Sana Sana

Age: 24

TEXT: Sana Sana Colita de Rana

CONTEXT:

Informant- “Okay, so Sana Sana is, I guess I think it’s like, when I’ve looked it up online, it’s supposed to be like a nursery rhyme. It’s usually what people use to consult the children in their family when they’re not feeling well, when they’re hurt, which I think means heel heal- something like that. So the full story for me is that I grew up, I grew up having stomach issues, problems with my GI, or GI issues, um, problems with my intestines as they were like distant I was a kid. And so I was always in pain. And I was especially in pain, like if I ate something that didn’t agree with me. And at that point, I didn’t have it under control like I did now, so it really any little thing would hurt me. And my grandma would always, I go, I’d run to my grandma and I’d tell her that my stomach was hurting or something like that. And so she would like sit with me or she’d lay me down and she’d put her hand. It was specifically her right hand, her right hand on my stomach, and she would say “sana sana colita de rana” and she would change it. She’d say make (informant’s) belly feel so much better. And then she’d like, as she’s like rubbing it, then she’d like pretend like she was pulling the illness out of me and like grab it off my stomach. So, I guess my relationship to it is that it reminds me of my grandma. I even as an adult, like even when I was 18 years old, I would still say, grandma, my stomach hurts. “Can you sana sana me?” And she would come over and son us son on me… I don’t really remember the very first time I heard it. It’s just always been something that she’s done for me. Um. Yeah, I guess it is a sense of the comfort for me. Cultural reference, obviously, for me being Hispanic and like that, but it is a sense of comfort for me that she would use it. I don’t know if it was mind like a minding her mentality kind of thing that I swear every time she did do it, I ended up feeling better after that. So that is my full story of sana sana. That’s my relationship to it. It kind of follows my relationship with my grandma. And I she would always use it when I wasn’t feeling well, mainly with my intestinal issues.”

ANALYSIS:

In the story, the informant tells me of their experience with this traditionally, Hispanic saying and how it was used to comfort her as a child with intestinal issues even into her adulthood. She goes into whether or not she believed that just her grandmother saying this and performing a specific hand motion tricked her mind into making her feel better, but regardless, she believes wholeheartedly that the same always made her feel better. I know this informant quite well and during times where I myself have gotten hurt or felt sick she has performed Sana Sana on me and I think that it’s a very sweet and caring way of sharing culture with someone else.

La Caballota or The Horse Lady

Age: 21

TEXT:

Informant- “There are a few like little stories about creatures and ghosts in Guatemala. My favorite one is called La Caballota, or the Horse Lady. My great grandma would tell me the story when I was a little girl. And pretty much just my great grandmama and my great grandpa saw her once. They were at the beach and they saw beautiful women with gorgeous, long hair. And when she was, they were just walking, right? And then she turns around and they see her face. She had a horse face, right? They got really scared and they started running away. But as they were running away, their feet got really heavy and it felt like they had bricks on their feet. So they were slowing down. Thankfully, they made it out. That was not the only time they met her, though, but I just find it really interesting because supposedly, this, like, ghost or creature or whatever, it only appears to men usually driving by themselves at night. So I thought it was really interesting that it appears to both my great grandma and great grandpa in a very different circumstance.”

CONTEXT:

A Guatemalan ghost story about a beautiful woman with long hair and the face of a horse, who traditionally only appears to men driving home at night. This story was told by a person of Guatemalan descent and nationality who currently resides in Chicago.

ANALYSIS:

The informant shares her connection with a ghost story that’s close to home as she has been told it from family members and her great grandparents have stated themselves that it happened to them and shared their account of the tale with her. This has created a stronger belief in the ghost story itself and cemented it, not as just a tale, but rather a legend.

Lucky and Unlucky

Age: 23

TEXT

Collector: What do you find lucky, what do you wish on?

Informant: I wish on birthday candles and I suppose if I ever saw a shooting star, however I haven’t. This works for me because I’ve always heard about it in stories and movies. Something lucky is a ladybug if I ever see one because my mom told me stories of ladybugs being lucky and making a wish on them as you let them fly away.

Collector: What about bad luck? What can you tell me about that?

Informant: Bad luck or superstitions like going under a ladder or seeing a black cat pass by? If I see a black cat on my path, I usually don’t feel unlucky because there is a black cat that always visits my house and I always give him food, and at one time, he was a strange black cat that crossed my path.

CONTEXT

This informant from Chicago provides me with their take on luck and bad luck, as well as how these superstitions formed. They cited ladybugs, shooting stars, and birthday candles as both symbols of good luck and something to wish upon. Whereas they spoke on superstitions they grew up being designated as bad luck, such as black cats and walking under ladders, but offer their disbelief in these rituals.

ANALYSIS

Talking to this informant was interesting because it revealed what makes something lucky/ unlucky to some individuals and how those superstitions form. This individual uses firsthand experience to dictate what superstitions they believe, and emotional attachments and stories passed on by family to determine luck. In this family, they have cultivated their own ritual of catching, releasing, and wishing on a ladybug as it flies away, symbolically releasing the wish into the world.

Cures for Colds

Age: 21

TEXT:

Do you have any cures for colds in your family?

Informant: “So when I get a cold, pretty much what we do first is my mom buys eucalyptus leaves and we take a real hot shower with them. Supposedly it’s to help open our lungs. Then my mom will buy some guavas, and it’ll make guava tea. She’ll put cinnamon on it and then once it’s done, we will put in a little help with some honey to help our sore throats and then pretty much just a bunch of rest. And then in our rooms, we will cut half an onion and it’s supposed to help kill the virus.”

CONTEXT:

The context behind these cures for colds, are traditions that the informant has learned from her family who grew up in Guatemala and things that she was raised with.

ANALYSIS:

Though some aspects of these crews for colds can’t technically be proven with science, such as cutting an onion in half to help kill the virus, the belief in the tradition of enacting leaves forms of folk medicine can often serve as a way just to make one feel better within their own mind and thus promote themselves to take better care of themselves to get better faster. Additionally, cures such as guava tea and eucalyptus showers have been specified by this family and culture making it specific to them and those in their community 

Senior Pranks

Age: 21

TEXT:

Informant- “Senior year of high school at my school we always had to do, in the theater department, a senior prank on the lower classmen and the teachers and each year it would be different like VERY different and people would go all out. One year people brought sand giant, like inflatable pools and we had a beach day in the classroom and all the underclassmen had to watch us and we locked them out. One class had our school mascot like in the room filled with cups of water so no one could go get it. It was very odd and like, signs warning about “the tornado” cause that’s our mascot. I can’t remember any other ones but each year we would try to like up the other group do better, one up of them, and it really brought the senior class together!”

CONTEXT: The informant recounts the time in high school in Florida and the various senior pranks that happened during her time there.

ANALYSIS:

Pranks as a rite of passage are very important to many people, especially the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the limbo of being a teenager in high school. I think the added element of being in the theater department in high school and having that extra layer of folk and community adds to the competitiveness of the pranks to will not be each other and bond in a way through these pranks