Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Step on a Crack

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Queens, New York
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

“A lot of people said that if I… stepped on a crack, I would break my mother’s back… it was mainly a lot of people at school though… I ummm…actually believed it though hahaha… I was terrified of cracks throughout most of my childhood and almost started crying once because I actually did step on a crack”

This seems to be a common one throughout many school children throughout the world that if you step on a crack that you will break your mother’s back. There doesn’t seem to be much of that throughout other cultures besides American culture. Also it never permeates adult culture as well. We always see children who always believe in this never adults. Some versions of this myth are only during a game of hopscotch as to create an incentive to win—a pretty large and threatening incentive if you ask me—while some, like that of the informant is used as a way of life.

For more information on this superstition see: http://www.smartalecksguide.com/2011/09/are-there-dark-origins-behind-step-on.html

Cootie Shot

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

“We had this ridiculous thing in elementary school… where we had cootie… well we had cooties in elementary school… but we had this ridiculous thing called a cootie shot… did you have cootie shots”

“yeah sort of”

“It wasn’t even like… it wasn’t even like distributed or anything. it was literally… it was literally…just that we would mime…. we would just mime and that would instantly cure cooties so… I mean cooties still had the same amount of seriousness as any other disease it’s just that cure was really really easy to get I mean anybody can just mime a cootie shot, there was no effort in making it or anything we just had to mime it and yet no one picked up on how plentiful this cure to what was the…ummmm… worse disease in elementary school was”

This is an interesting way that people cured the cooties in the informant’s elementary school. In my experiences with the cootie epidemic, people had to be able to fold some sort of origami to be able to cure cooties and only the people in my class talented enough to fold origami were blessed with the gift of being able to cure such a horrible disease. I wonder if this mime like policy was instituted because a teacher didn’t want to waste paper of if nobody in the school knew how to fold origami?

Honey and Ginger

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Queens, New York
Performance Date: April 19
Primary Language: English

“So my mom…told me this it was a… I mean she did this whenever I got sick…ummmm…usually I mean…mostly in the throat… where she would get honey and like a spoon dip it in like…get a scoop of honey and also… ummm… like ummm cut a piece of ginger… off… out of the honey and… would put it on the spoon… and I would kind of down the honey and the ginger… and I mean it burned my throat but… maybe the burn was good I’ve never seen any scientific research for this but it usually did make me feel better”

This folk medicine seems to be less based in any kind of magic and more in some sort of fact, my guess for how this came to be is that many people drink tea with honey or ginger when they are sick with anything in the throat. This seems like that taken to an umpteenth level going hard and downing a spoonful of just honey and ginger which, to some, might be the center of the healing powers of the tea. Eating these raw healing ingredients might hurt at first but later—because they are raw—will probably heal you.

Chinese, Japanese, Look At These, Hit My Knees

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: April 17
Primary Language: English

“I had an ummm…. sort of racist I mean it was very racist, I think this might have been in the Devils Rejects, was it in the devil’s rejects? I think it was anyways I did the same thing as the people in the Devil’s Rejects did in elementary school… not murdering people… but this demented nursery rhyme… it went sort of like ‘Chinese, Japanese, look at these hit my knees*’ it was very racist and I think that’s why we did it and even the Japanese kids in our class did it…. ummmmm…. We knew it was bad and we did it anyways (laughs)”

*note the informant does motions with his hands when he says “Chinese” he stretches his eyes length wise, “Japanese” he stretches them width wise, “Look at these” he motions towards his chest as if to insinuate breasts, “Hit my knees” fairly self explanatory, the speaker hits his knees.

I found this one interesting because it’s a rhyme that’s clearly at the level where it’s made for kids. It’s very intentionally crude as sort of a taboo rhyme. It was a horrible non sensical thing to say but it whoever said it felt like they were breaking rules. This probably added to the fun of the rhyme.

Hum Honge Kaamyab

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Saratoga, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Informant Description: My friend is an Indian American; her parents immigrated here, but she was born and brought up here. Her primary connection to her Indian heritage and family history is through her grandparents.

Interviewee: Umm stories so my grandparents were in the partition of India and they all were Hindus who lived in Pakistan and then had to flee during the partition and so my grandma was the 5th out of 10 but the oldest girl so she was responsible for like taking care of a ton of the younger kids.

Me: So did she tell you this story all the time growing up?

Interviewee: Yeah. She used to say hum honge kaamyab which means we can overcome anything and it’s also a song that’s to the tune of “We Shall Overcome” and she used to sing it to me all the time when I was a kid.

Me: Do you remember the song?

Interviewee: I just remember the main chorus which was just “Hum Honge Kaamyab” repeated.

Conclusion (written by Interviewer): I had heard “We Shall Overcome” a lot throughout my childhood. To the best of my knowledge, it was quite an old song but became relevant to pop culture again during the Civil Rights Movement. Through this story, I see history repeat itself. When there was intense political and social stability during the partition, this song made its way to India and Pakistan. This song has spread and been translated in many languages, including Arabic and Hebrew. For the English, Arabic, and Hebrew version, see the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBgkWd5GG_M