Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Scottish Expressions

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 77
Residence: San Pedro, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant has a very interesting story. She is Scottish, but grew up primarily in England, near London. She moved to California with my Grandfather when my mother was 2 years old, back in the 1960s. Informant’s parents were both very Scottish, and she says it was often difficult to understand what they were saying. I remember when I met my great-grandmother, Elizabeth, it sounded as though she were speaking a different language.

Informant: “Oh! Great! Oh, Perfect! I know many expressions… I remember these well from when I lived there. You wouldn’t use them all the time, just certain occasions. Unless you were my Uncle Archie…” (I never did learn who Uncle Archie was)

Me: “Which do you remember?”

Informant:  “Hogmanay, and it’s… New Years was almost more important…So, on New Years Eve, people would go after midnight to someone’s house and you would take something with you, like short bread or pudding or whatever, and, but if you were dark haired you were welcome and if you were light-headed, you weren’t. So if nobody came to visit you at midnight, you had to make sure nobody with blonde hair crossed your threshold.

“Lang may yer lum reek” (Live long and healthy) is what they say on New Years. We lived in London and during the war it was impossible to celebrate but we would make short bread and my father would have a little whisky before bed on New Years. All of the sudden, this one year, we were awaked to the sound of bagpipes at one in the morning, and we lived up a little lane and my mother, we rush out. There is this piper walking up and he is playing “Scotland The Brave,” all the way to our house. And people who knew slightly, they knew we were Scottish and they decided to come first foot us, you know, the first foot over the threshold. The bag piper came in the house, with his wife, and stayed for half and hour or so. He gets his bagpipe and starts back up again. The neighbors loved it though! They started to look forward to it every year.”

Me: “Wonderful.”

Informant: “Here’s tae us! Wha’s like us? Damn few, an’ they ‘re a deid!”, which means, basically… Cheers! There’s no one like the Scots!” That one was my favorite.

Me: “Any others?”

Informant: “Weans wi’ big lugs tak it a’ in” (Watch what you say in front of children)… my mother used to say that. I remember, I used to think my parents were just using slang terms, but these…these are real Scottish words! Different from English. I even have a dictionary if you want to look up what they mean.” (I did)

 

 

 

500 Miles

Nationality: British
Age: 81
Residence: San Pedro, CA
Performance Date: April 28th, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is from England. He moved to the United States with my grandmother and my mother when my mother was 2. He grew up near London and still has a thick British accent, despite having now lived in the United States since the 1960s. When I go to his house to ask about folklore that he may have learned in England, anything a part of his history, he says, “Any folklore I know I have learned through listening to folk songs. Mostly, old English folk songs.” Music means everything to my grandmother and my informant. He excitedly takes me to his cabinet of CDs where he has a plethora of English and American folk CDs. This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, because ever since I was little, I cannot remember a time when music wasn’t playing in this house. He wants to play them for me. I ask him to show me some of his favorites.

He takes out the CD of English Folk Songs and puts in an American CD of folk music…The Best of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Informant: “I love American folk tunes. Newer, of course. This is my favorite. We went to a party and the party was to sing folk songs, and someone handed out the words and I loved the songs but I didn’t know any of them because I didn’t grow up here. This was only about five years ago…but I went out and I bought a CD of folk songs! These are more twentieth century. Which for you, of course, is um… I’ll play you some of these. [Sings] A hundred miles, A hundred miles, A hundred miles… you can hear the whistle blow…. A Hundred Miles…. Wonderful folk songs and protest songs. I’ll play this one for you.”

 

500 Miles

If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles
A Hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles

Lord I’m one, Lord I’m two, Lord I’m three, Lord I’m four
Lord I’m 500 miles away from home
Away from home, away from home, away from home, away from home
Lord I’m 500 miles away from home
Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name
Lord I can’t go a-home this a-way
This a-away, this a-way, this a-way, this a-way
Lord I can’t go a-home this a-way

If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles

The informant sings along to the CD and moved around the room during this song. My grandmother is doing the same, singing and flowing to the music. Even though these two did not move here until the 1960s, to me, they somehow are the epitome of the “hippie” generation in many ways. They had very little money but spent their time going on road trips around California and camping whenever my informant was not working. They would take their 4 small children with them, taking them everywhere from the Grand Canyon to Oregon. They lived simply, kindly and with a life full of music. For me, their story… their pictures, their way of life…holds a certain mythology all on it’s own.

What I think is so interesting about this is that folk music, especially, can be learned and celebrated by anyone. It’s timeless, or appreciated for being dated. My grandfather didn’t grow up hearing this song, but loved it the moment he heard it and has now shown it to me. This is a song from my heritage in many ways. From their side of the family, I am very much from the UK, but from my father’s side, I am very American. His relatives were some of the first English/French people to settle in Virginia.

Bubble and Squeak

Nationality: British
Age: 81
Residence: San Pedro, CA
Performance Date: April 28th, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is from England. He moved to the United States with my grandmother and my mother when my mother was 2. He grew up near London and still has a thick British accent, despite having now lived in the United States since the 1960s. He still does many British things, such as drinking tea at least twice a day. It can only by PG Tips, he will not drink any other kind of tea. After sitting with him and my grandmother for hours, listening to folk music, he says:

Informant: “Do you know what Bubble & Squeak is?”

Me: “Never heard of it.”

Informant: “It’s when you cook your leftover vegetables and potatoes. You fry them. It’s called Bubble & Squeak. It’s so you don’t waste anything.”

[I laugh]

This doesn’t surprise me at all. My informant never lets anything go to waste. When we would go hiking as a family, he would make these disgusting “gorp” mixes, which was a bagged mix basically of trail mix, but he would add the strangest things — anything that was in the fridge. When we were kids, all we wanted were peanut butter sandwiches and we had to eat the concoctions that my informant came up with. It’s now a running joke in the family. It’s very war-time British to not let a thing go to waste and a good lesson to pass on.

Easter Lamb Cake

Nationality: Czech
Age: 77
Occupation: Retired Antrhopologist
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: 4/13/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Czech

*Collector note: The Lamb cake in question is a cake in the shape of a lamb, not a cake made from lamb.

Informant: “In my family, we always had a lamb cake for Easter, I think this was a Central European tradition, mostly in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. When I grew up in Chicago, there were a lot of German people in the neighborhood, and there were always German bakeries full of lamb cakes around Easter. The connection to Easter was that Easter was about Christ, you know, the Lamb of God. And so we would eat these lamb cakes for Easter. My mother would make it, so else sometimes we bought them in bakeries in Chicago. My aunt [M] said that her mother made lamb cakes as well. I always thought it was funny having lamb cake because we would tell people about it and people would say ‘oh, it’s like a meatloaf or something’ when really there was no lamb in it, is was just shaped like a lamb and didn’t have any meat at all. Though I know some people would sometimes hollow out the cake and put strawberry jam inside so when you cut it it looks like its bleeding [laughs]. I know other people would color their lamb cake with red food coloring to make the inside look like meat, but I always thought that would seem a bit to gory for me”

The informant is a 77 year old retired anthropologist living in Portland Oregon. Her grandparents immigrated to the United States from the Kingdom of Bohemia (in the modern day Czech Republic) in the 1890’s to escape the economic turmoil within the country in that time period. She was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and studied anthropology at Stanford University, during which time she became interested in learning more about the traditions of her heritage. She has on several occasions traveled to the Czech republic to visit relatives there.

Collector’s analysis: This particular tradition is an interesting take on some very core Christian symbolism. In the Christian faith (or perhaps, more specifically in the Catholic faith), there is this idea that the religious figure Jesus Christ was sacrificed for mankind. Because of the old, pre-Christian tradition of sacrificing ‘pure’ animals for religious purposes including lamb, Jesus Christ is frequently referred to as “The Lamb of God”. Thus, there is a connection between the Easter holiday and lambs. As for why the tradition is eating a lamb shaped cake rather than an actual lamb, the most likely explanation comes from the Catholic tradition of not eating meat on religious holidays, to which Easter was no exception. It should also be noted for this reason that the Czech republic, as well as the other Countries that the informant believes this tradition originated from, were all primarily Catholic nations during the period of time in which this tradition originated. As a side note, in this collector’s opinion, these cakes are absolutely delicious!

Traditional Czech Christmas meals and cookies

Nationality: Czech
Age: 77
Occupation: Retired Antropologist
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: 4/13/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Czech

*Collector Note: The Czech Republic, previously known as Czechoslovakia, which was a part of the Kingdom of Bohemia before that, was primarily a Catholic nation, and as of such the majority population would not eat meat on Fridays in keeping with their religious beliefs.

Informant: “Around Christmas time, people in the Czech Republic had a couple of special meals that they would prepare. One that I can think of were dumplings with different fruits inside of them that were usually served on meatless Fridays for supper. These dumplings were a big thing in Central European culture. They were normally served with cottage cheese and melted butter. They were sweet, but they were often served as main dishes like crepes. My grandmother made them a lot, and they were typically easy to make. They were just made out of Flour, water, and fruit. Otherwise, around Christmas, Czech people were big on fancy cookies and deserts. My grandmother and aunt used to make a couple dozen kinds of cookies for Christmas. One of the main ones were Kolacky, which were round pastries made with cream cheese, butter, flour, and fruit fillings like prunes or apricot. Sometimes we would make them with poppyseed. Other cookies we made were Angel Wings, which were sort of a combination of more traditional Czech cookies and other [Central European] culture. Vanilla or Walnut crescents were a big special one. We would make gingerbread cookies like gingersnaps. There was one type of Christmas Bread called Vanocka, which was a sweet bread formed like a big braid, which would have dried fruit, raisins, and orange slices inside of it. They usually had almonds in it as well. Czechs were always really great bakers”

The informant is a 77 year old retired anthropologist living in Portland Oregon. Her grandparents immigrated to the United States from the Kingdom of Bohemia (in the modern day Czech Republic) in the 1890’s to escape the economic turmoil within the country in that time period. She was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and studied anthropology at Stanford University, during which time she became interested in learning more about the traditions of her heritage. She has on several occasions traveled to the Czech republic to visit relatives there.

Collector Analysis: This is a pretty straightforward interpretation of a widely spread tradition of making special foods and desserts for the Christmas Season. As an interesting side note, one of the conditions that the informant had for sharing this story was that the collector could not post the actual recipes for any of the cookies beyond simply a list of the general ingredients, as the recipes are apparently a family secret. All of the cookies sampled by the collector were, in the collector’s opinion, delicious.

Kolachy, a traditional Czech Christmas cookie

Kolachy, a traditional Czech Christmas cookie