Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Reiki

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Reiki

 

Subject: Healing Ritual, Superstition

 

Informant: Tye Griffith

 

Background Information/Context: Growing up, I had a nanny who helped raise me, and who had been working in my family since before I was born. Her name is Eva, and she is from Monterrey, Mexico. Eva also worked as a nanny for a close family friend of mine, Tye. Tye and I essentially grew up together, and had the connection of Eva, who I feel linked our two families together even closer. I asked Tye about a healing ritual Eva would perform called Reiki when we were little.

 

Tye: So, I don’t remember as much about this one, but I remember Eva would do it, and it was supposed to be a transfer of energy from one person to another through the placement of hands. I think she only did it if something was wrong, like if you were sick or in a bad mood or something, maybe.

 

So [Eva] would take our hands and run patterns along your palms with her fingers. And then she would, like, put her hands over yours. I don’t think she said anything while she was doing it or anything though. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. Yeah, Reiki was supposed to send good energy into you if something was wrong, and it was just a ritual involving your hands. It was kind of cool actually.

 

Me: Do you think it worked?

 

Tye: [laughs] I don’t know. I mean, at the time, I remember like fully believing in it.

 

Me: Yeah, me too, actually. I think it was like a placebo effect or something.

 

Tye: Yeah, because I do think if I was feeling sick or something before, and then she did it, I would feel better. Honestly, I think Eva is magic [laughs].

 

Conclusion: I asked Tye about two of the rituals Eva would do with us, and I actually really enjoyed looking back on them. I could tell when we were talking that Tye also had fun looking back on the experience. I do believe that the Reiki ritual worked to a certain extent, but more of a placebo effect type of thing. But when I was little, I did believe it worked. I thought that Eva was performing magic and that the magic was healing me magically.

Origins of the Gulf of Mexico

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English

Subject: Legend, Folk Belief, Origin Myth

 

Informant: Lauren Herring

 

Background Information/Context: Lauren and I live in Houston, Texas, and for a beach, we go to Galveston, Kemah, or somewhere else along the water. The “beaches” aren’t usually what you would think of when you picture a beach. They are usually just a drop-off into the water. Sometimes, like the Galveston beach, you’ll have rocks that lead into the water, or occasionally some sand and some sort of beach. The water is murky brown, almost black, because of the pollution and oil spills that are in the water. The body of water is called the Gulf of Mexico, which is shaped roughly like a semi-circle, and leads out into the ocean.

 

“So, I don’t know if you’ve heard this one, but I learned it at Kinkaid [the high school we both went to]. But it was in a science class I think in middle school, and I remember believing it when somebody told me it. It was that the asteroid that made the dinosaurs go extinct struck Earth where the Gulf of Mexico is, and that’s why it’s shaped like that.”

 

Conclusion: I had not heard about this belief, but I can see why Lauren would believe it if a classmate told her about this story when she was a little younger. I do think it’s funny that one of our classmates made it up.

Bailey’s Prairie

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Subject: Legend, Ghost Story

 

Informant: Tye Griffith

 

Background/Context:

 

Tye: Well, Colonel Bailey was a colonel in the Civil War, and he got his head chopped off while in battle from his horse. Like, he was riding his horse in battle, and his horse ran him into someone’s bayonet.

 

Now around the ranch, which is on a big piece of land called Bailey’s prairie, in the fog you can hear the noise of the hooves of his horse with Bailey on it looking for his head.

 

Me: Is your ranch where the battle took place?

 

Tye: Yeah, it’s where Bailey died in battle. On what’s now the prairie.

 

Me: Have you heard the hooves before?

 

Tye: Yeah, I totally have. I was with my brother and his girlfriend a few years ago, and we were driving out by the prairie late at night, and we stopped somewhere to have a beer or something—I actually forgot what we were doing—but we thought we heard a horse running around. And then we started exploring and trying to see where the noise was coming from, because we don’t have any horses or anything. And the noise was like really distinctively a horse running around. My brother was trying to look macho in front of his girlfriend and started walking into the woods area and shouting like, ‘Hey! Is anybody there?’ but obviously we didn’t find anybody. It was just scary because we all knew the story.

 

Ghost in a Blue Pencil Skirt

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English

Subject: Ghost Story

 

Informant: Lily Fitzpatrick

 

Background Information/Context: When I asked Lily if she had or knew of any ghost stories, she said:

 

“Oh I’ve seen a ghost before! In my cousin’s house in Baltimore! I swear to God, she was wearing a blue skirt suit and holding a clipboard!

 

There’s a whole narrative behind it because I didn’t realize what it was at first because I was young, but I remember what it looked like so specifically for, like, forever. But I didn’t know, like, what it was exactly at the time, but Charlie [her older brother] saw a ghost. He went to his friend’s ranch and went to the bathroom and opened the door, and he saw, like, a Native American woman standing there. And he got scared and closed the door, and then he opened it again and saw just the outline of the woman. And so he ran to his friends and told them that there was a ghost in the bathroom, and they all ran to the bathroom to see it, but when they got there, it was gone.

 

And his friend whose family owned the ranch told [Charlie] this used to be a Native American burial ground. And [Charlie is] the most rational, practical person I’ve ever met, so if he says he saw a ghost, ghosts are real. And then I got to thinking about my ghost story, like, hmm, I think I saw a ghost.

 

So anyway, I was at my cousin’s house in Baltimore, and it’s an old house that’s kinda scary, like with creaky staircases and stuff, and I was sitting in the living room. I was probably, like, eleven, and I looked up, and standing in the doorway, standing there, was a woman in a blue pencil skirt holding a clipboard. And then I looked away, and I thought ‘Oh that was weird. I must have just seen something out of the corner of my eye.’ And so I looked back, and she was still there, and it was a ghost. But I wasn’t scared at all. Like, it wasn’t scary. I think ghosts are good—at least, they’re not bad.”

 

Conclusion: As someone who does not completely believe in ghosts, I was surprised at how fully Lily believed that she and her brother had seen ghosts and that ghosts actually do exist. I found her story really fun to listen to though because of how enthusiastic she was about the story and because I could tell that what she was telling me actually happened to her.

Egg Yolk Magic

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 50
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Bothell, WA
Performance Date: 3/5/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

PP is a teacher who currently resides in Bothell Washington. She is originally from Yakima, WA but her family descends from Guadalajara in Mexico. Much of her family spoke Spanish as their first language and her grandma was the first to immigrate to America. Much of her influences and culture come from that region and her upbringing in a single-mother low income household.

Do you have any stories about bizarre things your family believed?

PP: There are so many weird remedies and superstitions that Mexicans have I don’t even know where to start. One my mother used to do a lot was when I had bad dreams she would put an egg yolk in a glass and keep in under my bed directly where my head was above.

That is very odd, what was the purpose for this?

PP: She believed it would ward the bad spirits away and protect you and it was like a common day dream catcher. The white part of the egg was meant to catch the spirits and the yolk was there for some other purpose I cannot remember but it was specific too. The glass had to be clear or transparent and had to be placed in the right spot. Also, it had to be removed the next morning after.

Do you believe it worked?

PP: Not really. Sometimes it may have just been a coincidence that I happened to not have any bad dreams the next night. I think my grandma was very superstitious about it so that’s what made my mom believe it. I don’t practice that anymore because I don’t believe it actually works. I’m not even sure where the belief came from or when it started because it is kind of random and just doesn’t make any sense.

Analysis:

I researched this belief and it is commonly found in Mexican culture. The egg was used by healers just like holy water because it had spiritual properties to ward off the evil eye or bad spirits. The evil eye can be brought on by many things such as envy or a stare, but the egg yolk was used to heal people when they were sick or anxious or had any mental or physical illness. The belief is still widely accepted among Mexican tradition today and although it is not widely known among other cultures, it is practiced still.