Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Bird, Horse, Muffin

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/4
Primary Language: English

I asked the informant to retell a way of classification that was very important to the informant’s friend group as a way in which they bonded with each other.

“Ok, so bird horse muffin is a way to classify people as either bird horse muffin and they can be a mix of the two, um but they can’t be all three, roughly, although this a very rough sketch is that a bird would be more reserved, a little weird, kinda flighty, a horse is very out there, controls the room uh, big type of person, muffin is very sweet and nice and has like no edge to them, um, that’s the rough outlines. Uh, I first learned it from my friend Nanase who learned it at camp, but it’s also like a real thing that you can find on like the internet. And apparently, like my friend Anna told me that it’s used uh, that it’s used in corporate team building stuff to find out what type of worker you are, and so like a horse who really drives it, but like, a horse can be hard to work with but when they’re on they’re really on. A muffin is so nice to work with but they’re not necessarily going to lead like a horse will, and then like a bird is going to be quiet but then give one really brilliant idea, and then like not do anything else, and so they were saying that you, in your company, you need a balance of these, like if you have too many horses everyone’s just going to argue all the time, if you have to many birds there’s not consistent work, if you have too many muffins like, it is fine, but you’re not doing anything brilliant if you just have muffins. and you can like explain all of world history and interpersonal relations and everyone’s family and how like bird horse muffins interact and how like, and if you’re two, if you’re bird horse in different situations your horse would come out, in different situations your bird would come out, uh, to help or hurt you in different ways”
Analysis:
Bird, Horse, Muffin is a real classification that is used in corporate world, as the informant told us, however, in my research I was not able to find a definitive source for the creation of the classification. This furthers it’s folkloric aspect, a non-authored work. The definitions are relatively the same but have definitely been changed in this case to fit the informant’s friend group. The informant would describe himself as a bird.

Pagan spell

Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“A big thing in paganism is that anytime you move anywhere your supposed to put brick dust on the front of your door and in your back door and salt on your front door and your back door and what happens is you know that its there, and the people who visit your house know that it’s there but anything thats evil cant detect the smell of the brick or the smell of the salt so if someone goes to walk into your home and trips or stumbles or feels like they cant go in that is your indication that the person carries with them ill will to you or to your home and yo are not to let that person in your house.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “In my family my mom was very, well my dads native and I’m religiously jewish but my mom was a practicing peahen for about 20 years and I was introduced to her coven and thats where I learned about this. I have seen this happen man times and it always feels coincidental or spot on.”

Final thoughts: These sorts of spells are unique examples of magical thinking. Unlike most modern rituals which do not have an express practical purpose this is a spell which is specifically designed to perform a task to help make your life safer. Replying on a spell to decide who you let in and out of your house means yo are using folklore to dictate practice everyday matters which is interesting compared to most modern folk rituals which tend to only pay lip service to the rituals intent.

The Ekeko

Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: San Francisco

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“This is actually a piece of Peruvian folklore. It’s more of a good luck folklore story item. It’s called the Ekeko and it’s actually from the Sierra Mountains which is the mountainous area of Peru. They are little men, figurines of men dressed up in your typical Peruvian clothing with you know the little hats and moe of the mountainous clothing The Ekeko are dressed differently depending on what areas of Peru they are from. Most of them are fro the And is which his why they are wearing their little hats made of alpaca wool. They are all carrying a variety of different items. They are all carrying fake items but the goal is they are carrying riches and it is for abundance. You keep them at home and what happens is every Friday you put a cigarette… Thats why its mouth is semi open. you put a cigarette in there every Friday and then if the cigarette goes all the way, if it smokes on its own all the way then it means that the Ekeko is going to bring you all the stuff thats in there and it’s going to be abundant but if the cigarette doesn’t, if the cigarette only burns halfway and then stops then there might be some problems. The thing is there is a bad connotation not the Ekeko. If you have a teenage daughter the Ekeko could fall in love with the teenage daughter and scare away anyone who may fall in love with her. If that were to happen then the Ekeko is no longer bringing happiness into your home so you have to get rid of the Ekeko. So if you’re a young woman and your boyfriends are running away its because the Ekeko might be scaring him.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “So the reason why it was told or why I was told it is that it’s just…a way to bring…that men can bring this into the home and bring goodness into the home and its just something thats really interesting is what women learn from it. When I got married for instance my aunt gave me an Ekeko and so now my family has our own Eekeko at home but we down do the cigarette part anymore because we forget and we down have cigarettes at home. So we got it as a gift so out home will be filled with abundance and riches and just kind of happiness. And that is a piece of folklore which I really like having because it is part of my families culture.”

Final thoughts: This sort of cultural good luck charm is something very common in many cultures. The idea is strongly connected with magical thinking  and the belief in concepts like luck. An Ekeko can also just serve as a cultural item which can help family bond over a shared ritual.

Popular Belief in Ghosts in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: Middle-Aged
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Do you maybe have, like, a ghost story that you were taught?

 

“Actually, yeah, it’s uhh… they, they always said that there was, there were two nights every single year, don’t remember when or how, but there were certain specific time of the year, the, you were forbidden to leave your house between, after 11:00 p.m. on those two nights of the year, otherwise you would encounter, uhh… not really ancestors there, but some other people, especially those who wanted to do, like… like… you know, just, you know, bad stuff. And uhh… people who could not rest in peace, and they would come those specific nights. Of course nobody every left their houses, you know, during those two nights, ever, you know cuz you were so respectful of that tradition. And as far as I remember, nobody saw anything, although it’s maybe because nobody went out. [laughs]

 

Uhh, but, uhh, I dunno why, I don’t know why those things came, uhh… I don’t remember when that thing was like, like, followed, but uhh, there were two specific nights one right after the other, those two nights, you just were totally grounded.

 

Do you remember who told you that story? Or was it something that just everybody knew?

 

“Everybody in the community knew that one. Oh! Also related to that same thing is that they said that, uhh, you were lucky enough to, to, to be… uhh… outdoors between like 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., not after 11:00 p.m. because everybody else was so afraid of encountering something unnatural, they, ummm… they said between 10:00 and 11:00 was okay but you were lucky enough, you would see flames on the ground. Appearing like, just like, magic, and uh, you, uhh, you have to make sure, you have to make certain of where that flame was coming from, or where was the specific spot, because uhh, the next night, you wouldn’t come out, like I said, but on the third night, you were supposed to go there with some friends, dig, and supposedly you were going to find gold there.

 

I never knew anybody just, you know, striking rich by doing that, but that was part of the legend as well.
Where did it come from? It came from our grandparents, actually. And my dad tolds me that his dad swears that he saw some of those flames, but he was so afraid to go and dig because he would find something else instead of money, so… [laughs]

 

Not sure that was an old tale, you know, from some drunk people or something like that, very convincing, but, it became part of the community there, yeah.”

 

And what was the name of this community, again?

 

“This is Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico.”

 

Analysis: Like many ghost stories, the informant expresses disbelief in the ghost elements in the story in abstract, but seems to believe at least partially in the reality of the experience that he relates. The story seems to imply that there is a certain time of the year where social function is not permissible because people are remembering the dead who cannot rest. This motif of restless spirits is incredibly common in ghost stories around the world, despite the very Catholic culture of Mexico. What is unique to this story, however, is the promise of gold if one happens to find oneself outside and getting very close to the forbidden hour, which would suggest that a degree of risk-taking is honorable and respected in this rural Mexican culture.

Sex Taboo in Rural Mexico

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: Middle-Aged
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I have some… some things about my culture and my village, and umm… we were a 9 girls at home. So… sex was umm… nobody can talk about sex. And then, uhh… My mom… how mothers protect their daughters, not to be pregnant and not to be with boys before marriage, she always said to us, ‘don’t touch your body. Because if you touch your breasts, it will damage. So just be careful not to touch it, and also when you take a shower, don’t wash your private parts, because they can get sick.’

 

So that way, we don’t touch our private parts. So… It was a taboo, nobody wants to speak about that.”

 

And was that a common thing, did everybody tell their daughters that?

 

“I think so, I think so. I think it was like that. So no girls got pregnant. No girls got uhh… got a sex before after marriage. So, sometimes, we think if you give a kiss to a boy, to your boyfriend, you will get pregnant. So not even wants to kiss a boys. It… It was kind of a… umm… we grow up, all the girls in our village, and nobody talk about sex. We all just tried to avoid that, and if somebody wants to tell us about sex, our parents, my mother and our parents, said, ‘Run from there! Because this is no good, God doesn’t wants that.’

 

So… Everybody behaved really well with that! [laughs]”

 

Analysis: Taboos are very interesting folk beliefs, and that is very much the case even here. What is interesting to note, however, is the notion of value applied to the body of a woman and its ties to physical purity. In other words, the less a woman had experienced in the realm of sexuality, the more valuable she was assumedly perceived to be. Given the parent-to-child transmission of the norm and the reliance on God, this taboo on sex and understanding the female body could very well be a cultural norm and rudimentary form of birth control passed down from generation to generation in order to preserve the honor and finances of families. It is also worth noting that, using the informant’s family as a hypothetical typical family, the size of the family after marriage is much larger than most families in the United States, implying that more effective birth control may not be available, thus necessitating the narrative.