Category Archives: Gestures

All School Handshake

Text:

“Okay, so I went to a really small private high school and it was a really tight-knit community and to start the to, uh, kick off the school year, we’d have the all-school handshake. So we’d essentially all line up the student body, shoulder to shoulder, along the perimeter of the formal gardens, with the headmaster at one end. And then the headmaster and the entire school president would stand side by side and flip a coin. And if it was heads, they would go to the right, and if it was tails, they would go to the left, or whichever way.

Context:

This was a ritual the informant participated in every year at her small private boarding school in Illinois. The tradition is held at the beginning of each school year as a formal opening ceremony for the entire school. It’s set in the formal gardens, and the coin flip, she noted, decided which way the handshake procession would go, injecting an element of chance into what was otherwise a very ordered tradition.

Analysis
The all-school handshake is a ritual of initiation and collective renewal — a physical enactment of the social ties that constitute the school as a community. By having each member shake the hand of every other member, the tradition performs a kind of annual social contract; each participant touching every other participant materializes the school becoming a web of mutual relationships. The coin flip is especially interesting as a ritual element—it adds a moment of chance to an otherwise highly ordered event, reminding participants that the direction of the community is, in part, determined by forces beyond any individual’s control, and that all are equally subject to that uncertainty.

San Jose Sharks: the shark chomp

Age: 20s Hometown: Lafayette, CA

Text: When the other team draws a penalty, the entirety of the NHL San Jose Sharks hockey fans in the rink do a shark chomping motion with their hands.

Context: Participant and I were watching hockey and they starting do a hand motion in celebration . She is a lifelong sharks hockey fan, with her parents being season ticket holders. She does this hand motion out in the wild too when she runs into other fans and want’s to show solidarity.

Analysis: This is an example of folk gesture and kinetic folklore within a sports subculture. The shark chomp is a ritualized performance that unifies thousands of strangers into a single sharks fan folk group through synchronized movement. The participant mentioned that it also serves to bring up the energy for the upcoming powerplay and intimidate the other fans/teams with the sheer amount of people participating. It also serves as an in-group signal for other sharks fans outside of the usual performance space- the ‘shark tank’ hockey rink.

Kaal Pudpe Sign of Respect

Age: 20

Text:

Informant: “This is included in what me and my brother do in my culture. It’s something that is a sign of respect, it’s called “kaal pudpe” and it means “touching the feet.” So you touch the feet of your elders. If you were my elder, when I would first see you, I would say “How are you?” and I would go like this” (gestures touching feet). “It’s respecting the wisdom that they have and it’s always a married elder.”

Interviewer: “So if they’re not married, you wouldn’t do that to them?”

Informant: “No, you don’t have to. There’s a lot of people around my age but then the minute they got married, you’re supposed to, technically. It’s a lot of things as well as a greeting when you enter someone’s house, as a sign of respect.”

Context:

The informant is from Karnataka, a state in India. In their culture, they view elders as wise and are highly respected. Married couples are also seen viewed highly. As young people, to show respect for them, they’ll touch their feet as a form of greeting.

Analysis:

In many cultures, aging isn’t seen as a negative, but rather, a positive. The elderly are seen as wise and more knowledgeable. Young ones are encouraged to respect elders because they lack life experience and can learn from them. Countries like Karnataka create these traditional ways of young ones showing respect by touching their elders’ feet. This ritual is repeated through generations and acts a way of socializing across the culture and holding people in high regard. In Chapter 5 of ‘Living Folklore’ by Sims and Stephens, they expand on this thought and share how “traditions associated with objects, customs, or rituals…may sometimes emerge into narratives and form an important part of a group’s identity.” This functionalist ritual validates the culture and sets a certain expectation that everyone must follow.

Theater Good Luck Ritual

Age: 21

Text:

Informant: “One that I learned growing up that when I’ve done it in other places, people are like, “What the hell are you doing?” It’s like before the show, you’re all standing there behind the curtain waiting to go up. Usually I only end up doing this if it’s a show that I start in the first number, not if I come on later. You know one of those shows where you’re in the ensemble and everybody is standing behind the curtain waiting there. One that I always did was this” (holds hand in fist and raises thumb and pinky finger.) “Like if you’re doing sign language and signing “you and I.” You go around to the other people in the cast and you link pinkies and bite your thumb and it’s just a little way of saying “break a leg, have a good show.” It’s just a little good luck thing. I always did that at the theater that I did shows with growing up and then I went to other places and they were like, “What the hell are you doing?” I was like, “Oh,” (laughs) “Nevermind.” Other than that, when people say “Good luck” to me it makes me really anxious. I’m like “No. That’s bad luck. You can’t say “good luck,” you have to say “Break a leg.””

Interviewer: “Do you remember being taught how to do that or was it just that you observed other people doing it so you just did it, too?”

Informant: “The hand thing, I think it was something that – I did children’s theater and it was just sort of something that was in the culture of that theater. I don’t even know if they do it anymore. When I was there, I think it was the second show I ever did was Mary Poppins and everybody who starts on stage for the ensemble are frozen in their spots so we’d be standing there behind the curtain and all of the older kids would come around and show us how to do it. From there, that was something that I did most every show I was in, and teaching the younger kids how to do it.”

Interviewer: “So was it mostly younger kids and teens or were the adults doing it, too?”

Informant: “It was a children’s theater so the oldest kids were seniors in high school. The group that I was part of was late middle school and high schoolers so we wouldn’t really interact with the younger younger kids, but it was definitely the seniors in high school teaching the youngest.”

Context:

The informant was part of a community theater growing up. They learned rituals specific to their theater from the older students. When the informant went on to join college theater, they learned that other people had never heard about that particular good luck ritual.

Analysis:

Theatre has many superstitions, likely because it has been around for over 2500 years. The superstitions are shared amongst theater members who participate in plays and musicals. Traditionally, these rituals are passed on by the adults or older teens to the young children. Many of them are widely known across theater’s everywhere, such as “Break a leg” for good luck. Naturally, certain theater members will create their own superstitions or rituals that get passed on and stay within that theater, and are foreign to people outside it. The goal is that it gets taught to the younger kids by the older kids to keep the tradition alive. It can be considered a functionalist approach because it’s meant to bring good luck for the performers to do well on stage.

Knocking on Wood

Interviewer: “OK, personally some rituals i’ve grown accustomed to and practice are mostly related to theatre. Superstitions such as avoiding naming the play “Macbeth” in the theatre, never wearing your costume outside of rehearsal and performance, and a created folk song that was local to my high schools theatre department. What are some rituals or superstitions you believe in?”

AB: “I always knock on wood when I say something I don’t want to jinx, I don’t really even think about it anymore its more of an automatic reaction out of fear or something”

Interviewer: “Why do you think that works, like why do you use it?”

AB: “I don’t know, it makes me feel like i’m undoing evil energy, like your correcting it before some karmic lesson is taught to you, its like proactive.”

Context: The informant learned this practice from her parents. Her parents are very spiritual and superstitious and thus this, among many other practices, have become common place in her life. She recalls using the practice of “knocking on wood” since she was very little, around 9 years old. She is unsure if this practice has a tangible affect on her life, however she still uses it as a method of providing comfort to herself, proactively “saving” herself from an event before it occurs.

Analysis: This interview highlights how folk beliefs persist even when individuals do not fully rationalize or consciously believe in them. AB repeatedly framed their practices, such as knocking on wood as accidental or habitual, suggesting that these rituals function more as a medium to grant oneself peace of mind rather than superstition. This suggests that these rituals function less as explicit belief systems but more as engrained cultural behaviors where the action of knocking on wood takes less energy than the worry that accompanies bad karma.