Category Archives: Proverbs

Superstition: If Someone Vacuums or Sweeps Under Your Feet, Then You Won’t Have Any Children

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Singing Instructor
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 19, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

“If someone vacuums or sweeps under your feet, then you won’t have any children. So for example, if I was sitting on the sofa, and, you know, my mother or someone else was doing the housework and cleaning, and they came by and I lifted my feet like this, I wouldn’t have children.”

Background:

My informant heard this as a kid from his parents in Virginia. This was something that he said was meant to inure him to the right ideas about housework:

Collector: “How would you avoid? Like would you go into a another room so that they could sweep there?”

Informant: “I think the idea is ‘someone’s doing housework- you should at least be polite enough to get off the sofa and yield to them to do the work.’ That what they’re doing is more important. I think it’s more of a disciplinary like house regulation type of thing. Don’t be lazy and just lift your feet up.”

Thoughts:

I agree with my informant’s assessment of this piece. My informant described the culture and family he grew up in as one that valued work and practical matters and wanted cleaning done right. There was disapproval, he said, for doing practical things the wrong way. This superstition, which I expect is said non-seriously but still has its underlying message obeyed, is emblematic of the values of its miniature culture. This is a superstition born out of a dislike for laziness. There is an inherent morality system here. You will be punished with infertility or bad luck for not acquiescing to the cleaner.

Cutting Hairs in the 1st Lunar Month

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tsingtao, Shandong, China
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Main Piece:

DerShann: Let me think of some folklore…… Right! If you cut your hair in the 1st lunar month, your uncle (from the mother’s side) dies.

Me: Yea, I know. Do you really believe that?

DerShann: Well, not really. But I do try not to cut my hair in the first month, to kind of show respect for my uncle, and also, this is like some kind of tradition, and it’s fun to keep it.

Analysis:

This is, of course, a folk belief. That your uncle will die if you cut your hair in THE 1st lunar month. But, personally, I would also want to classify it as a proverb:

the original text is :正月剃头死舅舅

Phonetic：zheng yue ti tou si jiu jiu

Translation: If you cut your hair in the 1st lunar month, your uncle dies.

The key her is that “tou” rhymes with “jiu” in Chinese. And I do believe this sentence is used to warn people, but not really about cutting their hairs or about their uncles.

Zheng yue, the 1st lunar month, is the month that follows the Chinese New Year. Baiscally, the whole month is going to be filled with holiday atmosphere, and everyone’s supposed to have a good rest and prepare for the next year, and, of course, be with their family. Getting your hair cut can be an inconvenient thing: you must leave your home and go to a barber, the barber has to cut your hair, etc. And even if you don’t cut your hair, it’s not that much of a big deal. So I think the act of cutting one’s hair actually represents spending lots of time and efforts on business matters that are not urgent, which in a way ruins the Chinese New Year Experience. So, with my understanding of these words as a proverb, it is warning people to put off unnecessary works during the New Year.



The Lord’s Prayer and Praying Before Meals

Nationality: Caucasian, Irish
Age: 50
Occupation: Head Pastor
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/19/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a folk-tradition that was told to me by the lead pastor of my church. He is a non-denominational Christian pastor and is a caucasian male. I found out about this tradition of his when asking him about any folklore that his family may have had. We met at a local coffee shop in our town where I recorded the story. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Prayer

“We would say the Lord’s Prayer at every meal and that did seem weird to me, but we would just do that. And that was something my dad did when he was a kid.

‘Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the glory and the power are yours forever, Amen.’ 

And then, we didn’t do this, but I remember some of our friends would do the cross thing after they finished the prayer, *physically motions from head to chest, to the left and then to the right.* They do that in Serbia. When we lived overseas they would, Serbians would go forehead and then to the chest and then left and then right.  Croatians, who are catholic, would go down and then right and then left. We have no idea why, their cross symbol would just be the opposite, but it would still be the cross symbol. We used to do another prayer before every meal and it was always the same prayer. At least this sentence would have been in it. They might have been longer but I remember this sentence, and I still say it, it’s just like embedded in me. ‘Bless this food to our bodies, in Jesus’ name, Amen.’ I can’t remember a meal that we didn’t pray, one, and that phrase wasn’t in the prayer. Every meal that we had together we would do that.” 

Analysis

I am not sure how much you know about The Lord’s Prayer in the Christian faith, but from what I have heard over the years is that they are always slightly different. My pastor’s prayer was slightly different in the line “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” I have heard many things also said in this line, things like “and do not bring us into the time of trial.” Another odd feature I have noticed with the lord’s prayer is that some parts are just omitted in some households. Why? I do not know, but I do know some people will only say up until the “on earth as it is in heaven.” I think it was interesting that my pastor said this before every meal and also included another prayer on top of that one, one that was made up on the spot by the family but always featured that line at the end. I know this prayer and praying, in general, is an important part of my pastor’s life because of his place in the Christian church. While the Lord’s Prayer is explicitly said in the bible itself (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4), I find it most often learned from parents and not just memorized from the bible. This leads to different forms of the prayer as it evolves through generations. The last line, “For thine is the kingdom and the glory and the power are yours forever” is also commonly not included in the prayer, as it isn’t in the Luke version of it. I also thought the cross thing that they do in Serbia and Croatia was interesting and included it even though his family did not do it. That is another piece of the Lord’s Prayer, finishing with making a cross from your forehead to your chest, that is sometimes performed and sometimes not.

Proverb Puns

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 56
Occupation: Microbiologist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

“My grandpa would tell us the following: ‘You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.’ (laughs) The companion one was ‘A bird in the hand makes blowing your nose very difficult.’” 

What did they mean to you?

“The first thing they meant was that they were funny. Clearly it was about poking fun at old and real proverbs. But also to emphasize that you should be happy with what you’ve got. But mostly it was about being funny (laughs).”

Context: 

The informant is my father. He was raised Jewish and grew up on the East Coast of the United States. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis:

These punny proverbs subvert the “original” ones and give them new meaning. If you don’t know the original proverbs (“you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” and “a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush”), these jokes wouldn’t be funny to you. If you are familiar with these proverbs, the unexpected punchline will elicit a giggle. This remix of original proverbs is a microcosm of how people manipulate and change “canonical” content, make it their own, and share it with others. 

Polish Proverbs: Lying and the Vertically Challenged

Nationality: Polish
Age: 25
Occupation: Medical Student
Residence: Poznań, Poland
Performance Date: 04/18/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Main Performance:

  • “Kłamstwa mają krótkie nogi”
    • Transliterated Proverb
      • Kłamstwa = Lies
      • Mają = Have
      • Krótkie = Short
      • Nogi = Legs
    • Full Translation: Lies have short legs
      • Explanation: Lies travel upon weak and flimsy foundations that are will undoubtedly be discovered and be caught up to by a regular pair of legs.

Background:

The informant is one of my close friends from my Catholic high school who I maintain contact with after graduation. He hails from a devoutly Catholic Polish family. Among most of the families that I knew of while attending, most of my classmates did not speak their family lineage’s mother tongue except for most of the my Polish and Hispanic classmates. No German and definitely not any Irish being spoken there.

Context:

My informant is currently attending medical school in Poland and I reached out to him through social media to ask if he had any traditional/folk-things he could share with me given his actively apparent and practiced Polish heritage, doubly so now that he is back in Poland.

My Thoughts:

The act of lying is universally considered a negative and this would definitely would be a virtue that is practiced in a Catholic home. This would especially be effective as a warning to children to discourage them for lying as they would easily be found out. When I first heard it I thought it was referring to the legs of a table instead of legs on a human being. By being such a small table, I thought the proverb detailed that lies made for flimsy foundations instead of being short legs that cannot run very far. I’m not sure if a variation exists for the phrase about how lies eventually becomes truths if one repeats it enough and how that correlates to the quote.