Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

“So yeah, you could say drama kids are pretty superstitious.”

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Vienna, Virginia
Performance Date: 3/20/2014
Primary Language: English

Erin, my little sister, is a senior at James Madison High School where she has participated in the drama department since her freshman year. Along with the universal ‘Macbeth’ superstitions of the general theater world, her high school’s department has its own set of practices and superstitions surrounding shows and opening night in particular. In preparing for their upcoming spring musical, she shared with me many of the rituals that are an inherent part of Madison’s drama department.

 

Informant:

” Well, first of all, there’s no bows before opening night. Like you know at the end of the show people bow in a specific order? You can’t practice that order until the night before ‘cause until then we’re ‘not ready’. But that’s like an everywhere theatre thing – not just Madison. But stuff that’s MadDrama specific? Before every show we have this thing called ‘circle’. We hold pinkies and talk about our feelings. No, no, seriously, we sit in a circle and link pinkies and everyone goes around and shares their memories about preparing for the show and all the time spent together and shit. It’s a lot of telling people they’re the funniest person they’ve ever met, which is cool I guess. After that we pick someone to tell the legend of the old man, which is kind of strange and I can never remember it right, which is why I’m never the one to tell it. After that we pray to St. Genesis, who’s the patron saint of theater. He’s on this little gray pendant that someone always loses and then someone always has to find before showtime. The chanted/shouted phrase is “St. Genesis pray for us, one, two, three FUCKKKK.” It’s sort of a contest who can hold ‘fuck’ out the longest. It’s really nothing to do with St. Genesis, it’s just so if we mess up we don’t curse on stage. Then later during “break a leg” circle which is the lamer, Henderson (drama teacher) sponsored circle we cross our hands right over left and hold hands and send a squeeze pulse through the entire cast for bonding and unity and all those happy things so yeah, you could say drama kids are pretty superstitious.”

 

Analysis:

I have never participated in a theatrical production, so I can only imagine the buildup and stress that surrounds opening night. I imagine it’s similar to taking finals in college – a whole semester’s worth of preparation for an hour or two where you have to prove that you can do it, or where you fail. Many of the rituals my sister described seem to serve as both a comfortable distraction from the inevitable nervousness and as a manner of building up good vibes between the cast members right before the show. The pinky-circle where everyone shares good memories from all the rehearsals serves as a way to shake nerves by laughing at funny memories, but more importantly the multitude of stories also serve as a reminder that they did rehearse every day for the past couple of months, that they are prepared. The losing and finding of the St. Genesis pendant similarly serves as a distraction: if the cast is too busy hastily searching for the pendant before the curtain rises, they won’t be sitting around worrying about forgetting lines or about missing dance steps. The cursing-contest is probably extremely cathartic for whatever pent-up nerves are still present, and following that with the final hand-squeeze circle replaces those nerves with more happy feelings and excitement. 

The Troll in the Woods

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tallahassee, Florida
Performance Date: 3/19/2014
Primary Language: English

Josh is my best friend from high school who now attends Florida State University in Tallahassee. He related to me a neighborhood legend from his childhood – the troll under the bridge.

 

Informant:

“When I was little I was basically traumatized by this story my dad always thought it was funny to torture me with. In Virginia, especially where I grew up, it’s pretty forest-y. There’s woods literally everywhere and around my house they’re pretty dense. There was a paved path that ran right up against the fence around our backyard that led to a creek which was about a half-mile down. When I was a little kid I used to love to play in the woods, climbing trees and playing hide-and-seek and building dams and splashing around in the creek and all that kid stuff. My parents were pretty lenient about letting me and my sister go off on our own – as long as we stayed in the neighborhood and were back by dinner. Whenever they would come out with us though, to go on a walk or whatever, my dad would tell a story about this troll. There was a bridge, this little wooden bridge that went over the creek bed kinda at the point where Oakton Glen turned into Clearfield which was the other neighborhood where we weren’t supposed to go by ourselves. So whenever we got to that part of the path when we were on walks with Dad he would tell us about this troll that lived under the bridge. Apparently this fat wart-covered green stinky creature that somehow lived in the concrete base of the bridge and would come out after dark and eat kids for snacks. I don’t remember exactly the story of what it was supposed to have done besides that – he made up a million different stories about that freaking troll cause – I mean I was like five or six but I completely one hundred percent believed his dumb stories and I think he got a kick out of watching me squeal and cry like a little [baby] whenever he would try to make me walk over it or whatever. It kinda spread throughout the neighborhood – all the kids knew about it, but no one was more spooked by it than me. Later, whenever my friends would want to go down there during high school to get away from parents for a little bit at night or whatever I would either make up excuses not to go or just be [pooping] my pants the whole time. All my friends would be laughing and call me a little [baby] and all I had was this stupid troll to blame. It still freaks me out. So yeah. Thanks Dad.”

Analysis:

As traumatic as the urban legend of the troll may have been, the story served a deeper purpose than simply to scare the living daylights out of little kids. The place where the bridge was located (and the troll was said to live) was at the boundary between the neighborhoods – the place where his parents explicitly stated they did not want their children going. As well-behaved as they may have been, children are known to disobey, and rather than risk their children roaming too far from home, it seems as though his father used the story as a way to scare the children into obedience. It came from a place of good-intent – if the desire to stray no farther than the bridge and to get home plenty before the sun set came from the children’s own fear rather than a nagging parent, it would be a more effective way of maintaining discipline. 

Baptisms Can Determine a Child’s Future Fortunes

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 41
Occupation: housewife
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/09/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Baptisms Can Determine a Child’s Future Fortunes

“The way a baptism goes can either mean that the child will have good luck in their future or not. This though is specifically entirely in the hands of the padrinos(god parents) so the parents of the child must choose a good fit. The padrinos are said to have to buy the baby’s attire for the day, pay for the holy mass and then contribute in whatever else they want for the baby’s party. The padrinos also have to throw a “bolo”, this is money thrown in behalf of the baby and other kids then get to pick it up. The baby’s luck is measured by how lavish the attire is, and how much money the padrinos throw… they say that if the padrinos are being stingy about the party, then the baby will suffer terrible luck but if the padrinos don’t show any signs of stinginess and are willing to rip a hole in their pockets, then the baby will be very lucky… I don’t really know how this originated, what I do know is that everyone goes by the same rule. I know my mom talks about how this was something that had been happening since years ago back at home in Mexico. I don’t think it’s like something set in stone but I mean, everyone else is doing it so why not. And it also is kind of true. My mother says how I have really good luck because my padrinos gave a lot of money the day of my baptism, and I do feel like I’m pretty lucky, whereas my sister didn’t even have a party and she’s not doing as good as I am. I also did the same for my children and I hope that they choose good padrinos for their kids. I guess this is all a tradition that makes us who we are.”

My informant is a 41 year old Mexican descendant who was born in Mexico but has lived in the USA for the most part of her life. She maintains most of her ties to her Mexican culture while living in the USA so therefore, most of the things she knows has been passed down by her mother and other relatives. She does not necessarily learn her folk tales for different thing via a specific book or other published material, but rather from relatives in her daily life.

This was pretty fascinating to analyze because who knew that a baby’s future can be determined at such a young age. Furthermore, I found interesting that parents are solely responsible for what kind of future their kids will have, based on this tradition. It might be interesting to try and see where this tradition originated from because that way we would be able to see exactly why it is formatted the way it is. Regardless, I don’t think that just because it seems silly, it’s not entirely a myth. It may actually be true, and if so, it should be practiced because who wouldn’t want good luck.

El Cucuy

Nationality: USA
Age: 6
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: 4/09/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

El Cucuy

            “El Cucuy takes bad kids with him. Mami says that if I say bad words or if I scream at jenny or if I’m bad in school, el cucuy is gonna take me with him. So I have to be a good kid… my mom told me this story when I was hitting jenny but she only tells me, el cucuy needs to take jenny too.”

My informant is a 6 year old little boy who is in the second grade. He has a younger sister which whom he’s always getting in trouble with. He lives with his mom and dad who do not tolerate any disrespect coming from him.

While looking at this story from an analytic angle, I have found that this story of “el Cucuy” is used to put fear into little kids so that they stay lenient and listen to their parents. El Cucuy is a Spanish word for the devil, so little kids are told that if they don’t behave, the devil will come for them and take them away. In some instances, the mom has the number of this individual and can personally call this evil identity to take the child away if he is behaving badly. This works to some extent because at a young age, little kids are pretty afraid if their parents are telling them they should be afraid, however, as the child matures/grows up, this no longer is an issue so this form of punishment is not that effective in the long run. Ultimately, little kids are the ones affected by this identity and it is set in place as a form to maintain obedience but my informant telling me that his own mother told him this is kind of alarming to me because I feel like this little boy is being psychologically tortured in order for his mother to receive obedience from him. However, this is a common thing that has been used among others in before years so I guess others have turned okay so I figure this psychological torture is not that bad.

La Llorona

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 85
Occupation: retired
Residence: Zacatecas, MX
Performance Date: 4/09/14
Primary Language: Spanish

La Llorona

“pues la llorona es una senora que se volvio loca despues de que su marido se fue a la Guerra. El fue soldado en la independencia de Mexico, entonces creo que se murio el senor en la batalla y como nunca regreso, la senora se termino de volver loca. La senora al ver que su esposo no iba a regresar, decidio matar a sus hijos porque pues ya no los podia mantener. Ella los llebo al rio y los ahogo. Ahora, la senora pasa por todo el rancho buscando a sus hijos que perdio. Si uno escucha a la llorona se tiene que esconder, especialmente si es un nino porque lo puede matar o llebarselo con ella… esta historia no la contaba mi mama. Nos contaba esa historia especialmente cuando hibamos al baile de noche, y aveses si se escuchaba que alguien lloraba y lloraba asi que lo que asiamos nosotros era que le ciramos para la casa.”

“Well la llorona is a woman who went crazy after her husband left to the war. He was a soldier in the Mexican independence so I think that he died in that battle and since he never returned back home, the woman went completely crazy. The woman once he saw that her husband would not be returning took her children to the river and drowned them. So now the lady haunts the village looking for her dead children. If one hears la llorona, one has to hide, especially if one is a kid because she can either kill you or take you with her… my mother used to tell us that story all the time. She would especially tell us that story when we would go out to dances at night and sometimes we would actually hear someone crying so what we would do is to hurry back home.”

The informant is an 85 year old male who has lived all his life in Mexico. He has been brought up on tales of the land. He never attended school, so all his knowledge has been passed down by his parents and other family members in his life. Since he has no other knowledge, he doesn’t really question the information, but rather takes it as the only truth. He has also never left his hometown village so the only information he knows is the information that pertains his village in particular.

This was interesting because the way the informant told this story was as if he knew that this story was 100 percent true. There was no doubt in his voice that this could somehow be a made up story, so one can infer from this that for older people, whatever stories were passed down, have made their way into a part of their daily life reality. Also, the fact that this individual had no other education also makes me think that it can serve as the reason as to why he did not question this story’s reality one bit; it’s all he knows that is to be true. However, when checking with other people, I have found that there are many more variations of la llorona, so technically, my informant can be wrong with his story, but regardless, it is one that he is very fond of. To look at aother variation of this legend, you can refer to: http://www.literacynet.org/lp/hperspectives/llorona.html