Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

El Ojo

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.

Are there any beliefs you had growing up that many people in your culture shared? Any superstitions?

PP: Well almost anyone you talk to who is Mexican knows about ‘El Ojo’ or ‘The evil eye’.

What is ‘el ojo’?

PP: El ojo translates to the eye but it is a belief that if you stare or look in an envious or spiteful way you can trigger the evil eye on that person. The evil eye can cause bad things to happen like sickness or trouble. Sometimes it is called Mal Ojo because it is evil. This is especially concerning to mothers of young babies because many people will stare at your beautiful child in envy. This is why mothers are more protective of their children.

Is there any way to prevent ‘el ojo’?

PP: There are healers that would say you can get rid of it with holy water or eggs if someone may have brought the evil eye onto you. It is more of a bad energy and can affect surroundings not just a person. I think that to get rid of it you have to do an entire cleanse spiritually of anything that could have been effected. There are many rituals involving an egg to identify the evil eye’s presence. I don’t think I truly believe in it but there are many people who religiously believe in this superstition and are genuinely afraid of the eye. My grandma and mother were especially afraid of it as I was growing up and warned me never to look at someone in an envious way so I didn’t bring it on someone.

Analysis:

I have talked to many people from Spanish backgrounds about ‘el ojo’ and it seems to be one of the most universal superstitions. People do truly believe the eye has powers and an energy that can make terrible things happen to you. The eye is associated with many accidents and illnesses and the ways to get rid of it or detect its presence are very elaborate. You have to get a healer to come and use an egg to detect if the evil eye is present and if it is the yolk will have a shape of the eye in it and then you must cleanse anything the energy could have effected. This could mean, your car, your house, or even your family and friends who could have the evil eye. Although this belief seems to make no sense and most of these things are coincidental, it is interesting how much people truly believe in it and the power of it to affect people’s lives.

Bedtime Prayers

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

TM is an accountant who was born in Sunnyside, WA and now is currently living in Bothell, WA. He descends from a heavy Irish and Italian background which have influenced much of his culture growing up. His grandparents were the ones to teach him the most about his culture through their traditions and common sayings.

Are there any rituals or things you did on a daily basis that you felt were unique to your family or culture?

TM: There wasn’t anything that was very different. There was the bed time prayers we used to say, those were very unique and I never heard them in the bible or any of my friends who were catholic who would say them. My grandmother taught my father how to say them and in turn my father passed it to me as I have passed it to my children. Hopefully they will pass it on.

Do you happen to remember the prayer?

TM: Yes I do, the way it went was; “Now I lay me, down to sleep, pray the Lord, my soul to keep. Keep me safe, through the night, and wake me with, thy mornings light. Amen.”

Do you know what it means or the significance behind it?

TM: It is supposed to be a bedtime prayer for children but some adults I knew still said it. It basically means that when you sleep you hope that God will keep you safe and that you will wake up the next morning safe in your bed. I think it became sort of a chore or habit more than a ritual for me. Many times, when I said it I didn’t really mean it and I just wanted to go to sleep. Now that I am older and I have a different relationship with God the words resonate deeper with me which is why I think I wanted my kids to say it too. We all want our kids to sleep safe and this was a way of keeping an ease at mind in a way. I liked to say it with them sometimes when they were really little. I think it loses it significance when you don’t really understand what you are saying especially when you are young.

Analysis:

Prayers at bedtime right before you sleep is common between many devout Catholics and Christians. This particular prayer TM shared is common but not widely known or practiced. It would serve as a protection or barrier against harm or bad dreams which is why it was very common among children. When I researched the prayer, there were many variations to the middle phrase of the prayer, ‘keep me safe, through the night’. Sometimes it was ‘may angels watch me through the night’ or ‘guide me safely through the night’. Or I came across one with an alternative ending, ‘god bless family, friends, and fun, I thank you each for every one. Although they vary, they all seem to carry the same message of protection and trust in God.

Claddagh Ring

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Luis Obispo, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English

claddagh

SP is a current student at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo where she studies Geography and Anthropology. She is originally from Seattle, WA and grew up in a small town nearby. She grew up in a typical American middle-class family. She attended a public high school in Washington where she grew up with a sister and her mother and father. She has a background of being half-Mexican and half Irish/Italian that has in some ways heavily influenced her beliefs as well as her religious beliefs rooted in Catholicism.

Is there anything else that you have or do that you feel specifically connected to or you resonate with?

SP: I wear a ring every day that my mom gave me that is a Irish Claddagh ring that is very sentimental to me and has meaning to me. You wear it to show whether or not your heart is open or closed. The ring has two hands holding a heart with a crown on top of it. The direction you where the ring in tells people whether or not you are single. If you wear it with the crown turned towards you that means your heart is closed because it is not facing out. When the crown faces out it means your heart is closed because the point is towards you.

Why do you wear it and what does it mean to you?

SP: It is most important to me because when my mom gave it to me she told me that I should hold my heart as a special thing and not give it away so easily and since then I feel like I have always heard her words in my head when I look at my hand and think about it. It also makes me thing she is still with me at the time. I am not very in touch with my Irish heritage but this ring and its tradition makes me feel closer to my religion in ways I can’t express normally. The Claddagh ring has been around for a long time and it makes me feel attached to Irish history. We don’t celebrate much else of that heritage except for the fact that I am a practicing catholic, but even then, this is sentimentally the only Irish thing I know of that I practice. It has become very modernized but I still value it nonetheless.

Analysis:

The Irish Claddagh ring has been around since around 300 years ago. It symbolizes love, loyalty and friendship. The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty. They once originated in a small fishing village in Ireland that created the style of the universal Claddagh today. The design makes it perfect for weddings or gifts for any occasion to women and men who value the three meanings of the ring. It can be a very sentimental symbol to people but also represent the Irish heritage. Many women today I have met wear them but do not know the true meanings behind the ring or where it originated from. I think it makes the value of it stronger to know the meaning and the origins behind it. It can make one resonate more deeply with the heritage or tradition if they know and understand the true meaning or are Irish themselves.

The Evil Eye- A Hindu Superstition

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Punjabi

What is the evil eye?

“So, basically, the evil eye is a Hindu superstition that a person will have bad luck if they are given too much attention, good or bad, by other people. This can be done because of jealousy, but also can occur if someone gives another person too much praise. Pretty much, it is a curse of bad luck that is cause when somebody looks on your too much, whether with bad intentions or good intentions.”

So what traditions are associated with this superstition?

“Usually, mothers will protect their babies by putting black eyeliner on their eyes or a dot of black eyeliner on the side of the neck to ward off the evil eye. There are also charm bracelets, tattoos, or other objects that can be worn by people to prevent the curse. It can affect anyone, but I’m assuming that people usually protect their children because they don’t want them to die. But yeah, this is a very common Indian tradition that I’ve heard a lot, and when I went to India, it was actually a huge deal that basically everyone believes in. I think it’s a pretty interesting part of my heritage, even though I don’t really believe in it.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is a tradition that we have discussed in class, and seems to be shared by many different cultures, not just Indian traditions. There are variations of this story from Turkey, China, Italy, and all over the world, making me wonder if the superstition was developed in one country and spread all around given how many places have a similar tradition. This is an example of contagious magic, as it is passed through contact from one person to another through eye contact.

Vietnamese Coin Remedy

Nationality: Vietnamese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, California
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

Informant is my cousin, who lives in San Jose, California, an area with the second largest population of Vietnamese immigrants in the world outside of Vietnam. This is a form of folk medicine that was used on him before.

“So my grandma, who was born in Vietnam, really believes in using the coin treatment for when anybody is sick or is in pain. Basically, you take a large coin, like a quarter or something, and you rub it on the sick person’s back and neck and other skin areas really hard. It’s supposed to break your blood vessels, so it looks like you’re bruised everywhere, but apparently it also helps you to recover quicker and numbs your pain.”

Have you ever tried it yourself?

“Yeah, my grandma used it on me when I was really little once, when I had come down with a cold. To be honest, it hurt like hell, and afterward my cold didn’t feel much better, but now I was also in a lot of pain from the marks on my body. It seems like this is a pretty common Vietnamese treatment for many people though, as a few of my friends have told me that they used the same thing.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is a story that is near and dear to my heart, as our grandma used to use this same kind of remedy when we were sick. In Vietnamese, the name of the treatment translates to “scraping wind”, which relates to how the word used for a cold is “catching wind”. This treatment was believed to help release the symptoms, but it is very painful. However, it is long time tradition of Vietnamese medicine, and is still used today, both in Vietnam and in parts of Asia and the rest of the world with Vietnamese people.