Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Virginia Witch Windows

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Corona, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English

The interview will be depicted by initials. The Interviewer is QB and the interview is JT.

 

QB: Wait…wait…can you explain that last tale one more time?

 

JT: Yeah…so…basically I have a cousin who lives in Virginia, and they have diagonal windows on their houses that they call “witch windows” because it was believed that witches weren’t able to fly their broomsticks into the home that way. And I think they have like 2 or 3, so its kind of crazy how big that following is.

 

Analysis: Here we see the succession of folklore spreading throughout the US. Even though the student is from California, they have become an active bearer of this folklore as they tell people about a situation that never took place in the state. However, it is also interesting to note that the student’s cousins house still has the diagonal windows. So many years later and it is still common knowledge around Virginia.

Hat on a Bed

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English

The interview will be depicted by initials. The Interviewer is QB and the interview is BL.

QB: Were there any other superstitions that your dad or family followed?

BL: Yeah there was one more, and basically it was that it was very unlucky to put your hat on top of the bed. I honestly have no idea why that was considered bad luck, but my dad just made it a point to teach everyone not to do it. So yeah…I never put my hat on my bed.

Analysis: Once again I think it is interesting just how much superstition can effect a person. Even though the student had no understanding of why placing a hat on the bed was unlucky, they still made a point to follow the rule. Following the family rules are also very prevalent here.

Jotos and 41s

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 27
Occupation: Culinary Student
Residence: Madrid, Spain
Performance Date: 04/07/2017
Primary Language: Spanish

Main Piece: In Spain, they call gay people “Jotos” because of a jail cell. Jail cells are either numbered or labeled by a letter , and until recently, when gay people went to jail they used to put them in cell “J”. Don’t ask me why, ‘casue I don’t know, that’s just the way it was. Now cells are numbered with much more complicated digits because of the increasing number of criminals, but back then, the cells had normal numbers to label them: 1, 2, 3… Again, they used to put gays in cell 41, maybe to keep them away from everyone else. That’s why 41 is the gay number in Spain. It’s like when people in America laugh when someone uses the number 69. If someone says the number 41 or something, it’s pretty funny here. And not only that. In some of the most conservative parts of the country, the number is seen as obscene, and some hotels even take it out of its room numbers, like the number 13. That’s why if you’re gay, the call you a Joto or a 41. It could be used both as an insult or a sign of affection, but they can call you this even if you’re not gay as an insult.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Jordi was raised in Mexico and resides in Madrid and claims to hear people being called Jotos and 41s on a daily basis. He knew that Jotos were gay people because they are also called that way in Mexico, but didn’t know about the 41s. He asked about that to one of his close friends, who told him the story.

Context on the piece: Although there is no recorded reason to why gay people are called Jotos (Jota is the Spanish pronunciation of the letter “J”), there is one about the number 41, which actually originated in Mexico. Apparently, in 1901, there was raid in which 41 men were detained for showing up in women’s clothing. This was reported by the contemporary press and became a scandal during the conservative years of president Porfirio Diaz. The new reached Spain and they adopted the insult.

Thoughts on the piece: Considering the recorded history of using 41 as an insult for homosexuals, it shows how history still has an effects on the present. This is something that happened over 100 years ago, and not only that, but people in Spain have adopted the insult and gave it their own story. To goes to show how the folk from a culture can appropriate even insults to serve their own purposes, and as Jordi says, most of them believe that the term originated in Spain. Not everyone knows the story behind the terms though, showing the disregard of the history of certain words that might be offensive to an entire group because of their past which is also present in American culture.

The Dybbuk of Boiarka

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 78
Occupation: Psychologist
Residence: Mexico City
Performance Date: 03/16/2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece: A dybbuk is not exactly a ghost. It is the evil spirit of a sinner who takes the form of a deceased loved one to play tricks on the innocent. Shlomo was a poor tailor who lived in the small shetl of Boiarka with his wife Miriam. In one of the stormiest Sabbaths that Boiarka had ever seen, Shlomo came home with Rabbi Gorkshev. He told his wife that he had invited the Rabbi for soup for the Sabbath, as he had helped the Rabbi to get out of the temple on that stormy night. Miriam was overjoyed. It was very uncommon for these low standing people to be honored with the visit of a Rabbi. When their eldest daughter Teibel entered the room and saw the Rabbi she turned as pale as ghost. Miriam and Shlomo asked her what the matter was, and she told them that there was a dybbuk in their house. They asked her where, and she pointed directly to the Rabbi. Everyone started laughing at her remarks; how could the beloved Rabbi be a dybbuk. Yet, Teibel claimed that the Rabbi had been dead for months. See, Teibel was set to be married to one of the Rabbi’s pupils, and though him she found out about his death. The Rabbi explained that the girl must have been confused, as he did in fact fall severely ill, but he got better in time. Teibel was not convinced of this, so he asked the Rabbi for his pupil and her soon-to-be fiancée’s name. The rabbi could not remember, because he said he was very old and he had been very ill, so his memory was not what it used to be. This was enough for Teible. She picked up a a kitchen knife and stabbed Rabbi Gorkshev in the chest. The Rabbi ran out of the house and wandered through the streets in the storm. His parents told her “You have cursed us”, to which she answered, “He was a dybbuk. God had already cursed us”. And so the family was cursed for eternity. If it was because the daughter killed a Rabbi or because a dybbuk entered their home, no one knows. Even so, the villagers of Boiarka say that in stormy nights, they can still hear the screams of Rabbi Gorkshev wandering through the streets.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Ethel Soriano was born to Jewish parents from the Ukraine, where the town of Boiarka still stands. She says her dad used to tell the story to her at nights to scare her, but only made her interested in Jewish folk stories. She visited Boiarka herself because of her fascination with the legend.

Context on the piece: According to Ethel, the villagers of Boiarka tell the story to their children to scare them so that they will stay out of the streets, as the dybbuk still roams them according to legend.

Thoughts on the piece: I think the story lends itself more to simply being a tale for kids to stay out of the streets. The fact that the family never knew if he was actually a dybbuk is fascinating, as their curse could have been a self fulfilled prophecy by the daughter. With her believing that God had cursed them, she stabbed the Rabbi, which could have been the cause of their curse. This could send the message of not jumping into conclusions, but if the Rabbi was actually a dybbuk, the message could tell us not to be so trusting of good faces like Shlomo was. It’s a story where the meaning is dual and even ambiguous, which is unusual for legends in other culture. It follows the Jewish tradition of the public taking out their own meaning form it.

The Coeb Borthers reference a version of this legend in the opening scene of their film ‘A Serious Man’ (2009).

Shazaam, Staring Sinbad

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Francisco, California
Performance Date: 04/20/2017
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: There’s a big community of people on the internet that are convinced that as children they used to watch a movie about a genie called ‘Shazaam’, where Sinbad played him. The thing is there is apparently no such movie, but for some reason people collectively remember it. Some have even posted pictures of the VHS cover of ‘Shazaam’ with pictures of Sinbad as the genie, but Sinbad assures he was never in that movie. There isn’t even an IMDb page for this thing. Most people think that these guys are just confusing it with the movie ‘Kazaam’, where Shaq O’Neal played a genie, but they swear that it was a different movie. This has lead to all sorts of theories and speculations. Some say that it is a conspiracy by the studio because the movie was a flop and they tried to erase it from existence. Some credit the Mandela effect, which is an alternate timeline theory that says that we have memories from ourselves in alternative timelines.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Jacob has a keen interest in knowledge in internet folklore. This story surfaced in recent years, and has been increasingly growing with more and more people claiming that they have seen this fake movie. He says that there’s many cases of collective memory in the internet, such as people being convinced that the children’s books “The Berenstain Bears” were actually called “The Berenstein Bears”.

Context on the piece: This phenomenon of collective memory is usually talked about in discussion boards such as Reddit or 4chan. The idea has been communicated and made popular by people commenting on it on bigger sites, like Youtube or Snope, which is how Jake knows about this.

Thoughts on the piece: I think this folk belief goes to show how much an idea can propagate among people to make them think it’s true. This shows that this can even create fake memories for people, as it seems that they are simply misremembering the title and star of the real movie ‘Kazaam’, yet refuse to believe it, going as far as to considering conspiracy theories on the matter. This makes the belief take an almost devoutly religious aspect to it, where the people are convinced that the movie had to be real and cannot cope with the fact that their memories could be fabricated.

For  more information and discussion on the phenomenon, see: http://www.snopes.com/sinbad-movie-shazaam/