Title: Labels Facing In

General Information about Item:

• Material folkore
• Superstitious Ritual
• Place of Origin: Western Virginia
• Informant (Anonymous) D
• Collected 2/23/18

Informant Data: Informant D was born and raised in a small town in Western Virginia. He attended West Virginia University and now works as a grounds keeper in his hometown. His family has a long tradition of producing moonshine on their family farm.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: Informant D originally learned this piece of folklore when he was in high school. He was visiting his family farm in Western Virginia, where his grandfather had lived, and was taught the process of moonshine. His grandfather had given him a tour of the shed that housed all of the moonshining distillers. During the tour he explained a lot about the process that goes into making the moonshine. The informant’s grandfather also explained that there is also a process that is followed after the moonshine is completed. After the moonshine is produced the moonshine is placed into old, empty hard alcohol bottles. Anyone that handles these bottles has to put them away in a certain way.
• Cultural Context: This ritual/superstition derives from the hard work that is put into the moonshine. Even though the moonshine is in a certain alcohol bottle, the family attempts to make it clear through this ritual that the alcohol is now changed.

Item:

• After a batch of moonshine is produced or handled it must always be put back on a shelf the same way. This particular ritual calls for the bottle to be placed with the labeling facing the wall. This way the side of the bottle that has no label is facing out to those who can view it. This superstitious act is done to symbolize that the use of the bottle has changed. The bottle no longer is used for the previous alcohol that it held, but now has changed and is holding the family produced moonshine. This superstitious act is performed to display the father’s pride in the work that went into making the moonshine. This ritual can also be seen as a Rite of Transition of the bottles contents. This is also interpreted as a Conversion superstition as the family believes that if this is not done, then the moonshine that they produced loses its special novelty and the people that made it are disrespected.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

Informant’s Comments: This act is pretty small land may go unnoticed by a lot of outsiders, but is a small way that our family takes pride in the moonshine we make.

Collector’s Comments: This is both an example of a conversion superstition to keep respect for those who made the moonshine as well a rite of transition.

Collector’s Name: Jack Korzelius

Tags/Keywords:

• Material folklore
• Sign superstition
• Storing moonshine
• Ritual folklore
• Rite of Transition