Tag Archives: bad luck

White Lighter Superstition – Police

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: January 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college student, artist and avid pot smoker. He knows a lot of “stoner tricks” as he calls them, most of which he learned from friends in high school. These and other aspects of weed culture mean a lot to him because he sees pot as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity. Uniquely, as far as I have heard, he also uses it as a form of self-medication; he has ADHD and takes Ritalin, but says that it makes him feel mentally cloudy and slow, and that weed, for him, clears things up and makes him able to focus more easily. Thus, pot is an integral part of his daily life, both socially and personally.

 

He learned about the white lighter superstition from his freshman roommate, who was also an avid smoker.

 

This interview was conducted in the informant’s bedroom, with another friend of his who had a different version of the superstition.

 

“So the legend of the white lighter… One version I’ve heard is that it’s bad luck because normally the… ok, this is more of an omen… whatever man. So what happens is the uh, ganja smokers will tap the lighter down on the pipe to push down the ash, and that makes it like stay on the bottom of it so you use dark lighters to conceal that but like, a white lighter, sometimes the police will look at the bottom of it, and if they see ash stains then they know that you’re using it for illegal activities. Well, depending on where you are.”

 

This is one of two versions of the white lighter superstition I collected, and has more to do with the illegality of pot and the luck component to getting caught or not getting caught. He learned about it within the context of smoking in a college dorm, where he was more worried about getting caught with pot because the risk and consequence was higher, and I assume that’s why he remembered this superstition.

Dokgyebi’s Club

Nationality: Korean
Age: 86
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: 3/20/2014
Primary Language: Korean

홍두깨도깨비(Hong Du Kkye Dogyebi) – Dokgyebi’s Club

The Informant:

Born in Korea before the split, she managed to escape to South Korea during the Korean War with her husband and family. She immigrated to the U.S. and resides in New Jersey with her eldest son and her grandchildren.

 The Story:

도깨비가 자기의 홍두깨를 치고 다니면 돈이 가득하게 찬 우물하고 분수들이 땅에서 나타난데. 도개비는 머리위에 유니콘처럼 뿔이있고 마술사 같아. 사람들에게 “넌 뭘 갖고싶니?” 하면서 돌아다녀. 좋은 사람들한테만 주지 근데. 나쁜 사람이 돈 달라고하면 아니면 소원을 빌면 그 도깨비는 얼굴이 화나게 변신을하고 그 나쁜 사람에게 불행을 빌지. 도깨비는 밤에만 나타나. 어떤 귀신이라고 생각할수도있고, 하지만 무섭지는않아. 착한 귀신이지, 좋은 사람한테는.

 When the dokgyebi hits its club around wells of money springs out. It has a small horn on its head, like a unicorn. It is like a magician and can make things appear or make wishes come true. It walks around and asks people what they want. When a bad person asks a dokgyebi for money or a wish, the dokgyebi face become mad and wishes the bad person illness. When a good person asks a dokgyebi for money or a wish, it is granted. A dokgyebi only appears at night. It is a type of ghost, but it is not scary to nice people.  

The Analysis:

A dokgyebi appears randomly and only at night. It is a mystical figure, almost a cross between a ghost and a fairy. Instead of a wand it carries around a club, which signifies that it is not only nice but also can be bad. However, it is mean to only people with bad hearts or ill intentions. The meaning of the story is that one should be careful of how one lives, no matter the time and space. You never know who is watching you and so you should always try to lead a give life, inside and out.

 

Mattress Tag

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 27
Occupation: Game designer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15th, 2014
Primary Language: English

Information about the Informant

My informant grew up in Hacienda Heights where he went to high school, and received his bachelor’s degree from USC. He is a game designer and is currently working for a social mobile gaming company based in Westwood.

Transcript

“This might be from TV, but, um, if you cut off the tag on your bed, that brings you like seven years bad luck. Have you heard that?”

Collector: “I’ve heard breaking a mirror.”

“Oh yeah, breaking a mirror. [laughs]”

Collector: “I haven’t heard take…”

“Cutting the tag. The mattress–”

Collector: “The price tag?”

“Yeah. Or, or like the…I guess it’s the carer tag. Like how to take care of it.”

Analysis

I did a bit of research and found no real research conducted on this piece of folklore. There were some poorly worded comments on Yahoo! Answers and various similar sites where individual people indicated that they also thought it was bad luck to cut the tag off a mattress. But mostly what I found were sites that addressed the false belief that cutting the tag off a mattress would result in legal prosecution should the owner be found out. These sites addressed the fact that care tags used to be required on mattresses so that the customer could read the tag and know exactly what materials were used to make and stuff the mattresses. For the store owner to cut the tag off then in order to deceive his customers then was an illegal move. The warning that the government placed on the tag warning store owners not to remove the tag was worded poorly however, and left consumers consumed as to whether or not they could remove the tags after purchase. How this translated from possible legal prosecution though to bad luck, I’m not exactly sure, although it’s undeniable that being arrested could certainly be interpreted as bad luck, and the origins of this “bad luck” lost somewhere along the line for some people.

Childhood Gesture Curse

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Artist
Residence: Echo Park, CA
Performance Date: 4.28.14
Primary Language: English

Item:

“Hahah in retrospect it sounds ridiculous — yelling ‘Whammy whammy whammy’ while wiggling our fingers. But man we took it so seriously, you didn’t just do that shit light-heartedly, that was a big deal.”

When the informant was in 2nd grade, there was a gesture children at school could perform to curse another person. It involved placing one hand over the other with palms down, interlocking the fingers, extending the arms to point at the “target”, and saying “Whammy” three times in a row. It would supposedly give that person terrible luck. It was only performed in serious cases of disliking someone, not to be taken lightly. There was no way to break the curse.

 

Context:

This friend of mine said he learned the gesture from his older brother, who claimed it was something passed down for many years. The curse was taken most seriously by his own friend group but not ignored by others. The nature of the “bad luck” or the curse isn’t clear, but the implications were severe. They wouldn’t do it to eachother but to people outside of their friend group. They performed it for only about a year before they stopped doing it. He claims they simply outgrew the concept of it.

 

Analysis:

“Cursing” or “hexing” other kids on the playground definitely seems like a widespread thing, especially around the age of 2nd graders. In part it seems to be a way to cope non-violently with someone you dislike, but also has a lot of tones of exclusivity associated with it. In this particular case it was performed primarily by one group (my friend and his group) but recognized by people outside of the group. Around that age, a lot more aggression crops up and kids get in fights, form exclusive groups, and deal with new confrontational issues. With schools and parents obviously trying to diminish this resulting in physical altercations or anything beyond children disagreeing with eachother, it seems fitting that kids would find indirectly harmful ways to affect someone, e.g. casting a curse that gives a target bad luck. Then, the things that happen to the person aren’t the fault of the curse-caster, but rather the curse itself.

No Sea Voyage on Tuesdays

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/18/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Bio: Informant is a friend and fellow business major.  He is a sophomore at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.  His family is from Mexico.  He has moved around both Mexico and the U.S., spending significant time in Illinois.  He currently lives in Southern California.

 

Context: I was interviewing Stan about folk beliefs and traditions that he has been exposed to.  He shared with me the following folk belief common among the people in Mexico.

 

Item: “El martes no te cases ni te embarcues” – never embark on a voyage on a Tuesday.  If you do, your ship will sink.  Even if you don’t believe it, people still don’t “test” it.”

 

Informant Analysis: Not sure about why Tuesday is bad, but people in his town heed this rule.

 

Analysis: Although the specific day of Tuesday might be related to some distant family member or someone in the village experiencing bad sailing luck on a Tuesday, the superstition has stuck around and pervaded in the town of the informant.  Most likely, empirical evidence would show no merit to the claim, but the people in this town must subscribe to the idea that the day of the week inherently has virtues or characteristics that are associated with it.