“La toma tu teta”

Nationality: Nicaraguan
Performance Date: 4/27/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The following is an interview between me and my friend, Edgar, while he was practicing piano over at the Caruso Catholic Center. He told me about a legend he knew from Nicaragua.

Edgar: “Okay, so it’s called ‘La toma tu teta’, and that’s literally– people in the country of Nicaragua believe that there is this woman walking around  who lost her child… in the river. a river nearby wherever the rumor started, right. So they believe in this woman whois just walking the streets and she is just yelling, ‘Toma tu teta! Toma tu teta!’ and crying and wailing and all that. And the reason why she is doing that is because if you translate ‘toma tu teta’ to English, it literally means, like, “Here is your breast.” So she is calling to the kid and saying ,like, right? ‘Come, I’m gonna feed you… so here is your breast’…breast, right? Like, here is, like, your boob (laughs). So, uh, I don’t know why people are scared of her. I don’t know if she’s actually like… ‘killed’ anyone, you know quote on quote, but, that’s like one of the myths that is in Nicaragua. There’s this one woman that walks around, like, saying this because she lost her child.”

Me: “Do you happen to remember, like, who or where you first heard this from?”

Edgar: “Um… in school.”

Me: “Like, elementary school?”

Edgar: “Yeah. Yeah, probably. It’s just that we have– we have, like, a whole, like, myths and legends that everyone from Nicaragua knows. And that– this would be one of them. And it’s actually pretty funny because, if you go to Nicaragua, and if you go to, like, the markets there, they sell these, like, mugs that are literally in the shape of a boob.”

Me: “Oh yeah! I’ve seen those.”

Edgar: “You’ve seen those, right? Yeah, so in Nicaragua they do it because of that… and also because we’re a little obscene… sometimes. (laughs) It’s bad, but they also refer to that myth.”

The thing about this I found the most interesting is the same thing Edgar was wondering about, of why exactly people are afraid of this legend. there is something very scary just about the idea of a woman losing her child, and what becomes of her psyche when that happens, but still, as Edgar said, it’s not like she’s known for killing anyone. So, perhaps it is just the disturbing tone of her backstory that scares people.

“If You Step on a Crack, You’ll Break Your Mother’s Back”

Nationality: USA
Performance Date: 4/27/17
Primary Language: English

The following is from an interview between me and my friend, Rick, at the front office of the Caruso Catholic Center. He told me about playground folklore that I myself used to experience all the time.

Rick: “Uh, like, ‘If you step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back,’ is just something that kids used to say, and so you would have to, like, jump around the cracks on the sidewalk and on the playground so that… you… didn’t hurt your mom? (laughs)”

Me: “Do you know, like, who first told you that, by any chance?”

Rick: “Um, I remember it being on an episode of ‘The Fairly OddParents’, um, and there would be, like, a evil fairy that would come up with a jackhammer to his mom’s back every time he stepped on a crack, I think.”

I remember playing this game as a kid as well. The weird thing for me, though, was that it sort of became routine and burned into my mind to always avoid cracks for a really long time. The anxiety was never rooted in my mom’s back breaking, since I always knew that was just a funny rhyme, but I still always made sure I would never step on cracks on the sidewalk, or really on any surface.

Cure for Illness Supposedly Caused by Evil Spirits

Nationality: Mexican-American
Performance Date: 4/27/17
Primary Language: English

The following is from an interview between me and my friend, Elizabeth, at the front desk of the Caruso Catholic Center. She told me about an odd cure for illnesses which are supposedly caused by evil spirits.

Elizabeth: “Okay, so when I was 3 years old, I got very, very sick to the point where everybody in my family thought that I was gonna die, like I was having night sweats and, like, tremors, and I, like actually had the physical signs of sickness. And so, we went to– my parents took me to the the best doctors and they just couldn’t tell what was wrong with me. So, they really couldn’t do anything for me and we went back to see one of my aunts in–(laughs) in Mexico. I was also very, very sick, so, um, my parents did this just because it was, like, their last hope. And, what my aunt did was some kind of, like ritual where she took an egg, um,  a raw egg, and she, like, just shook it all over my body, and, like, rubbed it all over me. And then by doing that, when they cracked the egg they could see, like, what the spirit was that was, like, possessing me, or so they thought. So when they cracked the egg it was, like, the image of an evil eye, so they thought that somebody, like, casted an evil eye on me and that’s why I got sick. And then after she did that I was, like, (snaps) miraculously better the next day.”

Me: “Whoa. That’s amazing.”

Elizabeth: “I know, isn’t that crazy?”

Me: “Does that, like, belongs to, like, any specific culture?”

Elizabeth: “I don’t know if it’s, like, a cultural thing. I have no idea why my parents would have even thought to go, like, take me to Mexico when I was very ill. Maybe they thought that there was something there that could help me. So, I don’t know if that’s a hispanic tradition. I don’t know if that’s anything to do with, like, witchcraft, or anything like that. But, um… my aunt is not a witch. She is (laughs) definitely not like a, you know, a spiritual healer or anything, but she knew to do that. So, I don’t know what to make of that. But, here I am today (laughs).”

I always love it when crazy folk medicine miraculously cures people of their ailments when nothing else can. Because of this, Elizabeth treated her explanation of the cure with a lot of reverence. Even though she knew it was crazy, she still talked about it with a kind of awe since it was the thing that cured her.

Filipino Birthday Tradition

Nationality: Filipino American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago
Performance Date: 4/23/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: filipino

Informant:

June is from Chicago, Illinois and is a current junior in college.

Piece:

So a family tradition that we have is for all of our birthday’s um instead of baking a cake, my mom would cook a traditional filipino dish called pancit. It’s basically like noodles with like vegetables, chicken meats. All the things you would want. It’s a very healthy dish and it’s supposed to be that instead of a cake which is very fattening and sugary um something that’s healthy so you can live a longer life. There are various i guess different noodles you can use, but my parents always use i guess these same very thing ones.

Collector’s thoughts:

The idea of eating healthy food at one’s birthday in order to guarantee another year of good health is an interesting idea that makes a lot of sense. Not only does the yearly meal work as a good luck charm for good health, but also connects the informant back to his filipino heritage.

A conjestion remedy

Nationality: African American
Age: 51
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/17
Primary Language: English

Informant: My mother was told by her grandmother

Original Script: Take a sock and put clothes of garlic in it, then put it around you neck to clear the sinuses

Background: This was used before Vick’s vapor rub to cure congestion in the chest

Thoughts: My mom said it never worked it just made you smell bad.