Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Haldi waalo Dood

Nationality: Indian - American
Age: 48
Occupation: Occupational Therapy
Residence: Diamond Bar, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Kutchi

My family is from the Kutch region in India. Kutch is the desert area by the Indian border with Pakistan. It used to be its own state, but merged with the state of Gujarat after Indian independence in 1947. Although my family is Kutchi, my mother was born and raised in Mumbai.

 

At the first symptom of sickness, my mom makes a drink called “haldi walo dood”. That translates to milk with turmeric (Kutchi does not have a written language). This healing drink has been used by innumerable generations of my family.

 

Haldi Walo Dood

Mix 0.5 teaspoons of turmeric with 1 cup of milk. Microwave for 2 minutes. Add 1 heaping teaspoon of sugar. Stir, and microwave for another minute. Drink as hot as possible.

 

It is optional to add 2 cloves.

 

Annotation: Recently, scientists have been exploring the healing properties of turmeric, in an example of bioprospecting. This spice was profiled in a NPR segment, “To Cut The Risk Of A High-Fat Meal, Add Spice.”

 

http://m.npr.org/news/Health/148304942?singlePage=true

Mexican-Catholic Protection Ritual

Nationality: Latino
Age: 86
Occupation: Retired marriage and family therapist
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I remember a religious custom which I think my paternal grandmother brought with her from Sonora, Mexico. It utilized a dried palm frond that had been blessed on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Good Friday which commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus.

In the New Testament Jesus is described as entering Jerusalem seated on an ass where he was greeted by crowds of people, cheering and waving palm fronds in welcome. Thus was fulfilled the messianic prophecy of Isaiah.

In the religious Mexican folklore I refer to, the dried palm frond blessed on Palm Sunday bore special power. That is, at the onset of a thunder and lightning storm (a sometimes powerful phenomenon in Arizona), a small piece of the palm frond would be burned to ward off any potential lightning strike.

It worked. Our home was never struck by lightning.”

Today, my informant regards this practice as a superstition, rather than a religious practice. Yet, this unusual ritual seems to exemplify the fine line between religious ritual, folk ritual, and superstition. Although not specifically sanctioned by the Catholic Church, this practice was clearly a spiritual experience for my informant’s family, as they believed that the palm frond bestowed their home with divine protection. At the same time, however, this practice seems rather like homeopathic magic–it employs palm fronds due to their association with Jesus in the New Testament.

Kina Hora/ The Evil Eye

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 97
Occupation: Retired teacher
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Cultural Background:

Sylvia Glass was born in 1915 in New York City, to immigrant parents—her mother was an Austrian-Jewish immigrant, and her father was a Russian-Jewish immigrant. Describing her childhood, she states that “at that time, New York City had a density that was closer—or more—than that of China. There were so many people jammed together in these old tenement houses—you had a whole floor of people in your apartment, who shared one bathroom. None of them even had windows, except on skylights, or looking out on someone else’s tenement window. So, it was just a very crowded condition. For the most part, people got along very well because they all came more or less from the same place, they were all poor, but, you know, though you didn’t have much, you didn’t think of yourself as poor. . . . Life was spent on the street because the apartments were crowded, dark, and very uninviting. So, we used to spend our time on the street playing hopscotch, jump rope. The little boys were always playing ball in the street. Everything was street-oriented. . . .

“I remember going to school. At that time, I only spoke Yiddish at home, and my mother took me to the teacher, and the teacher said, when did she come from Europe? And my mother said very indignantly, ‘she was born here!’ I’m a citizen! And, I was speaking only Yiddish at home, but I did not struggle with English; I caught onto it very quickly. The classrooms were so crowded that they didn’t have enough seats for everybody. But everybody there was hungry to get educated, and at that time, of course, the emphasis on higher education was only for the boys. Everybody wanted their sons to be doctors or accountants or lawyers. But the girls would wind up being in the factories at sewing machines. The highest honor was to be a teacher. In two years you could become a teacher, and then you would be one of the elite.”

The Evil Eye:

Q. Were there a lot of superstitions growing up?

A. Yeah, yeah. They didn’t want you to praise anybody because they’re going to get—I don’t know what you call Kina Hora—no good thing could happen to you. You’d spit over your shoulder.

Q. You’re not supposed to praise people?

A. Yeah. It would be tempting to the devil or something. You’re not supposed to praise people. Never in front of them.

Analysis: According to Rabbi Tanchum Burton, the Yiddish phrase “Kein Ayin Hora” “translate[s] as, ‘without the evil eye,’ or ‘there should be no evil eye.’ When it’s said quickly is [sic] can sometimes sound like ‘Kina Hora’” (Burton).

Beliefs in the evil eye appear to reflect anxieties about envy—fear that when one person praises another, he or she may be secretly jealous. My informant’s superstition involves spitting over one’s shoulder, a magical mechanism intended to protect one against others’ jealousy. Since such beliefs are very prevalent in Eastern Europe, they must have travelled to New York with Eastern European immigrants, such as my informant’s parents.

Burton, Tanchum. “‘Kina Hora’ and the Evil Eye.” JewishAnswers.org, n.d. Web. 26 April 2012.    <http://www.jewishanswers.org/ask-the-rabbi-category/miscellaneous/?p=1855>.

Chinese Superstition about Rice

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student, majoring in electrical engineering, minoring in computer science
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 7, 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, French

“When you eat rice—when you eat a bowl of rice—you’re not supposed to leave any bits of rice left in the bowl when you’re finished. So, if you leave one, it’s said that your future wife or future husband would have pimples on his face, or on her face.

“You can have leftover fish, in fact it’s good manners to have leftover fish or meat. It indicates that you have enough to eat. During Chinese New Year, one thing that we will do is eat fish, and leave some on the plate. And that will be a good sign that we’re going to have more for next year.”

Q. Why do you think that this superstition exists?

A. Rice is like a very basic farmer’s food, I guess. It’s something that everybody eats. And for somebody to not finish their rice—you’re wasting sort of a staple food product. That’s bad.

If you can eat meat—if you can eat fish—that means that to begin with, your family is very wealthy, or if you’re not wealthy, it has to be a special occasion, and you want to honor the rituals more than you bother about the fish. But rice is a daily thing, and prudence is something that we are taught.

Q. If you’re eating rice now, will you eat all of it?

A. If I’m eating rice, I will eat all of it. I no longer believe in it, but it’s a habit that got passed on when I was a kid. So, when I was a kid, my mother would stand over me and say, “You have to finish your rice.” Did I really believe that my wife would have pimples? I don’t know, I can’t remember. But I know that since my mother was watching over me, I ate my rice properly. And to this day, when I’m eating out anywhere, in the cafeteria, I still make an effort to finish all the rice. I try to finish my food all the time, but rice is special.

Analysis: This superstition illumines the dependence of the Chinese diet upon rice, while also reflecting that the majority of China’s population did not historically possess much wealth. The belief seems geared toward teaching children—if you fail to finish your rice, then your future husband or wife will have pimples. Thus, the superstition seems intended to teach children not to waste food, an important value in a society in which most people own little.

Chinese/Taiwanese Custom of Praying at a Temple for Success in Exams

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student, majoring in electrical engineering, minoring in computer science
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 7, 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, French

“China does not have one unified religion. The closest things we have are Buddhism and Daoism, but they tend to stick in their own temples and mountains. So unless you’re a very firm believer in it–it doesn’t trickle down to the normal population. What does happen is that Chinese gods are very practical. The general philosophy is that it doesn’t matter who you believe in, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are, if you step in a temple, you offer your money, you pray, the gods will answer. So, the gods aren’t creators or great beings to be worshipped, they are beings with super powers that you trade with. Basically, we have what is called ‘paper money.’ You buy the paper money from the temple, and then you burn the paper, and you offer fruit, food, or whatever, to the gods, and the gods give you the good fortune that you want. So, we don’t pray at nights before we eat or before we sleep, we don’t call to God for help, but if we’re, for example, going to an exam, it’s very typical in Asia to take your sons or your daughters to a temple and pray to the gods before the exam starts to pray to the gods for a successful exam.”

Q. Have you ever done that?

A. My parents have taken me to temples when I was little.

Q. Was that a meaningful experience for you?

A. I never really believed that that would help, but since my parents took me there, I prayed. I’d say, “God, give me a good exam result.”

Q. Is the practice of taking kids to temples before exams very common?

A. Well, the temples get a burst of popularity every time final exams come around.

Q. On what other occasions do people go to the temples?

A. People also go on New Year, to have a good year, before you start a job, after you buy a new house. Also on the Day of the Dead, the day we honor our dead, a lot of people go to the temples. And some people come more than others; my family goes very rarely because we’re not very religious, so we go once every month or two.

Q. You said that you don’t believe that going to the temples actually helps. Do your parents believe in it?

A. They are agnostics. They take the Pascal’s gamble approach. If it works, it works, and we pay the money, it’s good. If it doesn’t work, well, we paid a little money, it’s not actually that much, and it’s an experience for our children, so that’s fine. They’re very busy people, and visiting the temple takes time, so we don’t do it very often.

Q. Can you talk more about what the experience of going there is like?

A. Temples are usually very noisy, very loud and crowded. Unlike Western cathedrals—I’m not very much into religion, but I love cathedrals because of the architecture—which are serene, and you walk into them and feel awed by God, in Chinese temples, it’s loud, they’re sort of a social gathering. Also, temples are markets—they’re markets with great food. Temple food is good. You know how in the New Testament, they describe Jesus as being very angry at the peddlers who were in the Temple, and he flipped their stalls? There’s a section in the New Testament where Jesus goes to the Temple and he gets very angry at the peddlers for defiling a sacred place. But this is the opposite. In the temples, you’re supposed to have that kind of people. If a temple doesn’t have peddlers, it means that it’s not very popular, and if it’s not very popular, then its gods aren’t very good. So a temple that is empty and sort of quiet and serene is a bad thing. Temples are supposed to be very loud, and there’s supposed to be smoke everywhere from the incense. That’s the Chinese temple.

There are these things, I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re two crescent-shaped pieces of wood that are painted red. They look like slices of oranges. And you’re supposed to throw them on the ground. You’re supposed to throw a pair of them on the ground. And how they land will tell you how’s your luck. And you’ll hear those things clattering against the ground the whole time. Sometimes you’ll buy a little bag full of rice that’s supposed to be blessed, and you keep them as a sort of talisman or amulet for good luck. You can buy one for the kind of thing you wanted good luck from. So, if you want success in exams, you can buy a success in exam one, if you want success in love, you can buy a success in love one. It’s a very business-oriented thing. There are certain temples, even until now, which are very sacred and which treat money as less of an issue, like the Shaolin Temple and the Daoist temples. But your average temple—they all worship multiple gods, and it’s just whatever god’s most popular in the area. Actually, speaking of the Shaolin Temple, which is very famous for its martial artists—they are said to be the most business-oriented temple now. Shaolin martial arts have spread all over the world by virtue of them being very business-oriented. The head monk of Shaolin no longer sits in his room praying, he goes all over the world on private jets for business purposes.

Q. Does that mean converting people?

A. No, they’re not converting people to the religion. They are not encouraged, nor are they motivated to convert people to their religion. But they welcome people to come and practice Shaolin martial arts, and they get paid quite a bit of money for it.

Analysis: This tradition of praying at temples for success in exams displays a way that religion has adapted to fit people’s present-day concerns, pressures, and needs.