Tag Archives: Ancient Greece

Quarters

Text: (the drinking game known as “quarters”).

Context: My informant learned the game “quarters” from the older members of his fraternity at UCI about 30 years ago. He and his fellow pledges played the game very often before social gatherings. In the game, players try to bounce a quarter off of a table and into a short glass of hard liquor; if a player succeeds, the next player must drink the contents of the glass. My informant now has passed the game onto younger generations of drinkers.

Analysis: The game of quarters hails from the ancient Greek game of “Kottabos,” in which players would toss sediment remaining in their wine glasses onto a plate in order to make other players drink. After years of evolution in European pubs, my informant played the modern game. The game stems from a tradition of drinking, which is also prevalent in the Greek Life system at universities in America. I interpret the game as a method by which one gets drunk quickly in a social setting, and it is more typical in pregames than in the main social event or afterparties.  

The Origin of Red Coral

Context:

I was perusing a shop in Lahaina, HI that sold coral jewelry, when I asked the manager about the origins of the practice of wearing coral as jewelry.

 

Interview:

Me: So why did people begin to wear coral for jewelry?

Informant: Well, in the Mediterranean, the practice of wearing coral, specifically red or pink coral, began in Ancient Greece.

Me: Oh?

Informant: Yes. Do you know of the legend of Medusa?

Me: Yes, it is one of the most well known myths, and she is one of the most well known monstrous figures of Greek mythology.

Informant: Yes. Well, as you must know, Medusa was a gorgon – a woman cursed by Athena who had snakes for hair and who could turn anyone to stone when they made eye contact. Perseus, the hero, was sent on a quest to kill Medusa, which he managed through the use of the gifts given to him by the gods as well as his own ingenuity.

Me: Yes, using Medusa’s reflection on his shield to know where she was without running the risk of being turned to stone.

Informant: Exactly. Well, when Perseus killed Medusa, her body was thrown into the sea, and her blood, which was pouring out of her severed neck, as she was beheaded, crystallized, hardened, ah, fossilized and became the red coral. The Greeks would harvest the red coral from the sea and make it into amulets and protective jewelry to ward off both her evil as well as evil enchantments in general.

Me: So red coral, at least for the Greeks, was originally used for protection from evil?

Informant: Yes, it was. And that’s how red coral, at least, became used for jewelry.

 

Analysis:

This story, legend, shows how myths and legends can influence a culture to the point that even today when the original purpose for using a particular substance for anything, in this case red coral for jewelry, may be more or less forgotten, or at least not widely known, a practice is still in place. People still harvest red coral and make jewelry from it, and it is now simply viewed as the same as making jewelry from silver, gold, precious, and semi-precious gems and metals. The original purpose is forgotten, but the material is still in use.

 

For the original myth, see Beekman, E. M.. The Posion Tree: Selected Writings of Rumphius on the Natoural History of the Indies. University of Massachusetts Press , 1981. Print. og 254. There is a translation of the passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and further information.