Context: This game was explained in a fraternity dining hall to an audience of one.
Background: This game was taught to the informant by his parents, who did not like violence very much.
“In my family, instead of doing punch buggy or slug bug, where you would like see a Volkswagen Beetle and punch the person sitting next to you, we would say “Hug Bug” and hug the person next us.”
This game is a pacifist substitute to the more popular violent version game, “Slug Bug.”
Main piece: “The black dog is death.”
Context: The informant is half Irish and half American. Her mother’s side of the family is originally from and still resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her paternal extended family live in Sligo, Ireland. She grew up culturally Catholic, but she does not consider herself religious. Our conversation took place in February on my couch at home in Atlanta after she began recounting her recent trip to visit family in Ireland. The informant originally heard this saying from her aunt, who recounted a story in which she was attacked by a black dog spirit that jumped on her back in the middle of the night. Her aunt caught a glimpse of the creature over her shoulder, but when she threw the dog off and turned around, it was gone. The phrase “the black dog is death” was already well-known among the informant’s family at the time, but what makes this story even more unsettling is that shortly before the black dog appeared to her aunt, a bog body was found on the family’s property. So, while the informant isn’t a necessarily spiritual or superstitious person, she does somewhat buy into the black dog death spirit, as she describes the impact-fulness of her aunt “trembling” and looking “haunted” whenever she recounted the story. Interestingly, the informant does not believe that the would ever personally encounter the black dog, as she isn’t as in-tune with the spiritual world, but she still maintains: “I’m really glad the black dog didn’t visit me.”
Personal thoughts: The informant’s mindset that part of encountering the stuff of legends is simply buying into them is particularly interesting to me; she simultaneously validates her aunt’s experiences while doubting that she could experience the same, which speaks to the potential placebo effect that folk beliefs have on people. Just because doubt could easily be lent to the details of the story does not mean that the experience itself did not occur. There is no way of knowing what exactly happened to BN’s aunt, but her story and BN’s subsequent reaction to it indicates that belief itself can be more powerful than absolute truth. Additionally, the wording of the proverb “the black dog is death” does not communicate that the appearance of a black dog heralds death, but rather that the black dog is death itself. Perhaps by giving the abstract concept of death a knowable, mortal form, the people of Ireland can feel a little more control over their own mortality. To mold death into a dog opens up the possibility of training death like you would train your own pet, and therefore conquering the unconquerable.
Tell me about the Red String in Mexico.
A.H. – “Um, it depends on the person; but, people who are superstitious and use the whole red-string-fending-off-the-evil-eye put these strings around their babies, like, as soon as they’re born – literally. So like, even before they’re before they’re competent, they already have this red string around them.”
And this red string repels the evil eye . . . That is what’s being repelled?
A.H. – “Right. It supposedly does. And I think it’s used even more on kids, because they can’t really defend themselves, and/or are less conscious of their surroundings. Now that I think of it, adults definitely use it, but I definitely see it more on kids and babies. In Mexico. So, it’s really interesting what’s considered to be the evil eye itself; it can be even someone just looking at your kid on the street, and it’s obvious that they think they’re cute, or something, and I think people just have a lot of malice in them; the parent will assume like – and it’s not even always a bad thing, it can be a jealousy thing too, like someone could be threatened by some cute-ass baby . . . obviously not that that person wants to be the baby, but that they’re jealous in some way or another.”
A.H. – “If someone does see that, they have to be cleansed of that. If not, then you’re affected by the eye, supposedly. And I don’t really know where the egg thing comes from.”
Egg?
A.H. – “Yeah. You’d grab an egg and rub it all over the kid’s body, and supposedly the egg absorbs the evil. But, it’s weird – I feel like people who aren’t very superstitious still do that.”
Let’s go back to what you said about malice and the people. Do you think that . . . the vibe, at first thought, when you have your child wearing one of these, is: you would assume that the first thing someone else would think about your child isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is something like jealousy, or envy, 0r anger, or just a want to ruin what’s been given to you?
A.H. – “Yeah. Whenever I ask my mom about this – because she’s the one who told me about this in the first place – It’s not even just if somebody gives you a bad look. It’s like, you can’t really trust people, strangers- if someone’s looking at your kid, you assume it’s because they’re going to do something to them . . . I don’t know.”
So at it’s base, in it’s most rudimentary form, it’s just “stranger danger?”
A.H. – “Yeah. It does the job of fending off the eye, as well as reminding the wearer of the dangers of what the evil eye can be.”
Would you say that if you were to see somebody wearing a red bracelet, you’d wonder why?
A.H. – “Yeah. For instance, a friend of mine always wears a red string bracelet and I always think about it, even though it’s probably not for the same reasons.”
And what does it make you think of?
A.H. – “I guess just what my mom told me.”
How else can you repel this evil?
A.H. – “It’s actually interesting, if some parent were to see some stranger giving their kid the evil eye, the instinct would be to ask that person to touch the child. So once that happens, the evil is absolved, regardless of whether or not that child is wearing the red string. At it’s roots, it’s another example of the dangers of voyeurism, I feel like.”
This example of the Red String vs the Evil Eye is perplexing, as it is both completely similar to and totally the opposite of another cultural superstition; that of the Turkish evil eye. The dichotomy of cultures, as well as parallels in those same cultures, are exemplified here perfectly. It’s funny, even, that the very thing which keeps Turkish families safe is that which is being repelled by the red string.
What is the Evil Eye?
P.N. – “So, the evil eye protects you, your family, your household, from evil. And this is a myth, and also a glass object. Every [Turkish] family has an evil eye in their house . . . My family thinks that if you tell somebody something good that’s happened to you, there’s gonna be envy there. And they’re gonna somehow will nature to get rid of that opportunity for you. The evil eye is meant to protect you from that. So we have evil eye’s in different parts; like, for instance, we have one in our car to prevent a car crash.”
“We have an evil eye in front of our house. You’re supposed to have an evil eye on top of the doorway to prevent bad things from entering. One day, during the time when I was applying for colleges, it BROKE. I remember, because my mom thought that that was a good thing. “It’s done it’s job,” she said. And so she put a new one up, and I got accepted into USC!”
“Another example was this: I was wearing my first ‘sexy dress’ in high school to this New Years ball. I had a hair piece, everything. I looked good. I was showing some cleavage. My aunt put an evil eye in my jacket, and said it would protect me from the boys. I still have it there in my pocket.”
What does the Evil Eye mean to you?
“The Evil Eye reminds me of my parents, because I have always considered them to be the most superstitious people. And I guess when I think about other types of ‘evil eyes’ in other cultures, it feels like it brings me closer to those people as well. There’s definitely a sense of identity with everything I’ve said here.”
Immediately, this made me think of the Jewish Mezuzah, which is a similar concept to the Turkish Evil Eye. The Mezuzah, a small piece of parchment scribbled with specific verses from the Torah, is put on a family’s doorway to prevent any bad luck from entering the home. When I brought up the Mezuzah to this person, she smiled, and informed me that she knew of the Mezuzah already. The evil eye is definitely something that reflects one’s culture, one’s traditions, and one’s superstitions. It’s for this reason that I am such a fan of the Mezuzah, as well as the evil eye now; it’s because I, as well as countless other people from a number of different cultures, can relate very strongly to it. How different can two peoples really be, when they’re unified by so many aspects of life?
Legend
Main Piece:
Me: hey Dachui. Can you give me some folklore?
Dachui: yes. So the Xujiahui Shopping mall in Shanghai has been playing that song Sorry My Baby after it closes, for like ten years. They said that where the shopping mall is right now used to be a place where they bury dead infants. Many newborn dead babies are buried there. They said after the mall was built, people could hear babies cry at night. Also, sometimes the toys in the shopping mall got messed up, and some of them even seemed to be bitten by kids.
Me: and then?
Dachui: then one day the shopping mall customer relations people got a geomancer to check out the problem. He said that there were too many ghosts of infants, so playing the song Sorry My Baby would help pacify their ghosts and stop them from messing around. Therefore, the shopping mall started playing the song every time they close the door. And then nothing happens anymore.
Context:
I first heard this legend from him during a theater club retreat. During the retreat, everyone sort of started to talk about the ghost stories in their hometown. So I recorded it from him.
Analysis:
My friend Dachui heard about this folklore mainly from his friends and parents. According to him, children would be warned about the shopping mall and to go around the area at night. He was really scared at first, but later when he grew up he didn’t trust it anymore. Later, the shopping mall stopped play that song at night, probably because the “ghosts” don’t come out anymore. The performer doesn’t really believe in the folklore. When he performed it, he tried to be like he wasn’t scared by it at all, but I felt like he must have been so scared by the legend.
Later I searched the original story online, which seems to be slightly different from the version he told me. In the version online, the geomancer later got into trouble with the case and seemed to get hurt from the “ghosts”. However, the end of the story is unknown, because China doesn’t really like the ghost story to haunt that area and the surrounding citizens, (Government control, yea.) indirectly controlling the spread and variation of folklore. Therefore, we don’t really know what happened later.