Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Spellbinding Spaghetti

Nationality: African American
Age: 56
Occupation: Warehouse Supervisor
Residence: Rialto, California
Primary Language: English

Richard L Cuthbert was born in Savannah, Georgia.  His father was in the United States Air Force and Richard ending being raised by his paternal grandmother.  He moved to Compton, California with his relatives from his father’s side of the family.  It is here where he met his high school sweetheart, Twesa Cuthbert.  They had two children together.  Richard (now widowed) currently lives in Rialto, California with his daughter, Keesha Cuthbert.

One thing that I have a hard time eating from any other woman is spaghetti.  I know that it is probably just a silly superstition, and I wouldn’t exactly say that I am a superstitious man, but every time I see a plate of spaghetti that I didn’t prepare I get a weird feeling.  As the story goes, women, especially from the South, that are islanders in any way … I’m talking Jamaican or those women that practice voodoo, sometime put blood from their women’s cycle into the sauce.  Supposedly this is to make the mean that eat it fall under some sort of spell and be in love with them.  I personally think that this is disgusting and I cannot imagine any woman doing something that nasty.  I also can’t figure why,  if they did do this, that they wouldn’t put it in a more Creole dish, like gumbo or jumbalaya.  A dish that has more to do with their heritage.  Spaghetti has nothing to do with them, so in a lot of ways I don’t believe it.  But … women ARE crazy so I don’t know.

Hot Toddy

Nationality: African American
Age: 56
Occupation: Warehouse Supervisor
Residence: Rialto, California
Primary Language: English

Richard L Cuthbert was born in Savannah, Georgia.  His father was in the United States Air Force and Richard ending being raised by his paternal grandmother.  He moved to Compton, California with his relatives from his father’s side of the family.  It is here where he met his high school sweetheart, Twesa Cuthbert.  They had two children together.  Richard (now widowed) currently lives in Rialto, California with his daughter, Keesha Cuthbert.

“For a cold it is always best to sweat it out with a hot toddy.  So you half fill a small sauce pan with water and place it on the stove.  Take a lemon and roll it so that you get the juices flowing.  Cut it in half and squeeze the juice in the pot and then slice those lemons and throw them in there too.  Let all of that come to a boil.  When it does take it off the heat and pour a good amount of dark liquor into the pot, something like Brandy.  Pour this in your mug and add some honey.  Drink all of this and then go wrap up in a blanket.  You are gonna fall asleep and while you are sleeping you are gonna sweat a lot.  By the time that you wake up you will have sweated the whole cold out.  This is something that my grandma had been using on us since we were kids and it always works.”

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As a child my dad has used this on me many, many times and it has always worked.  I am not sure why or the chemical significance of this combination of ingredients has, but I do know that it always works.

The Broom of Doom

Nationality: African American
Age: 56
Occupation: Warehouse Supervisor
Residence: Rialto, California
Primary Language: English

Richard L Cuthbert was born in Savannah, Georgia.  His father was in the United States Air Force and Richard ending being raised by his paternal grandmother.  He moved to Compton, California with his relatives from his father’s side of the family.  It is here where he met his high school sweetheart, Twesa Cuthbert.  They had two children together.  Richard (now widowed) currently lives in Rialto, California with his daughter, Keesha Cuthbert.

 

When I was a kid, living down by the swamps in Savannah, I was up doing my chores one morning.  I think I was cleaning up the kitchen … yeah, I must have been because I was sweeping.  Anyway, Grandma Mamie was sitting in her chair and I accidentally swept her foot.  She had a fit and started yelling at me.  I had no idea what she was saying, and I musta looked like it cause she just grabbed the broom from me and told me to spit on it right away so she didn’t get bad luck.  I didn’t get it, but I figured if I didn’t do it I was gonna get it with one of her switches.  So, I hawked up a loogie and spit it on the broom.  I thought she would be mad because it was a nasty one but, instead, she just sat back down in her chair and kept watching TV as if nothing happened at all.  I just stood there confused.  She looked over at me and said, “You better finish sweeping this floor, boy.”  So, I picked it back up and kept on sweeping.

Soviet Folk Belief

Nationality: American (ethnicity: Jewish [parents both born in Soviet Satellite countries])
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Item:

“All right so uh, basically, if you leave your apartment, and it’s apartment because nobody lived in houses in the Soviet Union, I’m pretty sure it’s a Soviet thing, um if you leave your apartment, you better not come back in, because if you come back in you might get run over by a bus that day. Um if you really have to come in though, you have to look in a mirror before you re-exit your apartment because uh, and I wish I remember what my grandma told me about this, something about staring into your soul.”

Context:

The informant (his parents are from Ukraine and Azerbaijan) and his family observe this folk belief. He stated: “My mom does not let me go back inside if I’ve forgotten something, she freaks out, she’s like, ‘no, wait outside, I’ll get it for you,’ and she comes out and brings it to me. She won’t hand it to me through the doorway. My mom’s neighbor got hit by a bus when she was a kid, and I’m pretty sure the little girl went back inside to get her jacket, as far as I remember.”

Analysis:

I tried to research this folk belief online and could not find anything, therefore I believe that this belief is particular to the informant’s family. That the informant’s mom’s neighbor got hit by a bus confirms, in my mind, my opinion of the folk belief: I feel it arose in the aftermath of the little girl’s death. The part about the mirror confounds me though, because it is seemingly unrelated to the death of the little girl.

The Baobab Tree

Nationality: South African
Age: 55
Occupation: Computer Tech
Residence: Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: 5/1/13
Language: Afrikaans, English

Item:

“The Baobab tree, also known as the upside-down tree, is a strange looking tree that grows in low-lying areas in Africa and Australia. The Baobab is also called the upside-down tree because when bare of leaves, the spreading branches of the Baobab look like roots sticking up into the air, as if it had been planted upside-down. Legend holds that god Thora took a dislike to the Baobab growing in his garden, so he threw it out over the wall of Paradise on to Earth below, and although the tree landed upside-down it continued to grow. Another story goes that when the Baobab was planted by God, it kept walking, so God pulled it up and replanted it upside down to stop it moving. Bushmen believed that any person who plucks the flowers will be torn apart by lions, because there are spirits in the flowers. When water is drunk, in which the Baobab’s pips have been soaked, this serves as protection from crocodiles and the drinker will be mighty.”

Context:

The three items of folklore I collected from this informant were the only three out of all the items in my collection that were not a result of face to face interaction. The text above was sent to me, from the informant, via email. I also corresponded with the informant over the phone to receive the context behind her stories. That said, the informant, who lived most of her life in South Africa (she moved to Dallas, Texas with her family in the 90’s), heard all of these stories about the Baobab trees from the trackers who would lead the safaris she went on in South Africa. The trees did not grow where she grew up near Johannesburg.

Analysis:

In the first two stories about the tree, I see an expression of the traditional subject of minor myths; explaining why things are the way they are. In the folk beliefs of the bushmen, however, I see an intense tie to their surroundings. The tree, for them, is an extremely important part of their relationship with nature. In addition to these stories, the informant sent me some factual information about the tree: “The Baobab has a special role in Africa. Elephants, monkeys and baboons depend on its fruit (the vitamin C content of one fruit is the equivalent of 4 oranges); bats pollinate them by crashing into the flowers while chasing insects; bush babies also spread the pollen; the pollen can be used as glue; the seeds are rich in protein, calcium, oil and phosphates – they can also be roasted and ground like coffee beans; young leaves have a high calcium content and can be used as spinach; the trunk is fibrous and can be woven into rope mats and paper; beer and tea can be made from the bark, but you need a strong constitution to drink either.” These facts demonstrate the many ways in which the tree is used, by humans and animals alike. That said, all of these things the tree does augments the tie between it and the bushmen that is expressed in the stories.