Author Archives: Macias

Superstition

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

This superstition my mother used to tell me about dishrags. She believed that whenever you dropped a dishrag, that meant that someone would come knock on your door soon. This could happen any time of the day, any time of the year, just in general someone would be there soon.

I’m not sure if this is a good or bad superstition but it seems pretty general and forward. I do not know if this ever comes true or if it means something else. If it were to mean something else I believe that it would mean that right when you are doing a lot and moving a lot and are really busy, someone will come and visit you right then. I picture a housewife moving swiftly in the kitchen and dropping her dishrag while busily cooking and being flustered when the doorbell rings right as she picks it up. So it could be a metaphor for when you’re busy something else will come along too.

Folk Belief

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: 3/25/12
Primary Language: English

My stepdaughter’s ex-husband married a Native American woman and they had a baby together. Since most Native Americans have extremely straight hair, she did not want her daughter to have this hair so she found an old folk way of making it wavier for when she grew up. Right after the baby was born,  she went out to the pastures to where the cows lived and took back some manure. She took the manure and rubbed it on her baby’s head because this was supposed to ensure that when her hair grew in, it would be wavy or curly and not straight like traditional Native American hair.

How the hair grew in I don’t know, but this belief was passed down through Native Americans to use on their children to avoid the extremely straight hair of their people.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 54
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/12
Primary Language: English

A common household fix for back pain.

When my mother was little my grandmother and the same for my father, would take a regular drinking glass, heat it with a match, then slam it down on the part of the back that was in pain. This was said to suck the pain out of the area for immediate relief. This is something I had never heard of until discussing folklore with both of my parents in which they both agreed that this is what their mothers would do because someone somewhere had told them it would work and take away back pain. I’m sure this method could be used other places than just the back but this is where it was usually used.

Drinking Game

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Barbara, CA
Performance Date: 4/5/12
Primary Language: English

Snappa

Played with: 4 people, one glass of beer each, two pieces of die

Rules: go until one team gets to 7 points. each glass is put a hand with apart from edge of table. Each person must say “snappa” before they throw the dice. You must throw one die up in the air and try to get it in the cup or at least hit the top of the cup; if it does, the other team must drink one third of their beer. The other team must also drink if the die lands in the center of the table and the other team does not catch it with one hand before it falls off of the table. Your team must drink if the same happens to you or you do not catch the die OR if you throw the die on your turn and miss the table completely. If you throw the die on your turn and it hits the ceiling the turn is void. The other team can also call the throw too low which makes it a gentleman’s game. If you say “snappa” before you throw and the other team doesn’t hear you, you may still throw. When drinking, you must also finish your glass of beer in 3 drinks (it should only take three turns to finish it).

This is a common drinking game that I have played in Santa Barbara, CA and I have only found it there. My friend Bernadette explained the rules to me when I visited her and played in Isla Vista, the college town in Santa Barbara. The legend goes that my friends brother invented the game when he was a student at UCSB a few years ago. There are also websites that explain the

Folk Medicine

Nationality: caucasian
Age: 75
Residence: Apple Valley CA
Performance Date: 4/10/12
Primary Language: English

Since my grandmother has been a nurse all her life, she somehow managed to learn numerous home remedies and folk medicine that she swears by to this day that she also learned from her mother which seem to work better than modern medicine for some.

One of the more interesting remedies she seems to go by involves earaches. She believes that if you have an earache what you need to do is blow cigarette smoke into the infected ear and it is supposed to help the ear heal quicker. This is one of the craziest folk remedies I’ve ever heard of to date, it seems that cigarette smoke would hurt the ear because of the chemicals but maybe there is some ingredient that helps ears.