Category Archives: general

Taser Tag at the Exposition Park Rose Garden

Nationality: Guatemalan-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at USC studying medicine, Hospital Worker
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles, CA 90007
Performance Date: 2/12/21
Primary Language: English

I heard about this game while many of my housemates were gathered around a table and drinking. The first time the speaker shared this story, he also bragged about other rules he had broken as a child or young adult. This story is an example of ‘forbidden play’ and it took place near the University of Southern California.

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After the Exposition Park Rose Garden closes for the night, those who enter can be apprehended for trespassing. From 2013 to 2015, the speaker said that the cycling community in Los Angeles was “massive.” After one large race in 2013, the speaker’s friends gathered in the rose garden and someone suggested that the group of 13, 14 and 15-year-olds play taser tag. Cyclists carried tasers, knives or brass knuckled with them and they rode ‘suicide bikes’ or racing bicycles that have the breaks removed. ” A lot of us have very traumatic lives where we just pain sometimes makes us feel alive.” The speaker explained that about 15 of the 50 cyclists gathered owned tasers, and that the game was well received by the group.

In the event that state troopers caught the boys in the rose garden, they would scatter. Those who were caught were given “a slap on the wrist” and sent home.

The speaker never had a taser, so he was a ‘runner.’ There were no rules about where tasers could attack. ” You could taste in the nuts. It’s wherever this person lands the taser. The good thing is it wasn’t high voltage… enough to drop you on the ground. That’s it.” The speaker said he had been tased in the neck. Girls could attack with tasers but the speaker said they seldom outran the boys. Anyone playing Taser Tag in the rose garden was fair game for attack. He admitted that Taser Tag was fun because it was forbidden, as was “using self defense weapons as offensive weapons.”

Taser Tag games with the speaker’s group occurred five times between 2013 and 2015. The last time, one member brought pepper spray and the speaker said “All 10 of us suffocated. And you’re like, Dude, this guy that comes back. We’re going to hurt him.”

The speaker said that “growing in South LA is kind of like a free for all,” and that “whenever a bunch of kids run around with bikes, I rather see them doing that than dealing drugs.” The speaker noted that some of his cyclist friends who played Taser Tag did get involved in gang activity after their group dissolved. When asked what the game meant to him, the speaker said that this “was a day where all of us no matter what ethnicity where we’re from, who we are, it’s just fun. And that fun involves a little bit of pain.”

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This speaker retold this story in front of friends. I believe that this memory is important for the speaker because many of his friends have left or are no longer living. This memory is also important because the speaker enjoys rough activities, and it is difficult to engage in rough-and-tumble activity as an adult. I believe this time reminds him of an era where he did not have to worry about larger adult problems, and this brings a sort of nostalgia for something one can never do again.

For more information on forbidden play, see Folk Groups & Folklore Genres Chapter 5, Children’s Folklore by Jay Mechling.

Sweeping Over Feet

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Digital Artist
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: 04/11/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, OR, was born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Grenada. OR often talks about how superstitious her Caribbean family is and this piece is one example out of our long conversation about how her family’s beliefs dominate how they behave. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss the role of superstition in Caribbean culture. 

OR: This other one actually happened the other day. I was sweeping the floor of um, the living room and my mom was sitting on the couch and I accidentally swept over her feet. Like, my family believes that if you sweep over someone’s feet then they’ll never get married. So my mom got really mad at me and said that she’ll never marry —

Me: (laughs) Isn’t your mom married? Like what happened to your dad?

OR: I guess if something happened to my dad (laughs) I guess she would have no plan b.

THOUGHTS: The thing that is the most interesting to me about this superstition is the fact that despite being exempt from the superstition, OR’s mom still abided by it. With nothing to fear from the superstition, having already been married, it gives off the impression that OR’s mom is superstitious just to be superstitious. Or rather that superstition is so ingrained in Caribbean culture that the preservation of its importance is more significant than the meaning itself.

Whistling at night

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Digital Artist
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: 04/11/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, OR, was born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Grenada. OR often talks about how superstitious her Caribbean family is and this piece is one example out of our long conversation about how her family’s beliefs dominate how they behave. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss the role of superstition in Caribbean culture.

OR: This one, I don’t really know if there’s a story to this or something but we aren’t supposed to whistle at night.

Me: Or…?

OR: Or I guess a ghost will get mad? Or an evil spirit? Like, this one I don’t know all the details but my mom told me not to do this either.

THOUGHTS: This is interesting to me because throughout my collection I spoke to a few other people who brought up the “don’t whistle at night” belief but with different meanings. In OR’s case, whistling at night disturbs restless spirits whereas when I talked to my friend from Ecuador, whistling at night meant signaling for an evil spirit to follow you home. This seems to be the resounding belief in many cultures, that whistling at night attracts evil.

Auburn University – The Lathe Folk Belief

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Alabama, USA
Performance Date: 04/18/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

Context:

Informant CA, a current undergraduate student at Auburn University at the time of this collection, described a popular folk belief shared by university students. This belief had existed before CA became a student at the univeristy, however, CA learned about this belief only once they had become an undergraduate student themself.

The belief centers around a statue called The Lathe which is located on Auburn University’s campus. The Lathe dates back to the Civil War where it was used to manufacture military supplies for confederate soldiers. It was gifted to a sorority on campus and can be found on the side of Samford Hall.

Text:

The Auburn folk belief is that Auburn students can bring their significant other to The Lathe at midnight to test their faithfulness to one another. After they kiss next to The Lathe, if the wheel of the Lathe does not move then they have been faithful to each other and are believed to get married.

Analysis:

This folk belief is one of the many traditions that are known and shared across the student population at Auburn University. I feel that this particular belief speaks towards the cultural and communal values at Auburn Univerity. While its students come from all across the world, Auburn University is located in Alabama and, therefore, the “Bible Belt. ” Southern states are often known for their close affiliations with Christianity which shape “southern values.” While not all students would identify as religious or southern, the value of faithfulness is evident in this popular folk belief and run parallel with southern/religious values. Since folk beliefs create identity and culture, the values underlying this belief speak to Auburn’s identity and campus culture. After hearing this belief, I feel confident in assuming that being unfaithful to one’s partner would be frowned upon at Auburn. By providing couples with a way of “testing” their partner, this university folk belief is helping to ensure a continued value of faithfulness.

The Rougarou

Nationality: USA
Age: 57
Occupation: Teacher
Performance Date: 5/1/2021

Informant: “Ok, I don’t know a lot, except that when I was a child, I had these, you know, grandparents that were both from Cajun country. These big Cajun families. One of them had seven siblings and one of them had nine. And so I had all these aunts and uncles who were Cajun aunts and uncles, and the two most mischievous of them were Clarence and Lawrence who were twins. They were about five-foot-eight and they were twins, and were always causing trouble, and they used to tell us all the time, all the kids, the next generation, the grandkids, that we better be careful and not go out late at night and behave ourselves or the Rougarou would get us. 

And the Rougarou was like a big, like wolf kind of thing, and he lived in the swamps. He got the children when they were bad or when they were out when they weren’t supposed to be, or doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. It was a generally known thing in Cajun country, the Rougarou.

I was terrified as a child. It kept me in line a little but, until I was old enough to know that they were just old nutty Clarence and Lawrence, but it was pretty scary, like there was this big hairy creature in the swamp. And there were swamps everywhere, I mean, thats like saying in the backyard theres a monster.”

The legend of the Rougarou is a common one in Cajun country, and is used primarily to scare children into obedience.