Title: Umbrella superstition

General Information about Item:

• American Superstition
• Language: English
• Origin: Ancient Egypt
• Informant: Henry Eilen
• Date Collected 10/22/18

Informant Data: Henry is a junior at Dartmouth college studying neuroscience. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, so he is used to enduring all types of whether throughout the year.

Contextual Data:

Social: Henry’s parents are both doctors, and they taught Henry from a young age to always try to prepare for the unexpected. Because of this, Henry would always try to plan ahead. His friends thought he was crazy sometimes, but Henry’s parents taught him that it is always better to be over-prepared instead of the other way around.

Cultural: Minnesota is known for having an unpredictable climate that gets a lot of rain and a lot of snow. Henry went to church with his family every week, and his dad would always bring an umbrella. Henry did not understand why his dad needed an umbrella just to walk from the car to the door. Henry asked one day and his dad told him that he brought the umbrella for Henry’s mother, and his dad said once again that it was important to always be prepared.

Subgenre: bad luck superstitions

Item: Opening an umbrella indoors will bring you bad luck.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

 Max: Alright Henry, tell me about your superstition of opening umbrella’s indoors.

Henry: This superstition came around when I was about eight and my dad always would carry an umbrella with him and he’d always let me know to shut the umbrella before going indoors and also to never open an umbrella indoors because it’s bad luck for the rest of the week.

Informant’s Comments: none

Collector’s Comments:

I found it interesting that both Henry and Logan had superstitions that included church in some way.

Collector’s Name: Max Hunter

Tags/Keywords:

Bad luck superstitions, American, umbrella