Category Archives: Life cycle

Birthday Bite (Mordida)

Text: 

So in like Latin American culture in general, I’m personally Mexican, but we have this thing and you basically sing a person happy birthday on their birthday into a cake. And, it’s called mordida which means bite. So you basically like yeah its mordida, which is bite in Spanish, its m-o-r-d-i-d-a and the whole thing it’s like kinda supposed to be good luck. Yeah, you just kind of shove their face into the cake, and they’re supposed to take a bite of the cake before everyone else, but like with their face. And, the whole point should be like a little bite, but people go a little crazy sometimes. 

Context: 

Both of A’s parents are Mexican, and she grew up in Texas near the Mexican-American border in a strong Latin American community. She is currently 21 years old and attends USC.

Analysis: The word mordida, which A describes to mean a bite, is also more widely used to refer to a bribe when not in the context of the birthday tradition. It’s also traditional in Mexico to sing the song Las Mañanitas rather than happy birthday during the mordida. Luck associated with the start of a year or new beginnings at a birthday is also a theme in many cultures. Celebrating the year or new age of the birthday boy or girl sets a tone for the next 365 days. In Van Genup’s book Rites of Passage, he explains how rituals are often practical jokes and that in order to change identity (to move from one age to the next), there must be a ritual. Here it is interesting that after attending different birthday parties and their own every year the victim of the practical joke knows what is going to happen, but still allows it anyway. Participating in good humor or being able to “take the joke” is perhaps a sign of maturity. This is also an example of ritual inversion in which the ritual is the opposite of the normal rules of social engagement. Normally, shoving someone’s face into a cake would be rude, but in the Mordida it would almost be rude not to. 

The Legend of Stoggoty Stu

Text: “This is called the legend of Stoggoty Stu, that’s literally what they call it. Every year my family for like the past three, four generations has gone to New Hampshire. We like to own the cabins on one part of the lake and then people on the houses on the other part of the lake. There was this myth that Charlie and this man named Stoggoty Stu were best friends. Stoggoty Stu lived across the lake and Charlie lived in the cabins where we were. We play volleyball every single night from like 10pm-1am there. Charlie would blow this huge horn and scream volleyball across the lake and then families, including Stoggoty Stu would come to play volleyball. Stoggoty Stu and Charli have passed on now because it’s been so many generations, but we still play volleyball and we don’t call across the lake, but everyone comes like when they know. And so, the myth is that after we all play volleyball and everyone is getting hammered, good vibes all around everyone goes to the lake to jump in. Everyone pretends if they’re drunk enough or if you believe it that you can hear Stoggoty Stu calling back across the lake especially when it’s windy and dark and foggy. Specifically at 12:12 when we all jump in.”

Context: M is nineteen years old and grew up in Seattle, Washington. She’s currently a Business major at USC. She says that she grew up hearing the Legend of Stoggy Stu, and her family and friends still tell it today. 

Analysis: Stoggoty Stu’s location and nature are both interesting in this story. Those who interact with ghosts are typically witnesses or victims, in this case M’s family is witnesses. Ghosts also often appear at a changing of location or ownership, in this case the ownership of the lake house is changing hands from one generation to the next. Stoggoty Stu is stationary, M says her family doesn’t tell or follow the legend when they are at home in Seattle, but rather when they enter the separate space of the lake property. Stoggoty Stu could also be considered an ancestral spirit, connecting M’s family to the property. By continuing to call for his friend to come play volleyball, Stoggoty Stu is expressing a desire for M and her family to stay connected to their community. M’s family’s imitation of his call, having their friend’s for volleyball every night, could be considered quasi-homeopathic ritual magic perhaps to bring back the spirit of the good times Stoggoty Stu represents.

Double-Double Handshake

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Orange County, California

Text: “Well on the playground, we used to play a lot of hand shakes and we would clap and then sing them like :

‘double double this this”

and we would bump fists on the ‘double double’, and then clap each other’s hands on the ‘this this’.

double double that that

double this double that

double double this that’

We would do it over and over faster until we couldn’t go anymore. And we would use words with like two syllables sometimes like:

‘double double rain rain

double double bow bow

double rain double bow

double double rainbow.’”

Context: S said she can’t remember exactly when first heard the rhyme/handshake above, but that she and her friends frequently learned new ones and taught them to each other at school. S attended a Catholic school in Southern California for most of her education.

Analysis: S watched the following video and confirmed it’s the same as the handshake she also used to perform on the playground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNm52EdG3cg&t=28s. Some sources categorize the song as a nursery rhyme, however S has never heard it without the handshake portion included or seen it written down. The British Library (https://www.bl.uk/playtimes/articles/an-introduction-to-clapping-games#:~:text=The%20earliest%20clapping%20game%20in,they%20were%20noted%20in%20France.) states that hand clapping games rose in popularity around the 1960s in the US and England. They began to be associated as a game between children in early 19th century France, but were recorded in relation to children by folklorist Peter Opie in 1698. The impressiveness of the coordination required by children to both sing and clap is what’s thought to have made clapping games popular. In this particular case, it may not be the lyrics of the rhyme used above that made it popular, but rather the rhythm and the versatility of the lyrics to be switched out for different two syllable words. However, the phrase “double double” is a phrase used frequently in slang and media. The repetition of the word double, implies urgency, “we need to leave on the double double.” There’s the popular In-n-Out cheeseburger which is popular in California (S’s native state), known as “the double double,” and movies like the 1993 Double Double Toil and Trouble.

The Unlucky Loteria Tab

Informant: CS ; Interviewer’s best friend

“So when you play loteria, early on you start to pick your favorite tabla.”

Interviewer asks: “why do you think that is?”

“Oohh I’m not entirely sure. Like if I like had to take a guess, I think it’s because of um… repetition. Like you form a routine on one single playing card, so you begin to associate it with like good vibes.”

Interviewer asks: “can you elaborate?”

“Yeah so, there are certain like superstitions that go with playing loteria. The main one is that if you switch your playing card after losing, you’ll never win while you play that round. It’s only until you like, form a relationship with one of the 10 playing cards that you’ll win.”

Interviewer asks: “So what’s your lucky tab?”

“It’s 3.”

Interviewer asks: “Do you believe in that superstition?”

“I do! The saying we have in Spanish is ‘te salaste’. Loosely translated, it means ‘you salted yourself’. As in like, you cursed yourself for that round. Almost like you jinxed your own winning. It like gets serious when you’re like playing with older folk and they start betting on the game, like gambling almost. And like the unspoken rules are taken really seriously.”

interviewer asks: “do you think the unspoken rules are meant to be taken seriously?”

“I do. I think that when you switch your playing card to another, you’ll start pulling cards that match the one you switched out. Almost like the game is taunting you.”

my interpretation: This superstition runs deep. I remember the elders in my family yelling at me everything I even hinted at switching my playing card. They would often say that I would jinx myself. In hindsight, I think that the idea of having to stick with the same card could be a metaphor for monogamy. In theory, you build a relationship with this card and you start almost bonding and memorizing the playing card. If you “cheat” on the playing tab/card or toss that tab out, the cards that are pulled in the next round will almost always be matching your old playing tab. Almost as if the game reminds you of how good you could’ve had it if you stayed put.

Los Duendes

Informant:TH; Interviewer’s Sister

“Okay okay, I have one more you can write about. I know that duendes are like a thing in Mexico, but did you hear that my grandma pissed off a duende?”

Interviewer shakes their head.

“So according to my aunt, when they were crossing the river to get here [the United States], they like, found little rocks in a circle with stuff in it. And at first my grandma thought it was a campfire, so she started piling on like leaves and shrub and stuff. And they used it as a fire for the night. In the morning, my aunt was missing her lucky bracelet and her glasses. And my uncle couldn’t find his cross necklace. And so our tios have a theory that a duende’s belongings were in the little rock circle. And when my grandma used it as a fire all their belongings burned up.”

Interviewer asks: “Can you elaborate as to what that means? What is a duende and why is it taking things?”

“Yeah, so. Um, a duende is like…” *they take a moment* “how do I explain it? They’re like um, little elves or like creatures rather. And they can either be very nice or very mean. Kinda like how the witches on TikTok are always like “don’t piss off the fae or they’ll like curse you or whatever’.They’re essentially little guys that can either reward you or curse you. And so in the context of the story, the duende whose things were allegedly burned started stealing their little trinkets as retaliation.”

My interpretation: I don’t think this happened completely. I do think my uncle and aunt were scatterbrained trying to cross into a whole new country and they may have lost a few things, but the idea of my grandmother angering a mystical little being is the funniest thing I’ve ever been told. I think My uncle and aunt started telling the kids in our family this story as a way to build lore to their journey. I don’t necessarily think there needs to be a lesson to be taught here, I think it was more for embellishment.