Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Lucky Horseshoe

Text:

“My grandparents on my mom’s side have a horseshoe hung up over the front door of their house. The horseshoe is supposed to both bring good luck and keep away bad luck or curses. It always has to be hung with the ends pointing up, so it can act like a cup to catch the good luck, and if it is hung upside down the good luck will spill out.”

“Do you follow the same tradition? Would you hang a horseshoe over your door?”

 “I don’t know if I would. My grandmother gave me a horseshoe keychain as a gift a while back. I don’t really believe in the superstition aspect of it, but it’s a way for me to feel connected to her so it has become a charm in a way for me.”

Context: My informant is a friend of mine who has Irish heritage on his mother’s side, where he first learned of the horseshoe superstition. He says that no one he knows shares the horseshoe superstition, but that it is more prevalent in Ireland and other European countries. While he does not necessarily believe in the superstition, it is clear that the practice on his mother’s side has made it an important part of the connection to his family. 

Analysis: 

The horseshoe superstition described by my informant has an interesting combination of both personal sentiment and cultural tradition. Even though my informant does not believe the superstition and may not continue it, the fact that the superstition was embedded in a gift from his grandmother highlights the deeper importance of superstitions and traditions. By gifting my informant with the horseshoe, his grandmother was using superstition as a way to give good fortune to my informant. This suggests that superstitions can be used to soothe worries and help us feel secure and optimistic for our loved ones. Additionally, my informant’s view of the gift shows the ability of cultural traditions and superstitions to be modified to fit the individual. While more broadly the horseshoe may represent attracting good luck and warding off evil, because it was a gift in good heart from his grandmother, the horseshoe transforms into a symbol of love and family connection between my informant and his grandmother.

Mid Autumn Festival

My informant usually celebrates this with family, and the date depends on the lunar calendar, but is typically in the autumn and is always the night of a full moon.

During this festival you typically gaze at and appreciate the moon and eat mooncakes. Mooncakes are typically sweet pastries but they can be savory with a variety of different fillings from date to a sweet nut paste to lotus paste and salted egg yolk.

This festival is celebrated because of a Chinese myth with many variations. The basic story is that a woman ended up drinking an immortality elixir that would have brought her to heaven, but her husband was still on earth. Because of this she chose to live on the moon instead so in the mid autumn festival, moon gazing is like how every year the husband would eat mooncakes and look for his wife on the moon. Due to this, the festival is generally a family activity.

The story itself can depend but in a few variations my informant is pretty sure that they were once gods, but the husband had to shoot down several suns (which were the children of the emperor of the sky) and as punishment the couple were turned into humans. However, they received the elixir at some point and wanted to split it to be together, but they had to wait until the full moon for the effect to work, but one month the husband was away and someone attacked the wife for the elixir so she drank it so the attacker wouldn’t get it.

This festival is based on a myth based on the cycles of the moon. Not only is the meaning based on the moon, but the food eaten is also moon based

“Bread and Butter” (Splitting the Pole)

• saying/banisher of bad luck

Many people subscribe to the superstition that “splitting the pole,” or in other words, walking on two different sides of a (usually tall and inanimate) object, i.e. a pole, is bad luck–sometimes promising a split in the pair’s relationship, poor fortune, or even death for one or both parties, according to different beliefs. 

Of course, for various reasons, sometimes it is impossible for two people to avoid splitting the pole, in which case one of them must say “bread and butter” to undo the bad luck. This is presumably tied to the idea that splitting the pole will cause the two to separate in some way, and butter can’t really be separated from bread once spread. 

While there is limited written documentation/proof, because the superstition around splitting the pole seems to have originated among Black Americans, many point to the context of slavery, the life-or-death need for enslaved people to stay together and seek protection in numbers, and the ever-present threat of external parties dividing them from loved ones. 

However, “bread and butter” makes even physical separation powerless, restoring the protective powers of community, especially in travel. 

White Sage Smudging – Shelby S

• (co-opted) Indigenous American practice

Whenever Shelby moves into a new place, permanently or just for a short period of time, as well as after an occurrence thats makes her feel her space has been “dirtied” with negative events or emotions, she “smudges” by burning white sage with the window(s) and door(s) open to “release” the negativity.

This is a ritual among Indigenous Americans on the West Coast, where Shelby grew up (she is Black), which is performed to remove harmful spirits, forces, and “energy” from a structure, place, or person. As she’s gotten older, learned about the endangerment of white sage due to the spirituality industry’s overharvesting, as well as the general problems with appropriating Native American religious traditions, Shelby put effort into developing a sustainable and thoughtful relationship with white sage smudging and other practices only known to her because of the Indian-mania of American culture during the mid-late 20th century in which she was raised. 

She also burns other leaves and barks, such as cedar, that are used for smudging in places like West Africa. She says various affirmations, sometimes out loud and sometimes in her head, that call in protective spirits and forces while expelling harmful ones. The change in smell alone makes the space/person/object feel anew, and bugs tend to not be fans of aromatic smoke, illuminating potential origins of the belief in the “cleansing” powers of white sage, and smudging in general. 

A Nat’s Malevolent Dream

Nationality: Burmese

Primary Language: Burmese

Other Language(s): English

Age: 19

Occupation: Student

Residence: Baltimore, WA

Performance Date: 03/19/2024

Y.Y. has been my friend since Kindergarten, and is also a Burmese person who is originally from Yangon, Myanmar. He recounts the time P, his grandma told him a horror story about Burmese spirits. Their relationship is very close knit, as his grandma would regularly tell him Burmese legends and superstitions that she has learned about. 

“In Pyi Oo Lwin, there are a lot of cave pagodas and this one family went on a vacation there. They visited a cave pagoda one morning during their trip and later that night, their son had a dream. In the dream, he was in the exact same cave pagoda they were at earlier that day. In caves like these, there are usually ponds that are created since water would drop and seep through from the top of the caves due to humidity. There was a pond in that cave pagoda and it just so happens that there was a lot of treasure in that pond. Somehow, he ended up in the cave in real life the next day, to search for the treasure in the pond. Days later they found his corpse floating with chains tied around his body on top of the pond. P. Told me that sometimes Nats (god-like spirits) try to seduce people into the areas that they are chained to, because they are finding a replacement. Nats are usually found in sacred places like those ponds and they attract humans using dreams and hallucinations so they can leave the place once a replacement has been found. I interpret the story my grandma told me as a way for her to make me respect or at least fear the Nat. This is because my family usually doesn’t believe in spirits like the Nat but she does, so she says that although we don’t have to worship them, at the very least we should respect and acknowledge them when we visit pagodas so they don’t harm us. 

I personally found this story really terrifying, and interpret it as an unrealistic legend made to incite fear in us. I think these stories usually have a motive that is trying to push a certain narrative or lesson on to us. For this story, I think it teaches us to not wander off and be greedy. Since P. told Y.Y. this when he was quite young, it might be her way of protecting and warning him from danger whenever they visit sacred places like temples. In Myanmar, it is very important that we are respectful when we visit sacred places like pagodas and temples. We would have to be dressed a certain way, and not do much else other than pray and walk around there. This type of story makes sure people are not doing anything that can be considered greedy or sinful, when they are at sacred places.