Leah Kiros

Though often laughed off or dismissed as quirks, superstitions have the power to connect people across cultures and generations. These traditions are carried through stories and often unnoticed daily practices. Many Bowdoin students bring their superstitions with them to campus, finding solace in the rituals they grew up with.

Alimah Jalloh ’28 is a prospective classics major, but her fascination with myths and superstitions began far before she arrived at the College.

“My mom is so superstitious,” she said. “Elephants are her favorite animal. She has so many elephant figurines, and their butts have to face the door.”

On top of elephant butts, another superstition Jalloh’s family follows has to do with shoes always lying flat on their sole: They can never lay upside down or tossed aside. Jalloh says she follows it to this day, and her friends have taken note of it.

“Whenever I walk into their rooms, I turn over all their shoes,” she said. “It’s a big superstition in my family. If the shoe is upside down, it’s really bad luck. Even if it’s on its side, it has to be right side up.”

Though Jalloh pokes fun at the tradition, she admits she also takes it pretty seriously.

“I kind of believe it, because in junior year of high school I was having a really rough time. I cleaned my room, and underneath my bed there was a shoe, upside down,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, so this is the reason.’”

Jalloh’s superstitions have followed her to Bowdoin in her personal life and in her studies.

“Myths and superstitions are actually really important to my life because I’m a classics major as well,” she said. “In the summer, I went to Greece for a month to study myths.”

She wasn’t planning on majoring in the subject when she arrived at college, but a first-year class changed her mind.

“That’s why I love classics, because it’s like gossip but just happened forever ago,” she said. “There’s so many different parts to it. There’s the archaeological side of it, and then there’s the myth and also theoretical side. I like the theoretical side the most, but I love the myths because I grew up on them.”

Rithmaka (Rickey) Karunadhara ’26 also grew up with superstitious traditions that have followed him to college. He recalled an experience with his mother in Sri Lanka, where he is from, that challenged his doubts about her superstitions.

“It sounds funny when you’re talking about it out loud, but there are folks in the spirit world who are able to make an impact on people in the physical realm based on their karma,” he said. “My mom was convinced that we need to do some sort of protection for the house.”

Karunadhara’s family was going through a tough time, so his mother suggested bringing in outside help, from an unexpected source: the spirit world.

“You have to start in the evening, because apparently the evening time is [the spirit’s] time.… During their time, we can communicate through different mantras and things,” he said.

Karunadhara remained doubtful and was concerned about the process. He says he asked the people they hired to communicate with the spirit world many questions.

“I was curious about it, and so I was asking this guy a lot of questions,” he said. “They make structures, and they do a whole ritual that goes on all night…. They were blessing us, and they were communicating with the spirits who were apparently inhabiting our house.”

The experience made Karunadhara think more about his faith.

“I’m agnostic, leaning more towards my Buddhist faith,” he admits. “But at this moment in time, I was like, ‘Oh my God, things aren’t getting better. Why not?’”

Though Karunadhara finds himself questioning various family and Buddhist traditions, he says he often falls back on Buddhist chanting and prayer in times of hardship.

“Sometimes before I perform a play, I like to pray to the stage,” he said. “We, as theater people at home, used to do that. I touch the stage, pray to it and then I step on. It’s like a respect for the craft.”

Zavier Richardson ’28 has traditions, myths and superstitions dating back generations.

“My great grandmother is the source of all these stories. She was from a middle of nowhere town called Roxboro, [N.C.],” they said. “One of the things she taught my family is that deaths come in threes. If one person dies, two more people are sure to closely follow…. I can’t remember a single time this has been wrong. Occasionally, we will pray for the threes to go quickly to prevent the extended waiting for grief.”

Richardson mentioned that despite the superstition, their family is not particularly afraid of death.

“Rain means a deceased loved one has made it to the other side,” they said. “We pray for rain before or during funerals for a sense of comfort and beg for clear skies when someone falls ill or gets hospitalized. When my great grandmother died in the fall of 2016, it rained the next morning.”

For Richardson’s family, these ideas bring about a sense of peace in times of struggle.

“Maybe all these superstitions are rooted in coping with aging,” they said.

Charlotte Ng ’28 has superstitions of a similar nature, mostly from her father, who is from Hong Kong. Many of these beliefs surround fears of death.

“For example, the number four is bad luck, because in Chinese, it sounds the same as death,” Ng said. “I always try to avoid the number four. My dad thought he was going to die when he turned 44.”

The number eight, however, is considered good luck. Ng also recalled that watches are an unacceptable gift for one’s birthday.

“You can’t give someone a watch for their birthday because it means they’re going to die soon,” she said. “Mirrors are [also] this whole big thing. One mirror is good because it reflects bad luck away, but if you have two in your house, especially if they face each other, that’s really bad.”

Superstitions may look different across families and cultures, but for many at Bowdoin, they remain a steady thread between home and college life. In rituals both serious and lighthearted, students find familiarity, and maybe a bit of good luck.