Author Archives: Sally Bailey

Chesh

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 16 April 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

Informant: My friend is Persian, and her family practices traditions like these.
Original Piece: Huge part of Persian culture: chesh-ing someone! Chesh (ch-eh-sh) literally means “eye” in Farsi and here it means the evil eye or in English it’s when someone jinxes you. It’s basically when someone sees you and envies you or is jealous of you and sends evil spirits… or vibes, for lack of a better word, your way. Usually it happens out of jealousy, like when you show up to a party and you’re the only one wearing a dress and everyone is in jeans and you look really good… but sometimes it can happen innocently too, like you see your family members after a long time and they say “wow you’re so beautiful and so grown up and so mature”. Or you’re successful in school/work and someone says “wow she has it all together she’s amazing”. But basically to save yourself from the “bad omens” being sent your way, someone will have to light up this herb… which, it’s a mixture of a lot of things, but I’m unsure exactly what… until it’s smoking and you say a phrase, which loosely translates to mean “keep the bad eyes away”, while circling it over the person’s head. When someone opens a new business or goes to a new job or is promoted you can put small amounts of this herb in the four corners of the room to make sure there’s only good spirits and good luck in the beginning of the business. Like when my dad moved offices, his office had a couple small circular dishes of this on his desk for a couple weeks.

Context of Performance: I invited her over for dinner and we were remembering stories we shared as roommates, including traditions and practiced her family introduced to me. I asked her if she would share some of these pieces of folktale.
Thoughts about the Piece: I remember first learning about the “evil eye” after my informant’s aunts complimented me, and her mother insisted on lighting herbs to keep the bad omens away. This is one of my favorite practices, as I find it interesting how the evil eye recurs in so many of their traditions.

Persian Food Beliefs

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 16 April 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

Informant: My friend is Persian, and her mother told her old tales like these in order to get her to behave as a child.
Original Piece: Food related rules: don’t eat chocolate or anything with sugar before bed or else you’ll have bad dreams…later I realized that’s so I don’t have energy when I sleep. Then, let’s see… oh, don’t eat when you’re crying or it’ll turn into poison in your stomach. Again, I later realized that’s so I don’t find comfort in eating when I’m sad. When you get a new car, you have to run over an egg, because the egg symbolizes any accidents or danger that can happen to you in the car, and by doing it to an egg, right when you get the new car, it takes the place of the impending danger in a light, easier way.
Context of Performance: I invited her over for dinner and we were remembering stories we shared as roommates, and I remembered her talking about all the things she used to believe growing up. I asked her if she would share any particular pieces of folktale from her childhood.
Thoughts about the Piece: I love hearing these stories, which always seemed like quirks of hers, until she told me the reasons behind them. I remember even in college, although she knew these things aren’t necessarily true, she still abided by them… just in case.

Women’s Dreams

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 16 April 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

Informant: My friend is Persian, and her mother told her old tales like these in order to get her to behave as a child.
Original Piece: Women’s dreams are the opposite – usually the most relevant when something big is happening in your life and it’s constantly on your mind and you dream about it, the opposite is what’s actually going to happen. For example, when my high school Mock Trial team made it to finals, I could barely sleep the night before. It was constantly on my mind and I had a dream we won and it was announced on the school intercom and it was a whole ordeal. Woke up to the news that we lost. But it relates to other things too – for example, if you dream someone is sick or dying that means they’ll live a long healthy life. Essentially it’s the flip side of every story.
Context of Performance: I invited her over for dinner and we were remembering stories we shared as roommates, and I remembered her talking about all the things she used to believe growing up. I asked her if she would share any particular pieces of folktale from her childhood.
Thoughts about the Piece: This piece is particularly funny to me. I remember we used to argue over whether this is true, because even in college she would interpret her dreams (and mine) according to this belief.

Tamil Wedding Gifts

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 1 April 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: My friend’s family is from southern India, and every few years they go back in the summer for family weddings. This past summer she went to three, and recounted some of the traditions for me.
Original Piece: “Wedding traditions… there’s so many. This is very specific to Christian Tamil weddings. Bride and grooms families, they exchange fruits. And you give fruits because it’s a symbol of plenty… like having a lot, you know? Like fruitfulness, you know? It’s like a blessing. There’s a lot that has to do with food in all the traditions. Because it’s a symbol of plenty.
The bride’s family buys the groom a gold chain. Why do they do this…. it’s the first gift to give. Gold is a very big part of Indian culture and tradition, because it doesn’t lose value. So giving it to people in different life phases is very important, so it’s the first gift they give to the son-in-law. And they put it on during the wedding ceremony. The groom’s family buys the girl gold bangles and puts in on during the ceremony as well.”
Context of Piece: My friend was showing me pictures from this summer, and I asked her to tell me a bit more about their weddings customs.
Thoughts about the Piece: I really like this piece, and learning about the tradition of gifts in the culture. Rather than toasters or pots and pans, they get food and gold, all symbolic for the marriage.

Tamil Wedding Guests

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 1 April 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: My friend’s family is from southern India, and every few years they go back in the summer for family weddings. This past summer she went to three, and recounted some of the traditions for me.
Original Piece: “There’s the engagement, not like a proposal, but the engagement is a ceremony that happens one or two days before the wedding. It’s like the announcement that they’re getting married, but everyone already knows they’re getting married because it’s two days before the wedding. It’s just close friends and family, so it’s the smallest group of people, but still like a hundred people. Then there’s the actual wedding ceremony, because we’re Christian Tamal ours is in a church. Then there’s receptions… usually in the girl’s hometown and the guy’s hometown, so there’s those two. Then there’s…then sometimes there’s another one in another city, like where they went to college. Some people go to all of them, but some people go to just portions of them.
Usually you give an invitation to one person in the family. Like, you send out 300, but 1200 people come. But you plan for 1200 people. And it’s rude to give invitations through the mail if you’re within driving distance. Even if it’s a couple hours away, you need to hand deliver the invitation. Some people have not gone to weddings because they received invitations through the mail.”
Context of Piece: My friend was showing me pictures from this summer, and I asked her to tell me a bit more about their weddings customs.
Thoughts about the Piece: I thought this was interesting, that overall the wedding proceedings could last for days.