Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Captain Deerfield

CONTEXT:

W is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. He attended a private boarding school in Massachusetts called Deerfield, an academy with centuries of tradition.

TEXT:

W: At Deerfield there was like a cheerleading squad. And it wasn’t cheerleading like what you would think of, it was more like people that would just get everyone amped up. Basically these people’s job, their job was to just show up to the games and just yell. That was all that they did. And then there was Captain Deerfield and Captain Deerfield was the head cheerleader. And this was something that was very much independent from the school. And what would happen was at the end of each year, the entire school would vote for who would be Captain Deerfield. And it was always a senior. And this was before my time, but I remember hearing about somebody that was Captain Deerfield and he got DC’d or something which is a disciplinary committee. So he got in trouble and he was a proctor, which means that he lived with either freshmen or sophomores and he was responsible for them so he lost that position. Like he lost every position that he had. But they couldn’t take away Captain Deerfield because that wasn’t a school thing. So Captain Deerfield would be someone that yells at everyone. I think there was some sort of like, wooden rod or something that was handed down and so they would just pound it on the fucking ground dude. And there was a hat as well. That was handed down and everyone sort of had their own look as Captain Deerfield, everyone that I saw. Some people had a cape. There was one guy that had like, these fucking hideous checkered green pants. Yeah, pretty much anything really. But I think the big things that were always the same were the hat and the wooden rod.

ANALYSIS:

This is a great example of how traditions and ritual can be more powerful than the institutions that govern them. Captain Deerfield, a student-owned role, has no official institutional grounds — instead, it is a role agreed upon by the people who Captain Deerfield leads. Even when the Captain Deerfield from years ago lost everything else he did, no one could strip him of Captain Deerfield because the institution has no power over it. If the people decide to strip him of it, that would work. But as long as the people agree a certain person gets to have a certain role, the institution cannot change that. The agreed-upon items are significant too — the passing of them as semblances of the passing of a torch, that this role stays powerful and continues to be used.

Glutinous Rice Balls

CONTEXT:

L is a sophomore at USC, and a good friend of mine. He immigrated to the United States from China when he was 15 years old.

TEXT:

L: I’m gonna talk about like glutinous rice balls, something that my family will make during the Chinese New Years that usually my grandma off on my mom’s side makes. So it’s something that we just do like once a year, it’s essentially a sticky rice ball. It’s like barbecue pork and then mushrooms and all kinds of different things. I haven’t had it for a while because I haven’t been back to China since 2019. But I just remember that growing up that’s something that she makes only once a year and it’s only on Chinese New Year so it’s like quite, you know, memorable. She made it because they didn’t grow up in like a very wealthy family so like like pork or like meat in general is not like accessable for them. So they would save money for an entire year just so that they can have a big nice meal on Chinese New Year, just for that one day. And although my grandparents have become wealthier and they live in circumstances that if they want, they can literally make it every single day, but for some reason my grandma just wanted to keep that tradition going. So when I was growing up that’s like the only dishes that you make during New Year’s but the other year, my mom and my auntie started picking up that tradition. So now during my birthday or other big holidays if they can’t really think of anything to do they will make that meal. Now it’s really become like a celebration because it’s something that I so rarely eat and I really like it so yeah.

Me: What kind of memories do you associate with this?

L: I mean, whenever I think about this, I think about unity. Like that’s the time where my family is like all together. Whenever my grandma brings it out like we are always like in the big chairs all around a table. And everybody’s talking to each other during that time. And it’s not something that I see a lot these days. So like whenever I have that food I just think about it and the memory is awesome. The thing that my mom remembered when I was a kid we would get all around the table like this.

ANALYSIS:

Traditional meals, especially ethnic traditional meals, often spring out from necessity and budget. This particular dish seems to be considered particularly delicious by the informant, and he mentioned that even though the dish can be made essentially whenever anyone wants it, the association and the rarity of the meal based on past tradition is something that his grandma and family wants to preserve. This meal is something special – something people save for and a tradition that represents the family. To the informant, this particular dish reminds him of his family being one, especially after COVID-19 began and they split apart for longer periods of time. In preserving the special nature of this dish, one also preserves the past traditions – almost vestigial, in a sense, because they no longer need to save money just to be able to afford it, but instead wait for special occasions to have it.

Shaving Heads Before the Meet

CONTEXT:

P is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. He attended a private school in New Jersey before coming to USC. He was on the swim team for 4 years.

TEXT:

P: Yeah, so the biggest swim meet was called Easterns. And we used to dominate that shit; in my time we waned off a little bit, but we still kept the rituals. And one of the many ones was that the seniors could shave the freshman’s head any way they wanted. And that’s been for like, decades, I think, for decades. But basically, my haircut was, I was bald dude. Like completely bald except I had this old man hair, like Danny DeVito hair. And so one guy had, like Avatar hair and another guy had monk hair, like it was just a ring. I have pictures of it! We got a yarmulke from this Jewish kid and put it on top of his head. So the meet was on Thursday, and they would shave heads on Sunday. And you had to go to class with the haircut Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, no hats, no hoods, or the seniors would confiscate them. So you had to walk around. And it was better when we were in groups, like we would stick together. So you would have to be with your brothers like in unity with your shitty fucking haircuts. Having everyone to look at you like, “Ugh, what the hell? What are they doing? What are they doing to these kids?” And we would also have to dye our hair. We got it like, random colors: blue, fucking orange. So you’d have this dumbass hair and it would be bright blue.

Me: You seem to look back on this fondly.

P: Oh, yeah, cuz then I got to do it. Senior year. I got pictures. The seniors, and this one junior named [X], were smart dudes, like they knew how to psychologically prepare you for what was to come. You know what I mean? And Isaac would tell me this. He was like, when you’re a senior, you’re gonna have all these freshmen coming in, you’re gonna tell them they’re gonna shave their heads, and they’re gonna be like, no fucking way. And this is what they did. They told us at first, and we’re like, this is not happening. And you plant it a little bit every other day, maybe once a week, and just be like, “Hey, your head is gonna get shaved, you ready for that? How do you feel about that?” And just little by little, it’s the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. Like, this is an actual psychological thing, the more you get them used to and the more you get them acquainted with it, and you show them — the seniors showed us pictures of when they were freshmen. And they romanticize this time of like, being a freshman and having your head shaved. And it’s a rite of passage. And the more ingrained you are on the swim team, like practice after practice, and like doing all this bullshit, like, you know, getting cookies for seniors, getting your shower taken, then you start to feel part of the team. And then after every practice, if you do well, and you go hard, you get a fist bump from the seniors. And then they became like, my fathers too. So when they started talking about shaving, it just became another thing that was gonna happen. And that was part of being on the team. And by the time it came around, by the time it came around, even the kids that were vehemently like, “I am never doing this.” They were like, “I’m doing it.” And once like more than half of the kids are shaving their heads, then you’re like, “Fuck, I don’t want to be left out.” And then when I was a senior, like, there was this one kid, Rishi who had long flowing hair. And when we told him about it, it was just like [X] told me, he was like, “Yeah, I’m not doing that. I’m just not doing that.” And I kept in mind what [X] said, I was like, “I have patience. Every day, I’m gonna drill this in this kid’s head.” And I shaved his head. I have a video. I have a video of him looking up. We shaved just the top of his head. So there’s just a curtain of hair down here. So I have a video of me shaving the top of his head. And then he looks up and he’s terrified. We laugh about it now. So yeah, it’s something. I know for sure they’re passing that shit down.

ANALYSIS:

Many traditions take the form of rites of passage — that once you do a certain thing, you have now transitioned and taken on this new identity. It’s seen with weddings, frats, and certainly sports teams. In a team with long-standing tradition like that of an old New Jersey boarding school, the tradition and rites of passage are complete. Especially with incoming freshmen, there are certainly “hazing” rituals and other kinds of things that they must do that the teammates before them did to be considered part of them. In a way, these kinds of rituals “unite” the team under more than just the fact that they swim, practice and compete together. Once this action of collective embarrassment and humiliation is completed, suddenly, you “get” to be one of them. Now they “know” what it’s like, and it’s easy to stick together and be united as a team.

Raise Your Hand and Say “I’m Stupid”

CONTEXT:

P is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. He attended a private school in New Jersey before coming to USC. He was on the swim team for 4 years.

TEXT:

If you did something stupid on the swim team, it was the ritual that you had to like, if five members of the swim team raised their hand, then you had to stand up and apologize and say, “I am sorry, I am stupid. My name is so and so.” And it would always be like the freshmen, the seniors would always make the freshmen because I mean, we would fuck up a lot. So if I spilled my chocolate milk at the table, immediately all the hands went up, like 20 Hands fly up in the air. And so I stand up on the chair. And like, basically, the whole dining hall is like, “who’s this freshman who’s standing up on a chair?” And I’m like, “I’m sorry, for spilling the chocolate. I am stupid.” You needed five, but sometimes the seniors would point to random kids in the dining room to be like, Hey, can you guys raise your hands? And if they raise their hands, then you’d have to apologize and be like, “I’m sorry. I’m stupid.” And so one time I was at the dining hall. And I was so sick of having to, like every day I was apologizing for something dumb. Like they really, they really tried to make you say “I’m stupid” every day. And so one time, there was this senior. He was sitting across from me and he was like, just a titan of man. You know, he had like, all these records and shit. And so I think the dining hall was serving veal. And this guy goes, “I can’t believe we’re eating like baby deer right now.” And I was like, “Baby deer? That’s venison. Dude, this is baby cows.” And he said, “What? You’re stupid dude. That’s a baby deer.” And I was like, “No, it’s not” and all the seniors are like it’s fucking baby deer. And then I was like, “oh, I’m googling this” and I showed them and they were like, “Oh.” And I immediately put my hands up and a lot of the other freshmen raised their hands, so I got the senior to go, “I’m stupid.” And I was like “Yes! I did it!”

ANALYSIS:

This is a good example of just a ritual that happens every time there is something of note — in essence, a way to bond and almost have an inside joke within the team. The lack of involvement of other people speaks to the trend of this bond — the senior advantage over freshmen and the tendency to bully and make fun of them. Yet this is a case where it gets reversed — the tradition is not just one-sided, but it can be turned on its head, where the freshman that traditionally has to display an act of humiliation all the time gets to relish in the glory of reversing the way it normally happens. These traditions of power and power reversal are a major part of sports teams and close organizations in general, especially those emphasizing brotherhood.

International Women’s Day in Georgia

[T:] 8th of March, International Women’s Day, is huge in Georgia. My grandma was just telling me about it…like she parked in a no-parking zone and came out and they were giving her a ticket and she was like, “Guys…it’s the 8th of March” like they let women get away with anything. It’s tradition to give everyone violets, all of the women, and they’re wild violets they’re really pretty but they’re always wrapped with string so it’s very natural, straight out of the earth kind of thing. You have to give every woman you love that…the men particularly.

[Me]: Do you have any idea why, of all the things you could do to celebrate, why violets wrapped with string?

[T]: It’s called აი ია [pronounced “ai ia”] in Georgian, and I don’t know the exact, or if there is even like an exact thing but it’s…from the very beginning we have this book of alphabets…and it’s called აი ია which translates to this violet…or there’s a violet or something, so that’s the first one…it’s like ‘a’ is for apple, ‘b’ is for blah blah, so that’s how they start it with აი ია so it’s just very associated with beginnings and the first bloom of spring and everything new and very pure.

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific festival traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

Although most of the world celebrates March 8th as International Women’s Day, these specific modes of celebration speak to the way that Georgian culture views women, and how those views are tied into even the more trivial aspects of their lives. T’s use of the word “pure” is particularly interesting to me; the violet represents women to Georgians because it plays a role in their alphabet book that they’ve known since childhood—it’s the first symbol to appear in the book and thus symbolizes new beginnings and rebirth. This kind of rhetoric has followed women for a long time—throughout many cultures and eras—but the fact that it’s tied to something so important as the alphabet book that every Georgian child has read and will read forever makes me wonder about what other aspects of sociocultural tradition are ingrained in other parts of the Georgian lifestyle.

One other aspect from this interview I wanted to touch on was T’s comment that women can “get away with anything” on March 8th. This very much reminded me of conversations we’ve had in lecture about “ritual inversion” being a big part of a lot of festival celebrations around the world—Halloween and Mardi Gras, to name some of the more well-known examples. On International Women’s Day in Georgia, they essentially participate in ritual inversion; it may not be “official,” but there’s a general understanding that the normal rules of social or legal engagement do not apply to women on this day. As women are more often than not seen as the “weaker,” “fairer,” or “lesser” sex, it’s no surprise that this is one of the ways that IWD is celebrated. It gives women a reprieve from the near-constant pressure and simply being a women in the modern world and allow them a day of peace—and maybe even a bit of mischief.