Tag Archives: Black

Black Cats Superstition

Nationality: American, Argentinian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: La Jolla, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“Black cats are bad luck.”

Context and Analysis:

My informant is a 19-year-old female. I asked my informant if she knew of any superstitions people live by.  To this, she responded,  “black cats are bad luck.” My informant does not remember when she first heard this superstition, but she thinks it was around the time of Halloween. She claims she also saw it in a tv show she watched as a child called, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In the show, the black cat was friends with the witch. The informant states that a black cat is a sign that something bad is going to happen. For example, if you are going somewhere and you see a black cat it means something bad will happen in the near future. The informant recalls,

“One time I was driving in the car with a friend and her dad, can’t remember who it was, but we saw a black cat crossing the road and my friend’s dad turned around and drove the other way. My friend says that every time her dad is driving, and he sees a black cat he has to turn around and take an alternate route.”

The informant says she does not believe this is true and feels bad for black cats because everyone thinks they are evil.

I too have heard this superstition that black cats are bad luck. It is interesting to note the association with color. The color black is often used when referencing fear, mystery, evil and death. All of these themes are common around the time of Halloween, so it makes sense the informant believes to have heard this superstition around that time. One also wears black to a funeral to represent the mourning of a loved one. Therefore, seeing a black cat by the color alone can imply death. Death is a mysterious subject terrifying for many people. The black cats’ color can be enough to make people fear the superstition. Cats are also animals that hold a lot of mystery. Often it is said cats have nine lives. This makes the superstition that black cats are bad luck even more fascinating because if the color black is associated with death, and cats have nine lives, could this have some sort of implication that cats can take lives? An intriguing relationship to note.  When looking into this superstition I also found a reference to it in the book Fearful, Spirits, reasoned follies the boundaries of superstition in the late medieval Europe by Michael David Bailey. He also speaks of the association cats have with demonic beings and magical connections.

Bailey, Michael David. Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies the Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe. Cornell University Press, 2013.

Good Luck Butterflies

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25, 2017
Primary Language: English

An old woman told my friend that seeing seeing white butterflies is good luck.

Lindsey: I was working on a community service gardening project and this old woman started talking to me. She said that if a black butterfly lands on you, it means you or someone you are close to will die or get very very ill. By the same token, a white butterfly indicates good luck.

Me: Had you ever heard of this before?

Lindsey: No, but I told my mom, and she said that a white butterfly is only good luck if the first butterfly you see in a year is white.

Analysis: In many cultures and religions, butterflies can be a symbol of rebirth. At first, one is young, and then they go into a sort of hibernation, and then they break from a cocoon into a beautiful butterfly. White is an auspicious color as well, in that white often symbolizes purity, goodness, and untarnished youth. To see a white butterfly, an animal which is relatively elusive and fast-moving, is to glimpse at a special gift that feels as though only you were meant to see it.

La-a (pronounced “Ladasha”)

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Montclair, NJ
Performance Date: 4/29/15
Primary Language: English

The informant told me about this joke when I asked him about some good jokes he had heard.

Informant: “So this is a joke I’ve heard from many people, some of them have claimed it to be true. The joke goes: ‘I heard about this person named Ladasha, and her name is spelled La-a. So it’s “Laa”, but it’s pronounced Ladasha. And I’ve heard this as a joke from some people. But one person who told me, actually insisted that they knew someone who knew Ladasha. Which is obviously not true.”

Collector: “Why is this a joke, what’s the funny part about it?”

Informant: “Oh, its just typography”

Collector: “When did you hear this first?”

Informant: “High school I believe, a couple years ago. I would hear about it every couple months or so. It was a thing people knew about.”

Collector: “Why do you think specifically the name Ladasha?”

Informant: “Because its funny and it sounds like a real name”

Collector: “It sounds like an African American name. Is there any reason why that is?”

Informant: “Some of those names I’ve seen do have vanity punctuation”

Collector: “So do you think this is poking fun at that?”

Informant: “Probably. I think there’s a Tiana in my high school (T’ana) so it’d be like, ‘T’ana’ so that was a vanity punctuation”

Collector: “So Ladasha could be a real name”

Informant: “Yes. But more likely I think is that someone named their baby that after they heard the joke”

This joke, in my opinion, is likely to indeed be poking fun at some African American names with unconventional punctuation, or as my informant called it, “vanity punctuation.”

Black Moths

Nationality: American/Guatemalan
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Boston, MA
Performance Date: 04/25/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant is a student from my folklore class, and we ended up meeting and exchanging stories and superstitions one night.

Script

“It’s really bad luck to kill a black moth, especially the large ones that will land on the wall. They are a sort of bad omen , since the seem to attract death. If you see one in your house, just leave it be and don’t try to scare it away, because it is the spirit of someone who has died, or who is going to die, and the appearance of the moth is either a premonition of a death, or a sign that a death has occurred.”

I asked whether the moth was necessarily a bad spirit, or just a bad omen if you were to mess with it.

“One time when my mother was thirteen years old, she saw a black moth land on the wall of her room. She didn’t disturb it and just left it there, since her mother had told her the same omen. Literally an hour letter, they received a phone call saying my uncle died in a motorcycle accident.”

I asked if the moths visit someone that has a relationship with the spirit.

“Yeah, it kind of solidifies the idea that the moth is supposed to symbolize.”

I asked if her mom knew about the moth’s significance before the encounter described previously.

“No, and then coincidentally enough the death happened. But I’ve encountered moths and I just leave them be.”

Background & Analysis

When I asked if other colored moths are also bad omens, the informant said it is only the black ones, since the color black is associated with death. Also, she described them as somber creatures that always travel alone, and tend to be very frightening and intimidating since their size is so tremendous.

The informant’s mother is from a small, secluded town that is surrounded by mountains called Monjas in Guatemala. Although the town has become more modernized over the past few decades, many of the traditions and superstitions still circulate. The informant is from Boston, MA, but attends USC, and she often travels to Guatemala to visit family.

Present in folklore across many cultures are animals or other figures that represent death. Death is universal, and even though cultures and traditions can be very different, one of the things that binds everyone together is the cycle of life. Over time, humans have become more and more obsessed with death, whether it be the fear of it or the fascination with it. The black moth is just another example among countless others.

Black Magic

Nationality: Japanese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Anaheim, CA
Performance Date: March 5, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

In order to do Black Magic, you are going to need two performers.  Performer #1 is the asker while performer #2 is the guesser.  Performer #1 tells the audience the he/she has a telepathic connection with #2 and tells #2 to leave the room.  #1 then tells an audience member to pick any object in the room.  #1 will then say that he/she be able to transmit what the object is to #2.  After the audience member picks (we will say a chair for this example), #2 returns to the room.  #1 will then start asking questions such as, “Is it this shirt? Is it her hair?” #2 will then respond with “no” until finally #1 will ask “Is it the chair?” and #2 will say, “Yes.”  At this point the audience member will be shocked that #2 was able to figure out the object.  The trick here occurs when #1 is asking the questions about what the object is; the object that is named right before the chosen object is always predominantly black in color.  For example, #1 will ask, “Is it her shirt?” and points at somebody’s black shirt.  The color black is the cue that the object in the next question is the chosen object.  If people ask for hints as to how the trick work, just tell them to think about the name of the game.

My informant told me about this game during a dinner party.  On this occasion, my informant wanted to play this game but unfortunately for her, nobody else in the group knew about it.  She decided to tell me about it so that I could be performer number two. We both performed the game a couple times with the other people in the dinner party, and everyone was constantly throwing guesses for how I was able to correctly ascertaining the chosen object.

I asked my informant where she got this fun party game from and she said she had learned about it from her cousin at a family reunion party.  Her cousin had wanted to convince her younger relatives that she was psychic and she used this to do so.  Hearing this, I speculate that this game is probably derived from fake psychics who wanted to prove their ability.  By practicing this activity, the “psychic” would then be able to convince customers that there “powers” are real.