Category Archives: Protection

Carrying a Lemon- Superstitious custom

Description (From Transcript):  “This is a custom that we have with the lemon.This one comes from my dad. I see him always carrying a lemon in his back pocket and he’s like, “Give me a lemon”, and i’m like, “okay”, because it absorbs bad energies, especially because he works all day at work. He goes from 5 am and comes back at like 8 pm. There’s like a lot of work and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna give you the lemon. Sometimes he can place a lemon randomly in the corner of a cabinet, or take it home and I’m like what’s the point of doing that? He’s like– because you don’t know how many bad people want bad things towards us. I’m like “what happens if the lemon rots or becomes black?” He’s like “that’s because there’s a lot of bad energies”, and he’s like “you see this one” (there was one next to his bed) he’s like “look at this one. This one’s dry but it’s still green”and I’m like okay “what’s the significance?” And he’s like “Oh, well, there’s not really many bad energies”. I’m like, “Okay, so what happens if you have a lemon that has bad energy?” You’re supposed to go outside and instead of throwing it forward on the floor, you’re supposed to stand backwards and get rid of it, so that you can put all those bad energies behind you. 

Context: The informant, VA, is a first generation student at USC. She has one sibling and her family is from Puebla, Mexico. She learned this custom from her dad and says that he is a man who has many superstitions and believes in a lot of rituals and magic. She believes he learned this one from a friend at work. He works at a food production company, specifically poultry. She explains how his friend group at work always talks about superstitions. If any of them sustain an injury, instead of telling each other to go to the doctor, they’ll tell each other to do a certain ritual or go to a certain person (who specializes in superstitions medicine). Even though she does not personally believe this superstition, she explains how her dad believes in it, which to her, demonstrates how much he cares about their family. He doesn’t want any harm to come to them, he’s responsible and caring. So by him carrying the lemon, he is also protecting his family, not just himself. 
My interpretation: It’s possible that a lemon would be used as a measure of energy because it’s such a bright, happily colored fruit. Once it starts to rot or green, however, it shows that it has been infiltrated by bad energy. It’s also, seemingly, used for that exact purpose. If the negative energy is strapped in a tangible, affordable and easily disposable container, it’s easy to get rid of that bad energy. Because the informant’s father works in a field where people can be easily injured, it makes sense that co-workers would share home remedies with each other. Finally, it was very telling that the informant admitted she did not personally believe in this, yet appreciated it because it showed her how much her father cared about her well being. This demonstrates how, often, superstitions are not just about avoiding harm, but also about showing affection to loved ones.

Bracelet Against Evil Eye

Informant: My informant is a current sophomore at the University of Southern California. Her parents are from Jalisco, Mexico. However, she grew up in Denver, Colorado.

Context: The following is a conversation that my informant and I had over zoom. During the zoom we were discussing some of the lore that we share. The following is an excerpt of our conversation and my informant explanation of her bracelet charm against evil eye.

Text: “I wear this bracelet as a protection amulet for myself. The reason that I wear it is that it’s a custom that has been present for many years now. I don’t think these customs come from Catholicism, even though my parents are religious, but I think it has to do a lot with indigenous roots. The evil eye is negative energy such as bad vibes, and jealousy and to keep that away we wear a bracelet with an eye on it. [The informant takes her bracelet off and hands it over to me]. Usually, these are red, but mine on here is a colorful number of beads and if you look at the middle it has like a hand with an eyeball in the center it has a little like eyeball, and it’s not super detailed or anything, but it’s just a circle, and the like outer part is red and then the inner part is completely white with like a singular black dot. And basically, I wear this all the time, because at some point I really did just start believing that it was a positive energy that protects you from other people’s bad glares. Even my little cousins wear this. My mom and dad always told us to wear these-slash- they put them on us as babies to protect us from evil.” 

Analysis: Hearing of the evil eye from another person who practices it was very interesting indeed. I for one also wear these kinds of bracelets because as a small child my mom taught me that these bracelets work as small amulets to keep me safe. Seeing how my informant and I learned these customs, superstitions, and myths from our family show how much one relies on our culture rather and on professionals or science to believe whether something is necessarily real. Some might argue that this is the placebo effect, our minds are playing games to make us believe that this is truly a protection. However, whether it is placebo effect or not, these charms have demonstrated to play a big role in developing our beliefs in practices towards our future generation: our children.

One of the bracelet charms against evil eye that informant showed during zoom share.

“Las Doce Verdades” (“The Twelve Truths”)-  Catholic Prayer

*Originally spoken in Spanish. The following is a rough translation. 

Description (From Transcript): “You tell the first truth and then the second, and then you would go back to the first one. Every time you would tell the next one, you would grab a handkerchief or a cloth and you would add a knot. The first was “La santa casa de Jerusalén donde vive y reina mi padre dios para siempre, Amen” (“The holy house of Jerusalem, where my lord lives and reigns forever, Amen”). You would add a knot and move on to the second. So the first, then the second, then the first again. Then the first, the second, and the third, and the first again, before moving on to the fourth one. And after the 12th– “The twelve apostles”– you would return back to the first again: The holy house of Jerusalem, where my lord lives and reigns forever, Amen”. And when you tied the final knot, that’s where you trapped the witches. They would get choked there. 

Context: TR is a Mexican woman, born and raised in Zacatecas, Mexico. She immigrated to the United States in 1995. This is a Catholic prayer. It was told to her by her grandmother. She explains, 

“This is a prayer but it was also a story that was told by people who believed in witches. In those times, there was no electric light so we would sit and light a lamp with a candle inside it and my grandma would tell us about witches. The light was very opaque so it would be scarier. We would sit with a cinnamon or yerbaniz (mint marigold) tea and once we were scared, we would trap the witches with the prayer of the Twelve Truths”. Even though she never saw a witch, she explains that she did believe in them as a child. She also explains that this is a Catholic prayer but not many people within the religion are familiar with it. 

My interpretation: Although this is a prayer, and therefore a religious practice, it also crosses over into the genres of legends and games because of the unsure belief in witches as well as the audience that the prayer is being told to (children). As explained by the informant, there was also the ritualistic aspect of doing this in a mostly dark environment, drinking hot tea- practices reminiscent of Americans telling scary stories by the fire pit. Additionally, this piece is unique from other Catholic practices and prayers because it crossed over into superstitious and Indigenous beliefs of Brujeria (witchcraft), which is often a taboo topic in the Catholic church. 

Limpia- Mexican Cleansing Ritual 

Description (From Transcript): “The translation of it is a cleanse. This one is kind of hard to explain. Essentially what it is is thinking that you have this negative energy within or around you and they (the person doing the cleanse) basically do this cleanse on your body. It (the person doing the cleanse) can technically be anyone as long as they know the gist of what you’re doing but I think it tends to be older adults who have more experience with it. 

So essentially, you take an egg, a raw egg that’s not cracked and you cleanse that energy from the person’s body that you’re doing the limpia on. And the way that my grandparents and mom would do it, they would do it saying prayers like “Santa Maria” or “Dios te salve Maria”. They would basically run the egg making crosses down your body from your head to your toes and then back up. I don’t know the exact number of how many times you say the prayers but that’s how you do it. And once you’re done, you crack that egg into a glass of water and you put that egg under your bed while you sleep and it’s supposed to essentially take all that bad energy and soak it into that cup of water. It’s a pretty old ritual but I distanced myself from religion and became a little more spiritual. I still believe in bad energy, auras and stuff like that but when I do limpias I do them on myself and instead of saying prayers I do positive affirmations. It’s literally the same process but not the prayers. I also crack the egg into the water but I don’t sleep with it under my bed. I just let it sit there for a little. 

Context: The informant (LV) is a first generation Mexican American woman residing in Denver, Colorado. She states that this practice is interesting because she adapted it from her grandma and mom. She believes it’s from Aztec culture, but she’s not sure. It’s in the same “area” as other Mexican Indigenous beliefs and practices such as “mal de ojo” (evil eye). In her culture it was intertwined with religion and Catholicism. She likes this practice because, even though she feels disconnected from her family because of religion, it helps her stay connected. 

My interpretation: What’s particularly interesting about this informant’s version of this practice is that by removing Catholic aspects from it, she is most likely performing it more accurately to the way it was done in pre colonial Indigenous communities. Her explanation of her version, along with her comments about finding online versions that also remove the religious aspects, also point to a generational shift away from organized religion and towards spirituality instead. Such shifts reveal how young people from ethnic communities continue to use and preserve folk practices but have learned to modify them to better reflect their own belief systems and socio-political stances.

Ghosts Can’t Cross Running Water

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Creative writing teacher and head librarian at a high school
Residence: Durham, NC
Performance Date: 4/29/21
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant has lived in Durham, North Carolina his whole life. His whole extended family has also lived in North Carolina their entire lives.

TR: This is uh, this is kind of like a superstition that I remember, um, and it had to do with porches, remember and this is from a long time ago, but, so the superstition is that um, ghosts, ghosts can’t cross running water. Don’t ask me why ghosts can’t cross running water, I don’t know. Um, it doesn’t, um, you know, unless, unless it has to do with the fact that you know, once you’re across the river Styx, you can’t get back across without the boatman, so if you’re a ghost on that side you can’t get back, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s the superstition, and so, you know, because, maybe not so much now, but a lot of porches were painted blue for that reason. The whole thing was like blue is the color of water so that would protect your house from ghosts. Um, so that’s, you know, and I think it’s persisted a little bit like maybe there’s still like actual entryways like foyers in houses that maybe are painted blue and that could just be an unconscious, unknowing continuation of this practice, but, that’s something that’s like a very old like oooo ghosts can’t cross water, so um, porches would be painted blue for that reason.

Me: Do you remember who and when you first heard this from? Do you know if it’s a regional thing?

TR: Uh, it’s probably regional. Um, I remember it from my dad’s side of the family. This would be my great uncles and aunts, um we would go out to my great uncle’s farm and so we went out there quite a bit and he had this really old house, I mean old house, which, of course, when we told ghost stories about the house, so it was all, ghosts were just a popular thing. So that’s probably where, if I had to say I mean, I don’t have a memory of like oh this is you know, that’s when I first heard this story about ghosts can’t cross water.

Me: Have you ever thought about painting a deck blue? Like do you have any belief in it?

TR: Oh, no. absolutely not.

Context of the performance: This was told to me over a Zoom call.

Thoughts: This superstition about ghosts has been enacted into a practice. It relies on color meaning and symbolization for the connection to work. It works under the assumption that blue represents water and therefore the color is what is creating meaning, as the thing acting as a barrier between the ghosts and houses. The informants theory about the river Styx connects this superstition to myths to form a hypothesis about the meaning of the saying–the superstition–itself. This suggests that even though myths take place before, after, or outside the real world, people draw meaning from them and connect them to real life beliefs.