Monthly Archives: May 2024

Hanuman and the Mountain

Text:

NS: In the Ramayana, Lakshmana is poisoned in battle so his brother Rama tasks Hanuman with finding an herb that will save his brother’s life because Hanuman is the fastest of all the soldiers. The herb can only be found on a specific mountain that’s very far away, and Hanuman is scared he won’t be able to find the herb and bring it back in time because he isn’t sure what it looks like. As a solution, he carries back the entire mountain to Rama on the tip of his pinky finger. 

Context: 

NS: Growing up, my parents told me tales from Hindu mythology; the tale of Hanuman and the mountain in particular was supposed to emphasize how devoted Hanuman was to Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu. This was in part to inspire that same devotion to Hinduism in me and my brother, but was also their way of telling us to stop being lazy (“if Hanuman could carry the whole mountain on the tip of his finger, you can do xyz!”).

Analysis:

I admittedly am not terribly familiar with Hindu mythology, but from this conversation it seems to be full of stories similar to this. Religious myths are often used as a way to understand the world and inspire faith in people. The Bible and in particular the Old Testament is famously a collection of such stories, designed to teach morals and the value in following the teachings of God. As a polytheistic religion, Hinduism splits those teachings into the acts and stories of service to varying gods in the pantheon, but they serve the same purpose.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Text:

BR: What comes to mind is the Tortoise and the Hare. A tortoise and a hare were competing in a race to see which animal was faster. The hare was so confident that he would win that he bragged for weeks to the entire village that he could win with almost no effort. On the day of the race, the hare easily breezed by the tortoise and seemed like the obvious winner. After gaining a few miles on the tortoise, he even decided to take a nap in the final leg of the race to gloat. The tortoise, however, never gave up and steadily walked toward the finish line. While the hare was napping, the tortoise was able to catch up to the hare and was mere steps away from victory by the time the hare finally woke up. The hare was too late. He lunged at the finish line just in time to watch the tortoise cross it, and ultimately lost the race solely due to his arrogance. The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race, and that arrogance can be your downfall.

Context:

BR: The first time I remember hearing this story was in first grade. My teacher read this story to our class as we sat and listened on the alphabet carpet. I have since heard many renditions, and think that the story’s central message is a valuable one. 

Analysis: 

The Tortoise and the Hare is one of the oldest fairy tales, going as far back as 400 B.C. and is reportedly part of Aesop’s fables. Most of these stories feature animal characters that undergo some kind of trial or adventure and the story provides a moral lesson. In this case, the lesson is that being slow and steady is the way to victory. I’ve heard people say that it isn’t true that going slow and steady is better, that the hare would have run the race if it didn’t fall asleep. So perhaps the moral of the story is more that being arrogant and overconfident can cost you.

The Nain Rogue Demon

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AB: From what I know – which isn’t the most accurate account – is that the Nain Rouge is a disgusting hairy and horned demon. The story goes that the first time it showed up was before some battle where the demon danced on the corpses of the dead soldiers and turned the river bloody. Since then, it shows up prior to devastating events in the city as like a bad omen. The 1967 Race Riots were the most common example I heard since my grandparents moved out of the city due to them.

Context:

AB: The Nain Rouge is one of those myths not really in circulation in my family. I know growing up it was used as a boogeyman for a child’s bad behavior, which deviates pretty heavily from the original myth of it being a foreboding omen. I mostly just thought it was my parents needing a local legend derived from their parent’s catholic backgrounds. I lived in the suburbs surrounding Detroit but I did live close enough to the Rouge River for cultural osmosis to propagate. Myth went from chastising bad behavior to a reason to be back home before sundown (I used to bike up and down the Rouge River at Hines Park). Eventually my parents kinda just grew out of it, I didn’t really believe in it so they stopped using it.

Analysis:

There are a lot of similar boogeyman type stories in American folklore. Other common examples include stories like the Jersey Devil. The most likely origin for these stories is from somebody who witnessed a tragedy and wants some way to rationalize what occurred. Seeing a battlefield is damaging to the psyche, it isn’t too unbelievable that people would tell stories about the aftermath. As the stories grow popular, there are more “sightings” of the monster because more people know about it. Though, these stories are rarely believed, and like AB mentioned, are mostly used to scare children into behaving.

The Story of the Prague Golem

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AG: The story goes that a rabbi in Prague was fed up with the pogroms and violence against the Jews in their ghetto. He created a man out of clay and imbued him with the word “emet” to describe god and it became a fierce protector of the ghetto. It successfully fought off violent goyim for some time, but eventually turned on its creators, and went on a violent rampage against the ghetto. It was destroyed by scratching off the ‘e’ in “emet” changing god to “death”. The ghetto in Prague was a real place that existed for hundreds of years. The Jews there had once been slaughtered by the local population

Context:

AG: I’d definitely heard the word and the general concepts all over the media since I was a kid. “Golem” is a common association for any sort of creature made out of inorganic materials. I didn’t become more familiar with the specific legend until I played the video game “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, which includes a scenario where the Jews of a Nazi concentration camp have built a golem, and you have to help them complete it. I studied it in more detail when I took an ancient to late middle ages Jewish history class in undergrad.

Analysis:

The story of the golem is prevalent throughout Jewish culture as a protector. While some Jewish people genuinely believe in the creation of the golem, the story more serves as a lesson of how only God can create life. This belief is reflected in other Abrahamic religions as well. In Islam, it is forbidden to draw faces due to a similar belief.

Southern-Irish Oyster Dressing

Text: 

“One family ritual we had growing up for Thanksgiving was that rather than having cornbread-based dressings [for Thanksgiving], we always had oyster dressing… Oyster dressing would have been a standard addition to our Southern-Irish Thanksgiving dinner growing up.”

Minor Genre: 

Holiday Ritual; Traditional Foods

Context: 

The informant explained in the interview, “My understanding is that [oyster dressing] has roots in my family’s Irish heritage rather than in Southern culture.” The informant grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, in a deep Southern setting, but her family immigrated from Ireland in the 1800s and maintained a strong connection with their Irish roots.

Analysis:

Although the informant believed the oyster dressing was connected to Irish culture, my research indicates that it actually became deeply embedded in Southern cuisine. The recipe was brought to New England from Britain in the 18th century, where it then migrated down the East Coast and took root in the deep South.

I think the most interesting part of this interview from a folkloric perspective is the informant’s belief that their traditional oyster dressing dish originated from Ireland. Although my research indicates the recipe was brought to America from Britain, it is entirely possible that the recipe was brought to the informant’s family from Ireland. The part of the family from Ireland lived in the coastal town of Dungarvan, which is located in one of the counties in Ireland that accounts for the highest production of oysters. Therefore, the informant is not necessarily incorrect in her belief that the recipe originated from Ireland –– though it is also possible that her family adapted the recipe from their Southern environment.

An additional note on oyster dressing is that the informant was specific in saying dressing rather than stuffing. Stuffing and dressing are terms used for the same traditional Thanksgiving dish, but “dressing” is specific to the South, and is the term the informant used before moving to California, where her husband’s family used the term “stuffing.”