Category Archives: Magic

Ritual actions engaged in to effect changes in the outside world.

La Befana

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 76
Occupation: Retired schoolteacher
Residence: Westfield, NJ
Performance Date: April 3, 2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

[A]: My father spent most of his youth in a small town in the Campania region of Italy…I believe he was 13 when he came to America with his parents. It was so sad…they came here at a time where immigrants were treated very poorly for having accents and…or speaking a different language, so he had lost a lot of his Italian traditions by the time he was married and starting his own family. One of the things that he made sure carried over to our new generation though was the story of La Befana…let’s see if I remember it correctly…in a lot of parts of Italy the big gift exchange happens on January 6th instead of Christmas day…I remember distinctly because I always got more presents the day after my birthday…and the night of January 5th kids would hang their socks or stockings along the chimney in hopes that La Befana (the witch) would come in the night and fill them with candy and all other sorts of treats. If you had been bad that year, supposedly, La Befana left you a hard black candy called carbone (coal) —a lot like what Santa does! I don’t know how much I remember about her background or why she would do this…but I think she was considered a sort of…add-on to the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. If I remember correctly, she lived near Bethlehem and on the night Jesus was born the Three Magi stopped to ask her for directions to the town and for food and shelter. She helped them but before she sent them on their way they invited her to come with them but she…I believe politely declined and so they went on their way. But that night she was awoken by this incredible bright light that she took as a sign to go find the Magi and baby Jesus…I don’t remember what happened in between but she couldn’t find them and the story goes that every year on January 5th she flies all around, still looking for baby Jesus and she drops treats off for sleeping children…something about hoping baby Jesus is with them or safe or something like that. When I was younger I remember my father buying small broomsticks and leaving them outside our doors to try to keep the magic alive…I guess it worked! I can’t believe I didn’t do that for the boys…frankly it’s been many years since I thought about that story.

A is a 76 year old woman who’s spent her entire life in a suburb in northern New Jersey. Both of her parents come from an Italian background, and her father specifically lived in the south of Italy until he was roughly 13.

A is a family member, and I was on the phone with her thanking her for sending me an Easter card when I realized I had the perfect opportunity to ask her if she could think of any stories that would help me with my project. She didn’t totally understand what I was asking at first, so I told her about some of the other pieces I had collected already and when I mentioned ghost stories and monsters she pretty quickly remembered the story of La Befana. She told the story with a kind of reverence and nostalgia that you only feel from someone like an older relative when they recall a magical story from their youth, and I could tell she was so very happy to remember that small piece of her father that she’s lived without for the past 30 or so years.

One of the things that sticks out most to me from hearing this story from A is the power that folklore has. A hadn’t thought about this story since she was a young girl, and although she would likely argue the point, she remembers it extremely well. This tale about a witch from thousands of years ago traveled across the ocean in the early 20th century with a little boy who managed to practically tell it across generations, and now I’ll likely remember the story for years and years to come.

La Befana serves as a sort of Santa-like figure to children, but can also be interpreted as a piece of religious folklore. The story of the birth of Jesus Christ and the 3 wise men is relatively fundamental to most forms of Christianity, but I’d never heard the addition of La Befana before and likely won’t hear it outside of the context of Italian culture. It struck me as both odd and interested that La Befana is affiliated with the story of the birth of Jesus because although I’ve never had much religious education, from what I understand about Christianity, witches and witchcraft is frowned upon; yet, nothing about what A told me frames La Befana in a negative light. She actually seems like a very positive character, as she gave food and shelter to weary travelers.

Vertical Chopsticks

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 47

Text:
Once at dinner, the informant arranged the table and served rice for everyone’s bowl. The informant’s father-in-law put chopsticks and spoons next to the bowls. As he gave the informant the chopsticks, he stuck the chopsticks vertically in the informant’s rice while everyone else’s chopsticks were next to the bowl. It is later revealed that sticking chopsticks vertically in another’s bowl is a curse, as the chopsticks and the rice look like burning incest sticks, which is something people do to dead people at their funerals and later visits to their tombs.

Context:
The informant did not have a very good relationship with her father-in-law, as he often suspected others of not liking him and telling people what to do even though he didn’t know much about things. However, they live together. Thus they would sometimes have small conflicts. The informant said she did not think much about why her father-in-law sticks the chopsticks in her bowl, but she swapped her bowl with her father-in-law’s. The informant described his face as “angry and surprised,” but he didn’t say anything and put the chopsticks down. Not until later did she realize it was a curse when a child stuck her chopsticks in her bowl, and the mother scolded her. The informant looked proud as she returned the bowl even though she didn’t know about the curse until later, and she was still angry about the curse even though she never knew why her father-in-law wanted to curse her.

Analysis
This text includes elements of superstitions and family dynamics in Chinese culture. The act of sticking chopsticks vertically in someone’s rice bowl resembles the ritual of burning incense sticks for the dead ones. It’s a respectful thing to do to the dead but terrible to someone alive. Although China is not a religious country, the belief in superstitions and curses still exists in Chinese culture.
The problem of the family dynamics is also reflected in the text. As a culture that respects the elders and values family, many Chinese families live together with their elders. Usually, after the couple gets married, they would live with one side of their parents (or their parents would move to live with them.) The high price of housing also contributes to this phenomenon. As the two families stay together, conflicts arise. In this case, the woman lived with her husband’s parents. The young and the old generation are unfamiliar with each other, while the family power dynamics differ from the old times. Thus, conflict arises. In modern days, more and more families choose to live separately from their parents to avoid such conflict.

USC Good-luck Sweater

Background: R is a proud grandmother of a USC student and she routinely watches USC sporting events in support of the school. R is a Mexican immigrant and loves to support her grandchildren in all their endeavors.

Text:

R: “I always, always wear my USC ….cómo se dice…sweater….always no matter how hot it is! I am convinced I gave USC football and uh… Caleb… Williams good luck last year when they won all the games. The only game I didn’t wear it was the USC and… Utah game…that was when they lost!”

Interviewer: “Do you wash the sweater?”

R: “Si, I’m not crazy. The sweater‘s powers activate when I put it on… it can’t come off in the washer.”

Interviewer: “Why are you so invested in USC sports?”

R: “Because I want to be supportive of my grandchild and their success of getting into such a good school. I’m so so proud!

Analysis:

Sports superstitions are among the most common superstitions in American contemporary life. Sports fans like to feel like they have some control over the game, even when they’re watching from the stands or their living rooms. They pretend that they take part in the action through insignificant routines/gestures/sayings/or performative rituals, such as wearing the same lucky sweater. In R’s scenario, her sports superstition transcends just wanting to take part of the athletic event, she wants to take part in the success of her grandchildren.

Bad mood leads to bad cooking

Background: M is an American of Sicilian descent who grew up in Buffalo, New York.

Text:

M: “My grandma had a superstition that if you’re cooking while in a bad mood, then the food you’re cooking will taste bad. She’d always say ‘sour mood makes sour food’.”

Interviewer: “Was it just your grandma who believed this superstition?”

M: “My mom…my grandma’s daughter of course… also seemed to believe in this as well. She’d make excuses that she couldn’t cook because she wasn’t in the best of moods.”

Interviewer: “Do you have any other personal experience with this superstition?”

M: “During my teen years, my mom and grandma would yell at me constantly to get out of the kitchen since my teenage mood swings supposedly indicated that I wasn’t up to any good in the kitchen.”

Interviewer: “What did you make of this superstition?”

M: “I always thought it was kind of silly, sometimes maybe even an excuse not to cook. But I guess it could demonstrate how important food and cooking are in Sicilian culture… it’s more than just what’s served on the plate”

Analysis:

As M alludes to, this folk belief can demonstrate how some cultures perceive cooking and serving food as an experience that transcends just the biological need for sustenance. Often times, it can demonstrate a deeper connection to one’s ethnic and cultural background. But not only does preparing ethnic food requires careful consideration and masterful precision to do justice to the cultural practice at hand, it requires soul. Thus, being in a bad mood can distract or subvert one’s full attention from the task and dampen the cooking experience.

Lucky Penny Magic

Text

“I believe in lucky pennies. I have a bunch right here; I have some in my window. They’re only lucky if you find them heads up. But if I find one that is heads down, I’ll flip it so it’s lucky for the next person.

“Sometimes if I know someone’s having a bad day, or they have an exam and they need some luck, I’ll give them one of my lucky pennies.

“But there have been times when I’ve found a lucky penny, and I’m like, ‘Ok, this is the day that I have to do something ballsy and brave. This is a sign.’ And then it won’t go well. And I’ll be like, ‘The lucky penny magic isn’t real,’ and I’ll swear off lucky pennies. But I never seem to stop myself. I always continue doing it anyway.”

GR said she couldn’t recall an experience when a lucky penny actually gave her good luck. “Unless I have incredibly spectacular, amazing luck, I’ll never recognize good luck. I only really recognize when I’ve had really bad luck.”

Context

GR is a 21 year-old college student from Portland, OR, currently living in Los Angeles. Her grandparents were Irish immigrants.

Lucky penny belief is performed mostly in public spaces where one is likely to have dropped loose change, such as a place of business, a parking lot, or the sidewalk. As a resident of a large urban area, GR often encounters such spaces. It is likely that the frequency of finding lucky pennies influences her belief.

Analysis

Lucky penny magic reflects the values of American capitalist society, in which money is the main mechanism of upward mobility and survival. Under this system of values, coming into any amount of money by chance is genuinely good luck.

GR’s belief goes further, however, claiming that the pennies are not merely an instance of luck but a token of it, a good luck charm. Lucky penny belief for some is merely a sign superstition, a form of belief that requires no action; one merely encounters a sign of good or bad luck.

However, GR actively takes part in the belief, choosing to collect the lucky pennies, give them to her friends, and flip a heads down penny over for the next person. This action is what makes her belief magic. Specifically, GR believes that lucky pennies are a form of contagious magic in their ability to bring good luck to whoever possesses them.

Additionally, her choice to collect the pennies out of belief that they may bring luck in the future reflects the future-orientation of American culture, as described by folklorist Alan Dundes.