Monthly Archives: May 2021

Assassin Game

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

DR used to go to an academic summer camp in New England from 7th through 10th grade. Every year, they would play a game called “Assassin.” If you wanted to play, you would sign up with the person running it. They would give you a spoon and some ID number, as well as another player as a “target.” You can only tag your target when they’re not holding their spoon, which is “assassinating” them. After assassinating someone, you inherit their target, and the game continues until there is only one player remaining.

Informant background

DR is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Sudbury, MA.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

There are some games (in fact, most games) which are entirely bounded in space and time to a certain restricted area – e.g., a basketball game on a basketball court; a game of chess to its board. However, games like Assassin are “always on” – in other words, a player must be ready at any time to play. This kind of game seems most common in schools and summer camps, where a large amount of children all live together. This is probably because children most enjoy the excitement of always being in the game, and also being in the same space for much or all of the day allows the element of persistence and vigilance to come into play.

Pelican Soup Riddle

Nationality: USA
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

CT “heard this literally the other day” from one of his friends:

“A guy walks into a restaurant and asks for Pelican Soup. They serve it up to him and he tries it, then kills himself. Why did he kill himself?”

After we took several guesses to no avail, CT revealed the answer:

“The person was stranded on a desert island with their husband, wife, whatever. And after being stranded there a hella long time, in their delirium they ate their significant other under the impression that it was pelican soup, and when they get back to civilization they asked for pelican soup. And when it tasted completely different they killed themselves because they knew what happened.”

Informant background

CT is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from New York City.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

For another version of this riddle, called “Seagull Soup,” see the online riddle archive: https://www.riddles.com/archives/2581

Blind Dwarf Riddle

Nationality: USA
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/15/21
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

JD told us he had heard this riddle in elementary school, around 4th grade:

“You walk into a room and you find a dead man. And all that’s in the room is a noose, because he hung himself, and a cane, and sawdust. What happened?”

The other participants and I took a few shots in the dark, and JD said: “It’s so dumb there’s no way you’d ever get it.” When I suggested that I might have heard it before, he said “there’s no way you’ve heard this before.”

Eventually, JD revealed the answer:

“Obviously, the man is a blind dwarf clown — he works at the circus, so his entire source of income is being a freak at the circus. He’s in the circus tent, but there are termites and they eat the bottom of his cane. Since he’s blind he thinks he’s growing, so he’s losing his source of income, and so he kills himself.”

Informant background

JD is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from Las Vegas, NV.

Performance context

This story was told during a folklore collection event that I set up with a diversity of members from the USC men’s Ultimate Frisbee team. We were in a classic folklore collection setting: sharing drinks around a campfire, in a free flowing conversation.

Analysis

This riddle seems to be of the kind where it is amusing to hear the answer because of its silliness, rather than one that a guesser might realistically have a shot at. The fact that JD clued us in by saying “it’s so dumb” we’d never get it allowed us to not be as disappointed or frustrated in how silly the answer was when it came.

Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens on New Years

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Retired Nurse
Residence: Palmdale, CA
Performance Date: May 3rd 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant is from South Carolina and recounts a New Years tradition from the region.

T: On New Year’s Day, in the South, everybody cooks black eyed peas and collard greens. The back eyed peas are good for money. The black eyed peas represent the change and the collard greens is the cash. And that’s how much money, and it signifies that you’re going to get money all year long. So everybody cooks that on New Years. That’s just a staple. You go to someone’s house on New Year’s Day? That’s going to be cooking in the pot. Mama would cook that every New Years, no matter what.

Thoughts:

As I’ve collected folklore about New Years traditions, there are a lot of traditions that are centered around food. There is another folklore I collected from Peru that revolves around food and prosperity.

It’s interesting that even though black eyed peas and collard greens are given a special status on New Years, they are a very common food in the everyday diet of people from the Southern United States. It’s just for this one day they are considered special representations of wealth.

Opening Windows to Let the Soul Out

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Retired Nurse
Residence: Palmdale, CA
Performance Date: May 3rd 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant worked as a nurse in South Carolina and in Southern California for almost two decades. Here she recounts a cross-cultural tradition that nurses perform after a patient has passed.

T: As far as nursing goes, we would have nurses who would, uh, come in the room. We would have nurses come in, and even nurses here in California I would have some, and um, I don’t know if it was regional or not, cause I would have a lot of nurses that were travelers and a lot of nurses that were from all over the country. You know, cause we have– cause California has so many nurses from so many different places. And you know, how you say, there’s no Californian born in California. But, um, we would have nurses once the patient had died and the family seen the patient, and sometimes even before that, they would open, if they could, they would open the windows in the room.

L: Oh! So their soul could get out?

T: Yeah. So that was another superstition as far as nursing goes. Nurses would, uh, tend to do when they weren’t superstitious in any other way. Nurses tend to be very scientific and clinical–that kinda stuff. But that was a nursing thing that nurses would do, not just the nursing assistants. 

L: Do you remember if that was from any specific nationality or culture? Or did it sort of catch on with everyone? 

T: It crossed a lot of barriers, I think. I know they did it in the South a lot. When I was in the South, I mean, it was very a Southern thing. But when I came here (To Los Angeles) I noticed that a lot of different– cause there are a lot of different cultures here– I noticed a lot of cultures did that. It wasn’t just a Southern thing. Yeah, a lot of different cultures did that. And a lot of different religious cultures seemed to do it. Like, letting the soul be free and not trapped. That kind of thing. 

Thoughts:

It’s interesting how the informant says that this tradition is not only seen on opposite sides of the United States, but is also crosses ethnic boundaries as well. This leads me to wonder if the origins of opening the window for someone’s soul to leave may be polygenetic, or if it is a tradition that is passed down from nurse to nurse in the United States and has slowly worked its way across the country.