Category Archives: Homeopathic

Soccer Voodoo

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: April 23, 2018
Primary Language: English

“I played competitive soccer through most of my grade school experience. I started when I was 4 years old, in a recreational league, and then eventually moved up to different travel leagues and varsity soccer for my high school. Because I had played for most of my life, I was always really competitive when it came to specific teams that I had encountered in previous games. I always remembered specific girls that were either really good or played super dirty.”

“Before every game we would gather in a circle with our coach and discuss our game plan, lineup, and players on the other team to look out for. He didn’t know this, but after he left one girl on my team would bring out this little doll that she had gotten in Jamaica. She told us originally that it was a voodoo doll, and that if we wanted to win we had to kick around the doll and that would make their best player have a bad game. Obviously I didn’t actually believe that this would work, but we did it before every game. Each person would have to kick the doll at least once to make sure it worked. If it didn’t work we would all come up with different reasons or excuses as to why it didn’t work, like maybe we didn’t all touch it or did something wrong.”

“The girl was one of my good friends, and that I know of didn’t have any personal reasons behind this doll. She said she just saw it in a random tourist shop in Jamaica, and because she was a competitive player like the rest of us, figured that this doll could give us the pregame boost and confidence that we needed. Honestly, I think it did help us a lot. Even though we knew that kicking around a little doll wasn’t actually going to have an effect on the girls on the other team, it helped us better mentally prepare for the game and come out stronger.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

It is clear throughout the story that the girls on the team did not exactly believe that this voodoo doll was directly effecting the girls on the opposing team. It seems as though it was primarily used as a mental game, for the girls to think that they have an advantage and in turn play better than they would have without performing this ritual. Traditionally, voodoo dolls have a lot of prerequisites to get them working and commonly have to be activated and have some sort of relation to the individual that it is effecting. Usually, voodoo dolls are tailored to a specific person, rather than able to be used for multiple different people. If the voodoo doll were to be used on different people, there would be no specific link between the doll or the person, which is a vital part of creating a voodoo doll. This ritual allows the team to become closer and prepare themselves as a group for the game they are about to play, but does not actually paranormally hurt anyone on the opposing team.

To wish on an eyelash

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/10/18
Primary Language: English

Ethan Newmayer, a free-lance photographer working for Louis Vutton, , who hails from, Chula Vista, San Diego, three pieces of folklore for this collection.

The interview was run, within his studio, at Orchard Avenue, on the outskirts of the University of Southern California.

Folklore Performance: To wish on an eyelash.

“I talked to Mike about wish related folklore, do you know any?” – Stanley Kalu

STORY: Oh, I have another one, Maria and I do this, If you have like an eye-lash stuck on your face, the other person swipes it off and then you press your fingers together with the eyelash between your finger tips and whoever pulls away the eyelash tucks it in their shirt and gets to make a wish. It’s like a wishbone, with eye-lashes.

Background Information: the tradition of wishing on a fallen eyelash comes from common folklore during the 19th century. Wishers would place the fallen eyelash on the back of their hand before throwing it over their shoulder as they imagined what they wanted.

It was also said that the devil would try to collect as much human hair and eyelashes as possible to gain power over people.

Context of performance: This has been described above.

Thoughts: I question whether most people believe in folk practices like this one or whether the act itself is simply comforting. I’d lean towards my latter statement because there is comfort in tradition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Significance of Pomegranate

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 56
Performance Date: 04/08/18

There’s a story about a woman during the genocide, that she kept her family alive by feeding them pomegranates. I think it was that every day she gave each one of them a seed. They were able to survive off that. Pomegranates have a significant meaning in Armenian culture. Armenians say that a pomegranate, each one, has 365 seeds and that if you eat one seed a day you will be filled with health and good fortune. If you do not eat one a day you don’t receive those gifts. Famed author, William Saroyan uses the pomegranate as symbolism as the pomegranate is what sustained his mother during the death march of the genocide.

  1. Do you eat a pomegranate seed every day as suggested above?

No I don’t… I don’t… I really don’t eat pomegranates? I like them a little bit but not that much… They also aren’t really available all year long anyways.

My Thoughts:

Symbolism is very important in literature. And it’s almost like the pomegranate was a good luck charm for those during the genocide. Authors like Saroyan may see that as a beacon of light to write about. In Armenia, you can find many touristy items that are related to pomegranates including key chains, household knick knacks and even jewelry.

One Way to Scratch an Itch

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Southern California
Performance Date: March 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

My maternal grandpa was from the poorest part of Birmingham, Alabama. His birth father died in a dynamite factory explosion when he was two years old, and his mother remarried a few years after that. Even with a new man, their family was poorer than poor. Some winters, they’d resort to eating shoe leather out of desperate hunger. He had one pair of overalls, and later became an expert marksman out of necessity (he could hit a squirrel between the eyes from 30 yards out). He climbed out of poverty via the GI Bill which he used to get an education here at USC, and then a job as a salesman of medicinal gasses to airline companies and hospitals. He didn’t much like talking about when he was poor – it was not his proudest moment. The one thing he did enjoy talking about from back then was family. Even when you have no money, you have family. As his sister June put it, “it never felt like we were poor. We had so much love in the household.”

 

My mom imbued this same sense of family on me through different stories she’d heard as a small girl from her dad, my grandpa. I’d heard this story before, but it had slipped to the back of my mind. Driving home from lunch one sunny afternoon, I ask her and my dad if they have any stories about the inexplicable that I could use for my folklore project. My mom starts:

 

“When your great uncle – great, great uncle – had… his leg amputated, it was itching itching itching, the stump was itching.  So his family said, ‘go dig up the stump and see if there’s anything wrong with it.  And he did and it was covered with ants.  And so he properly buried it and the itching stopped.  And that was a common belief of the time, in Alabama among Christians a couple generations ago.”

 

I love this story because it plays on so many different levels. On the one hand, it’s a story of a very strange folk belief that has found its way into mainstream medicine.  Phantom pains are a common phenomenon in the paraplegic world. To stop it, many doctors put a mirror up to the intact limb, making it look like their missing limb is still there. Almost immediately, the pains stop, and even when the mirror is removed, the pains are not felt. On the other hand, this story works through the familial lens, as it provides a rather sincere snapshot into life in rural Alabama so many years ago.  In a strange way, it makes perfect sense to dig up the withered limb and clean it off to stop the itching. It’s not like there was any other information out there, they just did what they thought would work and it worked.

 

Peanut Butter Hiccups Remedy

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/31/18
Primary Language: English

I asked my mother if she has any unique home remedies:

 

“I swear by my home-remedy cure for hiccups. All I do is eat a spoonful of creamy peanut butter straight out of the jar and it always works for me.”

 

I then asked where she learned this:

 

“I actually figured it out for myself. Hiccups always annoyed me so much so I tried all of the typical remedies people suggest and nothing ever worked. I figured out my peanut butter trick sometime around my last year in college and it’s worked ever since.”

 

Background: Tamara has lived her entire life in Southern California and attended USC from 1979 to 1983.

Context: My mom shared this trick with me while sitting at our kitchen table eating breakfast.

Analysis: A remedy is such an interesting thing in and of itself because each one is so different depending on who you ask, and most typically, people swear by the specific remedies that work for them and disregard remedies from other people. One remedy that could work every single time for one person could never work once for another, which I think makes them a really interesting topic of study in cultures around the world. I have grown up attempting to cure hiccups by eating a spoonful of peanut butter because it is what I learned from my mom. Depending on where and how you were raised, you have a very different view of what really has the ability to heal.

 

 

For other hiccup remedies access the link below:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9896.php