Author Archives: f004s2r

Mamemaki (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: Mamemaki

General Information about Item:

  • Ritual, Holiday
  • Language: Japanese
  • Country of Origin: Japan
  • Informant: DP
  • Date Collected: 11-14-21

Informant Data:

  • DP was born in 1999, in Southern, VA, where he has lived all of his life. He is half-Japanese, his father having immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1990s from Japan. However, it was his paternal grandparents who primarily taught him about Japanese culture and rituals.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In Japanese folklore, the Oni are evil demons, trolls, or ogres who are born when evil people die and are transformed into these evil creatures. Usually large and ugly, and both strong and capable of shape-shifting. While the Oni vary in size and color, they are all malignant, often seeking to murder people or wreak havoc such as war, disease, or famine.
  • Social Context: QC learned about the tradition when QC reached out to DP about his cultural traditions involving defenses against supernatural creatures. DP learned about the holiday through his grandfather, who, while he didn’t believe in the Oni, thought the tradition was an enjoyable one and important to the culture. 

Item:

  • Every year during the Setsubun holiday celebrating the end of winter, a family would roast soybeans and throw them at a person wearing a mask to represent the Oni while shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” and chase them out of their home. This ritual would help cleanse the house of evil spirits for the upcoming year. 

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

Informant’s Comments:

  • Not something his family did often but still remembers it being fun.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found this ritual to be a uniquely fun and simple way of driving out evil spirts: by simply throwing them at them until they leave.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Ritual
  • Holiday
  • Japan
  • Oni
  • Setsubun

Pa Then Fire Festival (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: Pa Than Fire Festival

General Information about Item:

  • Material Lore, food recipe
  • Language: Viet
  • Country of Origin: Vietnam
  • Informant: VN
  • Date Collected: 11-12-21

Informant Data:

  • VN was born in 2002, in Ho Chi Minh city, where she grew up in an ethnically Kinh household. Her mother has lived in the city for many generations, but her father grew up in the countryside before moving into the city, where more cultural traditions are observed. Her wider family lives throughout Vietnam, but her closest relatives all live in the city. VN learned about most of her cultural traditions from her grandparents. 

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: VN credits some of the rituals with a wider Vietnamese cultural belief in a spirit world which either protects or harms them, particularly, as VN argues, in the aftermath for the generation who lived through the Vietnam war. Pa Then, a remarkably small minority group in Vietnam, believes that the Universe was created by a benevolent goddess Quo Vo and an evil goddess Me Quo O, who are both associated with many good and evil spirits. 
  • Social Context: QC first learned of the practice from VN when discussing cultural traditions we had learned at school and from our families. VN first learned about the practice in school, when she, as a member of the majority Kinh ethnic group, was taught about the cultural practices of minority traditions: in this case, Pa Then. VN later learned more about the practice when she was present at one such event in the center of Vietnam when she was visiting relatives in the region. The ritual is regular, performed by Pa Then, typically at the end of the harvest season to both enrich the practitioners and protect them from spirits.

Item:

  • Held every year at the end of harvest season on the Lunar Calendar (Oct. 16), first offerings are prepared for the heavens, which include a rooster, a bowl of rice, incense, a bottle of traditional wine, and ghost money (fake money to be burned). Then a shaman lights candles and incense and the women of the ethnic group play music, which is meant to call the spirits of the heavens down, who are thought to induce the dancers into a trance. The dancers then run through a large bonfire. This entire ritual pleases the heavenly spirits who follow the good goddess Quo Vo, who, in turn, protects the village and its residents from evil spirits who follow Me Quo O, the underworld goddess. 

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

Informant’s Comments:

  • Interest use of fire to entice good, rather than to directly fight away evil.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Ritual
  • Vietnam
  • Fire
  • Festival
  • Pa Then

“La Barrida de Huevo” (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: “La Barrida de Huevo”

General Information about Item:

  • Superstition, Protective
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Mexico
  • Informant: KH
  • Date Collected: 11-10-21

Informant Data:

  • LH was born in 2001, in Brownsville, TX, where he grew up in a Hispanic, Catholic household. His wider family, including his parents, have lived in the city for many years. He learned most of his cultural traditions from his girlfriend and his grandmother, who were also of predominantly Hispanic and Mexican descent. Today, he is a student at Dartmouth College.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: LH credited the existence of the ritual to a wider culture of superstitions in Mexico, where his family is originally from. Additionally, he credited strong familial cultural bonds with allowing superstitions to foster. He believes that the superstitions are derived from some religious traditions in the predominantly Catholic culture, as many of these rituals involve prayer to become successful, and a wide belief in supernatural creatures in the rural areas of Mexico and the American Southwest.
  • Social Context: QC first learned of this tradition upon inquiring about different superstitions from LH’s life and family. LH first learned of this practice from his girlfriend and several of her friends, when, as this group of friends were gathered, LH’s girlfriend began to perform the practice on herself and he inquired about what she was doing. She explained that she was doing it because she felt very stressed and was doing it to make herself feel better. She also indicated that she did it when sick to help remove the evil that caused either of those conditions.

Item:

  • One gets an egg (or sometimes a lime) and submerges the egg in alcohol overnight. The following morning, one rubs the egg over themselves while praying the lord’s prayer to remove evil spirits and emotions from themselves. Then, they crack the egg over a glass and put in a pinch of salt to neutralize the evil. Then the egg is discarded.

Associated file:

Informant’s Comments:

  • LH does not personally believe in this superstition but said he finds it relaxing nonetheless.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found the use of the egg to be particularly interesting, as it is traditionally a symbol of new life, as a way to draw out evil.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Superstition
  • Mexican
  • Catholic
  • Hispanic
  • Egg Rituals

Double Ninth Festival (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: Double Ninth Festival

General Information about Item:

  • Protection, Festival, Ritual
  • Language: Chinese
  • Country of Origin: Hong Kong
  • Informant: KF
  • Date Collected: 11-6-21

Informant Data:

  • KF, born in 2002 in Hong Kong, and grew up in the city. She is of Han Chinese descent, although her parents did not grow up in the same culture. She primarily learned of many of her cultural traditions through her classes and peers, although her mother, American education, did strive to teach her parts of Han Chinese culture. 

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Long ago a plague struck China, and it is believed that the reason that the plague disappeared was that a man climbed a nearby mountain which drove out the evil spirits which caused the plague. It is believed that one should hike a mountain in this vain in order to prevent a plague like this to occur again, and when an outbreak occurs, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is believed, or at least joked, that it is partially a result of individuals not adhering to the tradition.
  • Social Context: QC learned it from KF when discussing some our the different holidays. KF learned it from her mother as a public holiday, and while her mother did not believe in the superstition herself, she still observed tradition by teaching her children about the holiday and taking them to hike a mountain. 

Item:

  • Every year on August 8 on the Lunar calendar, one must climb a mountain to prevent the return of evil spirits (gui) from descending down and causing the renewal of the plague.

Associated file:

Informant’s Comments:

  • Highly would not recommend eating it if better options are available.  Not a huge fan.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Ritual, Festival
  • Hong Kong
  • Chinese
  • Plague
  • Protective

Throwing Salt (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: Throwing Salt over Shoulder

General Information about Item:

  • Ritual, Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: KC
  • Date Collected: 10-21-21

Informant Data:

  • KC grew up and currently lives in Richmond, VA. She received her BA in art history from JMU in 1988 before teaching students of various ages from elementary school to college in various art courses. She and the rest of her family are of predominantly Irish-Catholic heritage. 

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Salt is believed, among various religions and cultures, to have certain properties which ward off spirits or promote good health. This specific practice seems to be originally a Buddhist Tradition, where one would perform the practice at a funeral to protect one’s household. 
  • Social Context: Quinn originally learned of the practice when his mother described her mother and some of her practices, who died long before he was born. KC originally learned of the tradition by asking her grandmother and mother about why they performed this practice at a family dinner. When the two explained the practice to her, they laughed it off as a superstition, she remembers noticing her mother performing the action more as she was conscious of it and realized that it had become a tradition nonetheless.

Item:

  • If someone talks ill of the dead or curses in anger, that individual ought to throw salt over their left shoulder to ward off evil spirits, or the devil, from entering their home and cursing them. It is also customary to pray before this action.

Associated file:

Example of table salt one might throw over one’s shoulder

Informant’s Comments:

  • It became something common enough that I find myself doing it mindlessly while working in the kitchen if I grab a pinch of salt—even if I haven’t cursed.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Recall seeing the practice in own household as a child, yet had thought nothing of it when young.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Superstition
  • Irish Catholic
  • Conversion Superstition
  • Protection
  • Salt over shoulder