Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Daniel Boone’s Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2002
Primary Language: English

The informant for this story was my friend’s mother.  She used to tell us the ghost story of Daniel Boone, a famous North Carolinian.  As she told the piece of folklore, Daniel Boone was fire hunting one night which involves using the light from fire to spot deer’s eyes in the dark night.  As the tale goes, Daniel Boone saw a glimpse of eyes in the night and began to aim his rifle, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot because he had never seen a blue eyed deer before.  He followed the deer into the moonlight only to find out it was a young lady, not a deer.  Daniel Boone was smitten and they were later married.

Daniel Boone is quite famous in North Carolina and a popular mountain town is named after him.  My friend’s mother told us this story as young men as a way of teaching us about love and chivalry.  I suppose she thought of it as a guide about how to treat women, as Daniel Boone had to woo the young woman.

Devil’s Tramping Ground

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Residence: NC
Performance Date: 2003
Primary Language: English

My informant for this piece of folklore is my friend’s mother.  She relayed a story about how in the “olden days,” farmers in the mountains of North Carolina would wake up in the morning to find that their crops had been trampled during the night.  She described the patterns as circles that looked like people had been dancing around in the fields all night, stomping down the crops.  They couldn’t figure out what was doing it even put out cameras and watchmen at night to try and catch someone in the act.  The perpetrator was never found and it was assumed that it was the devil trampling the crops during the night.

My informant explained that this was not the “crop circles” that most people refer to. It was never a consideration or possibility that aliens were making designs in the crops.  It very well may have been a prank by some foolish kids, but everyone believed it was the devil because they never found any clues as to who could have done such a thing.

A Natural Cold Remedy – Ecuador

Nationality: Ecuadorian
Age: 26
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant was born and raised in Ibarra, Ecuador until she left to live in the U.S. when she was sixteen years old.  Whenever she and her brothers had a cold or a sore throat, her mother made a drink for them made from lemon juice, a little bit of orange juice and honey.  Her mother would then heat it up on the stove, which my informant says helped a lot since the steam would reduce congestion and the warmth would relieve sore throats.  She also says that you have to drink it with a straw or it will ruin your tooth enamel.  The remedy has a long tradition in her family: her grandmother prepared it for her mother, her great-grandmother prepared it for her grandmother, her great-great grandmother prepared it for her great-grandmother, etc.  She says, “Everyone in Ecuador does it… I think [laughs]… Or a lot of people I knew did it.”  It provides a lot of Vitamin C as well so it offers a cheaper and more natural alternative to medications.  The honey not only cuts the acidity of the lemon juice, but also adds anti-bacterial elements into the “cocktail.” “Unless we were really sick, we didn’t go to the doctor… Especially not for simple colds.”  To this day, she still prepares the remedy when she is feeling under the weather.  When I asked if she would do the same for her children, she replied: “Of course, it’s a family tradition!”

Be Careful of the “Mal Aire”

Nationality: Ecuadorian
Age: 26
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant, who is from Ibarra, Ecuador, was told as a young girl:

“¡No te hagas de noche o so no te va a dar el mal aire!”

 Translation: “Don’t stay outside too late at night, or you will get ‘bad air!’”

She explained that mal aire, or bad air, is something that you catch from being outside in the trees, but is not quite a sickness.  She says, “You feel back pain, but it’s not like regular back pain… You just feel weird, like something is not right.”  I felt that way once when I was little and spent too much time outside with my friends.

She was told when she was younger that her uncle caught mal aire while walking through the mountains to her aunt’s house.  The only way to get rid of it is to place a small candle (like a tea candle) on a person’s back and cover it with a glass cup.  If the skin “inflates” and looks like a lump in the glass, it first confirms that you have mal aire and also rids it from the body.

Yet, the threat of mal aire could just be a way to scare children not to stray too far from home, not stay out too late and stay away from trouble.  Additionally, the method of testing and purifying oneself only reinforces the fear of mal aire in children.  For anyone who tries it, when you cover a candle with a glass, it will create a vacuum and as a result, will raise the skin.  By telling children that it this happens only to people who have mal aire, adults can easily prove and scare children with this technique.  To further prove that it will happen to everyone, the mal aire “candle treatment” is similar to an ancient Chinese practice, called “massage cupping.”  For those who use this technique, cupping produces a deep, therapeutic state of relaxation.  This type of “massage” will likely remove the back pain my informant mentioned as well.

The Beard is Back

Nationality: Sri Lankan-American
Age: 34
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Northridge, CA
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English

When the sight of “playoff beards” becomes more and more frequent, it is most likely Stanley Cup hockey season.  Between the months of March to April, during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, NHL (National Hockey League) players and fans begin growing out their beards in hopes of taking home the championship.  My informant, a hockey player himself, explains the tradition: “When playoffs begin, players don’t shave until their team is knocked out of the tournament or until their team wins the Stanley Cup.  Fans do this too to show their support for their team.”

Although he cannot remember precisely when the tradition began, my informant says that the tradition probably began when a team had back-to-back games in a single series (in which two teams compete to win best out of 7 games).  If this is the case, they may not have had a chance to shave, or did not care enough, since the playoffs were on their minds.  My informant explains that the tradition eventually turned into superstition: the bigger and thicker the beard, the better chance of winning the Cup.

In doing more research on the “playoff beard,” the majority of sources state that the tradition began in 1980 by the New York Islanders, “when the team won the first of four straight Cups (1980-83)” (Podnieks 8).  After their Stanley Cup winning streak, other teams dared not imitate the Islanders’ tradition, but were unsuccessful in winning the championship.  Therefore, it became superstition that a team cannot win the Cup unless they embrace the beard philosophy.  Over decades, the tradition and superstition has been reinforced because every year, the team that does win the Stanley Cup has full beards.  Yet, this also may be due to the fact that the beard philosophy has caught on.  All teams in the playoffs have players growing out their beards!

Podnieks, Andrew. Hockey Superstitions: From Playoff Beards to Crossed Sticks and Lucky Socks. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010. Print.