Tag Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Wishing on 11:11

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece:

What is this ritual?

“When it’s the minute [11:11], I close my eyes and make a wish. I try and repeat is as many times as I can until the minutes is over. It usually involves crossing my fingers because I’ve been told that it makes it better.” 

When and how did you learn this?

“I’m sure in elementary school, it was one of the few luck superstitions I was taught. I heard in passing, like no one teaches you ‘sit down and do this.’” 

Background/Context:

My informant is my roommate. She went to public elementary school in Los Angeles. I noticed her pointing out the time 11:11 am, so I asked her to explain it to me. We were standing in our kitchen looking at the digital clock on our oven. 

Thoughts:

Wish-making rituals are very common (wishing on a star, making a wish on an eyelash, etc.) but what’s so interesting about this ritual is that it’s origin can be dated, and a terminus post quem can be established. The time 11:11 only looks special on digital clocks because it’s four 1s in a row. It doesn’t look or feel special on an analog clock. Therefore, this ritual must have been established after the invention and popularization of digital clocks. 

Don’t Put Your Purse On the Floor

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Georgia
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Context

This proverb is collected during a conversation I had with a friend when she came over for dinner at my house.

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Performance

The following is a proverb told to me by the interviewee.

I: Don’t put your purse on the floor or you’ll always be broke

M: Who told you this?

I: It’s just everyone in my family

M: Who did you hear it from?

I: I heard it from my mom who heard from her mother. It’s a superstition in the African American community and I think as time went on of course with the transatlantic slave trade it was mixed in with some European values and ended up being what it is now.

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Analysis

This proverb comes from the African-American community and is about a money superstition. The idea is that because people carry their money and cards inside their bags if you put the bag on the floor is showing disrespect and disregard for your money. For the interviewee, she sees this proverb as one that derives from Africa and is now a part of her heritage. What is interesting is that this belief or superstition can also be traced back to Ancient China with Feng Shui, and also to Turkey. Many different cultures have the view that the floor is associated with something dirty and low, and thus something precious like one’s wealth should not be in contact with it.

The I-Love-You Game

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/22/2021
Primary Language: English

Context

The interview is with one of my friends as she recounts a game that she used to play with her family

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Performance

The following is a story told to me by the interviewee.

“Growing up, at the end of our day when we were checking in we would play the game called the I love you game. It always had to be right as the person came in, so my sister and I would wait by the door, and as our parents came in, I would jump out, and then we would have to say the phrase “reflection, block, power base, force field, I love you more than you can say do think to imagine count listen hear write whatever you can think of goo-gol plex, I win the I love you game” and whoever said the phrase the fastest they would win the I Love you game. My mom came up with the game and we played it until I was sixteen years old.”

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Analysis

This very cute and sweet family ritual is perhaps one of my favorite pieces that I have collected. It is a simple game played amongst a family of four, in which the family shows each other how much they love one another. This game likely started as a silly thing that the mother did when the children were younger which then became a ritual that the family consistently practices. Knowing the interviewee, I have an understanding of her family background in which her father was not home for a lot of her childhood and thus this game could have been a way to show the children how much bother parents loved and cared for them, even if one of them could not have always been around.

“Bloody Mary” Test of Courage

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 10
Occupation: Elementary School Student
Residence: Iowa
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

B: So when I was in kindergarten or first grade, during recess my friends and I would play four-square. So, I was- there’s a line and I was waiting in the line to play. And I heard two boys talking about Bloody Mary. They said you have to say “bloody mary” three times into a mirror, and then she comes out or something.

Me: Could you do this in any mirror or did you have to go in a specific room?

B: You had to do it in the bathroom. But I tried it and nothing happened (laughs the kind of laugh you do when you try something silly).

Me: Why do you think kids tell each other this story?

B: I think part of the reason is because they want to scare each other. And I feel like part of it is also that, they got told it and they got scared, and they want other people to know because they want them to be aware or something.

Me: What thoughts did you have when you tried this?

B: I didn’t have any thoughts, I was like, I’m gonna do this, and I went in the bathroom and turned off the lights and shut the door, and then I started saying it? And then I was like, “this is fake,” and went back out.

Background: 

My informant is my cousin’s 10-year-old son, who is in the fourth grade. He lives in a suburban neighborhood near Des Moines, which is the capital of Iowa. He goes to a public elementary school in his district, where he heard this story. He then tested the theory in the bathroom at his own house. He insinuates that he was never fearful of this story nor did he believe it, and carries this tone throughout his telling of it. 

Context:

This is a transcript of our conversation over the phone. Lately, he has been telling me stories about what goes on during school, though this conversation was prompted specifically for this collection project. I was curious about whether his generation still knew about bloody mary.

Thoughts: 

I was pretty surprised that “Bloody Mary” is still an ongoing tradition/ritual for kids in my informant’s generation. In class, we learned about Dundes’ theory on Bloody Mary’s connection to fears about menstruation in young girls, which explained why so many of my female classmates also knew about this ritual, and how they learned of it when they were in elementary or middle school. Thus, I was slightly surprised that my cousin’s son also knew about Bloody Mary, and that he learned about it from other boys. In this instance, the story of Bloody Mary doesn’t seem to attest to girls’ fears about menstruation, which is a potentially scary and traumatic first experience if not well-prepared for it, but rather, a sort of test of courage for boys. My informant’s commentary on the reason the story is told, which is that the relayer was scared themselves, suggests that some fear may be alleviated when the story is passed onto another person. The act of trying it, then, tests your courage to face this alleged horrifying sight of a bloody woman, which fully alleviates your fear when nothing happens.

For Dundes’ work on Bloody Mary, see:

Dundes, Alan. Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics. University Press of Mississippi, 2002. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tvfn2. Accessed 1 May 2021. 

Cover mirror at night

Nationality: United States
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Madison County, NY
Performance Date: 04/17/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

BACKGROUND: My informant, MT, is a Mexican-American born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Mexico and speak Spanish. I asked MT if she had any familial superstitions or rituals that she wanted to talk about and she brought up this one. Despite not being very spiritual or religious, MT does this ritual every night. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a text conversation with my friend to discuss superstition in her family.

MT: I have to cover all of my mirrors at night because my mom said ghosts and spirits can enter our world through them. 

Me: Do you have to use a specific thing to cover it?

MT: I just use a blanket and toss it over.

THOUGHTS: This belief was interesting to me because during my conversation with another friend about folk beliefs I heard about the same ritual only carrying an entirely different meaning. My friend of Irish heritage mentioned that his family always thought that mirrors and photographs can trap souls. Hence when a loved one dies, they cover up mirrors so their soul isn’t trapped in their reflection. It’s interesting however how both cultures associate mirrors and reflections with spirits.