” These customs also tend to become simplified over time as cultures mix; in more cosmopolitan societies, a lot of the nuance and specificity of certain customs tends to fade away. We can now see them in more generalized customs, such as asking someone whether they would like a glass of water when they visit your home, which are more simple, symbolistic nods to that culture of hospitality.

The Elbow game

Nationality: Ethiopian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pomona, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Amharic

The informant is my 19-year-old cousin who now lives in Pomona, CA, but grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She learned this game from other kids at her international elementary school.
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“So I don’t know if this really counts as a game, but there’s this thing we used to do when we were little…here. Stick out your arm. Okay, so, one person holds their arm out like that [gestures to my arm] and then looks away, or, actually, they close their eyes. Okay, so close your eyes. And then the other person kind of walks their fingers up their arm, but like, really slowly. And the point of the game is for the person who has their eyes closed, they have to see if they can guess when you make it to their elbow. Well, not their elbow, but, like, the inside of their elbow. Or whatever it’s called where your arm bends, but on the other side.”
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Even though she attended an international school, my cousin learned this game in Ethiopia. I found this incredibly interesting, because I also knew this game when I was little, even though I grew up in the New York, and other people who grew up in other states also know this game. It’s interesting how the same games (and more broadly the same folklore) arise in so many different places that are seemingly unrelated. There are other examples of this, including that every culture has a version of the idea of dragons, but this was the first example I had really seen personally of such a specific piece of folklore existing in two such different places. Though it is easier to deduce how such a game might have reached my cousin’s school, being that it was an English-language international school where many students were the children of American expats, it really reinforced to me the “multiplicity” aspect of Dundes’s definition of folklore, which I find incredibly fascinating.

French hand game

Nationality: Moroccan, French
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Larchmont, New York
Performance Date: 03/12/19
Primary Language: French
Language: Arabic, German

The informant is my 19-year-old friend from my French high school. Though she currently lives in New York, she grew up in Germany, and her family is Moroccan. I asked her what games, songs, or rhymes she remembered from growing up, and she volunteered this hand game that is commonly played in French elementary schools. My friend did not know the name of this game, nor does she remember being taught it or teaching it to anyone, but she played it with her friends and most of the kids she grew up with also knew it.

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“Okay, you start by saying, “Si tu perds t’auras un gage,” which means “if you lose, you’ll have a dare,” and then you start the game. Although, to be honest, I don’t think I ever actually did a dare after playing. So … [demonstrating with hand gestures] you clap your hands one time, then you clap once with the other person … diagonally, and then you clap your hands again. Then the same on the other side [demonstrating], then your hands again, then both of your hands with the other person’s hands. And you just do it faster and faster until someone messes up.”

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Though my friend and I both went to french-language schools growing up, she grew up in Germany, and I lived in New York, which made it interesting to me that we both had played this game as children. This was another place I observed Dundes’s stipulation that folklore must have multiplicity. I also thought it was interesting that the game never really had a name; an interesting aspect of folklore is that things can be spread, reproduced, and taught to other people without having a specific name for what that thing is. I also thought that might have to do with the fact that it one of the things children teach each other, which might be it is so simple (no name, very easy to learn). Another thing I found interesting was that neither she nor I ever actually had to perform a dare after losing the game, because the fact that the song starts off with that line suggests that there was a time where that was a legitimate part of the game, and that over time it was eventually lost. I thought it was an interesting example of the fact that folklore is never static, because the game is so simple and has so few parts, and yet it has still changed over time.