Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Superstition – Bombay, India

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 11, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindu, Gujarati, Marthi

If you sleep with your bed facing a mirror at night it’s considered bad luck because all the bad that you’ve done reflects back on you.

This was one of the many superstitions that Tanvi had learned as a young girl growing up in Bombay, India. She said she was about five or six years old when her parents told her this. This can be considered a superstition because she was engaging in a superstitious act, or the lack thereof, and it can also be considered folk belief because it has not been scientifically proven. She explained that the belief was that the bad things that a person has done that day or just in life in general may bounce from the mirror back to the person. This would cause more bad things to happen to the person.

She has also learned many other beliefs very similar to this one growing up. Several examples are: do not touch feet to books without asking for forgiveness or do not leave the house for a journey without consuming a mixture of yogurt and sugar or else something bad is going to happen. Tanvi’s parents strictly followed these beliefs in order to generate as much good luck as possible. Good luck and good karma are important aspects of life to her family and generally in India as well. Whether Tanvi believes this or not is irrelevant and unimportant because her parents force her to participate in these folk beliefs.  Therefore, they have become a normal part of her life and she follows most of these beliefs automatically now.

Remedy

Nationality: Italian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Plymouth, MN
Performance Date: April 18, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

“I was told that when I had the hiccups, the best way to get rid of them quickly was to scare them away! It is a little difficult to be scared when you are expecting it, but the idea is to somehow have someone startle me enough to get rid of my hiccups.”

“I was originally told this trick by my older brother when I was about seven. I had a really bad case of the hiccups and I was almost in tears. My brother really liked to give me a bad time, so I think that was part of it. It did actually work the first couple times I had the hiccups. Then I think I expected it too much and it stopped working.”

Kyla said she thinks this might have just been a way for her brother to screw around with her. I don’t know very much about hiccups, and have never tried to have them “scared” away, but it doesn’t seem very plausible to me.

This could be related to a form of shock treatment. Some native Americans would alternate between sitting in a sauna and jumping in a ice cold river because they thought it was good for their body. Likewise, it could be believed that a sudden jolt would cause the body to change enough to stop the hiccups.

Remedy

Nationality: Italian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Plymouth, MN
Performance Date: April 18, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

“Another was I was taught to get rid of the hiccups was to eat apple sauce or drink water from a cup while hanging upside down.”

“I must have gotten the hiccups often when I was younger because I have so many way for getting rid of them. Both of these suggestions came from my best friend. We were both 12 at the time, I think. We were hanging out at her house and I had a case of the hiccups. First she suggested eating apple sauce. I did, and it didn’t work. Then she suggested drinking water upside down. I don’t know if the water actually helped or I was so distracted by the whole process that I forgot about my hiccups. I have used apple sauce since then and it has stopped my hiccups.”

“I sometimes wonder if these techniques are successful only because of the placebo effect. Because I believe they will get rid of my hiccups, my hiccups stop.”

Eating foods is not a bad guess for stopping the hiccups. Because hiccups originate in the diaphragm, it is only logical that the first attempts to cure them would be directed at the chest. Drinking water inverted could be a way to change someone’s breathing pattern, or the more forceful swallowing action required to drink water upside down could also account for the effectiveness of this folklore remedy.

Folk Medicine

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Newberg, OR
Performance Date: April 05, 2008
Primary Language: English

Diet/ Folk Medicine

I was told that eating the “BRAT” diet when your stomach is upset would calm it down and help you feel better. The BRAT diet being: banana, rice, apple sauce, and tapioca.

When I asked Matt where he heard this, he said his mom had told him about it when he had an upset stomach one time. Matt says that whenever he his stomach is up set or he feels nauseous, he returns to the BRAT diet. He doesn’t eat all the foods suggested; apple sauce and tapioca are his favorites.

This is the sort of folk medicine that would be passed from mother to mother at a day care or other places where there are lots of small kids. Little kids generally like eating most of the BRAT diet, so when their stomach is upset it is easy to get them to eat. It is also convenient because all the foods are common foods found in most grocery stores so no special trips or prescriptions are necessary. Most of the foods can already be found in houses that have little children.

When I asked Matt if he knew other people that also ate a BRAT diet when not feeling well, he said he knew several people that ate several of the foods in the diet, but did not call it by the acronym B.R.A.T.

For further reference in texts, see:

Schmitt, Barton D. Your Child’s Health : The Parents’ One-Stop Reference Guide to: Symptoms, Emergencies, CommonIllnesses, Behavior Problems, and Healthy Development . New York: Bantam Books, 2005. Pg. 248-250.

Belief – Kansas City, Missouri

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: April 24, 2008
Primary Language: English

Original script/version:

You only use 10% percent of your brain.

James heard this folklore last year from his uncle who also lives in Kansas city. The topic came up as they were talking about James ability to study of the SAT. His uncle, Sam Meiners, told him this as a factual statement.

James said he also heard this same folklore when he was in fifth grade. It seemed to be a rumor that was going through the school at the time. He did believe it when he heard because he felt it would account for why some people are a lot smart than others, because somehow they had figured out how to use more of their brain. However, it wasn’t until he talked to one of his high school teachers that he found out that it was in fact a myth and not actually a fact.

Folklore about the body seems to be more popular with younger children as they haven’t had the same education about biology that adults have had. For this reason, they make up answers for some of the bodies more confusing attributes – like why there is such a great range of how smart people are.

For reference in text, see:

James, William. The Energies of Men. New York: Moffat, Yard and Co., 1907. Pg 12.