Category Archives: Life cycle

Cheese Touch

Text

“When I was in like elementary school a lot of us would mess around with a game called the cheese touch like if you said cheese touch when you were tagging someone then they would have it. And the only way to prevent it would be to have your fingers crossed. And once you have it you have to give it to someone else or you’re stuck with it. So, I remember we would always have our fingers crossed because anytime was fair game. I remember getting frustrated because kids would lie and say their fingers were crossed when they got tagged. Me and my friends would team up in secret and promise we wouldn’t tag each other if we got the cheese touch. In my senior year of high school, we played senior assassin which gave me flashbacks to the cheesetouch because of the safe rules and the lies that would be created after someone got out. I was completely into both games because they brought out the inner kid in me and my competitive nature.”

Context

I first saw this game when I watched the Diart of a Wimpy Kid movie. I remember being at my friend’s house in his living room watching with my childhood friend group of 4 guys. When we saw the cheese touch scene with thought it was funny but also disgusting because the cheese was rotten. Other kids at our elementary watched the movie too and one of them copied the movie. Since we were immature kids who just wanted to have fun, the mention of the cheese touch got everyone riled up and the game began.

Analysis

The cheese touch game shows the diversity of forms that folklore can come in. It is a variation of another folk belief known as the “cooties” because they both involve infecting others with a negative thing. While it originated in a movie, kids around the US adapted the game into their own and transformed a silly game into a national form of folklore. Folklore is highly prominent in the younger generations because with social media and televesion, kids are prone to copy what they say without questioning its validity. Similar to Alan Dundes’s idea, folklore functions socially within groups that share similiarity giving mutual trust in this scenario. The secret alliances he formed with his friends show the strength of culture through folklore. Regardless of the rules of the game, their tight knit folk group shaped by friendship and a collective interest to not get the cheese touch led to them bending the rules and creating shared identity.

New Month Prosperity

The Story:

“A tradition I grew up seeing was on the first of every month take a handful of cinnamon and blow it out on your doorstep from the palm of your hand. It’s  so  interesting. It was meant for prosperity, to bring prosperity for the new month. I think this is more of a witch spell type thing, I don’t think it’s cautionary really, but it’s just for you to bring abundance and prosperity to your front door, on the first day of the month.”

Reflection:

The informant showed an example of ritual with the historical link to voodoo and magic. The tradition of cinnamon and the first of every month with the blowing action frame this to be a prosperity spell originating from a folk group. Additionally, something I noticed from the information was the acknowledgment of these spells, but they did not participate. It allowed for the informant to talk about how they appeared in their life while also being able to objectively inform me, an outsider, on the origin and the purpose behind these spells. This allowed for a nice insight of folk magic and just how deeply they are rooted within a folk group, even if it is not practiced by every single folk member. In this case, it was not an active ritual, but had enough significance to still be acknowledged by the informant. The timing of this ritual also shows the importance of calendrical rituals in this case and how they can be the backbone behind certain rituals within a folk group. 

Plane Tapping Ritual

Age: 20

Folklore Story:

“Every time I go on a flight  and I fly Southwest mainly every time I go on a flight,  I touch the little heart that’s on the outside of the plane  and I put my palm on it.  And then I as I enter the plane.  I do it as like a good luck thing and I got it from my dad because he would always do it.  He would like put his hand on and he would like pray or like say like a quick prayer.  So I just started doing it too because he would take me on flights  and it was always good. I first saw him do it at like eight because I’ve been going on flights kind of young. I like the idea of like having a child and just like picking up my kids so that they can put their hand on the heart, not the plane.”

Reflection:

The informant’s story is a textbook example of ritual and contagious magic. They describe the desire to touch the heart on the outside of a Southwest plane before boarding. This is a repeated, patterned act performed for good luck. The informant learned from her father, who would pray while touching it, that touching the heart on the plane connects you to the whole. The informant plans to pass this ritual to her own children, showing how rituals reproduce themselves through vertical transmission. This reflects a broader societal reality: despite the advancements of technology and the global dependence on it, people still exhibit small acts of control over the uncontrollable.

Inky Binky Bonky

The Story:

“When I was younger, I had this tradition that I did with all of my friends. It started with my cousin, she taught it to me. But one of my favorite games growing up was tag and the way that we determined who would become or who would be the first to be it was Inky Binky Bonky. What we would do is we would come together and we would put our feet in a circle, and then we would chant the song while pointing onto each other’s toes. “

 “Inky Binky Bonky, 

daddy had a donkey, 

donkey died, 

daddy cried, 

what color was the donkey’s butt?”

“and then you land on somebody and then they give a color. If they’re like pink, you go P-I-N-K pink and then you’re out. That person’s out. And then you keep going until you have one person.

I taught the rhyme onto other people. My cousin did it because when I was younger the only rhymes I think were mutually accepted and known or widely known were like bubble gum bubble gum in a dish and Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, but Inky Binky Bonky, I had never heard of it. My cousin taught it to me and then I taught it to all of my friends.  The last age I played it, I would say maybe when I was like 11 or 12. I learned it, I want to say either kindergarten or first grade.  A twist I added was if it landed on me, I would count how many feet it would take for me to be it. Say a color that was longer, I knew that if I said pink, it would land on me, so I’m saying orange or I’m saying something else so that it’s somebody else. But yeah, I would just  use the color in my mind to navigate what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.”

Reflection:

This interview and the informant reminded me of childlore and the multiplicity of folklore and how it can transcend regions but still have the original intent. The counting rhyme functions as a folk narrative in a shorter form, a verbal performance that assigns social roles and the weight they carry via rhythm, chance and choice. This also touches making do with whichever mediums are at hand and still perpetuating the original intent of the folk media. This version of a counting game, as well as some of the tactics used when determining social roles as implied by the rhyme are especially interesting. Although there is no direct author of this rhyme, it still exists and has several variations in different locations and regions. Further, it shows the creative control the informant and players of the game have when choosing the color when playing the game. It goes to show that while several versions of a game may exist, the original intent remains and the initiation players take to achieve the desired outcome. 

Arctic Fox

The Story:

“When I was in third grade, I moved to a different part of the city and changed schools. The first book we read in class was The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Our teacher used an origami activity to tie into the book and taught us how to make origami foxes. In the class, we used orange origami paper, but since that class I have made the origami foxes out of whatever resources I had around- like i did in class on Thursday!”

Reflection:

Reflection:

The informant’s story was a good example of folk art when mixed with personal memory and communal creativity. The emphasis on the folk art being created with “whatever resources I had around” is an example of making do with whatever is at hand. This draws back to the importance of folk art, since it essentially is the presentation of messages or historical context via a multitude of mediums. Furthermore, the folk art and its prevalence in the informant’s life shows how the folk art, despite the material used to make it, will always carry the historical and contextual significance when being recreated and taught onto other individuals. The story exemplifies the folkloresque of the integration type. The origami fox activity is an attempt at a connection between book and another tangible media form, yet seems folkloric as it allows the opportunity for the children to form shared connected ideals and emotions of the origami.