Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Gujarati Proverb Common Around Diwali

Nationality: Gujarati
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 28, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Gujarati

Note: The form of this submission includes the dialogue between the informant and I before the cutoff (as you’ll see if you scroll down), as well as my own thoughts and other notes on the piece after the cutoff. The italics within the dialogue between the informant and I (before the cutoff) is where and what kind of direction I offered the informant whilst collecting. 

Informant’s Background:

I’m from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.

Piece and Full Translation Scheme of Folk Speech:

Original Script: मिच्छामि दुक्कडम्

Transliteration: micchāmi dukkaḍaṃ

Translation: “May all the evil that has been done be fruitless” or “If I have offended you in way, knowingly or unknowingly, in thought, word, or deed, then I seek your forgiveness”.

Piece Background Information:

One specific thing that’s very interesting- whenever we meet someone on our new year’s day, we say “micchāmi dukkaḍaṃ”. It basically means, “forgive me for anything I’ve done wrong over the past year and I want to start over on a clean slate with you”. Our new year, I think, comes right after Diwali- this big festival of lights. So it (the new year) is the day after that because the whole thing about Diwali is that it’s the conquering of good over evil, based on an ancient story.

So the ancient story is about this lord, he was called Lord Rama. He was a king who was in exile and his wife Sita was taken away by this evil king named Ravanna. So he crossed what is now called the region, the sea crossing between India, the south tip of India, and the current Sri Lanka to go and get his wife back. And they had like a fourteen day war where they basically, the two sides were fighting, and it ended with Rama putting an arrow through Ravana’s chest to kill him. The festival of lights celebrates his return after exile, back to the capital city.

Basically, we are asking for forgiveness from the other person and we want to start the new year off with a clean slate.

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Context of Performance:

In person, during the day, in Ronald Tutor Campus Center on USC’s campus in Los Angeles.

Thoughts on Piece: 

Through setting off fireworks, lanterns, and the like during Diwali, partakers in this tradition are recalling the celebrations that were believed to have taken place upon Rama and Sita’s return to their kingdom in northern India, after having been exiled and defeating King Ravanna. In this sense, Diwali can be seen as homeopathic magic as it is performed in order to bring about new beginnings/ wipe the slate clean through recalling the similar instance in which the slate was wiped clean for the once exiled Lord Rama. It also follows the Earth cycle as the celebration’s dates are dependent upon the Hindu lunar calendar.

For more information on Diwali, see Sims, Alexandra. “What is Diwali? When is the festival of lights?” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 09 Nov. 2015. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/diwali-what-is-the-festival-of-lights-and-when-is-it-celebrated-a6720796.html>.

Mother’s superstitions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Background Information: Eumin is a freshman at USC, and she speaks Konglish, or a mixture of Korean and English, with her mother at home. I interviewed her about some of the superstitions her mother has.

Ankita: Can you tell me about some of the superstitions your mom has?

Eumin: Ya so if I walk around the house without socks on, because um, if my feet are too cold for most of the time, um I won’t be able to get pregnant.

Ankita: Wow, really?

Eumin: Yeah. Or like, she really believes in herbal essences… Like, if I’m feeling sad or something… Like, last semester, like during finals, she shipped me this bottle of lavender extract, and she told me like, Eumin, you NEED to put two drops of this in your water.

Ankita: Is this something just your mom believes in, or is it a more common Korean thing too?

Eumin: A lot of it does stem from Korean things, and I think her being religious also, kind of amplifies her superstitions.

Ankita: What’s her religion?

Eumin: She’s Christian.

Ankita: Do you ever subconsciously find yourself following these or believing in them?

Eumin: Um… yeah. Like, my mom also told me to never write my name in red ink, because that means I’ll die, or like, something really bad’s gonna happen to me. So like, I never write my name in red ink, ever. I dunno, it’s just that’s she’s told me that since I was young, so I’ve kind of just never done it and probably never will.

Thoughts: It is interesting how superstitions guide the everyday lives and practices of many people. In Eumin’s mother’s case, she tries to make sure Eumin follows some of these as well, as a way of caring for her, and wanting to make sure she is healthy. It is also interesting how Eumin herself became subconsciously conditioned into following some of these

The Lady

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 41
Occupation: Principle
Residence: Sante Fe Springs, CA
Performance Date: March 12, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

So when I was in 5th grade there was this lady that we called her, “The Lady,” but really when I got older I found out she was only 16 but because we were in 5th grade at the time, she was older to us and she was scary so we called her “The Lady.” Umm… but when I was in 5th grade we had finished recess and we were all lined up getting ready to go back into class at umm… at St. Hilary and all of the sudden people started umm… Running into the classrooms and one of the teachers was like, “GET INSIDE HURRY UP RUN!” And they all swarmed to this one specific area like where the third grade class was lined up. But none of us really knew what was going on so it was like this mass chaos. We all just ran into the classrooms and I remember like we were in the classroom trying to barricade the door, there was no adult  inside and we were in 5th grade and umm… we were all scared and someone kept closing the doors um… “Hide, Hide, Hide!” Everyone, you know there was a lady on campus but we just were scared and we didn’t even know why and I remember specifically Anne-Marie Maizer was like, “I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!” And so that made me scared because I was like okay something’s happening and I might die and so I just remember we kept closing the windows and stupid Marco Martinez kept opening them back up and we were like, “NO, MARCO NO!” and he… we would close them back up but to be a bunch of 5th grade kids in a classroom by ourselves without the teacher… well our teacher was one of the few male teachers on campus and he was one of the ones that told us “GET INSIDE” and ran over to “The Lady” and so come to find out there was a lady that the… the rumor was that there was a lady on campus who was a devil worshipper and umm… she was there to kill us and… because we were a Catholic school and so she wanted to kill the kids in the Catholic school. And she lived in the apartment building behind the Catholic school and so it was around the same time that Richard Ramirez was in the news so we were already scared of “the night stalker” who was also a… a satanic ritual kind of, you know, into that thing, yeah serial killer and so… I just remember being terrified like I literally would umm… she had… one of the teachers told us that he… she had said to him, “COVER YOUR CROSS!” Like she couldn’t look at his cross because it was too religious for her and she was a devil worshipper so it was like evil to her and so I walked around with a rosary because I wanted a cross with me at all times. And I kept it under my pillow along with like a kitchen knife because I was just terrified. I mean for that entire year even into our 6th grade year I remember people were like, “Oh the lady, we saw the lady, the lady’s coming on campus.” And instantly I would just like remember getting uh… so nervous about it and we were  terrified and we remember that like she was umm… there to kill us like we were scared about that, about “The Lady.” What’s interesting about that story though was that when I became an adult, I ended up working with Art, who was the teacher that was my teacher at the time. So I got to ask him as an adult like, “So what was going on with this lady, like the legend of the lady, and what really happened?” and he… come to find that… so she was… she did live in the apartments behind the school, she was 16 years old, she… she was high on PCP is what he said. She was definitely on some hallucination of her drug and she did umm… she did say stuff that was umm… that made her sound like a devil worshipper and that umm.. They had to call the police on her several times. I mean but the… the story was out of control, there was a story about her having a machete, a bazooka, and like you know, I’m sure kids embellish along the way, yeah definitely. But I just remember that he did say there was weird things that were happening in the church and that umm… that they ended up going to her apartment to like arrest her and that she had like a goat’s head altar and he was like, “No she was really a devil worshipper and on top of that she was on drugs.”

My informant experience this horror story firsthand and was quite traumatized by it. She never even found out “The Lady’s” real name. She told me this story, while everyone else of our family and friends were telling ghost and horror stories. This folk narrative was interesting to me because it consisted of several elements and genres of folklore. There was the “The Legend of the Lady,” that began as just a rumor but ultimately, as my informant found out later in life, turned out to be true. In the story my informant uses relics and objects that she believes will protect her from this “Lady,” such as a rosary or kitchen knife. There is also an element of children telling each other rumors and over exaggerating the truth and of course there is also belief in folk magic and rituals such as “The Lady” and her devil worship or belief in Catholicism in the story.

Ghost and the Walkie Talkie

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Redlands, California
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

This story is told by a friend, Lauren, whose perspective on ghosts is not scared or intimidated, but rather Lauren seems to be at peace with ghosts and lives in harmony with them.

“My aunt and uncle have an old Victorian house is Redlands, California, and we’re pretty sure the ghost that’s in there is the ghost of the girl that died of Cholera in about 1833. Throughout time, every one of the kids when they’re little have seen the ghost. They’ve disappeared for a couple of minutes, and no one knows where the kids go, and then the kids will show up and say “I just saw the ghost”. No one really understands it. I did it, my little cousin did it, my second cousins have all done it. There’s kind of evidence that the ghosts exist and the house is probably haunted, but the ghost is pretty chill.

After my uncle passed away, my aunt and I were sitting there and talking about how sad we were, and we heard something that sounded like a sigh. We didn’t know where it came from, but we think it was the ghost sympathizing with us.

My cousin and I were probably about 15, and we were going up to the attic and we had walkie talkies with us, and as we were climbing up to the attic, they started getting scratchier and scratchier with the sound. We thought it was just because we were gaining altitude, it probably doesn’t have the radio connection. Then the minute we opened the door, the walkie talkies just shut down completely. It wasn’t that they completely lost reception, they turned off.

Later when went downstairs we took the batteries out and put them back in, and there was nothing wrong with the walkie talkies.

[Were you scared when it happened?]

It was a little freaky, but we’ve have encounters with the ghost before, and its never been a bad encounter so we didn’t really care. ”

It is common for children to see ghosts, perhaps because they are just more imaginative, but what are the odds that Lauren and each of her younger relatives all had the same exact experience? They all disappeared for about 45 minutes when they were very young, to return claiming that they had seen the ghost. This was stated very matter of factly and with complete confidence. It seems that in this family, ghosts are a common occurrence and not seen as a threat. This is very different than many ghost stories because often ghosts are seen as intimidating spirits or peaceful ghosts of recently deceased family members. This peaceful ghost that she speaks of is neither, but rather just a friendly ghost of perhaps the girl that passed away in that house.

The problem with the walkie talkies is very odd because after coming back downstairs, they realized that both walkie talkies were not dead. They had just turned off at the same time going up the stairs to the attic. The attic is a common location for ghost encounters because it is a liminal space. Could there have been a ghost up there that decided to mess with their devices? She did not seem to be bothered by this event, but rather accepting that ghosts have their place in the house. Many people would be scared of the common ghost experiences, but Lauren said that everyone in her family all feels the same way; ghosts are not something to be frightened of, but something to respect and accept.

This old house was the location for many ghost encounters, but the technological mishap was her most recent experience with the ghost of the house.

Haunted Wifi?

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Performance Date: 4/2/17
Primary Language: English

A friend recounts a story of her friend falling down stairs after yelling at a ghost:

“In highschool my friend, Katie, moved into a house, it was a historical landmark in our town, Palo Alto. There were weird parts of the house, like the basement the completely concrete. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all concrete. There were square holes in the walls that really just looked like a coroners office, like in TV shows, where they pulled the dead bodies out of it. It was really really wUpdatee

The wifi in the house was named TobeyHouse after the alleged original owner who died in the house. And they couldn’t change the name because they were renting it. There were always weird things happening. The owner of the house, my friend’s mom, really believes in ghosts, she holds seances and has ouija boards. The lady that lived in the back of the house, named Dylan, was super into it, super into connecting with the spiritual realm.

Tobey had done some things like door slamming. But one day my friend Emma was standing at the top of the stairs, and a bunch of doors were slamming, the house was creaking, and my friend yelled “F you Tobey” at the top of the stairs, and she immediately fell down them. And my friend’s mom called ghostbusters and ghostbusters was like “theres definitely a spiritual presence in this house, there’s a bad spirit here.” But Tobey didn’t really do anything after that though.

[Were you scared when it happened?]

I wasn’t there, but my friends were genuinely freaking out.

[Was everyone sober?]

Yeah, but I think part of it was my friend was wrapped up in a blanket when she fell. So it totally could’ve been that she lost her balanced, but everyone said she got pushed.”

Was Katie really pushed by an angry ghost? Or did she just slip? Everyone part of the experience believes that it was the ghost that pushed her down the stairs, but that could have been a result of their preconceived notion about their location and because they were already scared from hearing the unexplainable noises, like the slamming doors.

This ghost encounter took place in an unusual house with a disturbing basement and a mysterious history. It is odd that this house even had a basement, as they are very uncommon in California. The residents of the house at the time of this event might have also affected the outcome. Katie’s mom was very convinced that evil spirits resided in their home, and the woman who lived in the separate house still on the property also felt a strong connection to the spirit world. These perspectives might have worked to convince Katie’s friends that a ghost had suddenly appeared and become violent, because the house reminded them of the ghosts that the residents believed so strongly in. But regardless of this, all of the witnesses to this were confident that a ghost had intervened.

It later turned into a running joke, but those at the scene maintain that a ghost really did become angry and violent.