Tag Archives: Religion

Rosca de Reyes/Wreath of the Kings

Context: The Rosca de Reyes/Wreath of the Kings is a sweet bread commonly made/consumed during January 6th, the Day of the Three Kings

“Every year on January 6th, many who are Catholic celebrate the Day of the Three Kings following Christmas. Because of this, we have a yearly tradition where we eat la Rosca de Reyes (Wreath of the Kings), in which it is a sweet bread that’s super good. You usually eat it with either hot chocolate or champurrado. However, the tradition also comes with a fun game. Inside of the bread are a few little white babies that represent Jesus when he was born. If your slice of bread happens to have a little baby Jesus, you usually have to make tamales the month afterwards. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone though, I think some people make different foods.”

Analysis: La Rosca de Reyes seems to be a common tradition in many Mexican-Catholic Communities where many continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus after Christmas. The Biblical story of the Three Kings explains how the Three Wise Men traveled to see the birth of Jesus in order to deliver him gifts. Because of this, many celebrate this day with different foods, one of the foods being The Wreath of the Kings.

Novena/Novenario

Context:

“So a tradition in Mexican Catholic families is when someone passes away there’s something called a novena or novenario. And this occurs right after someone is laid to rest. Family and friends gathers at a home [a relative’s] and will pray. They’ll use the rosary and say prayers. I don’t really remember which prayers are used or if it’s specific only to Mexican catholic families.”

Q: Did you or anyone in your family ever participate in this tradition?

“I think I only ever participated in it once. It was when one of my [aunts] died and we went to her home and stayed the entire night. I don’t really remember what happened though since it was a long time ago.”

Q: Have you ever partook in the tradition in recent time?

“No, not in recent time…I actually don’t know if people still do this tradition actually. I know my mom’s side of the family was super religious and would do this.”

Analysis: As the informant, NG, describes, a Novena/Novenario is a common tradition in Mexican-Catholic communities in which after the death of a family remember, the rest of the friends and family will travel to the person’s home (or a relative’s) and begin to pray for the deceased. Based off the information NG describes, a Novena/Novenario is done in order to pay respects to the recently deceased and to hope that they are well in another life.

Kumkum Sacred Powder

Age: 20

Context: This red powder, referred to as kumkum, holds religious significance to the informant. She recalls it being spread on her forehead after praying.

Text: The informant puts this red powder, kumkum, on her forehead to signify devotion and spirituality. Although her family buys it from a store, she believes it is made from combining turmeric, a prominent holy ingredient in Indian food, and lemon.

Analysis:

This practice involves material culture and customary folklore as kumkum is symbolically used to express religious identity. The application of kumkum on the forehead connects to Victor Turner’s two poles of symbolism, as the visible red mark indicates a sensory experience that reflects a larger idealogical, spiritual meaning tied to faith. The belief about its natural ingredients, even when store bought, shows how folklore holds vernacular significance and can impart sacred meaning onto everyday ingredients like turmeric.

Don’t Touch the Cross

Age: 18

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is one of my close friends (I apologize for the amount of “likes”).

NB: “Okay. Um, in my house, there’s a cross from my grandpa’s grave that’s hung up on a door frame leading up to the stairwell. My mom and my grandma always told us never to touch it, never to disrespect it, or play with it because we used to throw like balls in the house, like just to entertain ourselves. And, um, they were, like, for real, like, listen, you can mess up everything else. You can knock over vases, whatnot. But one thing you cannot do is touch that cross and we’re like, okay. So when I was four, my oldest sister, I think she was about like 17 at the time. Thought it would be funny to take the cross off the door frame for a bit.”

Me: “Why would she do that?”

NB: “No, actually, it’s just like, she was like rebellious and like she just like didn’t believe in that stuff. So she just wanted to mess around and stuff. Um, and then somehow she lost it, and we couldn’t find it for about a week. But during that week, just horrible things happened. Everyone in my family who lived there at the time got really sick. My parents, my sister and I got into a really bad car accident. It was totaled, and my dad had to go to physical therapy after because he was in a lot of pain. My oldest sister got cheated on and dumped that week. There was a lot of bad energy in that house, I would say. It felt much gloomier and dark. Everyone was just really depressed and everyone had trouble sleeping, and for some reason at night, there was a lot of noise around our house. I don’t know if it was just…”

Me: “Wait, sorry, whose cross was it?”

NB: “It was my real grandpa’s. Not my Step Grandpa. Yeah, it was my real grandpa’s cross that was on his grave.”

Me: “And he also lived in the house?”

NB: “Yeah, he also did. I think he was like a part of like building that house or something before he passed away.”

Me: “Oh, [redacted]”

NB: “Um, and yeah, everyone just had trouble sleeping because, um, I remember the wind being like really powerful. I remember. But this is like a common thing in my house. We, uh, most of us have like experienced hearing whispers and hearing like children running and stuff like that. But we never understood why, because no, I don’t think anyone lived in that house previous to us, so… and it wasn’t our neighbors, because we live in a duplex and like, we know when our neighbors are like making noise and stuff, like the difference between our neighbors making noise and then us like hearing stuff going on and like, we’ve established that…that week especially, like, there was just so much going on that, like, there is no way It was our neighbors. And eventually, my mom found the cross when she was cleaning, hung it back up, and it was kind of weird how, like, everything just went back to normal. Yeah, my dad’s pain went away pretty quickly. Um, we all got better, like, from our sicknesses overnight. We were in so much better moods, and I just really don’t know what happened. It’s kind of blurry. I’m pretty sure there’s probably more that happened, but I was like so young at the time that I just don’t remember everything to the fullest, but that’s, yeah, one of my earliest memories.”

Me: “So, what do you think? Like, do you think it was, like, your grandpa’s, like, spirit, or it was, like, another spirit? like bad karma?”

NB: “Well mind you, like, that cross was at the funeral at his, like, grave for, like, a while. I’m thinking that maybe other spirits like latched onto it. Maybe bad spirits latch onto it, and just like, I don’t know why we took it. I don’t know why we have it in our house. I don’t know why we decided to hang it up. But, um, because of that, we just can’t take it down. It’s like kind of like Annabelle, like we can’t.”

Me: “Yeah, you can’t”

NB: “We actually can’t mess with it. So now it’s just hanging and yeah. I don’t know. Maybe that’s another reason why I have like weird stuff going on in my house and like paranormal stuff going on, but, um, yeah, it’s really weird.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This was probably my favorite story im submitting because it’s either supernatural or the most insane coincidence of all time. Both are equally fascinating to me. Initially I interpreted it as the informants Grandpa maybe being a vengeful spirit so it was interesting to hear the informants take that a spirit may have latched onto the cross itself which makes more sense because both sides of the informants family were affected. The story follows a typical trope in ghost stories of some sort of family curse and it was interesting to see a twist on that, that the family curse in this case may be coming from outside the family. I also think it’s interesting that the informant comes from a multi-religious background and so it might have something to do with religious tensions between their families. Im also curious as to how the informants mom and grandma knew that the cross shouldn’t have been messed with. Overall a very interesting story.

The Nun

Age: 19

Context: The following story was told on April 28th, 2026, in my dorm room to me by the informant, who is my friend and freshman year roommate. The informant and I were discussing a completely different story when she brought up that her high school was haunted by a very sad nun…I immediately pressed record.

LC: “There’s a book called California’s Most Haunted Places.”

Me: “Oh, and your high schools in it?”

LC: “And my high school’s in it.”

Me: “Oh, great.”

LC: “So, yeah. Like, sometimes you’ll hear, like, creaking from where, like, she, hung herself.”

Me: “This is so crazy…Ok what high school did you go to?”

LC: “Notre Dame.”

Me: “Notre Dame. In San Jose.”

LC: “Like, dead serious. Someone look it up. There’s a story. This nun like hung herself.”

Me: “So, did you have any, like..this is something that happened to your friend or, like, did you have any personal experiences?”

LC: “Okay, so for me, in that building, there’s a basement that I had to go into, and I hated that basement. It’s a…it’s straight up a vintage old basement. It’s an old cobblestone basement that has one little light that hangs from the top. Like, have you seen, um, A Quiet Place?”

Me: “Yeah.”

LC: “It looks like that. And the stairs are like wooden and creaky. So, I went in there and I had to pull the light, and there was, like, someone that looked like they were wearing a full nun outfit. just in the corner.”

Me: ” And at this point, there’s no more nuns at your school?”

LC: “Most of the women, like the women that worked at my school were nuns, but they didn’t wear the whole thing… they’re like the modern nuns. like they’re hip or whatever.”

Me: *laughs* “Okay.”

LC: “Um, but yeah, it was like a nun wearing like the full outfit and everything. And, um, I don’t remember what her name is. Like, it was like sister…her name began with an M. And I remember like the faculty and staff saying, oh, like, oh, sister, whatever her name is, is visiting again.

Me: “Oh. Was she, like, a nice, or sad spirit, or like?”

LC: “I think she’s just sad. Yeah. Um, because, yeah, like, apparently, like, a priest seduced her and, like, she got pregnant and, yeah, she hung herself because, like, she was sent there. Um, I can’t even remember what for. Like, I think because her family, like, couldn’t afford to send her to, like to school, so she went to the convent. Um, and she knew that she couldn’t go back to her family because it would be dishonorable. So, she thought that the only way to go was to, like, commit suicide. So, yeah, there’s that one, and then, my elementary and high school are connected, because it was, like, this one big giant convent. And like a lot of the stories that happened at the high school happened at the elementary because it was like just one big thing. And what happened to my friend in 5th grade is that she went to the bathroom, and it was a sunny day in February or March, and when she went to the bathroom, she, like, came out, went to go wash her hands. The door slammed shut because the bathroom door was, like, propped open with, like, this little, like, wooden block. The door slammed shut. It wouldn’t open. And because it was, like, someone was pressed against it. So she pushed it open, and when she looked outside, it was pouring rain, and the woman that looked like the nun was like outside, like crying, and her eyes were like jet black and like, and then she freaked out, closed the door, was sobbing, opened the door again, and it was like normal, sunny, like 78 degrees outside. Like, she came to class crying because she’s like, I saw her, I saw her, this creepy lady, and we’re like…”

Me: “So a lot of these stories…so the time that you maybe saw the nun, how old were you?”

LC: “14.”

Me: “Okay, so a little bit older, but mostly your stories, you know, involve a child. So what do you think about that? Do you think children are like more vulnerable to spirits or you think like they can see things that, you know, maybe…”

LC: “Yeah, I think the children, like, that’s like in every single horror story, though. Like, children are the most vulnerable. Because, like, you know how people say, like, when you’re a child, you have your 6th sense and that it’s, like, the most receptive. And, like, you haven’t been corrupted by the world to have it, like, removed or, like, worn down. Um, Like, I guess to an extent, that makes sense, but if we’re following that logic that children are just more receptive to everything around them, and children are known for being, like, brutally honest, then I would say, yes, it’s like, that aspect, that’s consistent with children being, like, the main receivers in all these stories, would support that idea, but also, I feel like, I don’t know, it’s a little strange because people who experience those, like, paranormal activities usually have some sort of belief in the paranormal. Right. But I don’t know if that’s because of the fact that, since they believe it, it’s confirmation bias. Or if it’s just because they’re more open to the idea that that’s a possibility and that they would prefer that outlandish, I guess, experience to be true in comparison to that of a more scientifically backed explanation.”

Me: “Right, makes sense. And both can be true.”

LC: “Both can be true.”

Me: “Good stuff.”

Personal thoughts and analysis: This story was super interesting, and I think it goes into religious guilt and trauma, which intrigued me, so I decided to look more into it. I was able to corroborate that there is a legend of a pregnant nun who hung herself at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, but I couldn’t find any confirmed reports of the occurrence. I think because it’s been local lore for so long that it’s likely a lot of the accounts are just scared kids whose eyes were playing tricks on them, but it is very interesting nonetheless. I also thought the weather aspect of the spirit, somehow being able to change the weather, was very unique and not a typical element in ghost stories, which almost made me believe the informant a bit more.