Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Baking Bread

A recipe of bread with dried fruit in it that gets baked every Easter and Christmas in informant’s family. Every Easter and Christmas, the day or two before, the entire maternal side of the family, including informant and her sister, goes to grandfather’s house. They make the dough, spend the night, let it set. The next morning, they punch it down, get it all ready, and then add all the fillings in, and bake the bread.

This tradition comes from informant’s mom’s side of the family. Informant’s grandfather was taught by his mother how to make this bread, and it’s been passed down through the family. Informant has a lot of good memories with this tradition. The recipe is the same every time, everyone always enjoys it. It’s always quiet hours around Easter or Christmas, and the holidays mean a lot because they’re very family-centered and food-centered. Informant describes it as a “sacred thing” that connects her to her grandpa, or opa.

I thought this was a really good example of a tradition to collect because my informant made it clear how much this tradition connected her to her family and was something special and meaningful to her, which I think is representative of the role traditions are usually supposed to serve in a person’s folklore. As opposed to some minor genres and narratives, traditions are typically big parts of people’s lives and identities. This tradition of baking bread, and how it is a very family-centric activity that connects a lot of the family together at specific times each year, shows how effective traditions can be in creating meaning in a person’s life.

Irish Marriage Proposal Tradition — The Sheep Rug

Text

MB recently went on a trip to the Irish island of Inisheer, where she met a local man named Kevin at a bar.

“We went outside for a cigarette and he proposed to me. Like legitimately got on one knee and had his grandmother’s ring. I was so confused and I didn’t know what to do, so I took the ring and just didn’t reply.

“The next day I was like, ‘I need to return this ring.’ I went back to the bar because no one has like any form of communication. And I was like, ‘When does Kevin come?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, he’ll be here after work.’ So I hung out until Kevin showed up. And then I was like, ‘Look, I can’t marry you. Here’s your ring back.’

“Kevin was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, wait. I owe you a sheep. Do you want a sheep?’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? I’m leaving tomorrow. What am I supposed to do with a sheep?’ And he was like, ‘No, no. In Inisheer tradition, when you propose, you’re supposed to give a sheep as your proposal gift.’ I was like, ‘What do I do with a sheep? What do you expect me to do with that?’

“Kevin said sometimes people turn the sheep into a rug, so I was like, ‘Oh, okay. I’ll take a sheep rug, I guess.’ And I wrote down my address on a little piece of paper.

“I thought it was hilarious because I was not expecting to get an actual sheep rug in the mail from Kevin. But low and behold, two weeks after getting back to L.A., a box showed up with this sheep rug. It’s gorgeous. So yes, I did, in fact, get an engagement sheep rug from Kevin, the rubbish collector.

Context

MB is a 20 year-old college student from New Jersey currently living in Los Angeles. She has traveled extensively and was in Ireland to film a documentary when this proposal occurred.

While she was not familiar with this specific Inisheer tradition, MB said she had heard of similar customs in other cultures. “It’s a tradition to present the woman with something that would appeal. So I feel like I had seen it, but I didn’t know that was an Irish thing.

“But this island also is super traditional, so it wasn’t super surprising. For context, the island is very small. Not a lot of technology. It’s a tourist destination now, but year-round, I think less than a hundred people live there. It’s all farmland. The only things that people do are own a shop or work on a farm or work on the ferry that runs to the mainland. So it’s very traditional. They all know each other, so there’s no need to text. They just go to the same place at the pub and knock on each other’s doors.

MB said she plans to keep the sheep rug for a long time and keep telling this story for the rest of her life. “I cherish this sheep rug so much. I think it’s the best souvenir I could ever receive.

She also admitted that sometimes she feels like she insulted Irish marriage tradition, even though Kevin was very insistent. “Obviously, because I was doing the documentary, I wanted to talk to people and actually get to know the culture. But I did not expect to be proposed to. And coming in and then leaving … I don’t know. But he really didn’t give me an option. And who am I to turn down a sheep rug? That sounds awesome.”

Analysis

Marriage is one of the most celebrated life milestones across cultures. Historically, marriage is what brings two families together, establishing kinship networks and serving to reproduce not only life but culture. Thus, as one of the most important societal rituals that transforms identity, marriage is surrounded by many traditions, including those related to the engagement as MB experienced.

MB was told that she would be given an older sheep. It is unclear to her whether the sheep rug she received was already made at the time of the proposal, so there is no way of knowing much about the sheep it came from. Nonetheless, it is interesting that she was not given a young sheep to symbolize fertility, which is an important theme across diverse wedding traditions. Giza Roheim’s research, “Wedding Ceremonies in European Folklore,” explores other iterations of such themes.

Ultimately, Kevin’s insistence in giving her the sheep speaks to the immense power of ritual. Even though MB declined the marriage proposal, he insisted on following through with the whole proposal ritual. This demonstrates the belief that rituals must be performed correctly and in their entirety, or else the occasion loses its transformative power. In Kevin’s case, it is possible that he believed a failure to follow through on the engagement ritual would give him bad luck with future proposals, or alternatively, not release him from his commitment to MB. Whatever the reason, it is clear that he was acting under the weight of ritual obligation, rather than reason.

St. Joseph Miracle — Family Legend

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2023
Primary Language: English

Text

“My great great grandfather from Sicily prayed to St. Joseph for a favor. I believe he had a near-fatal illness and needed healing. Anyways, he got better. So every year on St. Joseph’s day (March 19) he promised to have a big feast in St. Joseph’s honor and invite friends and family to celebrate. He also had a large St. Joseph statue in his home, which now belongs to my great uncle. 

“More widespread, I believe St. Joseph’s day is celebrated in March because it is believed that praying to him brings rain and bountiful spring crops. Creating a table or altar of offerings is commonplace in Italian tradition, but my family goes above and beyond with the festivities to recognize this family legend.”

Context

SR is a 20 year-old college student from Thousand Oaks, CA. Her family is Catholic and has Italian roots. She first heard the story of her great great grandfather’s miracle when she was very young.

“I believe it was first told to me when I was five or six years old, around the first time I met my extended family in New York,” she said.

The extent of her belief in the family miracle/legend has decreased alongside her religious belief.

“I considered it a miracle at the time, but given how little evidence I have for it actually happening and how I’ve sort of grown out of the Catholic faith, I’m definitely skeptical,” she explained. “However, that doesn’t change the fact that I cherish the tradition and plan to share the legend — as something that may or may not have been true — with my own kids one day.”

Analysis

This miracle slowly devolves from a personal experience of myth (sacred truth) to a legend, reflecting the shifting truth value of the story. In this way, this testimonial is a great example of how the major distinguishing factor between a myth and a legend is its truth value to an individual. SR’s skepticism means that she still values the story as a legend and as a site of tradition, regardless of belief. 

The story of a relative experiencing a miracle functions to strengthen a myth (sacred truth) by bringing it closer to an individual. Additionally, SR learned this story in a familial context, which functioned to link myth (religious belief) with family. Social networks have a strong influence on belief.

The myth also functions to naturalize an aspect of SR’s culture, the St. Joseph’s Day celebration, by endowing it with a sacred origin story of why they celebrate the feast day. These family myths/legends function to create a more personal experience of religious (mythic) belief.

Chinese promise gesture and accompaning phrase

Nationality: China
Age: 20
Occupation: student/rapper
Performance Date: 2/21
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text:


“Here is a gesture that might be interesting. The gesture is for making a promise. I think the U.S.’ is very similar. You hook your pinky finger with your friend and touch your friend’s thumb.”


“But what’s different in China is that at the same time, you need to say ‘la gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian.'”


“The two thumb touching is what we say like putting a stamp on the promise.”


Context:


FG is a student studying history and economics at USC. He is currently in a program in Ireland. He performed this folk gesture and folk speech to me through a zoom call. This piece of folklore is something that is performed many times by the informant when he was young.


Analysis:


This is a combination of folk speech and folk gesture. The folk speech has to go in combination with the gesture to make any sense. As a matter of fact, because this folk speech has been around for too long, part of the content doesn’t make sense anymore. “La gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian,” or “拉勾上吊一百年不许变,” translate directly to “hook, hang, a hundred years no change. ” The “hang” part doesn’t make sense because as this piece of folklore spread in China, the original word for “shang diao”， or “上吊”， or hang, actually is a transformation from the homophone “上调，” which also is “shang diao,” but the meaning is very different. “上调” means the thumbs pull up and meet to put a red stamp on the things we want to promise.


On the other hand, another explanation is formed for the transformed version of “shang diao,” or “上吊.” People start to say that it means we keep our promises til we die. Because “上吊” specifically means a method of suicide: hanging on a rope. Folklore rationalizes itself with different transformations. It intrigues me when I think of the transformation and the rationalization of this particular piece.

Birthday Bite (Mordida)

Text: 

So in like Latin American culture in general, I’m personally Mexican, but we have this thing and you basically sing a person happy birthday on their birthday into a cake. And, it’s called mordida which means bite. So you basically like yeah its mordida, which is bite in Spanish, its m-o-r-d-i-d-a and the whole thing it’s like kinda supposed to be good luck. Yeah, you just kind of shove their face into the cake, and they’re supposed to take a bite of the cake before everyone else, but like with their face. And, the whole point should be like a little bite, but people go a little crazy sometimes. 

Context: 

Both of A’s parents are Mexican, and she grew up in Texas near the Mexican-American border in a strong Latin American community. She is currently 21 years old and attends USC.

Analysis: The word mordida, which A describes to mean a bite, is also more widely used to refer to a bribe when not in the context of the birthday tradition. It’s also traditional in Mexico to sing the song Las Mañanitas rather than happy birthday during the mordida. Luck associated with the start of a year or new beginnings at a birthday is also a theme in many cultures. Celebrating the year or new age of the birthday boy or girl sets a tone for the next 365 days. In Van Genup’s book Rites of Passage, he explains how rituals are often practical jokes and that in order to change identity (to move from one age to the next), there must be a ritual. Here it is interesting that after attending different birthday parties and their own every year the victim of the practical joke knows what is going to happen, but still allows it anyway. Participating in good humor or being able to “take the joke” is perhaps a sign of maturity. This is also an example of ritual inversion in which the ritual is the opposite of the normal rules of social engagement. Normally, shoving someone’s face into a cake would be rude, but in the Mordida it would almost be rude not to.