Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

“Sampanelli” (Family Recipe)

Age: 20

Text:

“My dad makes sampanelli, which is like an Italian dish, because my grandmother is 100% Italian. So they grew up having a lot of olive oil and vegetables and that type of stuff, but there weren’t that many recipes fully passed down.

My dad doesn’t really cook, like we don’t want him to cook, but one thing he does make is sampanelli, which is kind of disgusting—it’s raw meat, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and like a crepe. The meat is raw—like salted pork—and he makes the crepe himself.

But the funny thing is, we were doing research this year, and I think it’s actually called something else, like “sampanel,” but they just assumed it was sampanelli because they wanted to make it sound Italian.

So now whenever people come over and my dad says, ‘I think I’ll cook,’ we all know what that means.”

Context:

The informant describes a dish made by their father that is understood within the family as an “Italian” recipe connected to their grandmother’s heritage. The dish often in social situations when guests are present. It has become a recognizable and somewhat humorous tradition within the family, especially as her father isn’t much of a cook. The name “sampanelli” is the family interpretation rather than an accurate term, showing how the dish has been adapted and redefined over time. The informant now lives in the US on the east coast with her family.

Analysis:

This is an example of material culture and foodways folklore, where cultural knowledge is expressed through preparation and sharing of food. A key aspect of foodways is its nature of bricolage, where people create tradition by piecing together available ingredients, memories, and cultural influences rather than following a fixed and original recipe. So, even though this recipe may not be authentically or accurately Italian, or prepared as such, it functions as a symbol of heritage and identity within the family.

The uncertainty around the name and origin of the dish demonstrates the variation that occurs in performance and through generations. This highlights how folklore adapts overtime and this doesn’t make the recipe less valid. The family maintains a version that reflects their own understanding of their culture background. It shows that folklore doesn’t need to be historically accurate to have meaning and still functions in preserving their culture.

This dish is also a form of family humor and shared knowledge. When guests come over they are brought into the collective experience of disappointment in the father cooking and therefore join the folk group of the family while present for the event. It is a way for all the bond and constructs an identity through performance and even for those experiencing the performance.

Break a Leg

Age: 17

Text:

“I joined theater in high school because of my sister. She did it. And I learned that you should always say ‘break a leg’ instead of ‘good luck,’ because one time I said ‘good luck,’ and the person in the show got kind of, um, angry, and explained to me how that was actually really bad luck. So now I just make sure to always say good luck I guess.”

Analysis:

This example is a form of verbal folklore, specifically a superstitious/customary phrase tied to the performance settings. It reflects a broader theatrical superstition in which saying something positive (good luck) is believed to produce a negative outcome, while saying something negative (break a leg) will bring a good performance.

The moment of correction highlights how folklore is transmitted through informal social interaction, especially within a specific folk group like theatre performers. The informant’s experience shows how members outside of the folk group are socialized into the group norms, learning not just what to say, but what meanings those phrases carry within that context.

This practice also demonstrates how folklore relies on shared belief systems, even if those beliefs are not taken literally. The rule is maintained through repetition and reinforcement by the group, giving it authority within the performance space.

More broadly, this example shows how folklore helps define group boundaries. Knowing to say “break a leg” signals membership and understanding. In this way, the phrase functions not only as a superstition, but also as a marker of identity and belonging within the theatre community.

Weddings & Banana Plants

Text: A pre-wedding tradition where a representative from the groom’s family will cut down bamboo plants to clear the way for the marriage. Everyone there is also dressed up in traditional clothes.

Description of the tradition–Informant: “they’ll be like… depending on, you know, if the brides and groom’s parents are alive as well, um, there’s usually a representative from the groom’s family, and we have like this thing where we go and there’s the–there’s 3 per, um, parent, basically. So like the bride has like 3 and the groom has 3 and it’s, the actual thing itself is these banana plants. And they’re really tall and they kind of look like bamboo almost, but they’re really tall. And, um, like a representative from the groom’s family will come around and we have this very traditional knife called a Pichangatti It’s like a hooked knife. And basically, my dad has done this for a specific wedding, but you go around and you take this knife and you’re like cutting down these banana plants and it’s kind of showing like that there’s no obstacle that’s gonna like get in front of this marriage and like you’re you’re like metaphorically like cutting down obstacles or anything that like has to do with the like the transition into marriage.”

Context: The Informant is from Coorg, India. Their ethnicity is called Coorgi or Kodava and they speak Kodavathuk (it is a South Indian Dravidian language). Weddings last three days and this is a pre-wedding ritual. There they have huge emphasis on ancestry, so this tradition is a way to honor their ancestors. Many of their ancestors were warriors so this tradition is very symbolic with cutting down things, showing strength and power and ancestry, but also just giving wishes for the new couple. 

A Pichangatti is a knife used in agricultural and traditional cultural contexts. It is known for its unique shape as a curved blade and tends to be heavily decorated. 

Analysis: This is a ritual that is preparing the couple for the wedding, the time of transition into marriage, a time of liminality which can be uneasy. While also preparing the couple for the resulting state after the wedding: marriage. Within this ritual we see a performance element, as people are dressed up and someone is using a ritualistic element, the knife, to perform this ritual calling upon their ancestry and past as warriors. The informant said it but we really do see how in this important ancestry is, especially at a right of passage. Having three from both the bride and grooms side can be seen as honoring the two separate ancestors of the bride and groom while also preparing to merge the two families through this clearing of obstacles This ritual also involves magic superstition and slightly falls into the realm of sympathetic magic, specifically the law of similarity. The bamboo plants are tall and literal obstacles. In this ritual the participants externalize what are normally internal obstacles turning them into something that can be physically cut down, through representation like calling to like. This is done to create a good outcome for the marriage thus magic superstition. 

Wedding Tradition: The Water Pot

Text: 

Informant: “So one of the traditions that we have during weddings is that woman go and they get a pot, and they grab get water from the holiest river in India and this well and you fill it into this pot. And when it’s time for the bride and groom to get married, after they get married, the woman, um, kind of stands for a very long time with this pot on her head. It’s like this very pure water and the bride and groom’s like families like negotiate with time or how long to stand with this pot on her head. It’s usually like a symbol of like honors as well to be standing there. You know, it doesn’t sound like that because like everyone else is dancing and whatnot, but I think my mother stood for like 6 hours.” 

Interviewer: “What’s an average time?”

Informant: “Average. I would say at a recent, um, sort of, like, I think maybe like a year ago, 2 or 3 hours. I definitely think that longer you are back in time, it’s more like like the definitely like a rite of passage and this feeling of like you’re about to get married and you basically afterwards when the woman is getting down from standing, usually what will happen is like someone from the bride’s family will be like, no, we’re just not gonna let her go just that easily, so they like demand money from the groom side of the family. So they like kind of shower her with money as she like steps down and takes this pot off her head. And then the water, that’s like this really holy entire water, is later on, like supposed to be, um, kind of like splashed at the house of the new couple to like show that you’re getting brought a lot of this like good energy, I guess.”

Context: The Informant is from Coorg, India. Their ethnicity is called Coorgi or Kodava and they speak Kodavathuk (it is a South Indian Dravidian language). Weddings last three days and this is a pre-wedding ritual. The Informant also mentioned that there they don’t use caste systems but do have a huge emphasis on ancestors. 

Analysis: In this we see a high context marriage ritual that is repeated through multiple generations. According to Van Gennep, rites of passage have three stages, separation (preliminal), transition (liminal), and reincorporation (postliminal). In this ritual, the separation comes when the bride puts the pot on her head, entering into a state of semi vulnerability and trial, liminality, holding a pot of water on your head is not necessarily stable which clearly signifies a transition period. Then the reincorporation stage is where she steps down and can take off the pot of water, interestingly this can be postponed, holding the bride in this state of liminality and in between to demand a price from the groom’s family, though seemingly in the interest of the bride. Many wedding rituals or traditions are a test to see if you are ready for marriage and this one is no different. The purity or holiness of the water invokes the idea of virginity going into marriage. Holding the water on the bride’s head could also be seen as a metaphor for pregnancy. The long duration of the ritual, the instability of holding water on one’s head, and the symbolism of it being literal water, a woom, might be a nonliteral test to see if the bride can carry a child to term. In this ritual we can also clearly see the remnants of the transactional nature that marriage has traditionally held in the past in a patriarchal society. The woman is the one who being put in this liminal state while the families are negotiating on her behalf how long this ritual will take place. This is even more firmly cemented when the brides family demands money before she can step down, before they will hand her over, interestingly a subversion of the dowry system which usually has the money going the opposite way. 

Don’t Give an Umbrella as a Gift

Text: I had mentioned to KH that I had gotten someone an umbrella as a gift, and she stopped me. “You’re like not supposed to do that, right?” she said. The word for umbrella, 伞 (sǎn), sounds nearly identical to 散 (sàn), which means to scatter. To give someone an umbrella is to wish the two of you scattered, dispersed. There is a workaround: if the recipient gives the giver a coin, even a penny, in return, the umbrella becomes a transaction rather than a gift, and the negative implications no longer apply.

Context: Told to me by my friend KH, a Chinese American student, after I mentioned that I had bought an umbrella as a gift. She had heard the rule from her parents, who emigrated from China. The homophone pair is 伞 / 散: 伞 (sǎn, umbrella) and 散 (sàn, to scatter) differ only by tone. 

Analysis: This same homophonic logic shows up commonly in Chinese culture, where a linguistic sign is read as a small contagion that invokes the outcome it names. The umbrella case is a good example because the prohibition attaches to one ordinary household object and to one specific verb. An exchanged coin transforms the gift into a purchase, and the relabeling alone is held to neutralize the linguistic risk. It’s not always the case that these homophonic folklores have such convenient workarounds. The changing “gift” to “purchase” suffices to break the spell.