Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Sorority Bus Chant

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: It goes—okay, don’t laugh—it goes: [to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ball Game]

Take me out to your frat house, take me up to your room;

We don’t need pillows or sheets tonight, just a condom that fits you just right;

For it’s fuck, fuck, fuck ‘til the morning;

If I don’t come, you’re to blame;

For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out;

By the way, what’s your name?

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

This piece is one I originally encountered in its intended context—on a bus, bound for a sorority invite (off-campus party to which dates can be invited)—but collected months later in order to catch the full lyrics. While the chant was sung with brazen gusto on the bus, once the informant had sobered up, she admitted that the chant is “definitely not reflective of what we’re about.” Most performers of the chant seemed to feel the same: the chant is a fun sorority tradition, but the lyrics are laughably outlandish and don’t reflect the moral values of modern-day performers. Hence the informant’s little introduction to the piece, letting me know that she doesn’t stand behind the lyrics or take them seriously.

The chant, the informant told me, has been passed down through the years; she isn’t sure when it was started, but she knows that different sororities sing different variations of the song, and the lyrics have changed slightly over the years (sorority members are not allowed to write down the lyrics in any form because, as a national organization, the sorority does not want to be attached to such a scandalous chant).

The context of the chant is essential to know: sorority members sing it on a crowded bus while their dates watch and listen. The goal of the chant is, most likely, to convince the dates that sorority members are fun and ready to party that evening. The chant also has fairly overt sexual suggestions, and therefore might be a way for sorority members to approach the topic of what will happen after invite.

Sorority Drinking Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: Take a shot, take a shot! Take a god-damned shot! If you can’t take a shot like a/an [sorority nickname] can, then you shouldn’t have a shot in your motherfucking hand! Take a shot!

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. She is a member of a sorority, and was born and raised in Chicago, IL.

The informant first learned this drinking song, or chant, on the night after she received a bid from her sorority. She and her new “sisters” gathered in the largest bedroom of her sorority house, poured shots of Fireball (a popular brand of cinnamon flavored whiskey) and preformed the chant before knocking back their drinks. The informant has since preformed the chant only a handful of times—all occurred with other sorority sisters before a night of partying, and sometimes during. The informant claims she has also heard members of other USC sororities sing the chant with their own sorority’s nickname in place of the informant’s. Nevertheless, the song stands a symbol of initiation into a sorority; only members can preform it.

“Blood Makes the Grass Grow”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: February 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant: I’m from Oklahoma, and back home at football games, we always chant, “Kill, kill, blood makes the grass grow” whenever we’re winning or, like, about to make a big play.

Me: Like at professional games?

Informant: No, mostly at high school ones. And some college games.

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California and loves to attend and participate in sporting events.

This chant, in the context of football games, seems to mean that a brutal victory over an opponent will serve to make the field look better during the next game. However, variations of the chant also seem to be associated with the US military; it receives a nod in the title of author Johnny Rico’s memoir—and account of the year he spent fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan—Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America. Another version of this chant appears in the 1987 war film Full Metal Jacket. The Sergeant asks, “What do we do for a living?” To which the platoon replies, “Kill, kill, kill!” The Sergeant continues with, “What makes the grass grow?” And his men reply, “Blood, blood, blood!”

Citation 1: Rico, Johnny. Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America. New York: Presidio, 2007. Print.

Citation 2: Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Prod. Stanley Kubrick. By Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Lee Ermey. Warner Bros., 1987.

Assyrian Wedding Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Assyrian

Informant: Something that’s passed down, as far as Assyrian wedding traditions, is that the groom’s family has to go to the bride’s house the morning of the wedding before the church ceremony to “pick her up.” And while the groom and his groomsmen are waiting at the church, his relatives are all at the brides house singing and dancing, waiting to escort her to the church. Also, before they leave the house, a male relative of the bride—it’s usually like a brother or a close cousin—closes the front doors and ask for, or, I guess, demands a payment of some sort for the giving away of his relative (the bride). The payment is usually cash, and they negotiate the final amount at the door. After he—the relative—gets the money, he opens the door and everyone dances outside and gets in their cars and goes to the church.

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California. Aside from learning many Assyrian traditions from her parents, she has attended several weddings of relatives and has witnessed these traditions firsthand.

This particular custom of a male relative of the bride demanding compensation for her hand in marriage seems to be a remnant from the past. The informant acknowledge that, while a bit out of date in the contemporary United States, this aspect of the wedding is extremely important to Assyrians who are in touch with their family’s traditions.

The informant told me about Assyrian weddings while we were discussing the future possibility of marriage, and weddings we had been to in the past. She confirmed that her parents have asked that she marry an Assyrian man and preform these traditions at her own wedding. When I asked her if she would feel comfortable doing it, she nodded and confirmed that she liked the tradition because, as “archaic” as it seems to her, it “makes [her] feel connected to [her] family.”

Candelight Ceremony and Ring Day at Saint Martin’s

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/ New Orleans, LA
Performance Date: 3/31/15
Primary Language: English

Collector: So you’re originally from Louisiana, right?

Informant: Yep!

Collector: In your high school, were there ever some traditions for seniors?

Informant: Oh, there was! There was a ceremony called the Candlelight Ceremony. And the seniors at the time had, like, a lit candle and the juniors would have a non-lit candle, and the seniors would take their lit candle and light the juniors’ non-lit candle.

Collector: Oh that’s cool!

Informant: Yeah, and Ring Day.

Collector: What’s Ring Day?

Informant: Ring Day was when a senior at the time got their senior ring and put it around their neck, then took the ring and put it on a junior’s neck.

Collector: Do you know how that got started?

Informant: Um, I think they were just looking for a creative way to give people their senior rings.

 

Collector’s notes: I’ve seen the act of giving class rings in a couple of different situations.  A few decades ago, I know that boyfriends would give their girlfriends their class rings as a sort of symbol of their relationship.  It linked the two people together and I think this is sort of like that.  Similarly with the Candelight Ceremony, the “light” has always been a reputation of love and unity (Stritof). In some ways, this ceremony was a way of the senior passing on their love and approval to the juniors, and they were uniting them as “rising juniors” and “graduating seniors.”  It’s as if they belong in the same community for a short while; both considered seniors-but-not-quite.

Because this was a Catholic school, however, the light may have had a simultaneous but different symbol.  In the history of the church, fire and the candle have represented Christ, otherwise known as “The True Light” (Horvat).  Being given a candle at a baptism, for example, is considered “receiving the light of Christ.”  This light is supposed to accompany and strengthen the baby at this liminal point in their life.  At baptism, a newborn or convert becomes a member of the church community.

In a more basic way, fire carries its own representation altogether.  It can, in some ways, represent the three stages of thought and enlightenment (Horvat).  This would be very appropriate in a school setting, especially being given to rising juniors, who are about to start the final year of their child lives. It takes hard work and dedication to create and care for a fire.  The long burning wick of the students’ lives is beginning, and the leaving seniors are sharing their knowledge, or “light” with the new senior class.

 

REFERENCES : Stritof, Sheri. “Candle Symbolism — Candles Represent Love For Many.” About.com. About.com, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.

Horvat, Marian T., Ph. D. “Symbolism of Candles, Fire by Marian Horvat.”Tradition in Action. Tradition in Action, Inc.,  n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.