Author Archives: Lillian Anderson

Surfer Slang

Nationality: American
Age: Late 20's -early 30's
Occupation: Surfing Instructor
Residence: Lahaina, HI
Performance Date: March 18, 2014
Primary Language: English

I had signed up for a surfing lesson while on Spring Break in Maui with my parents. When we were learning about how to stand on the surfboard – on the beach of course; we started on dry land learning how to get on the board and how to stand up once we were on it, as well as the proper stance when on the board – when the instructor noticed that I was in a stance for a lefty. He then called out and said something along the lines of, “You’re a goofy foot!”

 

Of course, I asked them what the term meant. “Goofy foot” is a blason populaire term used by surfers for left-handed (-footed?) surfers. It is not all that surprising that surfers would have their own term for lefties, since lefties are much less common than right-handed/-footed people. Most of the human population is right-handed/-footed, and in the West at least (Europe, America) left-handedness was considered to be negative, unlucky, incompetent, socially wrong, etc. So, to a population that was 9/10ths right-handed, being among the 1/10th of the population that was left-handed/-footed would look awfully weird, and thus “goofy,” to the “normal,” right-handed/footed people. Furthermore, since handedness in surfing is shown through the stance, the let-handed surfing stance – meaning the feet – would be “goofy footed” to a right-handed surfer.

Bananas on Boats

Nationality: American
Age: 50-60
Occupation: Boat Captain
Residence: Kihei, HI
Performance Date: March 22, 2014
Primary Language: English

Context:

It was the last full day of my Spring Break vacation in Maui, and my parents and I had signed up for a snorkel/snuba tour out to Molokini Crater and Turtle Beach. The weather was rather poor – a light drizzle – and the water was slightly choppy. I was unable to swim that day, so I stayed on the boat with captain and most of the crew. I got to talking with the captain of the boat, and asked him if he knew of any sailing superstitions, as I knew that there were tons of them.

 

Interview:

Me: So do you know of any sailing legends or superstitions?

Informant: Well, I don’t know if this counts as a legend or something else, but there is an old Hawaiian – it started actually as a Hawaiian lore –

Me: Okay.

Informant: And it is regarding bananas on boats.

Me: Okay?

Informant: Yeah. Have you heard of this before?

Me: No, I have not.

Informant: Allegedly, it is bad luck to take bananas out on a boat. The reason being, you know, that it will lead to bad weather or mishaps or something like that. And the reason it came to be, from my understanding, and from now, what I understand it is pretty much worldwide.

Me: Okay.

Informant: From my understanding, it is something that people from anywhere are told this, and they are told to not bring bananas on a boa. But it started in Hawaii. When they did their runs from Samoa to Tahiti to Hawaii to Fiji and to all those places…

Me: Yeah?

Informant: They, you know, obviously needed food for these long journeys in these outrigger canoes, sailing canoes. And os they would load up green coconuts, green bananas, taros – things like that that would last a while. And they would start their journey. To you know, to Tahiti or Fiji or wherever they’re going.

Me: Yeah.

Informant: And they would be fishing the whole time because they needed protein and such and so you would catch fish. And the fishing was not really all that good until the bananas were gone. And so, after the green bananas finally ripened and the everyone ate the bananas, all of a sudden they would start catching fish.

[Laughter]

Informant: and so they believed that, you know, that once the bananas were gone they would catch fish and good things would happen. They didn’t really put two and two together that once they got a few days out where the fishing was better and they would start catching fish. So that’s where that came from.

Me: That is really cool.

Informant: Yeah. Here’s one of my more memorable experience concerning this. I remember, before I captained this boat, doing tours out to Molokini and Turtle Beach and other snorkel/snuba spots, I was a fisherman. You know, big game fish – ahi, mahi mahi, the like. Huge fish.

Me: Uh huh.

Informant: And my first mate was a Hawaiian, and he believed in this superstition wholeheartedly, would refuse to bring a banana on board. So one day, I wanted to prove to him that this superstition was baloney. So I hung a huge, huge bunch of bananas on the boat, and proceeded out to go about my day.

Me: And what happened?

Informant: At the end of the day, we brought in about 3200 pounds of fish.

Me: Wow, that’s a lot of fish.

Informant: Yes, and I told my mate, “See? There’s nothing to this banana superstition.” And he replied to me, “But, if we didn’t have the bananas on board, we would have caught 4000 pounds today, rather than 3200 pounds.” I gave up on trying to convince him that bananas did not bring bad luck when on a boat.

Me: Hah. That is awesome. Well, thank you very much for this. It is certainly something that I did not know before.

Informant: You are very welcome. I hope this project of yours goes well.

 

Analysis:

This superstition, like many others, deals with the forbidden, or something that is believed to bring bad luck. The explanation that the informant gave for the origins was truly interesting, in that it revealed how a superstition comes into being. The Hawaiians, and the Polynesian peoples in general, taking green fruits, including bananas, onto their outrigger canoes, and supplementing their provisions with fish, would have realized quite quickly that it wasn’t until the bananas were gone that they began catching more and more fish. Thus the belief that bananas on boats were unlucky.  A superstition is born when one action is believed to be correlated with another action or state of being. In this example, the first action is bananas on boats, and the second action is no fish getting caught, and the state of being is unlucky. Also, the fact that this belief spread worldwide is interesting. The Polynesians were some of the greatest seafarers of the Pacific, and so they would have passed on the superstition of bananas on boats being unlucky to the peoples that they met on their voyages at sea. Furthermore, they almost certainly would have influenced the American and European sailors who can to Oceania as well. Thus, given that the only method of travel between Oceania, America, Europe, and Asia was by boat, it is not surprising that a, originally Polynesian superstition has now become a belief that sailors worldwide are familiar with, whether they actually believe it or not.

Anderson Family Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 68
Occupation: Anthropology Professor
Residence: Washington, DC
Performance Date: March 20, 2014
Primary Language: English

Context:

My parents and I were lounging around in our rental house over Spring Break, and we got to talking about family. My father is from somewhat rural Kentucky, and has told a few stories about his family to me before. So I asked my father if he knew of any family legends, and my mother, overhearing the question, suggested to my father, who was trying and failing to come up with something, to talk about the family silver.

 

Interview:

Me: Do you know of any family legends or anything like that?

Informant: Family legends…family legends…

Mother [in background to informant]: The silver. Your silver.

Informant: Ah. I’ve got a family legend for you. Yes. You know the silver we have at home? For when we have company?

Me: Uh…vaguely?

Informant: Okay. You know that the initial that is on it is an H, not an A?

Me: Okay…To be honest, I’ve never noticed an initial on it before.

Informant: Well there is an initial on it, because part of the custom for having stuff like this is to have a family crest or family initial on it. And the initial on this one is H, because this came from my Uncle Charlie. Charlie Hatfield.

Me: Okay. As in Hatfield and McCoy?

Informant: Yes. As in Hatfield and McCoy. And the story is that…um…let’s see…where did I get this silver from? Ah, yes, I got this silver from my grandmother, my mother’s mother, whose husband, my mother’s father, was first cousin to somebody named Nelia who was married to someone named Charlie Hatfield. Kay? This would have been back in the late 19th century. And I think Charlie Hatfield was a successful merchant. So cousin Nelia…

Me: And how do you spell that?

Informant: N-E-L-I-A. Probably from Cornelia. Her name was probably Cornelia. Acquired this silver that is inscribed with an H, as in Hatfield. And part of the story is that in Kentucky, everybody is related to either the Hatfields or the McCoys in some way. So we are apparently related to the Hatfields in some way. How I don’t know. Kay? And it may be no more than just the coincidence of the name. But in Kentucky, this would be the story of how we’re related to the Hatfields. So cousin Charlie, which is what my grandmother called him, because he was the cousin by marriage of my grandfather. Write this down.

Me: Yeah.

Informant: Cousin by marriage of my grandfather may have been related to the Hatfields. And that’s the story of the family silver.

Me: And what is the story of the Hatfields and the McCoys?

Informant: It’s a kind of Romeo and Juliet story. The Hatfields and the McCoys were two families from Eastern Kentucky in the mountains where people are very family proud and they had some kind of enmity between them. But a boy from one family and a girl from the other family either ran off or got it together in some way. Or he may have abducted her, I don’t know. But this started a feud, a shooting feud.

Me: Oh.

Informant: Kay? And so lots of people got killed in the conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys. But Kenucky is not a very big state, so it is possible that Uncle Charlie was somehow related to the Hatfields of Eastern Kentucky although Uncle Charlie was in Western Kentucky. But most of the people in Western Kentucky came from one of two places. One is people with English names like mine came from Virginia. They came from across the mountains mostly after the Revolutionary War to steal land from the Indians, because part of what the Revolutionary War was about was opening up the West, as the British prevented the colonies from expanding Westward. So the Andersons came that way. Basically through West Virginia, the Cumberland Gap, through Tennessee . Kay? And into Western Kentucky. So it is entirely possible that someone named Hatfield from Western Kentucky could be related to someone named Hatfield in Eastern Kentucky because these are English names. How’s that for a family legend?

Me: That’s good. Thanks, Dad.

 

Analysis:

This family legend is, like all family legends, about both people and stuff. The people are Charlie Hatfield and Nelia. The stuff is the family silver that my father inherited from his grandparents. The Hatfields and the McCoys are famous names in Kentucky, and everyone in Kentucky is said to be related to either the Hatfields or to the McCoys. Whether Charlie Hatfield was truly related to the Hatfields of Eastern Kentucky or not is unknown, but he shared the name, so it is possible. Thus, this legend may or may not be true, and my father and I will probably never know if “Uncle Charlie” was a relative of the famous Hatfields, but the possibility of this being true is what makes this legend compelling. As it stands, I am set to inherit this silver, and I will certainly want to keep its history alive and tell my kids, when I have them someday, this legend. It is a compelling story, and connects my family to one of the most well-known names in my father’s home state.

 

Walczak Family Remedies

Nationality: Swedish-Polish
Age: 60
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Washington, DC
Performance Date: April 29. 2014
Primary Language: English

Context:

I was discussing with my mother via skype about home remedies that she knew of, or that her mother used to do for her and her siblings when they were sick.

 

Interview:

Me: I remember you once saying that your mother had a couple of home remedies that she would use with you when you would get sick, yeah?

Informant: There were certain things –

Me: Yes?

Informant: M’kay. There were certain things that mom did when we were sick, especially when we were sick to our stomach. First of all, she would give us 7-Up.

Me: Okay.

Informant: Cause 7-Up she believed would settle our stomachs. To this day I despise 7-Up.

[Laughter]

Me: And, why 7-Up?

Informant: And another thing she did, was to put us to bed with a bath towel.

Me: Okay…

Informant: And the whole idea of that, well the idea behind that was actually quite practical because my bedroom was pretty far from the bathroom, and if I had to throw up and I couldn’t make it to the bathroom, mom wanted my to be throwing up into the towel. But, for me, that towel ended up being very very comforting; and I used to kind of snuggle that at night when I wasn’t feeling good and it made me feel better just having it.

Me: Is that where I got Magic Towel from?

Informant: That’s why you got Magic Towel.

Me: Huh.

Informant: From my memory.

[Laughter]

Informant: Because when you were little, you had an upset stomach one night and I didn’t have any medicine that either you would take or I could give to you. And so I gave you that towel and I told you that it was a magic towel and that if you hugged it real, real tight all night then you would feel better in the morning.

Me: Hm.

Informant: And the next morning, you felt better and you looked at me and said, “I have a new B.” ‘Cause that’s what you used to call all your blankets. And you put it at the bottom of your bed and Magic Towel stayed with you longer than any other B.

Me: Despite having lost it multiple times and having to replace it.

Informant: Well you’ve only lost it once I think

Me: No, it was more than that. I think it was at least twice.

Informant: Could be. I remember that it got left in the Dallas airport once.

Me: Yeah, I remember that one.

Informant: Not on my watch.

Me: Not on mine.

Informant: It was daddy. Daddy help – let you forget it. So does this help?

Me: Yeah, mama. Thanks.

 

Analysis

When hearing this story, and especially about the taking the bath towel to bed, I realized that there is a reason why these folk remedies are passed down. It is because they work. Whether they are born from practicality or herbal medicine, if they work, then they are remembered and passed down to the next generation. Now, 7-Up, like many other sodas (including Coca-Cola), was originally created as a medicine, and it is highly likely that my grandparent’s generation believed such sodas to actually do what they were advertised to do. With the bath towel, though born of practicality, it was the belief that my mother had that it would work to cure an upset stomach that made it work. It is an example of the placebo effect. Also, the fact that my mother used this remedy for me, and that it worked, shows that such remedies, over time, can become family traditions, or traditional remedies within a family. I still sleep with magic towel, and I have never gotten sick in bed since my mother first handed me a towel. We may have had to replace the actual towel a couple of times, but it wasn’t the towel that was important, it was the concept of the magic towel and the belief that it worked that mattered.

Christmas Sausage

Nationality: Swedish-Polish
Age: 60
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Washington, DC
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

My mother and aunt, when I was a kid, would make sausage at Christmas time. My mother would hang the sausage in her and my father’s bedroom for days and the smell would permeate the house. I asked my mother one day about the recipe and why she made it every year, as well as why she stopped when I was in middle school. Turns out that this was a dish that her mother, who was Swedish, would make around Christmastime. She did not know if there was any sort of name for it, so she and my aunt just called it “Christmas Sausage.” And when grandma got to old to make it, my mother and aunt began to make it every year. The reason that my mother hung the sausage in her bedroom was that it was one of the coolest rooms in the apartment that time of year, as a window was usually left open and the radiator turned off. Why my parents did that, I don’t know.As for why my mother and aunt stopped the tradition, wel, that’s because when my grandma died when I was in middle school, my mother and aunt stopped making the sausages, probably because it reminded them of their mother, and the grief was too fresh. My mother believes that this is a traditional Swedish dish, as “hanging raw meat out at ‘room temperature’ seems like the kind of thing you would only do in a cold climate.”

Recipe:

Cook 1 pound of barley with 1 chopped onion and beef broth
Add salt and pepper to taste.
When fully cooked, cool completely.
Mix the barley with 1 pound raw ground beef and 2 pounds raw ground pork.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stuff into hog casings.
Hang at room temperature for 3 to 5 days.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.