Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Remedy – Fort Worth, Texas

Nationality: German, English, Persian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Fort Worth, TX
Performance Date: April 18, 2008
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: French, Farsi

Remedies/ Fool Proof Medicine

To help your joints: You dice up garlic and leave them on toes. This is said to help alleviate joint pains.

To get rid of splinters: You take the skin off garlic and cook it in the oven for an hour. You then stick your finger in the cooked garlic and let it sit their overnight. In the morning, the splinter should fall out (the juices in the garlic makes the skin expand and loosen the splinter).

Analysis:

Lauren learned the first remedy from her grandmother, Mamon Barzorg, which means “Big Mother” in Farsi. She lived in Lauren’s house in Forth Worth, Texas and used to perform the remedy pretty regularly to help her toe joints and kill the fungus on her toes. Lauren has also tried the remedy before and it seemed to help a little bit. Both her mother and father are confident that it is a fool proof remedy. Compared to the splinter removal remedy, she thinks the act of putting a finger in an onion seems “weirder” for lack of a better word, but “if it works, it works!”

Lauren learned about the onion remedy from her father who is full Iranian and came to the US when he was 15. He told her about it during dinner after he had gotten a splinter earlier that day. He said that the splinter fell out and has worked on almost every other occasion. She says, “It’s the kind of thing people with no nurse or health center at grade school have to do when they get home, cause they don’t have tweezers or something…I don’t know.” She is not sure whether these remedies are unique to Persian culture or not, but finds them interesting nonetheless.

I guess one’s repertoire of folk medicine or fool proof remedies depends on the frequency and type of illness one experiences on a regular basis. I never used to get sick, but since I’ve come to college, constantly come down with a sore throat and common cold. When over-the-counter or homeopathic medicine doesn’t seem to be working, I always resort to my mom’s “tea with honey and lemon,” which seems a lot less farfetched of a concoction than Lauren’s fool proof remedies. The honey dissolves the phlegm and the lemon soothes any soreness in the throat. Because I am a hypochondriac and admit that I self-induce the illnesses I come down with, I force myself to think that certain remedies will work over medicine.

Superstition/Ritual

Nationality: Italian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Westlake, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

“Before every soccer game I’ve played since I started playing AYSO, I have put my socks on starting with the right foot.  My best friend and I did it when we played AYSO.  I’m not sure if other people did it, maybe they were older than us, but we definitely always did it before every game, every time.  Even when I played club and played for the high school team, I always put my right sock on first.  It just became a habit, and I knew I would have a horrible game or something really bad would happen if I didn’t put that sock on first.  Obviously, I didn’t win every game, but it just would be wrong if I didn’t put my socks on in that order.”

Rachael told me that she put her socks on starting with her right foot ever since she started playing soccer.  Since that time, she has formed an association between putting socks on in a specific order with performing well on the soccer field.  In Rachael’s case, putting on socks is both a superstition and a tradition.  Although she said that usually only she and her best friend would put on socks in a specific order, Rachael knew older teammates that followed the same tradition.  When asked if seeing other teammates put on socks in a specific order provoked her to do the same, Rachael could not remember because she has been playing soccer since elementary school and does not know when the tradition began.

Like Rachael, many athletes have certain pre-game rituals that are associated with superstitions.  Whether it involves putting on socks, or going through a certain locker room door, or saying a certain chant three times, various teams have developed traditions that must be performed before they can play.  When an entire team has a certain ritual, it seems like that kind of activity would reinforce team unity and help the team to feel connected before they face an opponent.

In Rachael’s case, however, the rest of her team did not put on socks in a given order.  For Rachael, following this superstition made her feel more in control and like a better player.  Like she said, without the right sock order, things were “wrong.”   Even though it seems unlikely that breaking this sock tradition would actually impact Rachael’s soccer ability, it is possible that the ritual gives her the extra boost of confidence she needs to perform well on the field.  Also, performing the ritual allowed Rachael to focus on other things.  If she did not put on her right sock first, she would feel like she was not going to play well and would dwell on the sock issue instead of the game.  Thus, even though superstitions may be deemed silly or insignificant, they actually can impact they way a person thinks and feels if there is a strong belief in the superstition.

Superstition/Folk Belief

Nationality: Polish, Irish, English
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: West Hills, CA
Primary Language: English

Superstition- If your nose itches that means that someone is thinking of you or talking about you.

Annie was told this by her mother, who was told by her mother.  I am unsure if this matrilineal transmission of the superstition/belief has any significance.  It is possible that since the traditional role of the mother is to raise children and teach them how to behave well and become successful members of society, it may also the job of the mother to also pass along cultural superstitions and beliefs as part of a child’s informal education.  However, it is just as possible that Annie’s mom and her grandmother passed on the superstition randomly and not because they felt it was important to teach their children about the belief.

The context of this belief is clear; if you tell someone your nose itches, they might tell you that someone is thinking/ talking about you.  The reasons why someone would say this is less obvious.  One reason might be that people want to bring as much structure to their lives as possible, including strange bodily functions.  If someone’s nose inexplicably itches, the idea that someone is thinking of them might be reassuring.  Also, it gives people a sense of control that they can explain what is going on inside themselves and in their lives, so believing in this superstition adds to that sense of control and knowledge of one’s body.

I have heard this superstition before, but a slightly different version.  I have been told by friends that if your ears are ringing, someone is thinking/talking about you, and that if your nose itches, you are going to kiss a fool.  The different versions of the superstition illustrate how these superstitions are not grounded in verifiable fact and can easily be altered and still sound correct.  And since these superstitions cannot really be proven, they continue to exist and be passed on to other people.  Also, belief in these superstitions is strengthened if the saying actually comes true- if someone’s nose itches, and then a friend calls and says “Hi, I was just thinking of you and decided to call…”, that will reinforce a person’s belief even if it may have been a pure coincidence.

Folk Remedy – Sweden

Nationality: English, Irish
Age: 85
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Hollywood, CA
Primary Language: English

“Whenever your cousins in Sweden get ear aches, they dice onions into small pieces, put pieces into a paper towel, and hold the towel against their ears until the pain goes away.”

My grandmother told me that when she first visited Sweden with my grandfather over fifteen years ago, she was very shocked to see onions used as a treatment for earaches.  She said that she thought it was incredibly strange, but she noticed that the people stopped complaining of ear pains after putting the onions against their ears.    She said that she asked my relatives why they used onions and they said that the juices from the onions helped sooth earache pains.  They said this remedy was common knowledge and the practice had been around for many years.  Even though my grandma learned about this remedy, though, she did not use onions when she would get earaches.  She said she would feel too silly to use the onions, and would rather take a pain reliever instead.

It seems like the popularity of medicinal folklore depends on the culture and context in which it is used.  In Sweden, the onion remedy is normal and socially accepted, but in America, people like my grandmother would consider onions a food, not a medical tool, and would feel uncomfortable using it to relieve ear aching.  Since my grandmother was raised in a society that believed in the power of Western medicine, she does not consider folk medicine to be a legitimate way to cure illnesses.

The last time my Swedish relatives came to visit, my little cousin had an earache that my aunt treated by using the onion remedy.  I thought it was strange, but I was fascinated by this form of remedy and wanted to try it on myself.  Unfortunately, I still have not had an earache and have been unable to test its legitimacy.  Even so, I feel that it is important to try natural remedies for illnesses before resorting to ingesting chemicals or other unnatural products.  Many cultures use folk medicine and I think that despite the advances made by science, modern society should not ignore what folk medicine has to offer.

Folk Belief – Milpitas, CA

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Milpitas, CA
Performance Date: April 27, 2008
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Birthday Tradition

Every year on my birthday we have a family get together to celebrate my birthday.  And for dessert, we have a birthday cake.  My mom would always put the same amount of candles on the cake as the age I was turning, plus one candle for good luck.  For example, when I turned eighteen, there were nineteen candles on my birthday cake for good luck.

I believe this extra candle was put on my cake as good luck because as an American, I, and my family, have a future oriented mindset, so the extra candle represents the year to come and assumes I will be alive for at least another year and, hopefully, have good luck all year.  In my family, this tradition, typically, is only carried out on the birthdays of people twenty-five and under, which shows a focus on the young and healthy, whom will be the makers of the future of America.  I had always thought that everybody always put an extra candle on their birthday cakes for good luck, only recently had I discovered otherwise from two of my roommates.