Informant: My friend who is from Brazil
Original Script: ” A girl with platinum blonde hair was murdered in the bathroom. She looks super pale with bloody cotton ball in her nose, she looks like a corpse. You go in the bathroom and switch on the lights and flush the toilet three times and she appears.”
Background: The Brazilian version of the children’s game Bloody Mary
Informant: My sister’s boyfriend was told by his father who is of latin descent
Original Script: “In latin traditions the believe in spirits, in your home when you have negative spirits, their is a evil witch that comes while your sleeping and she suffocates you while you scream you cant move and she is their because you have allot of evil in your life. The way to get rid of her is through the jesus candles to purify the room”
Background: The story is to explain sleep paralysis
Thoughts: This is an example of the explanation of natural causes and sicknesses in the body that can’t be explaining by non-advanced medical knowledge. Folk beliefs were used to explain these diseases.
Informant: My friend, her mom would tell her this who is from the midwest
Original Script: ‘A watched pot never boils’
Background: The meaning behind this is if you stay on top of your life, you won’t loose control.
Thoughts: I have never heard this proverb but it encourages self-reliance and accountability and in American we highly regard these traits, so it makes sense that it is well known in America.
Informant: My dad was in the US Navy for 4 years
Original Script: To become a shellback in the US Navy you have to cross the equator. Legend has it that King Neptune lives on the equator and if you cross it you become a shellback. When you become a shellback there is a ceremony were a someone dresses up as King Neptune and gives you a shellback card.
Background: A shellback is a sort of fraternity in the Navy, Navy men give respect to shellback backs because you have to sail for a long time to be able to cross the equator, some Navy men that spent 20 years in the Navy has never crossed the equator.
Thoughts: I thought the ceremony was comical, the idea that someone dresses up as King Neptune show dedication to their tradition. The shellbacks get really into it and show respect to those who made an accomplishment that goes unnoticed to a civilian.
Informant: My sister spent a semester as a transfer student at Howard University and the campus was heavily into greek life. Most of the student population was apart of the Divine 9.
Original script: Greek organizations have well known stories of their hazing. For the divine 9 sororities, the women are known for intense hazing at Howard. The sorority of delta sigma theta is known for having their pledges swim across the lake across the street from the university. At 7am, the pledges are blindfolded and taken to the lake wearing only under garments and told to race across the lake and the last 3 will not be admitted into the sorority.
Background: My sister asked what delta sigma theta initiations were like when deciding to join a sorority.
Thoughts: I don’t agree with the hazing if it crosses an inappropriate boundary, but having traditions and rituals in a organization bring members closer together because they are bonded by the memories and hardships they went through to be accepted.