Traveling in groups of Threes

Title: Traveling in groups of Threes

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: India
  • Informant: Priya Shukla
  • Date Collected: 11/12/18

Informant Data:

  • Priya Shukla is a ‘21 attending Dartmouth College. She is pre-med, majoring in English. She was born in London but currently lives in Boston, MA. Her parents are both Hindu. Her mother is from Jaipur and her father is from Agra. Both of her parents speak Hindi, and Priya and her younger brother, Chetan can both read and write Hindi.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The number 3 in Hindu culture is an inauspicious number. It is associated with a Hindu saying that means “bad luck comes when there are three”. Similar to the number 13 in American culture, or 4 in Chinese culture, the number 3 is associated with bad luck, so if you leave in a group of 3, you will have bad luck. According to priya, this can be remedied by using an object to act as a 4th person, or having 2 people leave first, and the third can leave a few minutes later.
  • Social Context: Priya also learned this superstition from her parents. Since she has 4 members in her family, they usually did not pay much attention to this specific superstition, it was just something she knew about growing up. She said that this superstition is not as commonly practiced as some others, it mainly has to do with the inauspicious nature number three.

Item:

  • This superstition is based on the belief that 3 is an inauspicious number.

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

Transcript: “It’s also bad luck to travel in groups of 3 because 3 is an inauspicious number. So you would either have to use an object to act as a fourth person, or two people would have to leave the house first, then the third person could join them a few minutes later.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This is an example of a magic superstition. If you leave in a group of 3, then you will have bad luck.

Collector’s Name: Marlee Montella

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Lore
  • Superstition
  • Three

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *