Category Archives: Narrative

Masquarade (Mmanwu)

Leave a reply

Story:

The informant explained that seeing a masquerade (Mmanwu) for the first time is something you never forget. She remembered being about seven or eight years old during a festival. The whole village was celebrating when the deep sound of the ikoro drum rang out which meant the Mmanwu were coming. She held onto her mother’s wrapper as the masquerade appeared. She had always been told that Mmanwu were spirits of the ancestors, but at that moment, all she felt was fear.

She recalls the Mmanwu suddenly running toward the children. Everyone screamed and scattered. She ran as fast as she could, losing her slippers in the sand. Her uncle laughed and called out, “Run! Mmanwu will catch you!” And in that moment, she said she truly believed it would.

She said that later, her mother just laughed and told her it was all part of the tradition. Looking back, she found it funny too, but she still respected the power of the Mmanwu.

Context:

The informant is an elderly Igbo woman who grew up in a traditional village in southeastern Nigeria. She recalls this childhood experience of seeing a masquerade (Mmanwu) for the first time during a festival. She had heard about Mmanwu from her elders, who explained that they represent ancestral spirits. As a child, she believed the spirits were real and feared being taken away. Now, as an elderly, she sees it as an important cultural tradition and laughs at her childhood fear.

My Interpretation:

The informant’s experience with the masquerade chase shows how these traditions mix fear and respect for the spirits. The masquerades aren’t just part of the festival for fun, they are seen as powerful spiritual figures. The fear the informant felt reflects how these spirits are both respected and feared by the community. Even though she was scared at the time, the memory helped her appreciate the importance of these ancestral figures in her culture.

Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary

Age: 22

Text/Story: “In middle school, we all dared each other to say ‘Bloody Mary’ three times in the mirror. We were too scared to try it alone, so we did it at sleepovers. We thought we’d summon a ghost or maybe just freak each other out. Even though it was a joke, we kind of believed it and it was a huge bonding thing between us.”

Analysis: The Bloody Mary ritual is an urban legend with folkloric roots, typically performed by children or teens. Originally, it was a divination ritual that dared young women to walk a flight of stairs backwards with only a candle and hand mirror in a darkened house. If you saw a figure other than yourself, it was a sign you’d die before getting married (a popular fear at that time). Despite being largely theatrical, it’s a popular choice for social rite of passage: a test of bravery and conformity. In modern times and in modern media, it’s seen as an initiation into friend groups or a scare tactic for bullies. It’s seen as a strong example of how fear and imagination can impact group dynamics and echoes how older superstitions around reflections and spirits have been passed down for generation. It’s not tied to religion but shows how rituals convey deeper psychological and cultural meaning.

Día de Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day)

Transcript of Interview with my Informant:

Each year on January 6th, my family celebrates Día de Los Reyes Magos, or Three Kings Day, a tradition with roots in Catholic faith and Hispanic culture. The story goes that Melchor, Gaspar, and Balthasar–guided by the star of Bethlehem–brought gifts to the newborn Jesus. In honor of this event, our family gathers at someone’s home (sometimes mine) and shares a special sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes. The bread is circular, topped with colorful dried fruit, and contains hidden figurines of baby Jesus inside.

During the celebration, each family cuts a slice of the Rosca. If someone finds a figurine inside their piece, they’re “chosen” to host a gathering later in the year–symbolizing both a blessing and a responsibility. It’s a mix of excitement and groaning laughter when someone finds one; some are honored, others jokingly curse their luck.

On the night before, January 5th, children place a shoe near the door or under the Christmas tree, awaiting small gifts from the Three Kings by morning–just as kids do with Santa Claus on Christmas. While we’ve adapted parts of the tradition for our life in the U.S., the essence remains: a celebration of faith, family, and culture that marks both the joy of giving and the hope of a new year.

Context:

My informant first became aware of the significance of Día de Los Reyes Magos as a child, but admitted they didn’t initially recognize it as a distinct or formal “tradition.” Growing up in a Hispanic family in the U.S., the celebration felt like an extension of everyday life–something “normal,” even if classmates or neighbors didn’t understand it. The ritual of gathering around the Rosca and the playful suspense of finding the baby Jesus figurine stood out as moments of connection and community.

Celebrations would rotate between family members’ homes, often becoming larger events when someone “won” the figurine. These gatherings served not just as cultural practice, but also as a form of reunion–bringing relatives together after the holidays for one more festive moment. The act of putting out a shoe for gifts was a quiet, joyful echo of Christmas traditions, but with its own spiritual undertone tied to the biblical Magi.

The informant noted that these rituals, though modest in scale compared to holidays like Christmas, carry a different kind of emotional weight. They blend the sacred with the familial, and even the humorous–like the yearly joking dread of having to host the next party. Though they didn’t see their upbringing as “filled with traditions” at first, reflecting on this holiday made them realize how layered and meaningful these recurring events are.

Analysis:

The Día de Los Reyes Magos tradition functions as a cultural bridge, connecting the informant’s Hispanic heritage with their life in the United States. Like many diasporic traditions, it has been adapted to new social contexts–reshaped by work schedules, school calendars, and community life–yet remains firmly rooted in Catholic ritual and familial bonds.

The act of sharing the Rosca de Reyes and discovering the baby figurine exemplifies how folklore can use food as both a symbolic and functional tool. The bread becomes more than a treat–it’s a ritual object, one that assigns roles (the future host), invites storytelling, and reinforces familial obligations through humor and fate. In this way, the tradition embodies both luck and labor: blessings that come with responsibilities, just as faith comes with commitment.

Furthermore, the informant’s reflection illustrates the invisible ubiquity of folk practices–how traditions can be so woven into daily life that their significance is only recognized when viewed from outside or upon reflection. The use of shoes to receive gifts also echoes other folk traditions (like Dutch Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas Day), showing the shared human impulse to mythologize generosity and moral reward during midwinter festivals.

Ultimately, this tradition is not just about religious observance. It is about identity–how faith, food, family, and folklore sustain cultural memory and offer moments of grounding and joy in the midst of American life. It’s a celebration not just of the Three Kings, but of the endurance of heritage in a changing world.

Induction Pranks of Passage TTRPGs

The Informant

GL is a long time tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) player with years of experience as a Game Master (a special role in TTRPGs). When I first asked about Induction Pranks in TTRPGs, GL had some time to discuss with some other members of the community before our interview.

The Text

The informant reports a few different induction pranks and common shared experiences that qualifies someone as a member of the TTRPG community, distinctly differentiating two sets between GMs and players. For Game Masters, the common experience is dealing with the first problem player, a whole subset of narrative genres emerging from this experience can be found on the subreddit r/RPGHorrorStories. The informant cites chaotic and evil player characters, which is a distinct tradition of D&D alignment stemming from Original Dungeons and Dragons. When he exchanges stories with other GMs, while telling success stories can be fun, tales of how terrible a particular player was to work with is an effective way of relating to each other. For players, while the informant reports that the community is generally averse to gatekeeping in recent years due to the nerdy and niche reputation and history the game has, he recounts how older players in the OSR community will put new players through the “death funnel,” a meat grinder dungeon that will kill several player characters to get the player accustommed to the brutal game style of older games. We discussed how this reflects a cultural shift in the TTRPG landscape in the modern age where players become more attached to their characters and think of themselves as the hero of the story whereas older D&D is more about the dungeon crawl, with any given character not expected to live through the story.

We then talked about unique signifers of the TTRPG player identity, such as maps and miniatures, which led to our discussion of how conversely, despite being a “tabletop” game, most TTRPGs can be played without a map or grid or any miniatures at all with the “theater of mind,” which we agreed was very unique to TTRPGs as wargames tend to rely on a grid or map and the miniature sets. Extending from that, we discussed how owning a set of dice can identify a TTRPG player, particular the 20-sided dice, which is hardly ever used for any other game and iconic to D&D. If someone owns a cohesive themed set of dice from 4-sided to 6, 8, 10, 12, and 20, then that is a sure certain sign of a TTRPG player. In a way, the moment a player buys their own set of dice instead of borrowing someone else’s indicates a commitment and thus induction to the community. The other example he talked about was creating one’s own first character, which players nowadays are more likely to be attached to as mentioned earlier. Even though the character may never be played in an actual game, a TTRPG player can likely be identified by their excitement to share their character ideas, character sheet build, or even stories involving that character from a game.

Analysis

This was a particularly interview as the informant came prepared, giving a blason populaire about his own ingroup of fellow GMs and particularly problematic players who play chaotic and evil characters, citing a specific experience that identifies a particular community. Older players also have an “induction prank” for newer players when playing older systems to shatter their idea of TTRPGs before welcoming them to the experience, but it’s also interesting to note that this hobby doesn’t try to gatekeep newcomers with anything that could be qualified as hazing. Aside from the “death funnel” and Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Annihilation dungeon designed to kill player characters, we both thought of a particular video as an another example of this “induction prank” in D&D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBmNThMZJ1U

“Off record,” he joked that the real hazing is letting new players play 5th edition (a particularly divisve version of the game he dislikes but is otherwise a popular gateway game), but he notes that many other players in the community would disagree with the sentiment of the joke. Noting the uniqueness of TTRPG dice sets, a rite of passage presents itself in the form of buying the first set of dice, an example of Stuart Hall’s reception with the expression of community membership identity performance via consumerism. We laughed about how cheap it is to actually buy a dice set (you can get like a pack of 10 sets of 5 dollars), but at the same time, nobody else would bother with buying such a set of dice.

Less materialistic indications of membership are player characters, where a newcomer exploring the hobby might borrow a prebuilt character while TTRPG players committed to the hobby will not only have the knowledge to build their own characters but be actively invested in them as a proxy of themselves that they would like to roleplay as. In a sense, this is akin to a fantastical identity localized within this particular hobby or at a particular table, and modern players who focus more on the epic narrative of a band of heroes on an adventure invested in the safety and prosperity of their characters as an extension of the performed identity of the self. This is comparable to the process of an initiation ritual for community membership.

Folk Narrative: Ballad Legend – Dance of Zalongo

  1. Text: There is a legendary ballad sung by Greeks across all generations. The ballad is titled Ο Χορός του Ζαλόγγου, or The Dance of Zalongo. Prior to 1821, Greece was still under occupation of the Ottoman Empire. Greek civilians often banded together to rebel against the Ottoman forces, starting small wars from their humble villages against the massive might of the empire. There was an ongoing war between the Ottoman Empire and the region that the small village of Zalongo resided in. During this war effort, all of the male soldiers had to leave the village to fight elsewhere on the offensive. Unfortunately, the village was marched on by Ottoman forces during this time. Left unprotected, the village only contained the women and children who resided there. Knowing their fate was sealed, it is said that the women, along with their children, went to the top of Mount Zalongo, and danced in a circle at its cliff. It is said that the women sang as they danced at the top of the cliff, celebrating as they were chased by the Ottoman forces. Then, one by one, they threw themselves over the edge, committing suicide. The actions of the Zalongo women are percieved as deeply heroic by the Greek people, as the women chose death over slavery. They refused to fall victim to the Ottoman soldiers. Their story is immortalized in the ballad known as The Dance of the Zalongo. Some of its key lyrics include, “The fish cannot live on land, Nor the flower on the sand, And the women of Zalongo Cannot live without freedom.”
  2. Informants Context: My parents raised me on the story of the Zalongo women. As immigrants, my parents had a deep reverence for the history of Greece and its story of independence. Being part of the Greek diaspora, they wanted to keep these stories alive for me and my brother who were being raised in Canada. My father spoke very highly of the legend and my mother was the one who was capable of actually singing the song. I can’t remember the full lyrics, but I know one of the key ones: “Το ψάρι δεν ζει στο νερό, Ούτε το λουλούδι στην άμμο, Και οι γυναίκες του Σουλίου Δεν μπορούν να ζήσουν χωρίς ελευθερία” (“The fish cannot live on land, Nor the flower on the sand, And the women of Zalongo Cannot live without freedom.”) I knew it from a young age and remember being deeply moved, even charged with patriotism every time I heard the song. As a young boy, it made me physically angry when I would hear about how they died. Of course, people can’t say for certain what happened at the top of the cliff. It was a story that was born out of word of mouth between villagers, spreading across Greece. Like all Greeks though, I firmly believe it actually happened as described. I’m sure it wasn’t as straight-forward as the legend makes out, but I believe they danced and sang before the jump. To me, the story epitomizes the Greek spirit of independence, the mantra at the heart of the revolution – freedom over death.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: The ballad of the Dance of Zalongo is a heroic ballad of legend. The strict historical accuracy of the ballad is disputed as there isn’t empirical evidence for what the woman did at the top of the cliff. It is confirmed that they jumped from the cliff and committed suicide. That said, this is what precisely qualifies the story as robust piece of legend. There is dispute about its truth. Since Greeks choose to believe that this legend is true in the face of disputes, it speaks to their values. At the core of the Zalongo ballad is the relationship with death and freedom. Greek people value the concept of personal liberty to so far an extent that they will sacrifice their own lives to maintain it. The culture preaches a disregard for death. Additionally, the fact that the women decided to dance and sing speaks volumes to their own values. It’s a truly non-defeatist attitude. Almost as if to signal to the Ottoman colonizers that they could truly have nothing – not the lives of the women, nor their bodies and by singing, not even their spirits. It’s an act, a story, of deep courageousness and heroism. It reflects the spirit that likely later inspired the 1821 Greek War for Independence, lighting the heart of the nation on fire. As far as I can tell, the Dance of Zalongo represents folklore at its most powerful.

Fields

AGE: 55

Date_of_performance: April 15, 2025/May 9, 2025

Informant Name: (Confidential)

Language: English/Greek

Nationality: Canadian/Greek

Occupation: Lawyer/Entrepreneur

Primary Language: English

Residence: Canada