Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Three Finger Joe

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 5, 2017
Primary Language: English

Subject: Retelling of a Camp Legend

 

Informant: Lauren Herring

 

Background Information/Context: Camp Mystic is an all-girls camp in Hunt, Texas. It was founded in 1926 by a coach at the University of Texas, and it is still an incredibly popular camp today. In fact, the camp is so popular that in order to enroll, your parents have to call the head of the camp and ask to put you down on the wait list no longer than a few weeks after you are born. Ideally, a spot would clear up for you by the time you are the age they accept campers, but this is not always the case. Lauren Herring, from Houston, Texas, was lucky enough to get off the wait list, and has been attending Camp Mystic since for twelve years–the past two years as a camp counselor. So Camp Mystic has been a huge part of her childhood, as she has spent each of these past twelve years attending the camp for one month during the summer. I asked her if she ever had any ghost stories or heard any legends from Camp Mystic, and this was her response:

 

“I don’t know who started this story, but it’s kind of always been a big thing at Mystic. So there’s this little shed near Chatter Box, which is one of the cabins. You live in Chatter Box your third year. And there’s this random little shed with a lock on it right next to Chatter Box, and no one knew what it was for, not even the counselors. It was kind of just there. And it was scary looking, like really old and falling down and stuff.

 

So there was a story that there was a man that lived in it, and at night he would come into Chatter Box and scratch your back, but he only had three fingers. You knew he had come into your cabin that night if someone woke up with three scratches on their back.

 

His name was Three Finger Joe. We were all really scared and paranoid, because we were like nine and really completely believed it. And I think some of us would lie for attention or to mess with the rest of us or whatever because people would wake up and be like, ‘Oh my God, I have three fingered scratches on my back!’”

 

I loved hearing this story from Lauren because it reminded me of when I was younger and would listen to similar stories at the camps that I would go to. Growing up, I loved hearing ghost stories, and this one really took me back. I could tell when Lauren was recounting the memory to me that she enjoyed this kind of reminiscing as well.

Egg Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

 

Subject: Ritual, Superstition

 

Informant: Tye Griffith

 

Background Information/Context: Growing up, I had a nanny who helped raise me, and who had been working in my family since before I was born. Her name is Eva, and she is from Monterrey, Mexico. Eva also worked as a nanny for a close family friend of mine, Tye. Tye and I essentially grew up together, and had the connection of Eva, who I feel linked our two families together even closer. Recently, I was remembering how when I was little and my parents would be either out to dinner or on vacation, Eva would stay with me. But when it was my bedtime, Eva had a very specific ritual she would perform while tucking me into bed. I didn’t remember the specific details of the ritual, other than it involved an egg that she would hover over my head and recite some sort of prayer. I reached out to Tye, knowing that Eva had done this same ritual with her when she was also younger.

 

This was Tye’s memory of the egg ritual:

 

Tye: Eva would get an egg from the fridge downstairs and rub the egg in different patterns across the body while saying a bunch of prayers. And then she would crack it into a clear glass and put it under the bed. The egg would stay there all night while you slept, and in the morning, you would check the bowl, and it would be completely black inside the bowl. Like a black goop. Ew, that sounds really gross when you say it out loud [laughs]. But it would be black in the morning because of all the bad spirits that came out of your body during the night.

 

And then you had to throw the egg out onto the street in the morning. The room wouldn’t smell though.

 

Me: Wait, would the whole room not smell like a rotten egg in the morning? [laughs] How is that even possible?

 

Tye: Magic! [laughs].

 

Conclusion: I was happy that Tye remembered a little more about it than I did, and having her tell me what she knew really jogged my memory. I was still curious about what Eva was saying during the ritual, so I thought about it for a while. I finally remembered a line from the prayer she recited: “Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo.” So, I Googled that one line, and as it turns out, that was the first line to a Spanish prayer called “El Santo Rosario.” I read the prayer online, and it all came back to me. Eva would have me say the prayer every night when she was with me. The whole prayer reads,

 

Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo,

Santificado sea tu nombre;

Venga a nosotros tu reino;

Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra,

Como en el cielo.

Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día;

Perdona nuestras ofensas,

Como también nosotros perdonamos a los que ofenden;

No nos dejes caer en la tentación,

Y líbranos del mal.

Amén.[1]

 

The text of this prayer comes from an excerpt from the book Oración del Enfermo. However, in this book, the prayer is referred to as “Padrenuestro,” instead of “El Santo Rosario,” but it is the same text as the Santo Rosario prayer. Upon further reflection, this prayer is actually the Spanish version of The Lord’s Prayer, but I never connected the two, as I did not grow up in a particularly religious household. The only significant religious practices that I grew up with came from Eva, which were all in the Spanish language. I knew of The Lord’s Prayer in English, but I never made the connection until now, because the Spanish version was so much more prevalent in my life.

 

[1] Cadena, Alvaro Jiménez. La Oración del Enfermo: ¡Señor, tu Amigo está Enfermo! Bogotá: Ediciones Paulinas, 1991. Print.

 

 

Reiki

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: March 16, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Reiki

 

Subject: Healing Ritual, Superstition

 

Informant: Tye Griffith

 

Background Information/Context: Growing up, I had a nanny who helped raise me, and who had been working in my family since before I was born. Her name is Eva, and she is from Monterrey, Mexico. Eva also worked as a nanny for a close family friend of mine, Tye. Tye and I essentially grew up together, and had the connection of Eva, who I feel linked our two families together even closer. I asked Tye about a healing ritual Eva would perform called Reiki when we were little.

 

Tye: So, I don’t remember as much about this one, but I remember Eva would do it, and it was supposed to be a transfer of energy from one person to another through the placement of hands. I think she only did it if something was wrong, like if you were sick or in a bad mood or something, maybe.

 

So [Eva] would take our hands and run patterns along your palms with her fingers. And then she would, like, put her hands over yours. I don’t think she said anything while she was doing it or anything though. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. Yeah, Reiki was supposed to send good energy into you if something was wrong, and it was just a ritual involving your hands. It was kind of cool actually.

 

Me: Do you think it worked?

 

Tye: [laughs] I don’t know. I mean, at the time, I remember like fully believing in it.

 

Me: Yeah, me too, actually. I think it was like a placebo effect or something.

 

Tye: Yeah, because I do think if I was feeling sick or something before, and then she did it, I would feel better. Honestly, I think Eva is magic [laughs].

 

Conclusion: I asked Tye about two of the rituals Eva would do with us, and I actually really enjoyed looking back on them. I could tell when we were talking that Tye also had fun looking back on the experience. I do believe that the Reiki ritual worked to a certain extent, but more of a placebo effect type of thing. But when I was little, I did believe it worked. I thought that Eva was performing magic and that the magic was healing me magically.

Bloody Mary School Bathroom

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 25, 2017
Primary Language: English

Bloody Mary

 

Subject: Ritual/Game

 

Informant: Lauren Herring

 

Background Information: Bloody Mary is a common legend in childhood that involves a sort of game of going into a bathroom, standing in front of a mirror, and saying “Bloody Mary.” As the legend goes, if you do this, some figure will appear in the mirror. I asked Lauren about her take on it, and the following was her response.

 

Lauren: That game was so scary. I was always way too scared to do it alone. But everyone said the upstairs girls’ bathroom in Elementary school was haunted by [Bloody Mary].

 

Me: Did you ever see her?

 

Lauren: No, not really, but I did have one really scary experience with it.

 

Me: What was that?

 

Lauren: Ok, so it was around the third grade, and the story was, like, huge. Like, everyone was talking about Bloody Mary in the girls’ restroom. I think it started because there was some story about a girl a year ahead of us who actually conjured Bloody Mary in that bathroom, and then everyone said she haunted it ever since then.

 

So, I raise my hand and ask to go to the bathroom one day in class, and I go, and as soon as I wash my hands, the power goes out and the paper towel machine starts ejecting the paper towels. Like, not as in they were crazy-possessed, but they were those automatic ones, and they just all started rolling out the whole rolls of paper towels.

 

And so obviously I’m freaked out, I’m like in third grade. And I run to the door, but it’s locked. And then I start really freaking out, and all I can think about is Bloody Mary.

 

It turns out that the school was having a lockdown, so that’s why the lights went out and the doors automatically locked. But it was so scary. Like I really thought I was going to die. Also why would the school have it so that the bathroom doors locked? Oh, and it didn’t explain the paper towel thing.

 

Conclusion: I went to school with Lauren, so I knew about the Bloody Mary in the girls’ restroom story, but I had never actually heard her whole story about her experience with it. It is interesting to note that, if taken in the context of a ghost story, Lauren’s experience didn’t fit exactly right with the Bloody Mary ritual. The way I’ve heard it, in the ritual, one is supposed to stand in front of the mirror and say “Bloody Mary” three times while spinning in a circle three times with your eyes closed. When you open your eyes, you are supposed to see Bloody Mary in the mirror where your body is supposed to be. But in Lauren’s story, she never actually summoned Bloody Mary. Rather, it came to her when she did not expect it.

 

For more versions of this legend and different beliefs about Bloody Mary herself and how she is summoned, see: (Dundes, Alan. Bloody Mary in the mirror: essays in psychoanalytic folkloristics. Jackson: U Press of Mississippi, 2002. Print.)

Bedtime Prayers

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Bothell, WA
Performance Date: 3/5/17
Primary Language: English

TM is an accountant who was born in Sunnyside, WA and now is currently living in Bothell, WA. He descends from a heavy Irish and Italian background which have influenced much of his culture growing up. His grandparents were the ones to teach him the most about his culture through their traditions and common sayings.

Are there any rituals or things you did on a daily basis that you felt were unique to your family or culture?

TM: There wasn’t anything that was very different. There was the bed time prayers we used to say, those were very unique and I never heard them in the bible or any of my friends who were catholic who would say them. My grandmother taught my father how to say them and in turn my father passed it to me as I have passed it to my children. Hopefully they will pass it on.

Do you happen to remember the prayer?

TM: Yes I do, the way it went was; “Now I lay me, down to sleep, pray the Lord, my soul to keep. Keep me safe, through the night, and wake me with, thy mornings light. Amen.”

Do you know what it means or the significance behind it?

TM: It is supposed to be a bedtime prayer for children but some adults I knew still said it. It basically means that when you sleep you hope that God will keep you safe and that you will wake up the next morning safe in your bed. I think it became sort of a chore or habit more than a ritual for me. Many times, when I said it I didn’t really mean it and I just wanted to go to sleep. Now that I am older and I have a different relationship with God the words resonate deeper with me which is why I think I wanted my kids to say it too. We all want our kids to sleep safe and this was a way of keeping an ease at mind in a way. I liked to say it with them sometimes when they were really little. I think it loses it significance when you don’t really understand what you are saying especially when you are young.

Analysis:

Prayers at bedtime right before you sleep is common between many devout Catholics and Christians. This particular prayer TM shared is common but not widely known or practiced. It would serve as a protection or barrier against harm or bad dreams which is why it was very common among children. When I researched the prayer, there were many variations to the middle phrase of the prayer, ‘keep me safe, through the night’. Sometimes it was ‘may angels watch me through the night’ or ‘guide me safely through the night’. Or I came across one with an alternative ending, ‘god bless family, friends, and fun, I thank you each for every one. Although they vary, they all seem to carry the same message of protection and trust in God.