Author Archives: f001ysw

Lucky 7 – Seventh Day Adventist

Leave a reply

Title: Lucky 7 for Seventh Day Adventist

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Religion of Origin: Christianity
  • Informant: David Ochollah
  • Date Collected: 02/23/2018

Informant Data:

  • David Ochollah is a Dartmouth sophomore from Nairobi, Kenya. He came to the in 2016 for his college studies and usually goes home once a year to visit his family. His family is religiously and they are members of the Seventh Day Adventist.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context:  Seventh Day Adventists are mainly known for observing the Sabbath day on a Saturday, as opposed to other Christianity denominations that observe the Sabbath day on Sunday.  Their name shows how much the seventh day of the week is special to them.
  • Social Context: Seventh Day Adventist members spend most of their Saturday at church because it is a day dedicated to doing only God’s work.

Item:

  • Seventh Day Adventists associate this number with good lucky because it is seen as a divine number  in the Bible and the seventh day in the week is for praising the Lord.  Because of 666 beings the Antichrist’s number, when something happens to be associated with seven it is seen as a good sign because it managed to went past 6.

Informant’s Comments:

  • David is the last born in a family with seven members therefore seven has become extra special to him. He believes there is something special about it because there are 7 continents in the world, seven colors of the rainbow, seven seas and seven days in a week.

Collector’s Name: Taringana Guranungo 

Tags/Keywords:

  • seven
  • Seventh Day Adventist
  • lucky

Unlucky 4 – Korea

Leave a reply

Title: Unlucky 4 in Korean Culture

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: South Korea
  • Informant: Hyung Ju Nam
  • Date Collected: 02/22/2018

Informant Data:

  • Hyung Ju Nam is a Dartmouth ’21 from Rochester, Michigan. He is originally from South Korea. He is hoping to study Philosophy and Mathematics. He occasionally returns home to South Korea.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The modern Korean language spoken these days has roots derived from Chinese language. Korean language is widely spoken in Korea and some numbers are still linked to their historical meanings. The culture has some numbers they consider unlucky because they are associated with bad omen.
  • Social Context: Many Koreans living in Korea are aware of the superstition around the number four. Hyung Ju observed this phenomena when he was still a child.

Item:

  • Four is now regarded as representing death. The number is pronounced in a similar way to the pronunciation of the word death when spoken in the old Korean language (Hanja) therefore it is viewed as an unlucky number. Some hotels have left their fourth floor vacant in an effort to avoid associating anything with the number four. Most hotels usually just skip the numbering of the fourth floor and go from the third to the fifth floor.

Informant’s Comments:

  • He used to believe in the superstition when he was young.

Collector’s Name: Taringana Guranungo

Tags/Keywords:

  • four
  • death
  • Korea

Unlucky 3 – Golf

Leave a reply

Title: Ramon Bomb

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Moon Cheong
  • Date Collected: 02/22/2018

Informant Data:

  • Moon Cheong is a Dartmouth student who is a member of the class of 2021. She is a recruited athlete and a member of the women’s golf team composed of eight athletes. Moon’s home town is Charlotte, North Carolina.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In golf, a player takes long shots before the ball reaches the putting green where a player takes light shots in an effort to put the ball in the hall. On the putting green, the aim is to sink the ball in one or two shots in order to maintain a good score.
  • Social Context: The golf team players encourage each other to finish a hole with only two putt shots at most in order for the team to win. Reaching three putt shots hurts the team’s score. Top professional players always sink the ball in two shots and the gold team strive to reach that level.

Item:

  • Failing to sink the ball before reaching 3 putts increases one’s point which hurts the chance of winning. This has transferred into a team culture in which team players avoid three in their team activities because it is associated with increasing points in a game.

Informant’s Comment:

  • I usually reach three putts about 20% in total. This makes me sad because every third putt decreases my chances of winning.  When I won an award, I managed to hit third putt less than 20%.

Tags/Keywords:

  • golf
  • three
  • putts

Unlucky 11 – Zimbabwe

Leave a reply

 

Title: Unlucky 11 – The Cursed Month

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Zimbabwe
  • Informant: Louis Murerwa
  • Date Collected: 02/22/2018

Informant Data:

  • Louis Murerwa grew up in Gweru , Zimbabwe with his parents. He did his high school in Gweru. He used to visit his grandparents in the rural areas twice or thrice a year while growing up. He moved to Hanover for college in 2017.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Month and days of the week are associated with their position in the cycle. Eleven is associated with November.
  • Social Context: People do not marry or have a wedding in November. Zimbabweans believe if you get married in November you will have bad luck in the married and it usually leads to a divorce. They also believe you might not have a child or one of your children will die. Every person knows about the bad luck that come with November through the fairy tales they are told while growing up. Louis knew about the curse while he was still in elementary school.

Item:

  • Eleven is an unlucky number because it represents the month of November. Marriages or weddings that happen in November are believed to be cursed. Because of the association of November with eleven, eleven is regarded as an unlucky number in the society. No weddings happen in November these days leading to December being a popular wedding month.

Informant’s Comments:

Collector’s Name: Taringana Guranungo

Tags/Keywords:

  • unlucky
  • eleven
  • marriage
  • wedding

Lucky 4 (Zimbabwe)

Leave a reply

Title: Lucky 4 in Zimbabwean Culture

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Zimbabwe
  • Informant: Loveridge Bere
  • Date Collected: 02/22/2018

Informant Data:

  • Loveridge Bere is a Dartmouth senior who year grew up and attended schools in Masvingo, Harare and Bulawayo , Zimbabwe. His hometown is Masvingo where his parents’ home is. He moved to Hanover for his college studies in 2014.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Month and days of the week are associated with their position in the cycle. For the days of the week, four is associated with Thursday, as Monday is seen as the first day of the week.This day is traditional called “Chisi” and is enforced by rulers. Zimbabwean traditional culture respects rulers and disobeying rulers results in bad omen. 
  • Social Context: On Thursday, people in the rural areas do not go to work in their fields.  The day is reserved for resting and it is a day that is traditionally dedicated to the chief of the village. People would sometime go and work in the chief’s fields to help him with his crops and at the end of the day people would have beer and fields and strengthen their community through the interactions.

Item:

  • On the fourth day of the week, Thursday, people rest from their work in the field. Children grow up looking to the day they do not have to labor in the fields leading to Thursday being their favorite day. As they grow up to be adults they still enjoy this day and in the end, four becomes a lucky number because of its association with Thursday. In some children’s games, four is seen as a new stage and is given special privileges. 

Collector’s Name: Taringana Guranungo

Tags/Keywords:

  • four
  • rest day
  • lucky