Monthly Archives: May 2015

Evil Eye

Nationality: english, irish, dutch, italian
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is an 18-year-old College student who is from San Francisco. His ethnicity is Dutch, Irish, and English, and Italian.

I asked my informant if he knew of any stories about any of the countries of his origins. It was hard for him to think of any, but he tried to think of the country that his family most closely relates to, Italy. He told me there is some significance in a necklace he wears and the reason for it is due to a story that his grandpa told him about “The Evil Eye”.

Informant: “So, the evil eye is just what it sounds like. It’s just an evil looking eye or a bad way that someone looks at you. I think it’s a really old story. I also think it is told in many parts of the world, but my grandpa would just talk about how some people have the evil eye and you never want to be looked at by the evil eye. He would also squint one of his eyes and look at us to try to scare us. So, I have this necklace, it’s a horn, I can’t remember the exact name of the horn but it is supposed to ward off the evil eye if anyone looks at you with it you are protected. I know this story has been told for years, but I honestly don’t know if I will tell my kids, just because it used to scare the shit out of me”.

Analysis: I have heard of some variations of an evil eye or the eye of illuminati. It seems like this idea of some evil glare is very prominent in many cultures. One thing that I found really interesting about this story that he told me was that although he says he will not tell his kids this story, he still continues to wear the necklace. It is perhaps nothing more than a fashion statement, but he says he has been wearing it for years. Things like this necklace and the story, although we are old enough to know that they are ridiculous, the fact that we grow up with these things takes a toll on us. Regardless of whether he believes in it or not, he still keeps the necklace around his neck and still contains some superstition about the story.

SAE Yell

Nationality: dutch, english, italian, irish
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is an 18-year-old College student who is from San Francisco. His ethnicity is Dutch, Irish, and English, and Italian.

This informant is the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon and had a hard time cornering one song that he wanted to share with me. Many of the songs that they song are sacred to the fraternity and sharing them with any outsiders can be seen as a betrayal to the rest of the fraternity so he was very careful with the one that he shared with me. He chose to share with me the “SAE Yell”.

SAE Yell:
Phi Alpha Alcazee
Phi Alpha Alcazon
Sigma Alpha, Sigma Alpha, Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Rah Rah Bon Ton Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Rah Rah Bob Ton Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Ruh Rah Ruh Rah Ruh Rah Ree
Ruh Rah Ruh Rah S-A-E!

Informant: “The SAE yell is something that every SAE knows. You learn it from like day one because you have your “older bros” yelling it at you like every day so it sticks in your head. It is one of those songs you have to learn quickly or else you like get in a lot of trouble. It is definitely special to me because it is something that unites us all together, since every SAE knows it we all chant it at chapter meetings or leadership seminars with other SAE’s from different schools. It also gets us fired up when we are partying or basically whatever we are doing, its kind of cool to hear everyone chanting it loudly together.”

Analysis: I thought this piece was fairly interesting. I know he has other songs that are more compelling and have deeper roots, but he is not allowed to share them with me and I respect that. I can respect the fact that they want to protect a private part of their culture and I think a lot of different cultures around the world have this same sentiment. If everyone knows every part of your culture than nothing is really held sacred anymore and anyone can be considered inside the group’s circle once they know all the secrets.

Chin, Elbow, Knee

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 23
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: My informant is a close friend who I have known for many years. He is a 23-year-old college student and has lived his whole life in Orange County, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he attends the University of Southern California and comes from a prominently Scottish heritage.

I asked my informant if he could tell me about any Scottish games that he knew about as a kid. I asked him if he learned any while at family events or any gatherings with other Scottish people. He told me that he learned a game, but it had nothing to do with his Scottish heritage. He had only learned the game from his uncle and his uncle never specified where he had learned it.

Informant: “The game is called chin, elbow, knee. It is basically just rock, paper scissors but with different rule. Knee beats elbow, elbow beats chin, and chin beats knee. If knee beats elbow or elbow beats chin it is one point. But, for some reason if chin beats knee it is two points. It adds an extra element to the game because you want the two point play so people will go for chin a lot, making it easy to guess to play elbow, and win on point. It is kind of weird cuz if you play a lot I swear you can almost start guessing what people will do. You play to 11 and there are over times if you play the same thing, like if both people do knee, it goes to over time, then if it happens again, double over time, then triple over time, but triple is the highest and when you win you get triple the usual points. We always play this game at family events now so in a way it is kind of special for me. I will probably show my kids how to play in the future.”

Analysis: The first thing that stands out to me is the variation of rock, paper, scissors. I have come across a lot of different variations of this game but this was the first time I heard about chin, elbow, knee. I have seen ridiculous stuff like t-rex, laser, and grenade, or other ridiculous variations that people have made up. I think this style of game is a really good example of variants of games. In the same way that a popular song’s tune creates an outline for other lyrics to be replaced, the outline of rock, paper, scissors is simple enough to allow other elements of the game to be replaced so that theoretically anything can be put into these three spots and you can make up whatever rules you like as to which element beats the other.

Work to Live Rather than Live to Work

Nationality: yugoslavian, spanish, croatian
Age: 53
Occupation: real estate agent
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is my mother. She is 53 years old and is Spanish, Croatian, and Yugoslavian. She was born and raised in Florida, but keeps up many of her ancestors’ traditions from these countries.

My mother really enjoys the culture in Spain. She has traveled there on a few occasions and loves to soak up the culture. She learns a lot about the country every time she goes and she gets to see the places that her ancestors came from. I asked her if she had any Spanish proverbs that she has learned from her parents or her grandparents.

Informant: “I remember one proverb or motto that was brought up many times. It basically goes, “We (Spanish people) work to live, we do not live to work”. Spanish people live much simpler lives than people do in many places in the world, especially the United States. I first heard this saying or proverb from my grandmother. My mother was raised in the United States and although she was raised by my grandmother, my mother has seemingly adopted a much more American view on work and never really used this proverb with me. I can understand why people say it in Spain, but it doesn’t really apply in America. Here it is the exact opposite, everything is a rat race to the top to see who can make the most money and although it isn’t a good thing, if you don’t keep up, you will get left behind”.

Analysis: I thought this proverb was interesting because it says something about an entire country and their views on work ethic. It also shows a nice contrast between America and a country like Spain. The ideals in each country are pretty much the exact opposite. Where in America, “the early bird gets the worm”, and other proverbs like this promote the idea that if you work harder than the guy next to you, then you will succeed past him and make more money. It seems as if every country has proverbs like these. These proverbs not only shift a way of thinking but they tend to shape an entire country’s perspective. People follow these proverbs and they become instilled in the way that they live and guide a way of living for people.

Nothing Riddle

Nationality: Lithuanian, english, russian, dutch
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is a 19-year-old college student who grew up in Chicago, Illinois, then moved out to California where she now attends the University of Southern California. Both her parents are from a Jewish background and her ethnicity is Dutch, Russian, Lithuanian, and English.

I asked my informant if she could provide me with any riddles. She quickly perked up and gave me the first one that came to her head which also was her favorite:

Riddle: What’s greater than god, more evil than the devil, poor people have it, rich people need it, and if you eat it you will die.

I sat and guessed a lot of ridiculous things as she smiled at me. I had a feeling it was going to be one of those answers I was not going to like, and low and behold I was right.

Informant: “Do you give up? The answer is nothing. Nothing is greater than god, nothing is more evil than the devil, rich people need nothing, poor people have nothing, and if you eat nothing you will die”

I was not very pleased with the answer, but I think this is the reason of the riddle. It is the same idea behind young children telling riddles. They have an answer to something that they know you will most likely not guess. This knowledge of some unknown gives them a sense of power over the older adult that they are talking to and this creates an element of humor for children.

Informant: “I learned it a long time ago, probably when I was in middle school. Like anything else, I learned it from a friend and then went on to stump all of my friends who then probably went on to stump their friends. I definitely told it to my parents at some point and got a lot of enjoyment out of fooling them”.

Riddles such as this one are considered humorous in some ways because the answer is not apparent. The unknown answer creates this humor and the big reveal of the answer to the unexpected guesser acts almost as a punch line to a joke.