Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

New Years Eve Ritual

text: “Every New Years Eve, my family puts a $100 dollar bill in their pockets before the clock reaches midnight. We do this because it brings prosperity in the New Year and the hope that you will be rich. My grandparents on my Filipino side put round objects in their pockets, such as coins or grapes, which also will bring wealth and good fortune in the New Year” -Informant

context: The tradition and superstition of these comes from both his Italian side and his Filipino side. He is 50% Italian, and 50% Filipino and has multiple traditions for every holiday. On his Italian side, his mom introduced putting a $100 bill into his pocket, maybe to just give him a hundred dollars, or maybe to bring him good fortune. On his Filipino side, his dad would make him put grapes, coins, or anything round also in his pocket to bring wealth and prosperity in the New Year.

analysis: What’s interesting about the combination of both of these New Years rituals, is that the informant will probably pass down these traditions to his kids. It will be a combination of them and be his way of passing down his culture to his kids. These New Year’s Eve superstitions and rituals serve as a prime example of Jame George Frazer’s theory of sympathetic magic, in specific, homeopathic magic. In his theory, he explains the belief among folk groups that certain practices can be carried out on a smaller scale that then produce major effects on a larger scale, that if which affecting the future.

Christmas Eve Ritual

text: “Every Christmas eve, on my Italian side, we eat seven kinds of fish. My mom is Italian and her parents came to the U.S. from Italy. They taught her that eating the seven kinds of fish combines their old Italian traditions and unites them with their new ones in America. The fish we eat are, clams, mussels, halibut, shrimp, calamari, etc.” – Informant

context: This is a yearly tradition on Christmas eve done by his entire Italian family. Even when they’re traveling, if they have no access to all of these fish or any of them, they will jokingly buy Swedish fish candy in order kind of fulfill the tradition. The informant learned this from their mother, who is Italian, and she learned it from her parents, who moved to America from Italy.

analysis: This is a holiday ritual but also a cultural food tradition done yearly by Italian people and immigrants. Done by a lot of Italian/Americans, this tradition combines their old culture with a new culture.

New House Ritual

text: “In Filipino culture, when you move into a new house, you put coins in the corner of every room in that new house. This supposedly brings prosperity and good fortune for your new chapter in life.” – Informant

context: This superstition/ritual was learned from the informant’s grandmother on his Filipino side. She learned this from her parents whenever they moved houses and passed it down to her son, the informant’s father. It is a huge part of Filipino culture, and the informant stated that superstitions are also huge in his culture. In Filipino culture, money is the biggest part of becoming successful, therefore, putting coins in the corners of rooms can act as a way of helping one achieve that wealth.

analysis: This is both a tradition and a superstition because it is passed down from generations, but also used to supposedly bring prosperity. When moving into a new house, it seems like a way to make it your own and ward off any negative energy. Everyone wants to be successful and there are coins are a huge motif to display that.

International Women’s Day in Georgia

[T:] 8th of March, International Women’s Day, is huge in Georgia. My grandma was just telling me about it…like she parked in a no-parking zone and came out and they were giving her a ticket and she was like, “Guys…it’s the 8th of March” like they let women get away with anything. It’s tradition to give everyone violets, all of the women, and they’re wild violets they’re really pretty but they’re always wrapped with string so it’s very natural, straight out of the earth kind of thing. You have to give every woman you love that…the men particularly.

[Me]: Do you have any idea why, of all the things you could do to celebrate, why violets wrapped with string?

[T]: It’s called აი ია [pronounced “ai ia”] in Georgian, and I don’t know the exact, or if there is even like an exact thing but it’s…from the very beginning we have this book of alphabets…and it’s called აი ია which translates to this violet…or there’s a violet or something, so that’s the first one…it’s like ‘a’ is for apple, ‘b’ is for blah blah, so that’s how they start it with აი ია so it’s just very associated with beginnings and the first bloom of spring and everything new and very pure.

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific festival traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

Although most of the world celebrates March 8th as International Women’s Day, these specific modes of celebration speak to the way that Georgian culture views women, and how those views are tied into even the more trivial aspects of their lives. T’s use of the word “pure” is particularly interesting to me; the violet represents women to Georgians because it plays a role in their alphabet book that they’ve known since childhood—it’s the first symbol to appear in the book and thus symbolizes new beginnings and rebirth. This kind of rhetoric has followed women for a long time—throughout many cultures and eras—but the fact that it’s tied to something so important as the alphabet book that every Georgian child has read and will read forever makes me wonder about what other aspects of sociocultural tradition are ingrained in other parts of the Georgian lifestyle.

One other aspect from this interview I wanted to touch on was T’s comment that women can “get away with anything” on March 8th. This very much reminded me of conversations we’ve had in lecture about “ritual inversion” being a big part of a lot of festival celebrations around the world—Halloween and Mardi Gras, to name some of the more well-known examples. On International Women’s Day in Georgia, they essentially participate in ritual inversion; it may not be “official,” but there’s a general understanding that the normal rules of social or legal engagement do not apply to women on this day. As women are more often than not seen as the “weaker,” “fairer,” or “lesser” sex, it’s no surprise that this is one of the ways that IWD is celebrated. It gives women a reprieve from the near-constant pressure and simply being a women in the modern world and allow them a day of peace—and maybe even a bit of mischief.

Georgian Funeral Traditions

Nationality: Georgian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: Georgian, English

[T]: Funerals…I hated those things. They’re usually first held in whoever dies…their house. There’s usually a casket, usually an open casket in the living room and everyone and their mother literally has to show up or else you’re the most disgraceful thing known to humankind so there’s like hundreds of people and you know that someone’s died because you walk or drive past the street and there’s hundreds of people going in and out of the apartment building.

[Me]: Is it everybody in the community or just everybody that ever knew the person?

[T]: Everyone that ever knew the person basically…word gets around. And then…you have to typically wear black, you go in straight faced and when you walk into the living room you have to…there’s like all the women that were closely related to the deceased person sitting in a circle around the open casket and then you have to walk in a circle around the casket and look in…which is really traumatizing and then you say your condolences to everyone and typically in like more the villages and the outer areas of Georgia, the women weep loudly…that’s another thing they audibly weep the whole time and the louder they weep the more it shows that they loved the person. After you do that round you turn around and leave and go outside and usually people stand outside and have a drink or two and then they leave.

Day two of celebrations is when you have a huge feast, but that’s a little more intimate. It’s usually only like 100 people as opposed to like a thousand.

[Me]: Is there anything that you characteristically make for this feast? Like a food staple? Does everyone bring something or does the family of the deceased make everything?

[T]: Typically all of our feasts are the same cuisine…just a lot of typical Georgian food: a lot of meats, fish, grains, because grains are tied to the earth and holiness, a lot of greens and spinach and nuts…our typical feast tradition is that is has to look as though no one’s touched it so it has to be a lot of food…like mountains of food and especially when you’re honoring the dead it has to look like no one’s touched it so it’s a sign of respect.

[Me]: Do any of these funeral rites have official titles or are they just understood to be done when someone dies?

[T]: Oh yeah the viewing is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which kind of translates to “letting them rest” or “resting them away” and then…oh no, the first part is called პანაშვიდი [pronounced “panashvidi”] and the second part is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which is when they take them…there’s a bunch of people that drive to the church and then to the graveyard where they’re buried. Part 3 is the feast which is called the ქელეხი pronounced “qelekhi”], don’t know what that translates to but that’s what it’s called.

Translation Key:

გასვენება – pronunciation: gasveneba – literal translation: “letting them rest” – English equivalent: wake

პანაშვიდი – pronunciation: panashvidi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral

ქელეხი – pronunciation: qelekhi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral feast

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific wedding, funeral, or other ritual traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

There’s a lot of insight into Georgian culture from these funeral traditions. From the expectation of women weeping loudly at the wake to the abundant feast, it’s clear that the community places a lot of emphasis on paying respect to the deceased in traditional ways. The way that T describes the foods present at the qelekhi (ქელეხი) also speak to the overarching themes the culture and community value: connections to the Earth and holiness. T is a close friend of mine, and from other conversations we’ve had I know that outside of the capital city of Tbilisi, the villages are rather poor, very religious, and close-knit—these funeral traditions absolutely reflect that fact. Funerals represent, for a lot of cultures, a transition in identity for the deceased as they leave their place amongst the living and join the dead; I would have to do more research to be sure, but these traditions seem to indicate that in Georgian culture, people who have died are still very much a part of the community—just in a different way.