Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Hindu Weddings: The Fire Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cupertino, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2015
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: English, French, German, Spanish

“In Indian weddings, or Hindu weddings actually…because in Indian weddings there are a lot of different Indian people…We do this thing where there’s like a bonfire in the middle, and the couple is supposed to tie their scarves in a knot and walk around the fire seven times…and this symbolizes that the couple will be together for their next seven lifetimes. We believe in soul rebirth.”

Context/Analysis: The informant was not told of this custom from another individual, it is just a tradition that permeated the world around her when she grew up. The same way the western world “grow up” around white dresses for weddings, the informant grew up in India around this wedding custom. It is merely part of the context and culture that she grew up in. This custom is significant to her because she believes it is very romantic and unique. American weddings tend to be very commercialized, but Indian wedding ceremony is very simple and spiritual. There is no legal contract. The act of walking around the fire symbolizes the marriage itself.

 

White is a “Mourning Color”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cupertino, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2015
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: English, French, German, Spanish

“In India, we wear white to funerals. White is the color of barren soil. White is the color of dead things, ghost, sand. Infertile things that don’t grow anymore. For us black and red are very good color. Red soil is very iron-enriched because it’s good to grow stuff, and black soil is usually river soil so it’s very fertile. You can grow a lot of stuff in it…So for us red and black aren’t the mourning colors. The mourning color is just white. When people die they don’t turn black, they turn white. White isn’t even a color, it’s just color-less.”

The informant was not told of this custom from another individual, is it just a tradition that she grew up around. Growing up in India, the culture around her emphasized the color white as one of mourning or things without life. When she moved to America, she found it very strange that people wore black to Christian funerals. Black had a completely different meaning to her. This custom is significant to her because it makes more sense to her that white be a color of mourning. To the informant, black is a rich color. It is the color of hair, eyes, and clothing. To the informant, white has no color and symbolizes a blank slate. The point of dressing the deceased in white at an Indian funeral is to provide the soul with a blank slate in the afterlife.

 

 

 

 

 

The Archer Senior Scavenger Hunt

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brentwood, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant in question was a sophomore screenwriting major at USC. White, female, and a Los Angeles native. She attended the Archer School, an upper-class girl’s private school in Brentwood.

 

Transcription: Umm… Oh senior scavenger hunt was all verbal! Okay, so senior scavenger hunt, it was at the beginning of senior year and there was like someone in charge and like, the person who was in the year above who was in charge of it would pass it on to their friend in the grade below and then that person would tell us all the things we had to find and we had to like, go around L.A. and sing on the Promenade and like somebody had to get a tattoo. Umm, you automatic won if you got a tattoo. Oh! and we like had to talk to people who sold drugs. (laughter) do you really love it?

Keep going.

What else? And then we would all meet at In-N-Out.

Was there some sort of award?

No.

What was the endgoal?

You just had to get as many things off the list as you could. And then there was a sleepover. Bonding was the goal.

Okay. Why is this significant to you?

Because I feel like it built teamwork and it was like a really fun activity to pair with team-building and bonding as a grade like even though it was a competition we still bonded.

Who’d you learn it from? I’m guessing the person in the grade above who passed it on?

Yeah.

Cool

Analysis: This ritual serves as a sort of initiation rite into the senior class. Rather than being passed on through the school itself, it only gets passed from senior class to senior class and no underclassman really knows the full details of the event until they’re actively taking part in it. Like many initiation rituals, it focuses on the actions of a group – in this case, the members of an upper-class Los Angeles girls’ school.

Considering how sparse the individual’s description of the event itself was, it’s clear that the true focus of the event was not the scavenger hunt itself at all. Rather, the experience of doing the strange tasks and the camaraderie that stemmed naturally from that experience produced the intended effect of the hunt, giving the girl’s a common goal and set of experiences that tied them all together as they entered their senior year, an important transitional phase in any student’s life.

The Archer Haunted Bathroom

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brentwood, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant in question was a sophomore screenwriting major at USC. White, female, and a Los Angeles native. She attended the Archer School, an upper-class girl’s private school in Brentwood.

Transcription: Oh! Oh my god okay. In my high school we had library sleepovers, and um, it was like where nerds went to party and it was like once a semester and we would all sleep over in the library as it sounds but like we would play Bloody Mary in the bathroom because we had a haunted bathroom. Oh god, we had a haunted bathroom which was like folklore of my high school because nobody wrote it down. Like it wasn’t written down like it was haunted but everyone knew it was haunted but they renovated it after I left. This dingy old bathroom and there was like no reason that it was haunted other than that the school used to be a retirement home and they said it was where they kept the dead bodies was like in our bathroom and supposedly if you said “Bloody Mary” there during the library sleepovers you would see Bloody Mary in the bathroom window – mirrors and in 7th grade somebody saw her but it wasn’t me. Somebody saw.

Why was that memory significant?

Cause it was so scary.

Where did you learn that?

High school, middle school. This girl in my grade who also lied a lot

What does it mean to you?

It was fun, like it was something that we all had in common like we all knew that the bathroom was haunted and that Bloody Mary lived there. But then they got rid of the haunted bathroom because they hate us.

Did you pass that story onto anyone else?

Yeah. You had to like tell everyone that the bathroom was haunted. It was the scariest place on campus.

What was it like? Was it different than any other bathrooms?

Yeah it was the only thing that hadn’t been renovated so it was also a storage unit and it was just like really rickety.

Analysis: This story serves as an indicator of the existence of fear as a form of bond-former in human social practices, particularly the fear of the unknown. As the bathroom in question was the only one not to be in the same modernized style as the rest of the Archer School, it immediately possessed an unsettling aura that the sleek, modernized classrooms and hallways did not. The mythos surrounding the school building’s former purpose served to increase the “spooky” nature of the location.

However, while this fear may have been disconcerting to an individual student of Archer, when it was confronted in a large group setting, it served to draw them all closer together. The bathroom served as a perfect location for the traditional sleepover game Bloody Mary, a familiar story to almost any reader. However, by having a particular location in which to play it, the game felt even more unique to their experience.

Freshman/Sophomore Screenwriter Party

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brentwood, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant in question was a sophomore screenwriting major at USC. White, female, and a Los Angeles native. She attended the Archer School, an upper-class girl’s private school in Brentwood.

Transcription:
At the beginning of every year the sophomore screenwriting majors throw a party for the freshman to initiate them into the program. This year we had a male stripper. It was a highlight.
What have your experiences been, as a freshman and a sophomore?
I feel like freshman year we all went and the sophomores were like, really drunk already and were all “welcome to screenwriting!” Like it’s an introduction to college and the college lifestyle so like the people in the sophomore class try to make themselves seem as cool as possible every year like we did the same thing where we wanted to seem so fun and so hip and like we’ve bonded so much and we know how to party like college people know how to party and the freshmen are expected to be like “wow you guys are so cool.” And I think we did think they were really cool but I was also like really scared.
Why was that significant to you?
It created unity in the screenwriting program and helped us meet people in the other grades who we wouldn’t have classes with.

Analysis: This party serves as a very familiar, traditional rite of passage to a small, unique demographic. While the idea of a “college party” exists as a very familiar trope to most people of that age group in America, the actual event itself can remain elusive, particularly at the very start of college. For many, this party served as their introduction to a college party and a chance to bond not only with their fellow screenwriters but with the traditional archetype of “college student”.

This event also serves as a sort of initiation rite. The screenwriting program at USC accepts very few students and in many ways acts like a fraternity or sorority. This party serves as a way for existing members of the group to welcome their newer members to their ranks and bond with them in a socially acceptable and enjoyable way.