Author Archives: Ebi Penawou

Reid Hall Customs

Text:

“It’s almost like a respect thing — treating Reed Hall as a nice place, you know? Like, you’ll go to other places to be rowdy and stuff. But Reed Hall is supposed to be the place where you are, like, content and calm. So I think it is just a respect thing, because it is like someone’s house, and you’re made very aware of that.”

Context:

The informant attended a private boarding school in Illinois, which dated back to the 1800s. The school’s original headmaster lived in a building, Reid Hall. Pictures of the building during the headmaster’s residency were made visible around the building to mark the historical continuity. The informant initially shared this tradition during winter break, after insisting that the lights be turned off before we left the building, and later reflected on it.

Analysis:

Reed Hall illustrates how place-based folklore can come from more than fear-driven origins. Many campus ghost legends function as a form of protection, keeping certain spaces intact and, over time, evolving into etiquette. Instead of the building behind being haunted, the students were clear that it was someone’s house, fostering a behavioral norm of care and respect. The folk belief has moved past supernatural claims and has actually been folded into the school decorum. The informant’s insistence on turning out all the lights is evidence of successful folk transmission: the etiquette has been internalized and can now operate on a subconscious level.

Band Mantra

Text:

“We we pled to serve as masters of goodwill for Tucker High School. presenting ourselves as a showcase of excellent, elegant, sophistication, spirit of the core, and dignity. Love the band. 

So that’s what we had to say. At the end of every single practice. And so it was just a reminder —those are all the things we have to be if we want to, like, wear our bands, colors, or our uniform. “

Context

The informant was a member of her high school marching band for five years, and they recited the mantra at the end of every practice. She describes her time in band as a deeply formative and positive experience. She explained that the mantra was an effective way to reinforce their collective identity and shared standard of conduct, with the students’ repetition and time together as a cohort making it meaningful.

Analysis

This mantra functions as a form of institutional oral tradition — one that channels group identity and behavioral norms through repeated, ritualized speech. Marching band culture is colloquially known for its intensity, precision, and the necessary love of the labor. The matra serves as a kind of folk covenant: a verbal agreement among members to declare who they are and how they represent themselves as a unit. It retains psychological resonance; in particular, the sign-off “Love the band” is effective, direct, and unanimous to internalize. It suggests that folk speech embedded within institutional settings can extend beyond the institution itself, becoming part of their identity and continuing even after the collective context has ended.

La Sihuanaba

Text:

“It’s called La Sihuanaba — it’s like this beautiful woman that sits by the river, and she would oftentimes come and lure men that were either drunk or cheating on their wives. And then she would turn into this monster. She was basically punished by God to be this ugly creature because she was too vain. I don’t know if it’s kind of similar to, um, the one where the king looks at himself in the river too much and he’s too vain. But yeah, so she basically just lures men in and kills them if they’re not well-behaved. And then she also got punished with a son who is very treacherous.”

Context:

La Sihanaba is a widely circulated supernatural legend across Central America, particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. The informant’s family is Salvadoran, and the moral tales that he reflected on were often very vivid for his mother.  La Sihuanaba belongs to a cluster of feminine supernatural figures in Latin American folklore, most notably La Llorona, the “Weeping Woman,” a ghost who wanders waterways and targets children.

Analysis:

The recurring figure of a powerful, marginal woman who tests the moral fitness of those she encounters is recognizable across world folklore as the archetype of the Crone — a figure who sits at the crossroads of wisdom, danger, and social judgment. La Siihuanaba activates this archetype while complicating it in instructive ways. Unlike many Crone figures whose threat is purely spiteful or generalized, her targeting is morally precise: she punishes sobriety violations and marital infidelity, making her less a monster than a supernatural enforcer of communal norms. What gives her lasting narrative power is the irony embedded in her origin: she was herself condemned by God for vanity, and is punished to seek out and condemn that very excess in others. She is a flawed injuster, shaped by her own transgression. This reflexive quality — the punished becoming the punisher— invites an interpretive richness that sustains stories across generations.

New Years First-Footing

Text: 

“Right when the clock hits 12, before anyone else can go in the house—because, um, for my family, my dad’s the only man in the family—so before we can go anywhere else in the house, besides, like, the couch where we are watching the New Year’s Eve countdown, my dad has to walk through every single room. Like, you have to be the 1st person in every single room. And I don’t know where this tradition started or like how it started, but that’s just what my family does.”

Context:

The informant is a 20-year-old college student who shared this New Year’s tradition when reflection on family customs she grew up with. Her father, being the only son on his father’s side, is a central factor to why he carries out this role each year. The tradition has been practiced for as long as she can remember, experiencing both affection and mild dissonance — recognizing what she called its “patriarchal undertone,” but resolved that the spirit of the practice is one of care and protection for the household. 

Analysis:

This tradition closely resembles a Scottish custom, “First-Footing”, in which the first person to cross a threshold after midnight on New Year’s determines the household’s fortune for the year ahead. The gendered dimension reflects a broader folk belief that masculine presence is recognized as protection or a domestic blessing. The informant’s example, in particular, is compelling because of her own ambivalence: partaking in a ritual she neither fully understands nor uncritically accepts. This speaks to the binding power of informal family traditions. Unlike institutionally maintained folklore, family customs without explicit cultural ties derive their authority from the intimacy of the folk group itself. The informant doesn’t need to know the ritual’s origin or logic, as her being part of the family is meaningful enough to trust its intention and carry it forward. 

Story of Rama

Text:

“There’s this other god named Rama, and he was building a bridge to, I guess, what’s now known as Sri Lanka. It was called Lanka in the book. While he was doing that, it was actually like a small squirrel, which helped him, like, roll in sand and, like, shake it into stone so that he was able to kind of create that bridge to get there, like, through stepping stones. Um, and even though, like, the squirrel literally was not able to do much—the squirrel was obviously limited by size and strength— it still was blessed by Rama because he’s a lord. Because, you know, he gave that squirrel so much of, um, you know, its spirit and its effort to do something, even if, you know, it was kind of disadvantaged by its, like, size and its strength. So it was kind of showing that, you know, sincerity, devotion, and good intentions are sometimes more important than, you know, your ability to actually get something done.”

Context:

The informant is a 20-year-old of Hindu Indian background, in which religious fables and legends are part of a broader tradition that teaches about the origins of their gods while also teaching karmic values. The story of Rama had stuck with him and was something he absorbed deeply as he grew up. He also encountered it among other Hindus is age, exemplifying how it still transmits through the community in traditional oral storytelling. 

Analysis:

This legend is part of the Vaishnava Hindu narrative tradition, in which Lord Rama — an avatar of Vishnu — becomes a central moral figure. The story functions as an etiological legend, as identified by the informant: the tale encodes central values of Hindu ethics—bhakti (devotion, selfless effort, and divine recognition)—the vehicle of the messenger, nor the strength or status confines its spiritual worthiness. The story continues to circulate within Hindu communities, to highlight the dedication of effort rather than being bound by bodily form, serving as an enduring social function that binds community members around a shared understanding.