Author Archives: Harrison James

An Indian Wedding Tradition

Item:

“So my family originates from um, a little state called Gujrat in India, and uh we, our weddings in India differentiate from state to state, so our weddings have a certain aspect: At the beginning, prior to the formal ceremony, where the bride’s side attempts to steal the groom’s shoes. And it’s this big thing where both sides kind of get in this mini tussle that can kind of sometimes, expand in to big fights, um, over the shoes. And if the bride’s side succeeds in securing the groom’s shoes the groom then uh has to pay off the bride’s side to get his shoes back because he can’t leave , he can’t leave the uh location without those shoes.”

Context:

The informant on his experience with this wedding tradition: “So, um, this past wedding that I went to, I was on the groom’s side, so I was semi-in charge of my cousin’s, so we were in charge of securing those shoes and keeping them safe, so the entire way up until, the mundup is what we call it, it’s where they have the actual ceremony, we surrounded the groom like body guards and literally just walked him all the way up the stage and didn’t let anyone near him, like he was the president, um and successfully got him there without having the shoes stolen. In another situation at another wedding I was on the bride’s side, and um the groom’s side had secured one shoe, the other shoe had been secured by us, and one of the big guys like, put it behind him and held it there. And you know, I was in charge at the time of like figuring out where they took it, so I realized he had put it behind him and just had it in one hand, and I just grabbed it and ran, straight out of his hand, and got it that way. So I mean it takes a little scheming and planning, but it’s fun, it’s one of the fun parts about a wedding.”

Analysis:

Indian society is very patriarchal. So, in a way, what happens in a wedding is that the groom’s family steals the bride from her family. In this sense, the activity of the bride’s family in the wedding demonstrates their acknowledgment of this fact and their consequent response. That they steal the groom’s shoes exhibits a lighthearted form of revenge taken against the groom’s family. The monetary compensation received from the return of the shoes is the least they can expect after having their daughter stolen from them.

 

The Legend of the Devil in the Rock: A Camp Story

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“One night um our counselors (it was an overnight camp) took us out at like midnight or one o’clock um so really really late for like when you’re an eight year old you know. Um and they took us to um this giant area in the forest which was totally silent…um it was like a clearing within the forest, um and they told us this story about how um Good and Evil would battle each other, and Evil, which was represented by the devil, um was eventually beaten out by Good. And so anyways the Devil um was like on this rampage and he had just lost this giant battle with Good, um and the devil’s roaming and roaming and roaming around causing mayhem and chaos wherever he was and eventually he was locked up inside of a rock forever and um to this day they say that he is still inside of this rock. And of course as eight year olds sitting on the rock, it’s this giant giant boulder, um and they say that if you put your ear really close to the rock, you could still hear the devil inside.”

Context:

The informant heard this story while attending a camp in North Kingstown, Rhode Island when he was eight years old. He says that while at camp, the campers and counselors would always go on late-night hikes and hear stories “about life in general, things that happened in the vicinity of the camp, things that like were actually personal to us [the campers].”

Analysis:

This story clearly classifies as a legend in that it is a story that takes place in real life that may or may not be true. Although the factual basis of this story may seem incredulous at best, the kids, at some level, must have believed it, made evident by the informant’s claims that he and his fellow campers all believed that they could hear a noise coming from the rock. That the story told by the counselors deals with such big themes as good and evil and Satan make it seem to me that the camp was a religious camp.

The Legend of How a Family Came To America

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“My great grandfather, or so the legend goes, was an apprentice in a barbershop in the Ottoman empire in this town of Gaziantep, and um one day um the chief barber was out um and so my great grandfather was just sweeping up, just engaging in sort of barberly, apprentice activities, and some official of the sultan came in for a shave, and my great grandfather really wasn’t prepared to engage in the art of shaving with a straight razor because it’s quite arduous, um, you need to be trained to do it or else it can be quite ugly, um but seeing it was an opportunity to win favor, you know, with the sultan, and it’s interesting to note that although Jews were not the majority religion they still favored the rule of the sultan, who had invited the Spanish-Jewish refugees to come live in the ottoman empire and treated them quite well, they favored him to the secular young Turks who for Jews to serve in the army, and the Jews who were an observant people and had their religious beliefs and observed dietary laws and what not didn’t want to eat food that wouldn’t have been kosher and to not observe their holidays and secularize, they wanted to have their own educational system and what not, so they were more on the side of the sultan than they were on the side of the secularizers. So as a result I think he saw this probably as a way to win some of the favor of the sultan, give him a good shave or whatever, so he, the apprentice goes and gives this guy a shave, um… you know what happens next (claps hands)…you know like blood dripping down from a terrible botched shave and this guy, this official in the ottoman government, like, like threatens to like kill him, like run him out of the country. So what the next thing that happens, according to family legend, is that he runs away…to America, and that’s how we got here.”

Context:

This is a story that the informant, a 19-year-old USC student born and raised in Los Angeles, has been told “many times over” by his family. He is not sure about the “actual, factual element of it,” though he claims it “has been passed off as something that actually happened.” He says that it “has been told so many times” that it has become a part of his family’s legacy. “It can’t be true,” he says, “or could it?”

Analysis:

That the informant says that the story “can’t be true” and then immediately returns with “or could it?” coupled with its real-life setting indicates that it is a legend. That said, that the story has been passed down and told so frequently points to its important position within the informant’s family history. Whether or not it is true is irrelevant; what matters is that a prominent event in a family’s history, its moving to America after being rooted in the same place for hundreds of years, is remembered as an extraordinary event.

 

 

The Candy Apple

Item:

“One night uh a girl was alone in her bedroom and her parents said they were going out for dinner so they left the house, she heard them go out, so she decided it was time to get personal. She grabbed a uh broomstick from the closet and started playing around a little bit down there. Then her parents, all of the sudden came home because they had forgotten something and burst into her room in an untimely fashion and in uh surprise she jumped onto the broomstick and it actually went through her out the top of her head, and she became a human candy apple.”

Context:

This humorous story was popular at the informant’s high school in New York City.

Analysis:

The story reveals societal mentality on the subject of masturbation. The moral of the story is essentially, ‘don’t get caught masturbating.’ That there is such this fear of getting caught and that people feel it normal to hide their masturbation habits point to masturbation’s position as a societal taboo. The story can also be viewed as a cautionary tale warning against the dangers of masturbation, but I side with the first interpretation because of the story’s probable origins among teenagers.

Swedish Saffron Buns

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“Um so my dad has this recipe, it’s for, it’s halfway between cake and pastry, I’m not sure, it’s called coffee cake to be clear. So, it’s a standard dough, um it’s saffron flavored, sometimes raisins go into it, sometimes…[can’t hear the word], sometimes both, sometimes neither. And, it’s coated with egg whites and this kind of like um sugar that’s confectioner sugar that’s re-agglomerated, um maybe uh .2 centimeter sized cubes that are sort of crunchy, but they aren’t grainy and they’re vanilla flavored.”

Context:

The family of the informant’s father comes from Sweden, and this is a recipe that the informant learned from his father. His father always makes these cakes on St. Lucia’s day, a popular holiday in Scandinavia celebrated on the 13th of December. In regards to the holiday, the informant said that “what’s supposed to happen is the youngest female in the household is supposed to wear some sort of like crown of pine branches that has candles on it and present these cakes to the father of the family along with coffee.” His family, however, has only boys, so this part of the holiday is not carried out.

Analysis:

That the informant’s family (a mixed family, his father being from Sweden and his mother from China) still celebrates St. Lucia’s day in America, demonstrates the father’s insistence on passing along this bit of his heritage to his children. Even more indicative of this is that the cakes are still made despite the fact that there  is no female child in the family who could enact St. Luica. Also, that the informant knows this recipe off the top of his head further demonstrates the efforts his father made to instill this bit of Swedish culture into his children.