Tag Archives: Religion

Fa’amuamua Le Atua

Nationality: Samoan American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student athlete
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Samoan

The informant’s family originated in Samoa, his parents were born and raised there before traveling and moving into the United States. He takes many visits to Samoa and is very in touch with his Samoan heritage and culture. He shared some common folklore with me that he could think of off of the top of his head. 

“Fa’amuamua Le Atua”

Informant…

“A common saying that is used pretty religiously in my family goes:

Fa’amuamua Le Atua meaning: Put God first.

My family is extremely religious and we use this pretty often. We believe in the high power of God and we realize that we wouldn’t be where we are today or blessed with what we are blessed with if it weren’t for God. We use it as a reminder to help us line up our priorities with God and our duties to God being the first thing on the list [priority list], to be grateful for what he has done for us and will continue to do, and to remind us that without him being in our lives we wouldn’t thrive. ”

Analysis…

This statement is definitely not new to me. I have heard it before and it has also been expressed to me from my parents and their parents. I think that this statement on how you should essentially run your life is widespread throughout the would because of the common christianity that many cultures have. It is interesting that other cultures besides our own use similar sayings and statements that mean the same thing and are interpreted the same way. This statement in particular “Fa’amuamua Le Atua or Put God First” is translated and applied differently by different people but essentially it means the same thing and can be applied the same way.

The Golden Rule

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/1/15
Primary Language: English

Context:

The informant, who is Buddhist, gave a presentation at a recent retreat on spirituality that I had gone on. I asked to meet with him to talk about other Buddhist principles and lore that he had not gone over at the retreat.

Transcript:

Informant: So I’ve heard this in various forms. It’s the Golden Rule. Uh, which is to, “Do unto others what you would like done to you.” And this is the kind of, uh, general rule of thumb. And that’s something that like I think my parents espoused on me. And I grew up as a Buddhist, so a lot about, you know, the passion, kindness, love, in that form, was always definitely valued. What was interesting is, I’ve heard it in a different form, one time at a Buddhist summer camp. Um, it was flipped around to say, “Do not do unto others what you would not like done to you.” Um, the whole premise being, like, don’t, you know, don’t project your beliefs or values onto another person, um, because the previous iteration of that would have you projecting, like, “Oh, I like this thing. So thereby you must like this thing as well.” But that’s flipped to be the other way, where you don’t assume you know what they would like, but recognize what you would not like, and then respect those boundaries in other people as well. And I think, I think that’s a good way of flipping it. And I think it’s also a very Buddhist way of flipping it, in that like… Oh, you know, to mitigate suffering for other people, recognize where suffering comes from and like, just don’t do it. But definitely the first time I saw it, I think was like a poster in the middle school, a really like, tacky, general quote that people have. Like inspirational things. And then like, I read it and I was like, yeah, that’s a pretty good proverb.

Analysis:

The Golden Rule is a teaching from the Christian Bible that concerns how to treat other people. The informant shared with me the Buddhist version of the Golden Rule. The teachings between the two versions are similar, but the Buddhist version focuses on how to not treat others rather than on how to treat others. The Christian version of the Golden Rule is popularly known and used, and, like the informant mentioned, many people learn it at a young age. Versions of it appear in various places, from Bible verse Matthew 7:12 to Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies to the song “3-Way (The Golden Rule)” by The Lonely Island. Versions of this principle taught by other religions, however, are lesser known.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Nationality: Irish American
Age: 75
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Phoenix, Az
Performance Date: March 15, 2015
Primary Language: English

Context: The piece collected is a myth about Our Lady of Guadalupe, known as the Blessed Virgin Mary to all the Americas. The informant first heard of this story at least 30 years ago, prior to moving to where she currently resides in Arizona.  When she did move to Arizona, though, she went to a celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was on December 12th, and there was a big feast and mariachi band.  She said that the story is much more prominent in Arizona.  She also came across this story when visiting San Ildefonso Cathedral in Merida, Mexico, where there is a shrine and stature erected in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s honor.

“This is my understanding of the whole story.  A lady of Guadeloupe was the Patron saint of the americas. There was a peasant named Juan Diego.  He was a farmer. He was praying, and the blessed mother appeared and told him to make a church at a certain place. No one believed that the blessed mother appeared to him.  And he even went to the bishop. Bishop said that you have to find proof to show me that the Virgin Mary really was there and told you this stuff. So he went back to pray where he had visions of the blessed mother, and he told her what happened.  When he was getting ready to leave, there were roses growing in the snow. He brought the roses back to the bishop and the people began to believe that he did see her. Then they did build the church in her honor and things got better for the farmers.”

Interpretation: My grandmother knows a very butchered version of this story. I looked it up online later (the link is attached below), and I discovered that it a very well known, sacred story to Latin Americans. The story is clearly based in Christianity.  I am Lutheran, but have never heard this story told before.  Even in the butchered way that she tells it, the moral of the story, to trust and put faith in the Blessed Virgin Mary, is still very clear.  There are statues, school, churches and shrines all dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and people living in Mexico would undoubtably be very well versed in the story.

For a more comprehensive version of this story, see:

Anderson, Carl A., and Eduardo Chávez. Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love. New York: Doubleday, 2009. Print

Tarot Card Superstitions

Nationality: Columbian, American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant S is 21 years old from Boise Idaho. He is a Philosophy major who also plans on attending Medical School. He is half Columbian and half American. His grandmother is an older Colombian woman lives in Bogotá. She has a strong religious background as a Jehovah Witness.

 

S: My mom had certain superstitions like if you clear your mind the Devil will get into your head and um when I was really young my mom wouldn’t let me collect anything “demonic” or um anything with horns like Pokémon cards, Digimon. Anything that indicated a tie to Satan. Her mother, or you know my grandma, was a hard-core Jehovah Witness so she sorta reinforced that in my mom. I found it incredibly annoying but it sorta scared me when I was a kid too.

Me: Do you have an example of something you tried to collect but your mom said no?

S: No but my sister did. My sister got this dollar store um crystal ball and it came with a set of really shitty cheap um foreign made tarot cards, yeah they’re like these um cards tied to paganism, they represent like if I remember correctly sort of essentialistic aspects of human culture, no its not Paganism its Hermeticism. Honestly I’m not 100% sure. But they’re the pack of cards you see in like movies where a fortuneteller flips them around and they say things like death, Prince, God, and the fortuneteller ties them together and tells you your fortune. Jehovah Witnesses are hard-core into researching Christianity’s origins and when the Roman Empire split there was supposed to be a fusion between a lot of Christian and Pagan themes in the eastern Roman Empire. So they tried to avoid those sorts of things in their religious practice, the Pagan ones. So when my grandmother saw that she bought that set she freaked out and gave my sister like a 30-minute tongue lashing about how she brought the Devil into our home. It was kind of terrifying to see how livid it made her.

 

Analysis: Here S talks about how his religious grandmother has superstitions especially about the Devil and how that came into conflict with something his younger sister had bought. For his grandmother these beliefs are very important, but they are less important for S and his sister. For him, the most terrifying was his grandmothers reaction to the cards rather than the superstitions themselves, mostly because S is not religious with a strong belief in the Devil, but it shows how important it is to keep the Devil and anything associated with him out of the home for his grandmother.  He says although he finds this grandmothers religion annoying, it also made an impression on him and scared him too.

FISHING WITH ST. FRANCIS

Nationality: Italian-American, Portuguese-American
Age: 55
Occupation: Engineering Professor
Residence: Boston, MA
Performance Date: 3/25/15
Primary Language: English

ABOUT THE INFORMANT:

My informant is a father of three who lives just outside of Boston with his wife of over 30 years. He is originally from Cambridge, MA, but moved to central MA when he was younger. Graduating from Tufts, Northwestern, and the getting his PHD at MIT, he is an engineering professor.

EXAMPLE:

Interviewee: I was out fishing with my father-in-law, Billy, on the lake in New Hampshire. He has a house up there. Well not him, but his mom. It is a big house where that side of the family has family reunions. And it’s right on the lake, so me and him go fishing up there a lot.

Interviewer: What type of fishing?

Interviewee: They have like a small boat. It’s almost like a tin can. I mean sometimes we’ll do trout fishing in the brook up there, but not during the family reunion. It’s too much of a hassle.

So anyways, we were fishing and I caught a small fish. Like a small, it wasn’t like a sunfish, you know? Because those I can never get. Especially out there, that deep. It was like a small bass. But it was too small to do anything with; I wasn’t gonna eat it or anything. So I carefully tried to get it back to the water, you know? Took the hook out slowly, made sure I didn’t hurt it.

Interview: Because they’re fragile?

Interviewee: Yeah, exactly.

So, I’m taking care of this fish, and Billy, he’s just watching me. And I let it go, and he says, “If St. Francis saw you he would be so proud.”

And I say, “If St. Francis was here he’d have the fish jumping in the boat.”

So we go back to fishing. I put another worm on my line and everything. Cast it out. Next thing you know I got a big bass on the line. And it’s putting up a big fight. The tin can boat is rocking, I’m reeling and reeling as hard as I can, and then I feel it go under the boat. Suddenly the line goes slack. And then I just here this big “Billy” laugh. A belly laugh, his whole body laughing.

I turn to see what’s so funny, and he just points down. I look and sure enough there was the fish flapping around in the boat. It had jumped in the boat!

ANALYSIS:

The informant went on to tell me that this particular story has been repeated and told by people in the family who were not even there. It has even been performed as a skit for the family. It is considered to be one of the classic stories of New Hampshire and of this family.

First when dissecting this story it is important to note the obvious religious connotations. Both Billy and my informant were religious, though not strict practicers, so when this happened there was definitely a part of them that wondered what just happened. That is of course what makes the story so compelling. Is it a coincidence or is it a story about Saint Francis showing his presence at that moment to those two men? That mystery makes it enticing.

It is interesting because when and where this took place probably has a lot of reason as to why it is so popular to this family. That location is very special to them, so for them to feel like they and that place is blessed makes sense. They feel blessed to be around their family, and fortunate to have had so many happy family reunions there. If someone said God or a supernatural presence was there, I’m sure that they would buy it more than if you told them they were somewhere else.