Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Bad Luck Funeral Superstitions

Context:

My informant is a 56-year-old woman of Vietnamese descent. She was raised Buddhist, but when she married her Filipino Catholic husband, she adopted some Filipino practices and stories.

Text:

“For funeral services, like after attending the service or the cemetery the family would go somewhere else before heading home, like the market or a coffee shop. That’s in the Philippines traditions, to leave the bad energy somewhere else. But in the Vietnamese tradition, we would place a bowl of water by the door and walk over it to divert the bad spirits or the bad luck from the home.”

Analysis:

In both of these cultures, I see this ritual as a way of cleansing the body before entering the sanctuary of their homes. In Filipino culture, it seems that they focus more on the places with significance. So leaving the bad energy, means literally leaving it in one location before returning home. In Vietnamese culture, they seem to connect with water, an element of life. Stepping over the bowl of water might represent that the connection to Mother Nature and Earth is enough to cleanse themselves from the presence of death they were just in.

Sukkot – Jewish Holiday

Context:

My informant is a 20-year-old student at the University of Southern California. She currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri, but she has also lived on the East Coast. She grew up Jewish, attending Yeshiva, Jewish School.

Text:

“Every year at my temple we’d celebrate a holiday called Sukkot. It’s celebrated for a week and is, I believe a type of harvest festival in the Jewish faith. We celebrate by building a sukkah, a type of outdoor hut, and sing certain songs and do activities. We’d also all take turns shaking a luluv and etrog but I’m not sure what they represent.”

I asked, “What are a luluv and etrog?”

She replies that she doesn’t really know what they are. She describes them as a this yellow fruit object and green leaves.

Analysis:

This holiday seems to be a staple in the Jewish faith since it is a repeated festival that happens annually. They celebrate with music and building new creations. From what I learned, I assume that this is a festival holds a lot of meaning in the faith since it is a repeated event, surrounded by community.

Philadelphia Childhood Haunted House

Context:

H has an old house in Philadelphia, built during the Battle of Valley Forge. Her house had many rooms and hallways. She is one sibling out of the five in her family, and they would always share their ghost stories with each other.

Text:

“So I’m from outside, and if you guys know like, the Battle Valley Forge was there, like, in one of the wars. So my house is over, like, 250 years old, I’m pretty sure.
So we’ve always, like, I’m one of like five, so we’ve always, like, exchanged ghost stories with our house when we were younger. There are like, two that I really remember.

We have this thing called the Ice House and it’s basically just, like a little place that, we put, like old Christmas decorations, like storage, but it’s separate from our house. And my parents always said we couldn’t go in there because, like, I think it’s just unsafe.
It’s so old. And, like, the floor was, like, not stable. They’d always said we would fall through. 
But, like, one time, me and my brother were like, we want to go in and explore, because, like, I would love it. It was just weird. So we went in and we both swear that, like—first of all, it looked like someone was, like, using the house. 
Like, it didn’t look super old. Like, he says he saw, like, food on the counter. 
And then, like, we both, like, out of, like, in between, like, a cabinet or something, like, swear that we saw, like, a set of eyes, and then we ran out. So, yeah. And it was probably like three days after, like, one of our dogs died.”

Analysis:

This legend that my informant experienced seemed to have been built upon the history of her house. The historical events surrounding the building made a perfect background for her parents to build off of. This memorate of her brother and her exploring the house shows the implementation of the legend. Although their dog dying soon after might be a coincidence it might also just because of the haunted house, who knows.

Chinese New Year – Chun Lian Good Luck

Context:

The informant grew up in a Taiwanese household in the Bay Area. He grew up always celebrating Chinese New Year, a holiday that occurs every February. The holiday celebrates the start of the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Text:

“For Chinese New Year, we have, like, a red sheet of paper with Chinese calligraphy on it called Chun Lian. We stick it on the outside of our door, to ward off like evil and also brings in good luck as well.”

I asked, “Is this something that you’ve always done, like, on Chinese New Year.”

“Yeah, like, we did it always growing up.”

“So you just learned it from my parents?”

“Yes, I learned it from my parents.”

Analysis:

From what I know about Chinese New Year, many of the traditions, foods, and decorations all revolve around bringing in good luck for the new lunar new year and getting rid of all of the bad luck. This tradition does not seem to be any different. The red also seems to be a prominent theme is getting rid of the bad luck, and in tandem with the calligraphy, they are able to ring in the Chinese New Year with prosperity.

Hula Dance – Performance Rituals

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old student from Santa Monica, California. Her dad is from Hawai’i, so she has been learning and performing hula since she was 5 years old.

Text:

“At the start of every practice before entering like the practice space, we all circle–stand in a circle at the entrance and do like a chant, which is it’s called like Kunihi Ka Mauna. And basically like any hula dancer you ask, they know this chat because it’s like in every halau, which is like the school’s, they do this chant. It means like ‘steep and calm is the mountain.’ And so the idea is that before you start practice, you’re asking permission to learn the hula and like enter the space. And so you’ll do, it’s called like an Oli Kahea and the Kumu, the teacher, will respond back and then when you hear like a certain line of their response, that means you can enter.

And then also you always put on and take off your skirt, like, over your head. Like, you never like step into it or like step out of it if that makes sense because, like, it’s about like– It’s, like, disrespectful to, like, put the energy, like, below you or something. Yeah, so you’re putting it over yourself, like, over your heart.

Something kind of similar to that is whenever you have a lei, the flower, the direction of the flowers goes like upward facing on your left side. So like on your left side, they’re, like facing up same thing with, like kukui nuts, are like those, you know, like the blonde or black, like, nuts. And they’re kind of like heart shaped. Same thing, like the heart shape goes up on your left side because it’s like, your heart is. So, for flowers and any kind of lay that it goes in that direction because it’s like the, since your heart is on your left side, it’s like the circulation of the energy in the correct direction.

And you dance barefoot to be closer to Mother Earth.”

Analysis:

This is a ritual that the informant says, everyone who practices hula learns early on. Hula seems to have a strong connection to both Mother Earth and their home of Hawai’i. They want to show their respect every time they perform with these rituals. Performing these rituals repeatedly every time they perform dhow their dedication to respecting Mother Earth and the culture.