Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Camping for Brotherhood

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, CA/New Orleans, LA
Performance Date: 3/31/15
Primary Language: English

Collector: What camp did you go to?

Informant: I went to Fallen Creek in North Carolina.

Collector: Did you guys have any, like, special songs or chants or anything?

Informant: Every Sunday we’d do this campfire. It was kind of like church, minus, like, the religious aspect, more of just a community thing. And it would always end with taps, but throughout there would be all these songs, like counselors and campers would get up and sing and stuff. And we’d do skits and stuff. Every week we would have special messages about brotherhood.

Collector: Was it an all guys camp?

Informant: Yeah. I went Eight years.

Collector’s Notes: A huge aspect of folklore, and one of its purposes, is that it builds community.  One of the long-used ways of doing this is through song.  Singing has been around for a very long time, and people teaching others songs that the community is familiar with to welcome them and make them part of the group.  I also think that the message about brotherhood is important here.  The camp is creating a tight-knit group by repeatedly reminding this group of young boys that they need to be there for each other.  The taps are somewhat ceremonial almost.  Historically, the TAPS is something that has only taken place in the United States military.  Oddly enough, it’s usually used at funerals, wreath-layings, and memorial services (Villanueva).  The military is one of the most well-known tightly knit, family-like communities that exists, so it makes sense that they would use this to subconsciously provide that type of atmosphere.  Also, the ceremonial use of it is important.  These ceremonies, like funerals, are really important in folklore.  They signify someone passing out of the community and into whatever afterlife they believe in.  Also, some cultures use funerals to celebrate life instead of grieve over death.  This could possibly be an underlying message in the Fallen Creek tradition of playing.  Skits also have been a usual way of getting people to become more comfortable.  A lot of ice-breaker games are centered around working together and team building to work toward a common goal (“Ice Breakers”).  This is a way that the group in question, in this case the boys in the camp, make a special bond with other boys around the same age, thus creating a “folk.”

REFERENCES:

“Ice Breakers: Getting Everyone to Contribute at the Start of a Successful Event.” Mind Tools. Mind Tools Ltd., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Villanueva, Jari. “History of Taps | JV Music.” JV Music. WordPress, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

Break a Leg!

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/03/15
Primary Language: English

Collector: So, you’re involved in theatre and also some film stuff.

Informant: Yes.

Collector: So, are there any tabooistic or initiation things involved in that world?

Friend: Don’t say “Macbeth” in a theatre setting. We call it “The Scottish Play.” Also, you’re not supposed to say “Good luck.” You’re supposed to say, “Break a leg.”

Collector: Oh, yeah I’m familiar with those. Do we know the story behind “Break a leg?”

Informant: In earlier centuries, people would bow. There are a couple of different stories. The way you bow included kneeling one leg and bending down, so you’re literally breaking the line.

Collector: Oh! That makes sense.

Informant: Yeah, and if you had a really good performance, you would bend really far down, so that’s why you really want to, like, “break” the leg.

Friend: And you’re also breaking a line by doing that, in a way. You’re creating a line by straightening the one leg, but you’re breaking the other potential line, a little bit, because you’re bending the knee.

Informant: So it’s like “Give a performance deserving of taking a bow that low.”

Collector’s Notes: Theatre has always been an area of a lot of tradition.  People chant things before performing, they’ll wear certain pairs of tights or shoes, or they’ll ceremoniously give each other gifts on opening night.  So, it doesn’t surprise me that the “Break a leg” saying is deep-rooted in tradition as well.  Although I’ve never heard it called “The Scottish Play” I think that’s really interesting.  I’m assuming that they call it this in a “He Who Will Not Be Named” sort of way.  Because it is a play about Scotland, I’m guessing that they call it this instead of using its actual name.  We see this a lot in studying folklore, because certain things that become “bad luck” are avoided like the plague.  I like this story, though, because it sort of gives a logical explanation to the meaning of the saying.  As if someone “breaking” the line of their leg gives the saying more validation than just being a bad omen.  People naturally like to have logical or scientific explanations for things, instead of saying that something is the way it is “just because that’s how it’s been done.”  An interesting hypothesis, is that maybe people started saying “break a leg,” then because more people started saying this, “good luck,” being heard less and less, was assumed to be bad luck just out of lack of use.

 

 

Dancing Through Life

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/03/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: My senior year on the dance team I was on, we had eight or nine of us seniors. And on the last day of class we all sat in a circle and would, like, go around to each senior and everyone else would say their first impression of that senior, and how it either stayed the same or changed.

Collector: Oh that’s neat!

Collector’s Notes: Because these seniors were at a liminal point in their lives, it’s natural that they would want to reflect on the past and see the journey from the past to the present.  This is a way that they could do that.  In western culture, and folklore in general, what is perceived is very important.  I would imagine that most people’s opinions of the seniors changed, because people are always changing and growing, and what people perceive about them changes and grows with them.

 

Inappropriate Chanting in Theatre

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch

Informant: In theatre you normally have an opening night to get everyone to, like, get excited and pumped.

Collector: How does that work?

Informant: So normally everyone just gets in a circle and we talk about the experience. Like, what we’re excited about, and what we really wanna show these people tonight. In my old theatre group, in high school, we did this chant. It was ridiculously inappropriate! But it was great because it got everyone pumped up.

Collector: What was the chant?!

Informant: Um..it’s a little inappropriate.

Collector: It’s okay!

Informant: “Fuck that nigga shit, fuck that nigga shit.”

Collector: Oh! Why??

Informant: I don’t know how it got started, but to like build that up it was like “Energy, energy all around. You can bring a nigga up you can bring a nigga down!”  And as soon as that got built up, everyone would go, “Ah! Fuck, that nigga shit. Fuck that nigga shit.” But it was great because it was a sound-proof room, so we would do that before almost every show.

Collector’s Notes: I hear about a lot of circles in ceremonies, and I think it carries a lot of significance.  We talked about circles symbolizing cycles and the seamless movement from beginning to end back to beginning.  A show, in a way, is like a cycle, and the opening night is the beginning of the end.  This is especially true in a high school or college theatre group that puts a couple shows on every year.  They cycle through the different stages of the show.  The opening night is the liminal point where they go from practice to performance.  I’ve also heard about a lot of cases of group chanting for ceremonies.  There is a unity I think that comes from saying things in large groups of people.  Also, when something is chanted and repeated a lot, it lends itself to being learned by others.  That way, people can easily enter into the community.  This particular chant was a few choice words to say the least.  That may have had something to do with the fact they were in high school, and that sort of  language was taboo.  However, the tension and adrenaline they got from using that kind of “forbidden” language at a school function probably gave them a lot of energy to put toward performance.

 

 

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch

Collector: So tell me about frat initiation.

Informant: Well, it’s mandatory for every guy in the house. You have to welcome your new brothers. Normal initiations are like, everyone gets in a circle, you chant something. Every brother in the house has to accept you. If they don’t, they have to, like, speak at that time. Like, if there’s a reason.

Collector: It’s almost like a wedding.

Informant: Kind of. Like, it’s a ceremony, there’s chanting and stuff. And normally no one speaks because there’s four months before for them to tell you no and that you’re not gonna be in the frat. But, then again, that depends on the frat. Or if there’s that guy who’s like “Well he didn’t do this!” and everyone’s like, “Well is that good enough reason? He’s witnessing our initiation. Could you have brought this up earlier?” Yeah, ‘cuz initiation is secret in fraternities. I mean, that’s the whole point of them. Sororities are the same way. Normally brothers talk about it after college. Some even keep them secret throughout their life and only talk about it to other frat guys.

Collector: Oh wow.

Collector’s Notes: This is the second case of marriage-like ceremonies in Greek life at USC.  There seems to be a fascination with having the people involved make lifelong unity vows, like matrimony.  I especially liked the fact that this specific account included a sort of “speak now or forever hold your peace” part.  Then there is the chanting that makes another appearance.  This, as I’ve noticed in previous accounts, helps to create a sense of unity and brotherhood, because it’s something that everyone can easily learn and be a part of right away.  Another thing that’s important that the Informant said was the part about secrecy.  In class, we talked about the importance of knowing who’s in the community and who’s out of it, and establishing how that distinction is made.  For fraternities and sororities, I think it’s the secrecy involved.  They have a vast repertoire of chants, songs, handshakes, and sayings that no one outside of the group gets to see, hear or even know about.  That is really important to them, and is a large part of their identity.