Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Turtle and the Shark

Nationality: Samoan American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student athlete
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Samoan

The informant’s family originated in Samoa, his parents were born and raised there before traveling and moving into the United States. He takes many visits to Samoa and is very in touch with his Samoan heritage and culture. He shared some common folklore with me that he could think of off of the top of his head. 

Informant…

“During a time of a huge famine and starvation spread across Samoa a blind grandma and granddaughter were put out of there family because they were seen as kind of a burden. They decided to jump into the ocean to cast their fates upon sea because it was giving and caring. Magic turned them into a turtle and a shark. The grandma and granddaughter wanted to find a new home. They traveled for a long time and were constantly turned away from potential homes until they found the shores of Vaitogi. Vertigo had high cliffs and a rough coastline, the shores were occupied by a compassionate and generous group of people. The old woman and her granddaughter turned back into their human form. They were welcomed by the people of Vaitogi. They fed them and offered that they make this village their new home. The old woman decided to make it her home, but she felt a connection to the sea as if it were her home too. She couldn’t stay on land, so she told the villagers that she and her granddaughter had to go back to the sea. She said that they would make village waters their permanent home. She gave the villagers a song to sing from the rocks and a promise that when they sang the song she and her granddaughter would come to visit. They returned to the sea and turned into their turtle and shark forms. To this day, the people of Vaitogi still sing the song and many villagers will tell you that they have personally seen the Turtle and Shark. To each of them the legend is as alive today as it has been.”

The informant also told me that there is a song that goes along with the legend, he said that he doesn’t know it and only certain people in the village of Vaitogi are able to know the song.

Analysis…

This legend of Samoa is different because it goes against the Samoan value of family by throwing the grandma and her granddaughter out of the house. However, this legend depicts that it is hard to be accepted into the different samoan communities but when you are accepted they treat you as family and give you the upmost respect. This legend helps to show the culture of the people of Samoa and how they do things. The grandmother wanted to be a part of the ocean so she left the village that accepted her but lived in the nearby shores and visited only when a song was sang. Also, this legend shows the importance of animals in this society. The grandmother and granddaughter were both transformed into two common sea creatures, and shark and a turtle. The informant wasn’t sure why but it is important to the story. The informant said that this story originated in Vaitogi by its natives, but he heard it from his grandma.

Day of the Dead

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 25
Occupation: PhD student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/15
Primary Language: Spanish

“Una de las tradiciones que es muy popular en la universidad donde estudié mi licenciatura (la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) se celebra cada primero de noviembre, el día de los muertos. Una de las actividades que se efectúan en esta festividad es la de construir altares y ofrendas para honrar a los muertos. En esta universidad las ofrendas son especialmente gigantescas. Se acostumbra a que los estudiantes de diferentes facultades se reúnan para construir enormes calaveras con adornos artísticos usando flores de cempasúchil.”

 

“One of the traditions that is very popular in the university where I did my undergraduate work (the National Autonomous University of Mexico) happens every first of November, when the day of the dead is celebrated. One of the activities that includes this festivity is to build offerings or altars honoring the deceased. In this university the offerings are famous for being gigantic. It’s very common for students from every school to get together to create enormous skulls along with artistic decorations using marigolds.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of California, studying Electrical Engineering. He is from Mexico City, Mexico, where he was born and lived most of his life. His native tongue is Spanish, but he is fluent in English, as well. He got his undergraduate degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which he graduated from in 2012. He enjoys ballroom dancing in his free time.

 

The informant was asked to send the collector a description of a holiday celebrated in Mexico that has a particular tradition associated with it. He typed it first in Spanish, then was kind enough to translate it. As he says, this tradition was practiced at his undergraduate university, though he had celebrated the holiday all his life.

 

The Day of the Dead is celebrated on the first day of November. The holiday’s main purpose is the gathering of friends and family to pray for loved ones who have died. The holiday originated in Mexico, and originally was celebrated at the beginning of the summer, but was moved after the colonization of the Spanish to correspond with All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day. The celebration can often last three days, beginning on All Hallows’ day to make the alters; Day of Innocents, to pray for dead children’ and Day of the Dead, for lost adults.

The altars are the main focus of the holiday. On them, people will place memorabilia from the dead person, whether it is pictures or their favorite food or sometimes they will play their favorite music. toys can be brought for children. Often times, there will be marigolds, the traditional flower in Mexico to honor the dead. Altars can be located at the cemetery where the deceased is buried, or within people’s homes if they are far away from the cemetery.  Family members can spend all night at the altar, praying. Most public schools create their own altars, avoiding religious symbols that might exist on other altars.

The informant’s university also builds its own altars. It is famous for building especially large altars in comparison to other schools, and that is a source of pride for the university (showing how important this holiday is). The students get together to decorate skulls, a major symbol for the holiday. In some places, people wear skull masks or make chocolate or sugar skulls for the day. At the informant’s university, the skulls become works of art, decorated with marigolds to show respect for the dead.

One hundred steps

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Shanghai, China
Performance Date: 2/25/15
Primary Language: Chinese

“Basically, yeah, one of our common sayings is that if you, you know, walk, like, a hundred steps after you eat your food, it helps you live longer.”

 

The informant is a 19 year old, undergraduate student at the University of Southern California, studying accounting. He was born and lived in Shanghai, China for most of his life. He spent his high school years at a boarding school in Connecticut, before coming to college in California. He still spends his summers back in China, where he likes writing music and working on potential future business projects.

 

The informant was asked if there were any common sayings that he heard in China. He had heard this saying from his family, often after meals.

 

The Chinese are renowned for their medicine practices. They are largely responsible for what many call “holistic medicine” today—acupressure, acupuncture, and herbal remedies. They are very interested in health and have many folklore remedies, as a result. This particular one, of walking a hundred steps after one eats, is just another of such remedies. Exercise is always a good thing, and walking after a meal can help circulate the blood in the body.

Why 100 steps? Well, 100 is an important number in Chinese culture. On a baby’s 100th day, there is a large celebration. A hundred is also ten times ten. Ten is a holy number, as it is the sum of the first four numbers (1+2+3+4), and people have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Ten would be too few of steps to walk, so the Chinese say 100  to maintain the holiness of the numerical symbolism, while still making it a practical way to maintain health.

It is interesting that the Chinese, with this saying, have people exercise after they eat. In America, there is the saying that you should wait to swim until an hour after you have eaten. This is thought to protect from cramps, and therefore drowning. The Chinese would likely disagree with this way of thinking.

Death Means…

Nationality: Jamaican American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC student athlete
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April1,2015
Primary Language: English

The informant was born and raised into the American culture and way of life. Her mother’s side of the family is in touch with their Jamaican culture and heritage and as the informant grew older she was able to become more into with the beliefs and customs of Jamaica.

Jamaican Death Means…

Informant…

When I asked the informant about different believes in the Jamaican culture this was the first one to come to her head. She said that “death signifies the end of someones physical life, however if someone dies and is said to have “unfinished business” their spirit will not rest. Instead, the spirit roams the earth until it is able to finish it’s business.”

I was then really intrigued by this so I asked her if she had ever witnessed this or knew someone who did and he informant said that her grandmother passed away and a few weeks later the informant’s mother saw her grandmothers spirit or ghost. This was important to the family to know this because it told them that she hadn’t passed on and would watch over them until she was able to continue on. This is a normal thing in there culture, so it is safe to say that this culture believes in ghosts  and spirits waling the earth. This is interesting because it clashes with other beliefs in society.

Analysis…

This culture does believe in ghosts and spirits roaming the earth with unfinished business. This kind of collides with other religious beliefs that the culture may have about God. I didn’t get a chance to ask the informant how that works, and how they deal with the collision of beliefs, but it is definitely a part of my thought process while analyzing this specific aspect of their culture. It seems like Jamaicans are in touch with their ancestors whether that is doing rituals to please them, or seeing their spirits roam, they have a close connection to their families. Maybe Jamaican culture is big on family, I just have to assume this because I didn’t ask the informant this question either.

Skating “Five-0”

Nationality: White
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brea California
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English

Tanner is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in Brea California, on the boarder of Orange Country. He was a part of both soccer, skate, and fishing communities as a kid, as well as the public school community and his local community.

 

Performance: “So we’re at the skate park, and everybody has to wear helmets at the skate park – it’s the law. obviously we’re all skating and nobody is wearing helmets because… come on. haha. So we will all be skating and somebody is sitting at the top and all of a sudden you will hear somebody yell “Five-0!” And then you hear it and everybody panics and then runs to the bleachers and acts like they aren’t skating. I mean you say Five-0 because of the whole Hawaii Five-0 thing, and obviously the cops are showing up, and if you’re skating around and you don’t have a helmet on you get like a $200 ticket…which is like…not chill.”

Do you think that’s just a thing in Brea (where he is from) or do you think that’s a larger skate community thing? i asked.

“I mean i’ve been to other skate parks in like Chino and Santa Anna and people will yell Five-0 and the exact same thing happens. so yeah, I guess you could say it’s a bigger thing. One time though I was skating in Palmdale and yelled it and everybody thought I meant somebody was getting arrested and got really sketched out. I guess it means different things sometimes.”

 

Analysis: I believe that this skate folklore has both multiplicity and variation. As I never skated when I was younger, I had never heard of this warning call. It’s like a sort of code to say that cops are nearby without notifying the cops that the kids know. It is interesting that Tanner referenced a potential cause for the saying, the TV series Hawaii Five-0. The saying seems to sometimes mean different things in different skating communities but always has something to do with the police.