Tag Archives: Folk Belief

Purple Fuzzy Bear

Nationality: African American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 25, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant H is 19 years old and was born in Inglewood CA. She moved to a place near Valencia just outside of LA soon after she was born. After 5 years, her little sister was born, then her little brother, and then her youngest sister. The family then moved to Bakersfield. H homeschooled for many years and then transitioned into a public high school.

 

H: So the very first people who started Xpressions started this um I guess its like a pre-show ritual where they have this little purple fuzzy stuffed animal and he’s about, I don’t know, he’s very small like this size, like a small ball. And we stand in a circle um backstage before its time for our show and the director holds the little fuzzy bear and he goes around and he puts it in front of everyone and everyone has to kiss the fuzzy bear for good luck.

Me: That’s really cute. Do you think people believe this will actually give them good luck and if they don’t do it like maybe they wont have a good performance that night?

H: Not necessarily. I think we know that the amount of effort and time we put into it is what’s gonna make it a good show but I think its just something that everyone has done every semester. So just knowing that from the very first group of people who did it now were doing it its cool that connection to the people who started it.

Me: So it’s about the history and the tradition more?

H: Right.

Me: Do you think the bear itself has any significance? Other than it was picked sort of randomly, do you know why it’s purple…?

H: I don’t know why its purple, I think its just a personal article, I don’t know any other significance to the bear.

Me: Do you believe personally that if you had done this or if you don’t, do you think something is going to happen?

H: Nope! I just think it’s a cute tradition.

Me: Do you think that’s why people do it? They just do this because it’s a nice bonding exercise?

H: Yes, I think it’s very much like a bonding exercise.

Me: Do you think it serves any other function besides a bonding thing between you guys?

H: I feel like bonding is mainly…and just that you know that that’s something you have in common with the Xpressions people because I know its changed over the years. So that’s something you have in common with someone who is an alumni of Xpressions, like oh you remember when you kissed the fuzzy bear?

Me: Is this like a secret thing? Do you guys talk about it very much?

H: Um no its just something we do like right before the show just like oh remember guys kiss the bear.

Me: And all the new members everyone together…?

H: Yeah everyone.

 

Analysis:

This dance group uses this fun tradition and ritual to bring all its members together and prepare them to work together as a unit for the show. Like other rituals, it ties them to the past and the origins of the group while keeping them in the present as they are about to perform. Also like other rituals, this takes place on a liminal moment in time, right before the dancers perform and is used to bring the dancers good luck.  This ritual also includes a kind of folk item, the fuzzy bear.

Soviet Folk Belief

Nationality: American (ethnicity: Jewish [parents both born in Soviet Satellite countries])
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Item:

“All right so uh, basically, if you leave your apartment, and it’s apartment because nobody lived in houses in the Soviet Union, I’m pretty sure it’s a Soviet thing, um if you leave your apartment, you better not come back in, because if you come back in you might get run over by a bus that day. Um if you really have to come in though, you have to look in a mirror before you re-exit your apartment because uh, and I wish I remember what my grandma told me about this, something about staring into your soul.”

Context:

The informant (his parents are from Ukraine and Azerbaijan) and his family observe this folk belief. He stated: “My mom does not let me go back inside if I’ve forgotten something, she freaks out, she’s like, ‘no, wait outside, I’ll get it for you,’ and she comes out and brings it to me. She won’t hand it to me through the doorway. My mom’s neighbor got hit by a bus when she was a kid, and I’m pretty sure the little girl went back inside to get her jacket, as far as I remember.”

Analysis:

I tried to research this folk belief online and could not find anything, therefore I believe that this belief is particular to the informant’s family. That the informant’s mom’s neighbor got hit by a bus confirms, in my mind, my opinion of the folk belief: I feel it arose in the aftermath of the little girl’s death. The part about the mirror confounds me though, because it is seemingly unrelated to the death of the little girl.

Santa Margarita Burning

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Margarita
Performance Date: March 24 2013
Primary Language: English

Every year at the end of the school year, a few seniors who are graduating from Santa Margarita High School meet at the 12th hole of the Coto de Caza golf course. They bring all of their high school text books, work books, notebooks, and their school uniforms with them. They walk to the sand trap near the green of the 12th hole and throw all of their High School paraphernalia into the sand pit. Next, they pour lighter fluid all over the books and clothes for exactly twelve seconds. The number twelve marks the years of schooling they have been through; they are graduating from the 12th grade. After twelve seconds, each person involved lights a match and throws it into the pile of books and cloths. They stand around the burning sand pit until all the cloths and books are turned to ash. This ritual is meant to symbolize the moving on to the next stage of life: college.
It is natural that Ian and his friends would do a book burning because of the way American society is future oriented. We are always looking into the future and treat the past as something that is behind us. In another culture, people might find it wasteful or dumb to burn old books because they contain knowledge. However, the future oriented society we live in makes it acceptable to burn books and move on to whatever comes next.

Jinxed

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: London, UK
Performance Date: March 19th, 2013
Primary Language: English

This is about a folk belief that my informant has about the notion of acknowledging something, and by acknowledgement causing the situation to change for the worse.

“The only superstition that I only kind of semi believe that I don’t believe at all, but if I were going to believe one this is the closest I come to believing one, is when you say something and acknowledge it you jinx it. Like, when Simon came with a new machine for the credit card, and he said “oh yeah it’s got bigger print and everything so you can read it”, and I said “oh but does it work?” And it didn’t work. Or you go outside and say it’s great weather and then it rains. It’s something about acknowledging it out loud and then all of a sudden it goes away. But I still don’t really believe that. But sometimes I actually don’t say something because I’m afraid if I say it then I will have jinxed it.”

Despite the informant’s protestations that she did not ascribe to this folk belief, she ascribes to it enough that she actively modifies her behavior in order to avoid its potential consequences. It’s expressing the idea that some things are simply too good to occur, and if one acknowledges it then the universe might pay attention and take it away, or perhaps that a stroke of good luck can be removed by acknowledging that one is having it. It’s almost a type of magic, wherein one acknowledges a reality and that acknowledgement will change the existence of that reality.

You See Ghosts If You Believe in Them

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts Major)
Residence: Burbank, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

“You only see ghosts if you believe in them.”

 

The informant was made aware of this belief when she was about seven years old. This was one of several stories she was told by her cousins, who were eight and 12 at the time of the telling. They had passed this on to the informant because they were vouching for it’s validity, and because it had become popular in their school.

The informant lamented that this presented a Catch 22, because she was still developing her position on her belief/disbelief in ghosts, so she scared herself by imagining them bobbing towards her bed at night, forcing her to hide under the covers, (in a way, her this saying became a self-fulfilling prophecy for her). The saying that was meant to scare ended up serving that purpose by causing the informant to scare herself.

This is a good example of why ghost stories are so widely spread in a variety of cultures. Beliefs like this one weight the chances of ghosts as reality in favor of their existence by perpetuating that the consequences for believing otherwise are worse than those of believing mistakenly.