Category Archives: Protection

Nutcracker Ornaments on the Tree

Background information: AH is a 21-year-old raised in the Bay Area. Her parents are African-American and white, and she has one younger brother. She shared a Christmas tradition she remembers from when she was a child, that she still practices today when she’s home for Winter Break.

AH: My brother and I always take turns choosing from our nutcracker ornaments to put on the tree. I always kinda thought that we considered it bad luck to not put them up, uh, but now that I think about it I’m sure it just started because my mom didn’t want my brother and I to fight over who got to put what ornament on the tree (laughs). They’re like made of glass and come in a wooden box with a certificate of authenticity and I know she got them as like a family heirloom type thing, probably because she had a bunch of ornaments my grandma gave to her. Anyways, I don’t really know the origin or anything…but it’s fun! It’s just something that I always think of fondly when I think of Christmas, which is cute. We always do it as the last thing too, so like, once we’re both done taking turns it feels like it’s officially the holidays.

Me: Do you still do this every year?

AH: Yes (laughs), even though we’re all older now it’s just for fun. It is a kind of ritual for us, probably.

This piece of folklore is one that is very specific to AH’s family, however, as she was telling me this, I realized that my brothers and I also did something similar as kids, probably for the same reason of my parents not wanting us to fight over who got to do what. It’s very cute that something that may begin in childhood like this can become so significant in a person’s memories. The fact that AH created her own sort of superstition related to this practice (connecting bad luck to the ritual of putting up ornaments) shows us how significant these traditions become over time.

Ancestral Spirits of Guam – Chamorro taotaomo’na

Text/Context

DA – In the Chamorro culture in Guam, there are the spirits of the Chamorro ancestors. You ask for permission so you don’t disturb the spirits, called the taotaomo’na.
Interviewer – For entering the forest?
DA – Yeah. The taotaomo’na live in the forest and also protect it.
(DA shows me a picture of a stone structure. It is made of two massive stone shape: one is a wide column, and on top is a round bulge with a flat side facing upwards. There are two people in the background to show how massive this structure is)
DA – If you see these structures in the forest, you should leave immediately. These are the latte stones and it’s a marker that it’s an ancient Chamorro site. They were just used as pillars or support for ancient Chamorro homes and stuff like that.
Interviewer – What is the significance of Chamorro sites and what would happen?
DA – I guess you can kinda treat them as tombs. There’s probably very likely ancient spirits in there that you shouldn’t disturb out of respect, and if you do, you would be cursed and get some sort of illness or physical pain.
Interviewer – Are ancestors and spirits generally a big part of Chamorro culture?
DA – Yeah! Respecting your elders is one of the important things you have to learn in the culture, so that also plays a part in it.
Interviewer – And is there anything you can do to lift the curses of the Chamorro?
DA – Yeah! Witch doctors (in the Philippines: albularyo, in guam: suruhanu). First they see what’s causing whatever you’re feeling. Usually with melted candle wax and a bowl of water: they let it drip and the hardened wax would form into who caused it. And they tell you what to do based on that. But I don’t really know much about this part.•
DA – I read up on it to refresh my memory, but it makes sense why they wouldn’t be kind to visitors. Spain, Japan, and the US fucked up the culture pretty bad. (By the 18th and 19th centuries, travelers were likely to see latte stones in areas abandoned after foreign diseases wiped out a lot of the Chamorro population)
DA – It’s a good thing a big part still survived, but barely anyone speaks the language. It’s part of the required courses in the education system. My Chamorro teacher and I talked about this before. The problem is not many people are really interested in continuing to learn beyond the requirements. You only need to take one year of Chamorro language in high school, and most students take it freshman year. And like everyone tends to do, they forget most of it by the time they graduate. And there aren’t many speakers in the first place either.

Analysis

The taotaomo’na spirits were the ancestors of the Chamorro people, native to Guam. It is important to be respectful not only to living ancestors, but also to those who passed on a long time ago. Signs of their presence, like the latte stones, are common in places where many of the Chamorro had been killed of from foreign plague, and also act as tombs. It is common knowledge in Guam not to risk drawing bad things or curses to yourself by disrespecting the dead. The informant recalls that these stones are some of the best preserved remnants of the Chamorro culture, because so much of it died out due to foreign plague, assimilation into western cultures, including the language. Although the informant learned more of the Chamorro language than most in their high school, the informant regrets that they have also forgotten much of what they learned.

Jinn

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/25
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant (A) is my roommate, the daughter of two Pakistani immigrants. She grew up in the US and frequents Pakistan during breaks from school. She is Muslim and participates in many of the religion’s practices.

A: So the like…background of this is that in Islam there are these other creatures that exist and one is called a Jinn. It’s made of fire and like…exists between our human realm and where angels or heaven and hell are….those are called Jannah and Jannath in Arabic. And Jinns can like…..kind of like possess you, and my mom would always tell me this one blessing to say to get rid of Jin. And then that one night I had sleep paralysis and I saw this like…creepy human man figure next to my bed. And obviously I was scared and like….frozen…or paralyzed so I couldn’t move but I started like…whispering the blessing my mom had told me but the Jinn started getting closer and I just kept saying the blessing. And then eventually it just went away and I fell asleep. But when I told my mom she was like, “There’s definitely something bad around you.”

Me: So where’d you learn about Jinns?

A: I heard about them in the Quran and stories of like…personal experiences with them are passed down a lot. Like my grandma believes that Jinns are really attracted to her and will follow her around, I can’t think of any specific stories she’s told me but I know she’s thought that for a long time.

Context: This was told to me during a recorded in person interview. The informant presumed that the figure she saw during sleep paralysis was a Jinn and that it was visiting her due to some sort of evil energy or happenings near her. The informant was recounting the story she had told me at an earlier date.

Knock on wood 

Description (From Transcript): “It’s kind of a common thing, or I don’t know if this is common, Like knocking on wood? Because my mom does that a lot. My mom is very superstitious. I remember from my childhood, when I would talk, she would be like, “No, don’t say that. Now you have to knock on wood”. She would say this whenever I said anything that she thought would jinx something.And then I got into a habit of doing that. Even in high school, I did competitive dance, and even at the competitions I would find wood if someone tried to say something negative about what was about to happen. I just feel like it’s interesting that something so early from my childhood, that’s just a superstition– there’s nothing really behind it– has stuck with me. I did it so much in high school and middle school that some of my friends started doing it too,  just being like, “Okay, now knock on wood”, feeling kind of scared that if we didn’t do it, something would happen. We always just said [if we didn’t knock on wood] it would jinx us, or the opposite of what we wanted to happen would happen. [If there was no wood around] I always got stressed. I remember being like– about to go on to the competition stage, and I had to find wood. I was like, “No, something’s gonna happen”. 

Context: T.M. is a second year student at USC. She is part Ecuadorian and part Native Alaskan. She is originally from Juno, Alaska. She believes her mother learned this from her parents because her grandmother is very superstitious and is very careful about what she says, or what she puts into the world (through speaking) because she believes in the power of what is said coming true. She claims that this superstitious kind of behavior comes from her grandma and was passed down to her mom, who made it her own thing. Now she feels that she is pretty superstitious too, and uses spirituality to protect herself from energies. She explains how she would do this at dance competitions to ensure nothing went wrong. Her entire dance team had rituals that they would do together before competitions, such as chants and special handshakes. 

My interpretation: While this superstition is pretty common, it was interesting how the informant learned it from her family and then taught it to people in her age group, as well as her use of it in dance competitions. Perhaps the contact from a knuckle to a non-human object is a way of transferring any negative energies or intentions from the person who spoke an unwanted thing to an object that can’t be harmed by negative energy. The action of knocking might also be indicative of how the energy must be removed quickly, the way a knuckle tap is. Because wood comes from trees, it might also be a way to release negativity back into a neutral, usually positive source. As for the fear of being jinxed, it might have become intense because when people say an unwanted thought and therefore cannot unsay it, the best thing to do might be to follow a quick superstitious fix. 

The Cleansing of the egg- Religious/ Spiritual ritual

Description (From Transcript): “Okay so for this one it’s the curing of the egg! I don’t know how the other person you got it from told you this, but my mom, she gets an egg, and she rubs it with either alcohol or agua bendita (holy water). We get our agua bendita from church, or sometimes in a tiny bottle. We have like a little bottle here at home, and what she does is she puts agua bendita or alcohol, or both sometimes, and she does a cross on our body. But that cross is a small cross on our forehead, which is 1, 2, 3, 4, (*does a cross motion*) and then a small cross on our heart, in the small crossing our legs and then a cross behind our head. She rubs that egg all around our body,  starting with the back of our head, which is the most important part. My mom says that’s the most important part because that’s where it’s in the middle. Medically, if you hit your head right there, you’re probably going to die. That’s the most important part that you have to protect, and that’s where she rubs us and especially when I had problems with stress, she does this to me, and as well. She does it through the head, first in the back of the head and then on top of the head, and then she moves towards the shoulders and hands, the front of the heart, and then she moves to the back, and then at the end towards the bottom, and then she brings all that energy into the top, and she rubs the head again. Then she goes to the restroom. She opens the egg, and she throws it in the toilet, not in the back. I know a lot of people throw it in the backyard or they throw it in the trash.But she does it in the toilet. She’s like “don’t come with me because you’re going to get that bad energy, and I have to do it by myself”. 

She goes to the toilet, she closes the door, and she flushed it. Then, she throws the shell in the trash can outside. 

Context: The informant, VA, is a first generation student at USC. She has one sibling and her family is from Puebla, Mexico. She got this tradition from her mother, who learned it from her own mother. As for how to do it, her mother saw it on an online video on facebook. However, she first learned of it from her mother. The informant explained that this practice shows how, even if you don’t believe in it, seeing how much her parents care for her, or the extent to which they care that they would do it, makes her feel important. She emphasized how seeing her mom do this small ritual for her when she feels bad or because of schoolwork, she feels a lot better. 

My interpretation: Unlike the other informant who explained this ritual, VA utilizes many religious aspects, including holy water and the crosses made on her body. To me, this reveals how the act is not only a demonstration of religion, but also a way for her to connect to her family and her culture. Additionally, her explanation of the head being the most important body part demonstrates how physical well being and spiritual well being are directly connected, and more specifically, how negative energies can be physically removed from a person’s body even if they are not visible or tangible. Flushing the bad energy down the toilet demonstrates how it’s seen as a particularly putrid agent that must be disposed of the way waste or toxic chemicals might be disposed of. I found it interesting how her mother relearned the ritual through social media videos.