Traditional Hawaiians would greet people by pressing their foreheads together and breathing through their noses. Breathing through your nose is considered the purest way to take a breath. Riley’s grandpa would greet him and his siblings and cousins with this traditional greeting. He would bend down and place his forehead against each of their foreheads then take one deep breath through his nose and exhale. It was an intimate way of greeting people to show that you cared for the person and respected him or her beyond words.
In addition, kids were to greet elders or other parents who were outside their family as Uncle or Auntie instead of Mr. or Mrs. It was very disrespectful to call someone by the title of Mr. or Mrs. Riley, for example, would walk into a cookie shop and greet the shop owner as Auntie May, even though she had no family relationship to him.
The use of Auntie and Uncle to address elders most likely was used to represent that all Hawaiians are family, despite of what blood you have. It makes sense with Hawaiian culture to treat everyone who lived on the islands as family because the islands collectively represented one giant family.
Category Archives: Gestures
Hiding Valuables on St. Patrick’s Day
MATERIAL
“On St. Patrick’s Day, you hide all of your valuables. This is the day that the leprechauns come out and get revenge on people who have been bad for the previous year. It is kind of like Santa in the sense that you’re supposed to be good all year so that the leprechauns don’t have an incentive take your stuff.”
ANALYSIS
Leprechauns first emerged in Irish folklore in medieval times and have since been a staple of Irish culture everywhere. Leprechauns are said to enjoy playing practical jokes, such as stealing valuable items. Sometimes, leprechauns are believed to be fairies with evil spirits. However, this creature has developed into one that will steal your valuables on Saint Patrick’s Day only if you were bad the previous year. So, it is an incentive for younger children to be good year round so that their valuables aren’t “stolen”. My informant remembers that when she was younger, sometimes her parents would take something her or her siblings really loved if they were bad in the days leading up to Saint Patrick’s Day, only to blame it on the leprechauns. As she grew older, even though she stopped believing in leprechauns, her and her family would still hide some of their valuables just because it had become tradition.
Fist Pump Farewell
“I remember when I was in middle school. Whenever my dad would leave for work. He would leave for work before I went to school so I would be eating breakfast. He would get ready and put on his shoes, and then he would stop just before he left and say ‘Fighting.’ (The informant says the word in a low tone as pumps his fist in a forward motion.)”
The informant believes that his dad picked the gesture up in the army. The fist pump motion is paired with a reverberating and deep utterance of the word “fighting” in a Korean accent. (I was unaware what word he was saying at first because of the heavy accent until the informant explained.) The informant said it was a big moment when he finally got the resonance of it, a sort of rite of passage. His voice was finally low enough to make the sound like his father.
Nowadays, whenever he has a bad day, his mother will say it to him over the phone to cheer him up. I asked if he thought he would continue the tradition with his children, and he said that he was unsure. “I could imagine if I had this really spunky three year old and I was looking for something new for us to do.” He said that he would love if his parents, particularly his dad would do it with his kids, and maybe he would join in, but maybe it would just be a tradition for his dad and his children.
The word and gesture does not really mean anything, but the practice and performance of the ritual is what stuck with the informant. It is a tradition with his dad that is a little silly, but it became a regular part of his day. I think the custom is a good way to keep the connection between the informant and his family; the gesture has lost its original meaning, but now it holds more importance and remains in his memory.
Duct taping prank
My friend is a student at Cal Poly Pomona. But when he was in high school he was in the marching band. His high school’s marching band had a particularly strict sense of hierarchy, and so freshmen who were just joining the band were expected to “stay in their place.” This is an account my friend told me, of a freshman who was particularly unruly and how upperclassmen retaliated during band camp, a week in which the band members train and get to know each other:
“There was this one kid, who, um… who was a freshman, and he was pretty much just a general asshole. Um, he didn’t show up to practice, he’d cut in line past seniors to get to food and stuff like that, and… he was even worse to people who were, like, of his year. And… yeah, so basically he’d go around stealing people’s stuff. And so, one of the seniors were like… “So um,yeah, this is too far so we need to get back at him.” So we took duct tape and we duct taped his sleeping bag… until there was more duct tape than actual sleeping bag. And… yeah, basically it was like… justice. But kind of like, vigilante justice or something like that.”
[“Do you feel that pranks like this kind of enforce the hierarchy you guys have? Like, if people fall out of line…”]
“Yeah, for sure, ‘cause generally if you are being really… arrogant, and, you know, just a general douchebag… we try to put you back in your place.”
My friend definitely thinks that this disproportionate retribution was effective in perpetuating the cultural hierarchy of his high school band. The duct taping tradition in that particular community far predates my friend’s account. He remembers it as one of the more common gestures used in disciplining freshmen.
There’s a certain discontinuity betweem the nature of the prank and the values it’s supposed to reinforce. Band requires a lot of self-disicipline and respect of bandmates/directors, yet this prank is demeaning to the target. I think this irony can be explained by the way band’s hierarchy works. As my friend said, the targets of these pranks are usually unruly or arrogant freshmen. So, as a form of reciporcity, the upperclassmen return acts of disrespect with more disrespect. On the other hand, it seems likely that duct taping is something that amuses high schoolers because it demeans the target. There’s a constant struggle of being “better,” and strict hierarchies like band help to reinforce that way of thinking.
PLUR Handshake
“The first time I went to a rave was in 2010 for New Years Eve. It was pretty insane and an unforgettable experience. People were dressed n neon colors, wearing very little, almost nothing. I remember thinking how crazy these kids must be, not only because they were practically naked but because they were almost naked in 40 degree weather! As I wasgetting used to this “rave scene”, I noticed a lot of the people had beaded bracelets, some from their wrist to the top of their arms. Everyone was really nice and talkative. When I mentioned to one of the girls I met that it was my first time at a rave, she automatically got super gitty. I’m pretty sure she was on something because she just seemed way too happy. But anyways, she grabbed my hand, connecting her pointer finger and middle finger to my pointer finger and middle finger, like the peace sign saying PEACE, then LOVE , curving each hand and connecting to each other to make a full heart, then we put our palms together like a still high five, UNITY, finally interlacing fingers while she slid one of her plastic beaded bracelets from her wrist to mine., RESPECT. The bracelet was colorful, bright pink and blue with lettered beads spelling PLUR, which stood for each of the steps of the swapping. I felt so initiated into this crazy world. She went on to explain how her and her friends, Kandi Kids, get together to make tons of these bracelets before a rave, wear them and swap Kandi with other Kandi Kids. “
PLUR is somewhat of a value system in the rave subculture. It promotes peace, love, unity and respect. The handshake is used to exchange “Kandi”, which are usually bright colored bracelets made of plastic beads and elastic string. Kandi Kids are those who go to raves and practice PLUR and genuinely believe in this philosophy of loving and understanding everyone. By swapping these bracelets, this philosophy is spread to others and a part of each is given to others. My informant learned this at her rave experience, and the girl who introduced her to it was also introduces at her first rave.