Category Archives: Gestures

Rituals and Etiquette in Russian Drinking Culture

Nationality: Russian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant, a first generation Russian-American, listed the following as customs and beliefs regarding drinking that he picked up on as he attended family dinners growing up:

  • “The pattern goes: toast, take the shot, toast, take the shot, and so on and so forth. To take a shot without toasting with the people at the table is a huge…like…it’s no good.”
  • Toasts can be made regarding celebrations, but also more generally to things like good health.
  • “One would not drink vodka without toasting, but one would not toast without vodka to drink.”

Drinking vodka mends a broken soul. Drinking is not for enjoying the taste, but for feeling the effects of the alcohol, which is believed to amplify the love among the people one is drinking with. It’s not solely about the drunkenness, but rather about the affection that the drunkenness gives rise to that is believed to be the cure/relief from the pains of life.

In this case, the informant has drawn conclusions regarding a cultural view not only on alcohol but also on community based on the gestures of a ritual.

Pust

Nationality: Slovenian
Age: 54
Occupation: electrical engineer
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 2014-04-24
Language: Slovenian, English, German, Serbian, Greek

Pust is a pagan holiday that is celebrated in Slovenia in the beginning of every February. Designed to scare away the winter cold, this festival is mounted to celebrate the coming of Spring. Young men are the main arbiters of some of the festival’s central traditions, as they don terrifying masks and large suits made of animal furs. Most of the masks represent different characters that recur in Slovenian folklore which are generally localized to particular regions, the principle character being called the “kurent.” [the informant could not offer any more examples of such characters and what they represent.] These costumes are paired with belts from which hang many cowbells, and the young men enter the center of the village in a procession of aggressive dancing and grunting. The idea behind this is to scare away the dark, evil spirits of Winter, in the hopes that Spring will bring good tidings and a prosperous year of harvest. Pust usually takes place in the rural villages of northern Slovenia, the Gorenjska region especially.

More modern exhibitions of this festival in different parts of Slovenia allow all children to participate and go door to door begging for candy and money, much like at Halloween in other parts of the world.

Born and raised in former Yugoslavia, what is now known as Slovenia, the informant was continuously exposed to folk traditions that originated and permeated this region. The festival is a kind of protective ritual to ensure a short winter. It is riddle with celebratory symbols of dominance and fertility. For example, the suits are made from the pelts of animals these young men had killed, demonstrating their capability of providing for the well-being of the village.

Greek Compliments

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/30/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

In Greece it is customary that if you give someone a compliment you must immediately spit on them, making a sound like “p-th p-th”

My roommate is half Greek and she learned this tradition from her mother.  She explained that the spitting is to prevent the compliment from going to their head and inflating their ego.

This is interesting because it promotes a humitity above all else.  This custom illuminates a light on a culture which retains a mentality that people are ordinary and must always remember that.  This seems to be particularly strong in Greek culture where they had a theological system where gods were very similar to humans, they experiences human desires and intereacted with humans on a regular basis.  As a result people were very aware that they were less than gods, who weren’t that special to begin with, leading to a humility and a custom that exists to prevent egos from being inflated.

Softball Ritual

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self-description: “Both my parents were born in Canada but both my parents on either my mom or my dads side were born in China or in Wales so I identify pretty equally with both of those cultural backgrounds. Even though I didn’t really get a chance to get to know any of my grandparents because they died when I was very little. So I don’t really know that much of the cultural background from those sides but I would like to explore it sometime. Mostly just Canadian though. Born and raised. Very Canadian. Obnoxiously so.

“I do a lot of sports. I grew up playing – my mom wouldn’t let me. I tried to play hockey but she wouldn’t let me. She told me my brain hadn’t finished growing and I would damage it by falling down skating on the ice. And I could start playing when I was twelve. But the thing is is that by the time you’re twelve, you’re already so far behind on the skating skills that catching up then becomes a mess and its not even worth starting, which she probably knew. So I never played hockey. I played soccer and softball and volleyball growing up and I did gymnastics for a while until my mom made me pick between that and soccer. I chose soccer. I’m also into fandom culture and general nerdiness. I’m in the cinema fraternity at USC. Also a social sorority somehow. I don’t know how that happened. ”

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Are there any rituals among your sports things that you took part in and continued?

Softball and baseball are very superstitious sports, not sure how much of that you’re aware of. But some of the general ones including not stepping on the chalk when you’re starting a game – in the on deck circle and the batters box, ‘til the game starts you don’t step on the chalk. And then in tournaments once you slide or get your uniform dirty, it’s lucky dirt – you can’t wash your uniform. Some people take it to the point where they can’t wash their socks either, between days of the tournament. Which is kind of gross. Like after you play five games in one day and then you go to play five games the next day. But usually our team would change the color of the socks we were wearing so that you could wear different ones. ‘Cause they stank.

Did that happen to you where you couldn’t wash your uniform?

I generally subscribe to the belief that it was unlucky to wash my uniform. Yeah, It’s like a lot of smaller rituals. I wouldn’t say there’s a big one but probably the not-washing-the-uniforms is the biggest one.  But also stepping into the batters box the same way each time, like when you’re sitting up in the field – or I used to be a pitcher, so when I was standing up to pitch it would be the exact same motion every time. Which is kind of a muscle-memory comfort thing.

Talk about one of them in particular. Which one did you ascribe the most to?

Aside from not washing the uniform between games, I think the biggest one would be the batters box. [Informant demonstrates] I’d always sort of scrape the dirt up, of the box and sort of make sure I”d have – with my cleats and make sure it was a nice flat surface. And then I would go like – back foot in first, then touch the far side  – the outside of the plate with  the end of the bat. Front foot in, and sort of dig myself in, set up, put my bat out – and get into batting stance. And I would do that every time and then sometimes when I would step  out, I would knock off the dirt between my cleats with my bat. And I would feel weird if I didn’t do it for whatever reason.

Did someone tell you about this ritual? Where did you first hear about it? Do you remember?

Most of the players have a sort of getting-in-the-box ritual that they have, that’s different from player to player. A lot of it is just from watching the national teams play when I was little or watching the professional league – like you’d want to emulate your favorite players. So you’d kind of adopt what they did stepping into the box until it became your own habit, and then you’d adapt them a little bit as you got more comfortable with your own batting style. So I’d say it definitely – from players on team Canada that I would admire growing up. I have no idea where they got it from.

Did you ever talk about that to your teammates?

A couple times. We’d always say like, “yeah I always” or “[Name A] always taps her helmet when she gets in the box.” Or “oh, you always do that when you get in the box.” “Yup, it’s weird if I don’t” A lot of us who took the sport more seriously would discuss our weird little habits on the field that we always do – like [Name B] always spits in her glove, and she has this old batting glove that has holes in it and smells like rancid manure but she doesn’t throw it out because it’s her lucky batting glove, even though it’s mostly just a strap of a glove now ’cause it’s so worn down – like all of the – like the entire palm is gone but she still wears it in her glove. And then [Name C]  always twirls her bat when she steps into the batting box even though it looks kind of dumb. But she can’t stop at this point. It’s definitely something we talk about.

You said you do it as a comfort thing. Does it get you prepared, mentally?

Yes? I’m not sure if the action itself gets me mentally prepared – it’s more like the absence of the action makes me feel unprepared.

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Was not able to take video, but the demonstration of the batters box movement was very specific. Informant described each part as they did it.

Cherries and Cherry Queens

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college junior studying cognitive science and creative writing. He is a casual pot smoker.

He heard this piece of folklore while working on a ranch near his Texas hometown, from an older man who taught him and his fellow ranch hands all about weed culture. He likes it and it means a lot to him because it reminds him of the time in his life when he was a ranch hand and of the people he worked and lived with at the time. He says he hopes to bring the same vibe of that group of people to his friends and smoking pals now.

This interview was performed in the informant’s bedroom.

“What’s a cherry?”

“A cherry is, um, when you light the bowl and then you smoke it and then after you’re done smoking it it’s still like, lit, like there’s still like a red glow in the bowl, so it’s called a cherry and you can pass it and then you say ‘oh it’s cherried!’ and then they quickly but without lighting it continue to just smoke it, and then if they can continue to pass it around the circle and it gets all the way back to you and it’s still lit, then it’s like super cool and like a very rare feat, and then you’re officially the cherry queen. Oh and cherry queen is like an automatic pass, like if you’re cherry queen, and you get cherried, no matter when it stops, it comes back to you and you get to light it again. So like if it goes all the way around the circle and then like two people down it’ll come back to you and reset at you.”

These kinds of very specific stoner traditions and stoner language prove to me that this subculture is very developed and widespread, which counters the notion of stoners as lazy and generally not serious. Within stoner communities or microcommunities, these traditions and lingo are very important and tend to distinguish experienced smokers from newbies.