Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Indian home rituals and customs related to luck

“The head of the bed should not face the north and neither should the front door. When you buy a house, you have to make sure neither face north: it’s bad luck. Also, if you see a grasshopper in your house, [it means that] you’ll probably be rich.”

My informant is an Indian-American immigrant who has lived in America for almost his whole life. These customs come from his parents, so he doesn’t know exactly where these beliefs come from. 

Analysis: These rituals and customs have to do with the ways in which Indians have brought superstitions related to luck into their homes. For the grasshopper superstition, it seems to be a simple superstition about a rare event signifying good luck. In the West, a comparable superstition would be that finding a four leaf clover will bring good luck. It’s a superstition that seems like it does not really impact daily life too much. However, the superstition regarding North-facing doors and beds has a much larger bearing on the ways in which my informant and his family live. As my informant alluded to, this superstition greatly impacts the ways in which his parents buy and arrange their houses. In America, a country where this superstition is not prevalent, they have to search for houses that do abide by this belief. I assume that this complicates the home search process greatly, adding another set of requirements in an already competitive market. While a super small detail my informant offhandedly mentioned as a dated belief from his parents, it represents a significant concern for his immigrant parents who have more direct ties to India. Something as small as the way the door faces has highlighted the generational divide between immigrant parent and American son. 

Celebrate 9’s but don’t celebrate 10’s

Text: “Many Chinese people, especially the older generations, won’t celebrate 10, 20, 30, etc because of the way the numbers are pronounced. [Ten] also sounds like the word ‘dead” and, in Chinese, twenty is ‘two-ten,’’ thirty is “three-ten,” and so on”

Context: My informant is Chinese and has grown up close to her relatives, especially as they aged. These are traditions that she remembered seeing in her childhood.

Analysis: This practice seems to be an age-related birthday ritual. As my informant described, “ten” in Chinese sounds like their word for “death.” Thus, it seems that to celebrate a “ten” birthday would be like inviting death. Chinese culture as a whole has many superstitions related to longevity. There seems to be a cultural fixation on living a long life, much more so than in American culture. I believe this is because, in Chinese culture, elders matter much more. For instance, in China, it is legally and culturally required for children to care for their aging parents to show respect and make up for the time their parents spent raising them. In America, it is much more common to see seniors taken care of by paid professionals in care facilities or living on their own. America, conversely, seems to place much more emphasis on youth. Proverbs like “Live fast, die young” and the idea of “peaking” early in life make old age not something to be revered, but tolerated in hopes of living vicariously through your kin. So, while the Chinese have many superstitions about avoiding death in old age, as is evidenced by my informant’s declaration that mostly old people subscribe to this superstition, Americans do not. 

Folk Belief: Sharing Food with a Pregnant Woman

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

[Do you have anything you would like to share?]

‘I do remember this superstition my family had when I was younger. It was like we couldn’t share food with a pregnant woman. Like if they ate from a bowl and offered it to us, we could accept the bowl but we weren’t supposed it eat it.”

[Was it for the health of the mother? Or seen as bad luck?]

“It was like, you know how pregnant people get morning sickness? It was like you would get the morning sickness. I remember when I was younger, being with family, and my mother telling me not to eat from the same bowl as one of my aunts. I did anyway, and I actually ended up throwing up later that night.”

Analysis: I think that this superstition is unique in the sense that I think most folklore surrounding pregnancy has to do with the health of the mother or protecting/ promoting fertility, so having a folk belief surrounding how the health of a pregnant person could impact others is really interesting. Additionally, morning sickness here is treated less as a symptom and more as a contagious sickness, which I never really considered.

Steam Bath

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

[Do you have any home remedies? Things you would do when you were sick as a kid?]

“I do! Either my grandmother or mother would boil a big pot of water. After it was steaming you would add pomelo leaves, lemon grass, and other herbs, ginger. Next, you would set it on the floor and kind of hover over it and bath in it, and it would open up your airways. It would also combat the cold air, if that makes sense.”

[It does! I know some cultures have hot and cold foods, but not like their actual temperature, but their impact on the body. Is it similar to that?]

“Exactly! It’s like when you were sick, your body was cold, and you need to heat it back up.Pho is also considered hot, because of all the spices.”

[Was this only for sickness? And when do you first remember seeing or doing it?]

“It was something my family did, but also my friends and some neighbors. And not necessarily, I know pregnant women or people who were about to be sick would also do it. Like after strenuous activity, it would tighten up muscles”.

Analysis: As I mentioned during my interview, many cultures share the idea of “hot” and “cold” foods, and this is the first time I’ve seen it out of a purely food context. After the interview with my informant, they mentioned how they felt that traditional medicine can be seen as more “gimmicky” because it tends to lean towards “cure-alls”, versus scientific medicine that pinpoints 1 issue. I think that in our example, you can see both of these ideas appear, the usage of the steam bath serves 2 purposes: to rid the body of cold air (something considered more “folky”) and to clear sinuses/the airway (which could be considered more “real” to Western medicine). I’m curious as to how, depending on the audience, steam baths could be portrayed: as a way for anyone to clear cold air, or only for people who are sick with clogged sinuses.

Folk medicine: Gargling Salt Water

Nationality: American
Age: 21

“Home remedies? I remember when I was younger we would gargle warm salt water whenever we had a sore throat.”

[Was it something you only remember doing as a kid? Or would your parents do it too?]

“No, my parents would do it too. I mean I also still do it to today. I’m not sure if there’s any real reason why it could cure a sore throat, but I think just gargling warm water is good because your throat can get dry. I do remember drinking the water for fun sometimes as a kid, but I don’t do that anymore.”

[Thank you!]

Analysis: Initially, what I found interesting about this is that although essentially it’s just a homemade saline solution, the term  “Salt water” is used instead. Additionally, I think this is a pretty efficient folk medicine because it’s fairly inexpensive (just salt and water), and can be found using items generally already in the house. It can also be made quickly, which would be perfect for a parent trying to heal children as fast as possible, or just themselves. This can be particularly helpful for children’s sore throats, because many kids don’t like the taste of cough syrup or general medicine, so getting them to gargle salt water is better than the possibility then the headache of gross medicine- or even downright refusal to take such medicine. Additionally,  the “gargling” can be seen as a fun activity (at least funner than taking medicine), which is always a bonus.