Monthly Archives: May 2023

Ethiopian-American Graduations

Informant RE is a sophomore in high school from San Jose, California, whose family is originally from Ethiopia. There is a strong Ethiopian diasporic community in San Jose, where much of its traditions live on.

Text: 

“On graduation parties Ethiopian families are invited by the graduate’s parents to a graduation party, and the parents have to schedule with other parents who have children who are graduating at the same time because they want the parties to be on different days. When they have their set day, they rent out a banquet hall and prepare traditional dishes to serve, but some people also just order it. When people come, you’re supposed to greet them as they come, they give you gifts, then everyone lines up to get food. After the eating, we dance, and we do a lot of different cultural dances. After the dances there are speeches with friends and family, and after the speeches there is more dancing and cake cutting.”

Context:

High school graduation is an important liminal period in numerous cultures marking the transition period from school into the workforce. In the United States, high school graduation is traditionally celebrated with an elaborate ceremony hosted by the school in which students wear special garments and walk across a stage to reflect their passage into a new period.

Analysis:

The Ethiopian-American community takes the graduation ceremony a step further with the more elaborate and highly formalized graduation party. As informant RE alluded to, despite having no official text, the folk celebration of the graduation party is solidified into a specific format, from the choice of location — either a banquet hall or a home — to the itinerary — traditional foods, then dancing, then speeches, then dancing again. The Ethiopian-American graduation party is a collective celebration which not only marks the transition of the graduate, but celebrates the shared culture and community that helped the graduate along the way.

Ethiopian Bride’s Nickname

Informant AD is a graduate student from San Jose California, whose family is originally from Ethiopia. There is a strong Ethiopian disasporic community in San Jose, where much of its traditions live on

Text: 

“The groom’s mom, or like closest maternal figure, comes up with a meaningful name for the bride. Some people have random ones like ብርሃን ናት (“birhan nat,” or “she is bright,” roughly). It’s supposed to be meaningful to how the groom’s mom feels towards the bride.”

Context:

Informant AM witnessed this tradition in primarily Ethiopian Orthodox Christian weddings. Ethiopia is a country with 36 million Orthodox Christians as of 2017, according to the Pew Research Center (Diamant). Ethiopian Orthodox culture places heavy emphasis on the family. Traditionally, the name that the groom’s mother gives to the bride is known as የዳቦ ስም,or ye dabo sim, which translates roughly to “name of the bread” or “bread name.” This name is traditionally given during an event after the wedding and wedding reception known as the መልሴ, or “melse.” The nickname is usually granted while breaking bread for everyone to eat, and each attendee must recite the dabo sim before being able to eat the bread (Habeshabrides).

Analysis:

The ritual re-naming of the bride is a symbolic aspect of an Ethiopian ceremony — from my own observation, as the bride rarely uses the name — but it reflects the influence of family on this important time: the groom’s mother— a family member not directly involved in the wedding itself — is granted the privilege of renaming the bride, and the name thus represents the interconnection of two families. Thus, the naming ceremony reflects not only the bonding of two individuals, but two families.

Works Cited:

Diamant, Jeff. “Ethiopia Is an Outlier in the Orthodox Christian World.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 17 Aug. 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/11/28/ethiopia-is-an-outlier-in-the-orthodox-christian-world/#:~:text=Ethiopia%20is%20an%20outlier%20in%20the%20Orthodox%20Christian%20world&text=The%20country%20in%20the%20Horn,largest%20Orthodox%20population%20after%20Russia. 

“Brides of the Blue Nile.” Habeshabrides, https://habeshabrides.com/culture/brides-of-the-blue-nile/. 

The Princess and the Pea

Informant KK is a USC freshman originally from Pasadena California. KK first heard this tale as a young child from his mother.  

Text:

“So there’s this prince in a castle who still has his mother and father, the king and queen, who tell him he needs to find a princess to marry. Women from all over the kingdom offer their hand to become the prince’s wife, but the queen has a test for them. She places a pea under their mattress to see if they’ll notice it, and none of them do. Because none of them do, the queen says that none of them can marry the prince. Then, one night, a girl wearing rags knocks on the castle’s gates in a heavy thunderstorm, and the queen is hesitant to invite her in. But, the prince is adamant that she be let into the castle because it is unfair to let her be outside in the storm. So they let her in and she asks for a place to stay. The prince allows this, so the queen, wanting to make sure the girl can’t pass the test, places 100 mattresses on a bed with the pea at the very bottom, and says to the girl, ‘This is your bed for the night.’ The next morning, when they have all woken up, the queen asks the girl how she slept, and she said, ‘I slept terribly, there was something under the mattress that was bothering me so much, and when I lifted up the mattress, there was a pea there!’ By the order of the game, she became the princess and married the prince. I like how it’s kind of absurd, like how could someone feasibly sleep on a mountain of 100 mattresses, for one thing, and secondly, how would they be able to sense a pea at the very bottom?” 

Context:

“Some of the variations of the story are like, the prince tests them, or sometimes there’s no competition, it’s just that the queen wants to test her. Sometimes the number of mattresses changes. I believe there’s one version where the queen first tried one mattress, then she passed the test, then the queen asked her to try again on 100 mattresses. My mom told me the first version, and I learned later about the other variations. I believe she told me a very simple version because I was very small.”

As an additional note, the Princess and the Pea is known as ATU 704 from the Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type index.

Analysis:

This tale has many characteristics from Axel Olrik’s 1921 book, Epic Laws of Folk Narrative research, such as the limitations to two characters to a scene — either the lady and the prince, the lady and the queen, or the queen and the prince — and the repetition of threes, presumably in the number of potential brides which offered their hand in the challenge, which is a common motif in tales. Presumably, the tale carries the moral that a person is not defined by their financial status. The queen wanted to find a “real” and “worthy” princess, so she made it difficult for the lady with the rags to win the challenge, yet she ultimately won in the end, showing she had the value all along inside of her heart — a good lesson to teach a child.

Mr. Magic

Informant AJ is a university freshman from San Jose, California. AJ attended a San Jose elementary school since he was five years old.

Text:

“Unfortunately, after some time, students noticed that one staff member who we called Mr. Magic wasn’t appearing in the classrooms anymore showing off his awesome magic, but we didn’t really think too much of it. I can’t remember if this was in elementary school or after I moved on. I just remember my family was telling me that he was caught stealing money from the PTA and keeping it for himself, so that was a very disappointing story, and it wasn’t really shared with the community. I can’t necessarily confirm this story but this is just what I’ve been hearing from a couple people.”

Context:

“Mr. Magic was a guy who did magic for his students at our elementary school. Some of his tricks were very nice but other tricks were definitely just because we were pretty gullible. Quite frankly, they weren’t the greatest tricks but overall it was pretty fun to see what he had for us students. He was very well-liked by most of the students, and was definitely a people person.”

Analysis:

The fact that Mr. Magic was affiliated with an elementary school contributes to the creation of the quasi-legendary figure of Mr. Magic. As is customary in the United States and in numerous other countries, there is a distinctly separate identity for children than there is for adults. This may constitute what stories, games, clothing, or behavior is appropriate, but especially dictates to what extent a child or adult is allowed access to information. Following the creation of the printing press in 1450 and the emergence of widespread schooling was the emergence of a complementary childhood identity that separated from adults, whereas beforehand, children were seen as small adults and expected to take on many of the same responsibilities. This would explain why students such as AJ were left in the dark at the time, paving the way for folk narratives to emerge both about his dazzling status as a well-liked magician, and of his mysterious disappearance.

The Ogapoga

Informant AJ is a freshman at a university in the Canadian province of British Columbia whose family lives in San Jose, California. AJ moved to BC for the first time in August of 2022 to begin university.

Text:

“It’s a little unfamiliar to me but I’ve heard a few people talk about it here and there and seeing the statue posted downtown. It seems to be a creature in the Okanagan Lake just a few miles down south of the university. And there’s some sea creature that does something, I’m not very sure. I would say it looks like a sea dragon, kind of like a snake.”

Context:

“We have a little statue of it downtown and some people will take pictures of that and ride it for fun. I heard somebody mention it and they were like, ‘You’ve never heard of Ogopogo?!’ The lake is one of the biggest attractions here in Kelowna, so I’m sure that’s a fun story that people who live here can tell visitors.”

Analysis:

Because the Ogopogo has a statue in downtown Kelowna, the legend of the Ogopogo has taken on an aspect of capitalist appeal as the city utilizes the legend as a tourist attraction, representing an example of folklorismus. However, the Ogopogo traces its roots to stories from the Interior Salish First Nation people of a lake spirit known as the N’ha-a-itk. In this sense, the Ogopogo also carries a mythic nature, but as the story passed through the generations and through the colonization of North America, monetary interests grabbed hold of this myth and transformed it into the tourist attraction AJ knows it as. When he first moved to Kelowna, BC, there was a big reaction when AJ announced that he wasn’t aware of the Ogopogo, indicating its strong public appeal. Yet, the manner in which he learned about the Ogopogo, through visits to the statue in downtown Kelowna, indicate the weakening of the traditional myth of the Ogopogo.