Monthly Archives: April 2017

Hawaiian Folk Belief on Whistling

Nationality: Hawaiian
Age: 43
Occupation: Mother
Residence: Maui
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Hawaiian

Note: The form of this submission includes the dialogue between the informant and I before the cutoff (as you’ll see if you scroll down), as well as my own thoughts and other notes on the piece after the cutoff. The italics within the dialogue between the informant and I (before the cutoff) is where and what kind of direction I offered the informant whilst collecting. 

Informant’s Background:

My mother’s mother’s mother and even from before her are from Hawaii but some England roots are interjected into the bloodline as well. My mother’s father’s father’s father hails half from Hawaii and the other half from China and Portugal. But what is funny about most Hawaiians, is that they are not only Hawaiian. They are also Caucasian, Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino, Samoan, Japanese, Korean, e.t.c…….Plantation workers were brought in to work the sugar and pineapple fields and they brought their culture with them.

Piece:

In Hawaiian we call it (taboo) Kapu, which means sacred, don’t touch or you die, just don’t do it. Hawaiians of ancient Hawaii had many taboo, thank goodness which no longer exist, as most kapu broken would end with death. When I was little, my Tutu, my mother’s mother forbid us to whistle after sunset. Whistling after sunset was kapu because whistling at night would summons evil spirits. To this day 35 years later, I don’t dare whistle after sunset……

Piece Background Information:

Informant already mentioned within their piece that they learned about this taboo through her grandmother.

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Context of Performance:

Via email.

Thoughts on Piece: 
If you google “whistling at night”, there are plenty of accounts, mostly from Japanese, Native American, and Hawaiian cultures, of how whistling at night can invite evil. And in relation to the legend of the Night Marchers, shared with me by the same informant, apparently there are Hawaiian accounts that whistling at night will summon these legendary figures. While there can be no scientific or evidential basis for how whistling at night could summon spirits, perhaps this is also a method for parents to get their children to behave as whistling, or making noise, at night can be disturbing.

French Candlemas

Nationality: French
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15, 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish

Note: The form of this submission includes the dialogue between the informant and I before the cutoff (as you’ll see if you scroll down), as well as my own thoughts and other notes on the piece after the cutoff. The italics within the dialogue between the informant and I (before the cutoff) is where and what kind of direction I offered the informant whilst collecting. 

Informant’s Background: 

My name is Keveen. I grew in the South Western part of France, a little town called Brive located between Toulouse and the coastal city of Bordeaux.

Piece:

Another tradition that I remember celebrating every year is “La Chandeleur”, French Candlemas. An early February commemoration of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple that French culture embrace by making Crepes and lighting the house only with Candles, that day being called as well the day of the light marking the end of the Christmas period. I remember making crepes with the family during that time, until I moved out of the house after High School. The tradition of crepes comes from the fact that being round they represent the sun (day of the light), easy to make and cheap, required a bit of agility (flipping them and succeeding at it means the household will be prosperous for the rest of the year. My Grandma never did that but a lot of families keep one crepe, place a coin in it and leave it in the closet for the rest of the year to bring money to the household. Also if you’re able to flip the crepe 6 times in a row you will get married that year.

Piece Background Information: 

Growing up atheist but with a catholic Grand mother from Paris who ended up raising me while my parents were working, I took part of a few religious traditions specific to the French culture, each region having their own interpretation of them.

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Context of Piece Performance: 

In person, during the day at informant’s house in Highland Park, Los Angeles.

Thoughts on Piece: 

Upon further research, I found that French Candlemas, which takes place in December, is generally supposed to utilize the remainder of the harvest from the year on the crepes to symbolize completion of the cycle of the sun (as noted by the informant himself- the roundness of the crepe is similar to the roundness of the sun). I consider this folk belief to fall under homeopathic magic as there are thought to be real world effects (a great harvest in the year to come) due to the similarities between the crepes and the sun. Additionally, this ritual falls within/ is coordinated with the Earth cycle too.

Sukiyaki Family Gathering

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English

Informant Information:

Clerisse Cornejo is a student at the University of Southern California. She comes from a mixed background (Japanese/Mexican), and is originally from Fontana, CA.

Tradition:

“Every New Year, this is pretty Japanese, but we eat sukiyaki so on the first day of the year we go to our Aunt’s house and our three aunts, my dad, and my grandma will get together in the kitchen and make sukiyaki together. Like traditionally speaking, it’s typical for the Japanese to eat sukiyaki only when it’s cold so usually during the winter time, but because we all live in California it’s still pretty warm out here even during the winter, so we just eat it on the first day of the New Year because that’s probably around the time of the year when it’s most cold in  SoCal.”

Q: Would you say that your celebration is similar to other families?

“I’ve never met another Japanese family and got to know them that well to ask about their traditions, but I do think that for people whose families have immigrated from Japan that getting together and eating traditional dishes is still an important activity. There’s not a lot of traces of Japanese culture in American culture so I think it’s very important for Japanese families to get together and participate in their culture.”

Q: Is your recipe for sukiyaki standard?

“Yeah I think it’s pretty standard. There’s like generally the same kinds of ingredients that always go into sukiyaki and that usually includes some sort of beef or other meat, a variety of vegetables and often tofu. We usually eat it alongside rice balls.”

Analysis:

The informant gave a lot of detail as to when sukiyaki is usually eaten by Japanese people (around winter time). Upon further investigation I found that one of reasons for this winter celebration was that because after the introduction of Buddhism, the Japanese were forbidden to eat meat unless special circumstances applied. One of those special circumstances was the winter celebration of bonenkai, a party towards the end of the calendar year. The informant mentioned that her family celebrates on the New Year because it’s when California is cold, but she didn’t mention this special winter celebration, probably due to the fact that she might’ve not been aware it existed.

Weston Women’s Asylum

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Information:

Frank Pol is a student at the University of Southern California studying Computer Science. He is from a Venezuelan background, and is originally from Weston, FL before moving to Los Angeles, CA for college.

Story:

“There’s this building, like Weston’s not huge  so if there’s a building in Weston someone’s gonna make up a story about it because it’s new and small. There was this big giant gray block essentially a building with a large fence around it. The story people made up was that it used to be a women’s asylum, my friends said they’ve gone and they ran into the police. They said they ran into people who lived there and they just chased them out. When I went, we were getting out of the car to get over another fence and some lights shined on us from a truck driving up to our car so we got back to the car and drove to the left of the fence trying to get back to the road without going back. We did see some people, I mean this sounds bad but we saw people with guns inside the area, so maybe they were cops. We kept driving until the guy behind us went home.”

Q: How long did this story circulate around the school?

“Uhm, there’s always been stories about this building but this one started in my class. So around 4 years.”

Analysis:

From what the informant told me, it sounds like this legend was inspired by the outer appearance of the building, as well as the police officers that occasionally walked around the perimeter. I could not find any prisons/other similar locations when researching the informant’s story, so it looks as though this story is contained in his old school.

 

Pase del Diablo

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Information:

Frank Pol is a student at the University of Southern California studying Computer Science. He is from a Venezuelan background, and is originally from Weston, FL before moving to Los Angeles, CA for college.

Story:

“My dad, so in Venezuela where my dad is from, they have a mountain called the Avila and it has a bunch of hiking and biking paths all the way down. I would take them all the time. So there’s this one that him and his family called Pase del Diablo. It’s basically just a super deep drop they would never do on their bikes, because there’s a story of people always trying to do it but they always end up dying because it’s hard to land. The whole area was protected so you weren’t supposed to be up there according to the government, but because the government doesn’t mean anything in Venezuela they still go up there.”

Q: Before your dad started biking, was this place familiar for this atmosphere?

“Yeah from the way he told me it was a story that was told to him by older friends.”

Q: Have you ever had a personal experience with this mountain?

“I just saw it from a distance. We didn’t make it to the waterfall but yeah we didn’t see the actual thing but we passed the path and he told me the story.”

Analysis:

The informant had heard of this tale from his father, and didn’t really know much about this belief other than what his father had told him. After conducting further research, I could not find the specific pass in the mountain that he mentioned, nor any mentions of a “devil’s path” on the mountain of Avila. It must only be a belief held by his father and his father’s biker friends.