Category Archives: Protection

Onions in Your Socks to Cure Your Cold

Background:

The folk tradition is one of ancient Chinese reflexology. It was present before the germ theory of illness which is widely accepted today by scientists. The informant is a 79-year-old woman of Chinese and Latin descent who recalled hearing and practicing this by the instruction of her grandmother when she was young. She said that she used to believe that it worked very well when she was younger, but now feels that it was most likely a placebo effect from confirmation bias by those around her.

Main Piece:

This medicinal folk practice states that if a person develops a cold, they should stuff their socks with onions. It is believed that the onions will help cure the illness and the person that is suffering from the cold will regain health very quickly after the treatment.

Context:

Onions have been known today to have numerous health benefits that are backed by science. However, curing a cold is not one of them. Chinese reflexology believed that disease spread through “noxious air”. Based on this, putting a powerful smelling agent such as onions next to someone’s feet, it was believed that since the onions removed the bad smell from the feet that it was curing the person of the cold or illness that they were suffering from.

Interpretation:

This folk tradition is a great example of correlation versus causation. Chinese reflexology noticed that people with illness tended to have poorly smelling feet. They also noticed that onions had a strong scent and the ability to remove this foul smell from a person’s feet who was suffering from illness. Therefore, they believed that the onions removing the smell meant that they were curing the subject of their illness. As a passive bearer with an etic perspective on this medicinal folk tradition, it was interesting to hear the informant discuss how common this practice was among her family when she was growing up. This practice was something that her grandmother learned from her mother and had been passed down in their family as a cold remedy for generations.

For another version, see Rose Wilson Ph.D., November 28. 2017, Does an onion in the sock work for a cold?

Luck of the Irish

Main Piece:

Collector: “So what is the four-leaf clover and what does it mean?”

Informant: “The four-leaf clover is a very rare thing to find, but if you find one it is said to bring good luck and safety. My grandma would always tell me a story about how the four-leaf clover would help the people of Ireland see evil spirits from a distance so they could escape and get away to a safe place where the spirits couldn’t get them.”

Background:

The following is an Irish superstition and sign of good luck. I had heard about this folklore symbol before and reached out to the informant knowing that she was of Irish descent to see if it had any significance to her. Luckily enough, the informant had a strong background in the folklore and personal experiences as a passive bearer with it from her grandmother.

Interpretation:

This lore of a four-leaf clover is one that has been around for a long time. I am not of Irish descent and have heard many times about how lucky you are to find a clover with four leaves. Although this folklore has spread out across the globe, it is universally accepted and told as a monogenesis folklore story originating from Ireland. I personally had only heard about the four-leaf clover is a good luck charm, but the informant’s story from her grandmother opened a whole new arena of this lore for me. I would be interested to research more about the Irish spiritual nature and evil spirit lore that her grandmother passed down to her. Based on what the informant shared with me, it sounds like there may be an entirely paralleled legend from Ireland in which this clover acts as a positive motif.

Simmer Pots

Informant Information – LM

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 20
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: San Pedro, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 24, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant describes herself as a practicing Wiccan. She learned how to make simmer pots from her mother. She shared this information with me in an in-person interview. 

Informant: 

So simmer pots use the idea that lots of plants in the natural world have intrinsic magical properties that you can take advantage of if you use the ingredients intentionally. One way to do this is by making simmer pots, where you add your ingredients to a pot of water and let it simmer and release these properties into your home. 

The length of time that the pot simmers isn’t too important– I usually use whether or not I can smell the ingredients in the air as a way to tell if I’ve let it simmer for long enough. Usually, I like to make sure that the scent makes its way into every room of the house– about a couple hours– so that the properties of my ingredients are brought into every room. 

Some ingredients that I use often to bring positivity, good luck, friendship into my home are rosemary, bay leaves, slices of citrus fruits, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and lavender, just because these ingredients all have these properties and they’re easily accessible to me. 

Analysis:

This piece of folklore is very interesting! Like other Wiccan practices that the informant has shared with me, intention is very important in this ritual. Each ingredient must be carefully chosen to achieve the desired effect. This intention is so important that it actually doesn’t matter when or where simmer pots are created so long as the practitioner’s intentions are clear as the ritual is completed. 

Gardening for Love and Luck

Informant Information – LM

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 20
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: San Pedro, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 24, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant describes herself as a practicing Wiccan. She learned these gardening practices from her mother. She shared this information with me in an in-person interview.

Informant: 

I’ve learned that there are a few plants that every Wiccan should have. 

For example, every witch should have a rosemary bush planted in their front garden or near the entrance of their home. Rosemary is used in lots of magical practices, including cleansing and protective rituals. 

Lavender should also be planted near the entrance of the home, as it is said to attract love and happiness. 

If possible, mugwort is also really common in Wiccan’s gardens, as it is frequently used in divination rituals. 

Analysis:

The role of intention is very interesting in this piece of folklore. My informant specified that it isn’t just the plants themselves that are magical; the act of planting them with the intention of drawing out their magical properties is also necessary. Thus, the planting can be understood as a sacred ritual, in which the act of gardening is completed with the hopes of achieving a desired effect. 

Thai Folk Religion

–Informant Info–

Nationality: Thai

Age: 22

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Thai

(Notes-The informant will be referred AH to as and the interviewer as K)

Background info: AH was born in California, but both her parents are of Thai descent, moving here a few years before she was born with a large chunk of her family. Her family still practices many aspects of Thai folk religion in the United States. She notes that her religion is incredibly complicated, so she will only tell me a few, significant aspects of it.

K: Uh so just say which things you’re gonna be telling me about, like the names of them, where you learned about these things and if its like applicable uh the context to the performance, like under what circumstances would you do those things.

AH: Uh yeah I guess the first thing I wanna uh I wanna mention are Shamans. They’re like the main practitioners in our religion, and there are 2 main ones uh…phram’s which are like local village ones and uh…mo phi, which are the ones that can conduct like rituals. Mo phi is the more important of the 2 technically, but both are held with like…the same amount of respect by the community.

K: Can you go into more detail about what each does?

AH: Yeah of course. So phram’s are like village uh shamans like I think I said. He does like exorcisms and marriages and stuff like that, more common ceremonies that seem like they would be held in a home or village. The mo phi also does rituals and ceremonies and stuff but more intense ones, like contacting the dead.

K: Can you tell me more about that ritual?

AH: I was just about to. So uh its kinda complicated. Four sticks are planted in like a square around where someone was buried, and then thread is wrapped around them once forming like a protective square. A specific mat is laid in the middle and that’s where the uh mo phi sits-sits down. In front of him, like wherever he is facing but outside the square, there’s a terracotta pot with something called an uh…uhm a yantra painted on the outside with the bones of the dead person and uh…the pot is called a mo Khao. there also normally uh a like plate of rice for an offering and like a stick to whack spirits away *laughter*. After this point, it like varies pretty widely what happens next, but the goal is to invoke the spirits so you can speak or see them one last time.

K: What are yantras? Can you tell me more about them and their uses and stuff? Like when are they used especially

AH: Yeah so uh…they’re like protective symbols I guess. People can either wear them around their neck as like an amulet, and a lot of people actually get them tattooed, especially in more rural areas. It gives whoever has it like…supernatural protection and luck and love and wealth and stuff like that. They’re drawn kinda everywhere, like over the entrances of grocery stores and inside taxis and airplanes and normally you have one drawn somewhere during like a wedding and things like uh that.

Interpretation:
This was so cool. I wish I could have sat with the informant longer and learned more about Thai religious folklore, but sadly she had other obligations. What she was able to tell me was so interesting. Shamans are not uncommon in many older regions,e socially folk-based ones, but hearing how they are specifically used in Thai religion was interesting. The fact that there are two different types of shaman, one more common one for larger ceremonies, etc, is really enlightening towards Thai culture. I also think it’s important to note that although one has an arguably more important or more difficult job, they both held with the same amount of respect and adoration.