Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Dessert Before Meals

Nationality: Polish/German-American
Age: 55
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Warrenton, VA
Performance Date: 3/8/13
Primary Language: English

“My grandfather worked in the coal mines, near western Pennsylvania, and he would tell all of us children that we should always eat our dessert first at our meal. He said that he picked up the habit, because the coal miners would want something nice in their stomach in case they died in the mines, so they would always eat their dessert first. Whenever I would visit my grandfather or my grandmother’s house we would always be treated to eating dessert first. It eventually took on a carpe diem quality, and whenever one of us kids had to do something difficult or dangerous we would eat our breakfast first. I even used this with my own kids a few times.”

This tale is told around mining areas like Pennsylvania and West Virginia, around where Linda grew up. Under “lunch pail” in a glossary of Appalachian terms, the anecdote about how miners ate their dessert first comes up as well (1). What is interesting about Linda’s story, however, is the spin put on it. The story of eating your dessert first when facing difficulties becomes a tradition her family celebrates. Although probably not always facing death in a coal mine, she uses the story as inspiration to cease the moment and enjoy life now, especially if you have to swallow a bitter bill later on.

 

Sources:

(1) http://www.marilynsueshank.com/linked/glossary.pdf

Serbian Orthodox Christmas

Nationality: Serbian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Serbian

“Orthodox Christmas is on January 7th, so on January 6th similar to, like, an American Christmas style, we put our shoes out in front of our beds and we put money in our shoes. Then the next day if we were good kids that year—its like quarters and nickles and dimes—then the money gets taken out of our shoes by Svetinikuil (spelling?), which is a Santa Claus type of character. You don’t put a significant amount of money in, it’s just kind of like pocket change.

“And because we are very Americanized now, when we wake up the money is gone and there are gift under the American Christmas Tree in the living room. I am not sure if back in Serbia there is a Christmas tree or not. My mother is still Orthodox, but we celebrate American Christmas and all those traditions—like leaving milk and cookies out on December 24th, but religiously we will celebrate on January 7th.”

According to Serbian Christmas traditions, the twelve days of Christmas last from January 7th to January 18th, but as Jelena said, her family only celebrates from this time as a religious holiday, instead choosing to still celebrate the ‘social’ holiday of American Christmas. She, like some of the other folklore posts, chooses to separate Christmas time into two different events. Previously Devin Carey spoke of how she separated Saint Nicholas Day and Christmas into one ethnic (the former) and one national (the latter). Now, Jelena is showing how Christmas festivities can be separated into religious (by celebrating Orthodox Christmas) and social or national (by celebrating American Christmas).

“Nightmarchers”

Nationality: Caucasian, Filipino, Puerto-Rican
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hawaii Kai (O'ahu)
Performance Date: April 12th, 2013
Primary Language: English

And the way he (my uncle) tells it is,

When he was a little boy, he was hanging out with his cousins (late one night), and was kind of a story night—like, not quite raining, but windy and the clouds were rolling in, sort of thing—and… from a distance, like on a ridge, he just starts seeing these lights popping up. And he’s asking all of his older cousins, why all of these lights are over there—there’s more and more of them coming down the mountain, so he asked “what’s going on?”

So his cousins start freaking out, telling him: “we need to go home NOW. And we need to go home in the OPPOSITE direction of that ridge!”

… Meanwhile, they start to hear the faint sounds of drum beats, like very faint but constant drum beats (pats out a beat)…

So my uncle, freaking out, because they were freaking out, goes along with them but has to ask what was going on back there…

So they explain to him that those were the nightmarchers, which are ancient Hawaiian spirits, and they’re participating in one of their ancient rituals… and you are NOT to break the line of nightmarchers by either walking through it or making a noise to distract form the sound of the drum beats… They march in a line at night, usually down mountains, but they could really be/go anywhere. You can see their torches in the dark, and hear their drum beats… You can’t look at them, don’t make noises, don’t do anything to disrespect them or make fun. If you happen to see it or can’t leave and are stuck in the middle of their path, you’re supposed to just keep your head down to the ground and let it happen until they pass you and you keep minding your own business… oh, and don’t talk about it… because if they look at you, or you do any of these things, you DIE.

Literally, a death stare…

 

Nightmarchers are an interesting folk belief, that simultaneously introduce an opportunity to reconnect with the dead, and yet tabooize the interaction between the living and the dead. Nightmarchers not only make a distinction between the two groups of living and dead, but also between Hawaiian and foreign, because “Others” would not know to protect themselves and might even make the mistake of deliberately investigating, following, or contacting the nightmarchers, which would then result in death (as opposed to a relatively harmless outcome otherwise). There are ways to protect yourself, but only someone from the islands would know them. Similar to the fairies in Ireland, it also doesn’t matter whether you believe in nightmarchers, you will in certain contexts and most people would say they’re there, regardless.

How did you come across this folklore: “I was told by uncle during childhood.”

Other information: “this uncle is from Molokai…”

* When you’re from Hawai`i, saying someone is from Molokai is like saying someone is the most legitimate kind of “country”/”native”/”authentic” Hawaiian. If someone has a Hawaiian story and you find out he’s from Molokai, you are about a thousand times more likely to believe it.

 

“Quinceañeras”

Nationality: Caucasian, Mexican
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Temple City, California
Performance Date: April 14th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

… Let’s see… So you get there and you eat dinner and it’s kind of like the first hour or so is just socializing with your family and friends… because you invite everyone you know, basically… and everyone brings a present or money… and then, after dinner’s done, they go through like a slideshow of pictures of you growing up and stuff… and then I think that’s when they do speeches—like your mom does a speech, your dad does a speech, sometimes an uncle, or grandparents…

I went to one where her dad was in jail, so he actually wrote a speech and then her brother gave it… they had pictures of him before he went to jail, and him and her together on the slideshow running during the time her brother was giving the speech written by her dad about how much he loved her and how sad he was to have missed her growing up even though he was a terrible dad… and everyone was bawling… It’s kind of the point for someone to cry at these things…

And then there’s dancing; and so you get a court––like a bride gets her bridesmaids, you get like four or five girls––and you also assign them guys to be partners, and of course you get a partner. So you perform like a ton of really choreographed, complicated and tough dances. You go through months of hard core practice for them… and everyone just kind of goes and sits down while you’re performing, and then there’s one you do with your dad—it doesn’t have to be intricately choreographed or anything, it’s your choice of style of dance… and I think you get one more non formal one, it’s kind of at your discretion how many dances you want.

At one of them, she was a ballerina, so she had her own recital for just herself, but the other two, they didn’t have that because they didn’t have a dance routine to perform solo. That part’s not a requirement or anything…

Then they bring out dessert after all of that, like the main thing is done after all that… and everyone is now free to dance—again it’s one of those big social things, you’re allowed to dance, it’s not just a dinner. They don’t open presents while you’re there. And that’s kind of the end… you just kind of socialize ‘til it’s over (they’re usually like four to six hour events, that just carry on…).

Oh! The most important part: her dress(es)… She wears this really big—usually a white dress because there’s usually a mass part before it, and you wear this big white, formal prom-like dress—and she wears this for the church. And in the reception, she wears whatever she wants. It’s still a formal dance, but it’s not as strict… and then there are dresses for the dances, which she gets to choose, too. That’s why they (the quinceañeras) get so expensive, because they (the family) pay for the dresses of everyone else in the procession… they pay for everything.

 

How did you come across this folklore: “I wanted to talk about them because they’re a cool coming of age type of ritual thing… and I’ve been to a couple, but I didn’t get one because I’m third generation, so we’re kind of removed. I’m also half white. I was just as likely to get a sweet sixteen as a quinceañera. I studied abroad for a month the summer I turned sixteen, so on my sixteenth birthday I was abroad. So instead of a fifteenth or sixteenth birthday party, I had a big going away party that wasn’t as formal as a quinceañera, but it had the same general idea of celebration around that time.”

Other information: “I can tell you about them—I’ve been to several, and even though I never had my own, they’re still really important, especially to some families. Usually parents who are actually from Mexico, those kids will have to have one… it’s only first generation because it gets really expensive.”

This is an example of a coming of age ceremony, ritualizing the transition from girl to woman in Mexican(-American) culture. Something that stood out in the particular details of the quinceañera were how much it resembles a wedding-like ceremony, reflecting the cultural emphasis on this time period in a girl’s life and the importance of marriage (which is another marker of being a woman, the transition to the role of wife and eventually mother).

Senior Skip Day

Nationality: Okinawan, Filipino, Korean, Hawaiian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Aiea, Hawaii
Performance Date: March 18th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hawaiian

So Senior Skip Day is a Punahou tradition. So the seniors are required to skip school but we have to meet certain prerequisite requirements before we’re allowed to go, like all your books that are due at the library have to be turned in—you can’t have any library fines, all your work for your classes has to be turned in, etc…

And for some reason if you can’t go or don’t want to go, you have to get a form signed. So Senior Skip Day basically everybody has the same Senior Skip Day T-shirt and is wearing it… and you load up on the buses on the last instructional day of school and as a class you ride out to La’ie to the White Estate and basically have a picnic day…

I mean I don’t know what the fuck to call it… The about-to-graduate mini-vacation for the actual seniors portion isn’t the interesting part… So on that day all of the juniors (because it’s the last instructional day and the seniors are gone), all the juniors make shirts, “senior shirts,” which each group makes and they wear them to show that they’re seniors as well as what group they’re in.

And everybody from freshmen to juniors, that’s when they choose their spot to sit at for the next academic year. So people will sometimes come to school at 6 in the morning or earlier…

What used to happen—it stopped on our freshman year—was freshman prank day and that was when the juniors used to prank the freshmen… Our freshman year we had a crazy bitch, named Ilima (she was captain of the women’s wrestling team, covered in tattoos and piercings, known for her… “intensity” and hate for a certain group of girls in our grade)… and she took things WAY too far, managing to instill fear in all 400 students of our entire freshman class, even though for the most part everyone came out unscathed…

And if you’re wondering about the sophomores, the sophomores basically have nothing to worry about that day; they have zero responsibility. But to ensure that none of the freshmen get hurt (I mean, “pranked”) anymore, the deans set up a popup tent in the middle of the quad… and they take turns watching the Academy and escorting students to class themselves to make sure that nobody pranks the freshmen. Like if you’re known to be “targeted” by that year’s juniors, you can tell a dean and ask for protection… Which means that everyone only gets sneakier, so I guess the new tradition is to try to prank the freshmen without getting caught by the deans. That’s all I remember…

 

How did you come across this folklore: “it’s one of those unsaid traditions, I actually have no idea how I found out about it… you just “hear about it” as a freshman and you participate until you’re a senior when some things get officialized but really everything you do is up to you. You do what everyone else does/has done.”

Other information: “What happened our year, this kind of thing becomes infamous when certain people take it too far…”

I would be surprised if there were a lot of high schools that didn’t have some kind of event like Senior Skip Day, something to ritualize the liminal period between high school and not (graduation/college/the real world, etc.), or the junior-senior bridge (underclassman vs. upperclassman), or something that otherwise distinguishes seniors from the rest of the student population. It’s a time when people are allowed to make trouble, do things they usually don’t, and don’t know which group they belong to… yet everyone else, even those not going through the same transition, play along in a way and mark it as well.