Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Throwing Pennies in a Fountain

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Waitress
Residence: Orange County, CA
Language: English

TEXT:

“Well, I’m one of those people who throw coins into fountains. If I have some loose change on me, and there’s a fountain nearby, I’ll throw in a penny or something for good luck.”

CONTEXT:

The informant stated that she took up this ritual due to her dad. Her dad would throw pennies into fountains as she was growing up, and she adopted the habit into her own life. The informant says that she is aware that the ritual may not have any effect on her life, but she does it anyway.

ANALYSIS:

This is an example of a magic folk belief. This means, the participant believes that they can change the world around them by enacting a ritual. This particular one is fairly common, and it appeals to a sense of karma. By putting a coin into a fountain, the person is surrendering something with monetary value, and in the future they will be rewarded with good luck. It is a demonstration of someone’s lack of greed; they are not fixated on hoarding money as they willingly toss it into a fountain. Then, the universe or some divine being blesses them for it. Another component to this is the impact water may have. Water is typically associated with cleansing power, so by throwing a coin in a fountain, the person may be symbolically cleansing themselves of their wrongdoings. Then, they are free to be rewarded as they no longer hold the toxic energy associated with impure actions.

Ornament Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Waitress
Residence: Orange County, CA
Language: English

TEXT:

“So every year, on Christmas, my parents buy me and my siblings an ornament that is supposed to represent something we did that year. This year I got an ornament of, like, a little blender, which is a reference to how I have to make shakes at Ruby’s for my job. Then, the next year, we get to hang them up and reminisce over what we did the year before”

CONTEXT:

The informant later clarified that the tradition began when her oldest sibling was born and her parents wanted to purchase an object that reminds them of their child’s birth. This then continued with each child getting one year after year. The most enjoyable part of the tradition, according to the informant, is when they get to hang up their personalized ornaments when decorating a Christmas tree. 

ANALYSIS:

This tradition is an example of a ritual tied to a holiday – it is considered an important part of the informant’s Christmas celebration. Many holidays and their corresponding rituals emphasize the passing of time, and this ritual is no different. The ornament is meant to be representative of some event that happened during the year so the family can reflect on what changes or milestones they experienced with the passing of time. It celebrates the growth each child has had, starting from their birth. It also adds another component to the traditional decorating of a tree, as each year the kids grow they will have more ornaments to decorate it with. Thus, the tree itself would be representative of the years the family has been together. 

This ritual can also be seen as symbolic of the family unit. Each child gets their own unique ornament that reflects their personal growth. However, the ornaments become a unit when they are hung up together on the tree. It illustrates how each member of the family has their differences, but they share a common identity with each other by being members of the same family. In addition, the ornaments working together to make the tree visually appealing can be seen as a reflection of how the family supports one another with the ultimate goal of building a successful life for each other.

Folk Narrative: Folktale – The Mothers Heart

  1. Text: There is a Greek folk tale that centers around and explores the often contrived dynamic between a man, his wife and his mother. This three person dynamic, often subject to satire, melodrama or perhaps just general tension in everyday life, is metabolized and explored dramatically in the tale known as The Mother’s Heart, (Η Καρδιά της Μάνας). The tale is simple. It follows the story of a man who is living simultaneously with his mother and his wife. The man splits his time and attention between the two women, often to the dismay of the wife. The wife is infuriated that she must split her husband between herself and her mother-in-law. Finally enraged to the point of no return, the wife gives her husband an ultimatum. The wife not only demands that the man pick between herself and his mother, but she demands that in order to prove his love, the man must go to a new extreme; he must rip his mothers heart out, and deliver it to his wife. Now this man is wrought with love and manipulation – so he agrees to his wife’s terms. He kills his mother, steals her heart and puts it in a chest. With the heart in hand, the man journeys back to his wife. Along the way, he stumbles, falling over and dropping the box. The heart rolls out of the chest. To his complete shock, the heart speaks softly and says to him, “Είσαι καλά, παιδί μου?” – “Are you okay, my child?” This moment shatters the son, injecting him with a deep dread.
  2. Informants Context: Greeks mothers are extremely hands-on, they just want to try and stay as close as possible to their children. If anything, its one of the most famous stereotypes that follows so many Greek people around. They really struggle to let go of their children. I never wanted to be like that with my sons because I was cognizant of that issue in our culture. This stereotype surrounding Greek parents is especially true as it applies to Greek mothers and their sons though. It really is. So as a kid, my mother would tell me this story all the time. She was an immigrant from Greece, raised in the villages, so she was very old school. Very traditional, believed in keeping the family close and all that. She learned this story from her time in the villages, from where I couldn’t say, but it was known amongst her community. There were a lot of Greek immigrant families where I grew up in Canada, and my friends who also had immigrant mothers would sometimes tell them the same story. Whenever I did anything to make my mother unhappy, maybe disrespected her or spoke out of line, usually she would yell and scare the hell out of me. Sometimes though she would just sit me down and tell me this story, really guilting me. As soon as I got married she never told me the story again though (laughs). I think the story reflects a lot of the dynamics that are common in Greek culture, for better or for worse. The mother-son relationship is extremely valued in Greek culture. This story, hearing it as a child, inevitably brought me closer to my mother when I was young. Of course, a part of her was trying to guilt trip me into love. I know that. But I still believe the moral at the center of the story is authentic and beautiful. A mothers love for her son knows no bounds, even when he hurts her. It’s very touching.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: I believe the story of the Mothers Heart is a folk tale that indeed stems from stereotypes or even true cultural qualities about the close-knit relationship between Greek mothers and their sons. It reflects a deeper and broader code of familial loyalty that characterizes all Greek families – loving one another unconditionally, despite how often we hurt each other. Greeks, being known as soulful and emotional people, often say or do crazy things in the name of passion, as the son does for his wife. Despite this, or perhaps because these are acts of passion/love, Greeks often find it in themselves to love the family member who hurt them. More specifically, it is clearly a story about the purity, the unconditional quality of maternal love. The simplicity of the story and the extent to which it is clear is partly what makes it such a robust folk tale. While clearly supernatural and not to be interpreted as historical (also not sacred), the story feels like it exists for pedagogy. It has a clear, concise message while not needing to be true.

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

Folk Narrative: Legend – Char-Man

  1. Text: Ojai is a rural city in California, located to the northeast of Los Angeles. While the city is quaint and loveable, it is not without its share of daunting lore, the most famous of which may be the legend of the Char-Man. As the story goes, there is a unpopulated part of the city, a back road titled creek road where very little life is to be found. The area is windy, riddled with animals and generally desolate. On creek road there existed a single house which was host to a very grouchy old man. It’s not entirely known for what reason this old man was a grouch, but many suspect he grew bitter and spiteful after his son died. This grouchy old man always made a habit of yelling at passerby children who roamed through his neighborhood. One day, these same children decided that they wanted to prank the old man and get back at him for all the times he’d tried to yell at them or get them in trouble. These group of children had one of their dogs poop on a lawn. The kids scooped up the poop with a sock. They quietly snuck up to his house, and once they had arrived at the doormat they dropped the sock of poop, lighting it on fire. The children rang the doorbell aggressively and then ran as fast as their legs would allow. The children thought the old man would rush out and stomp out the flame, causing the feces to explode everywhere – but the old man was in a deep sleep. The fire caught hold of the house, burning the old man alive. He didn’t die though – the old man survived, disfigured and forever damaged. As the legend has it, the old man now resides around the creek road bridge, patiently waiting for bad children to come his way, allowing him the opportunity to exact his brutal revenge. In some iterations of the story, the char-man burnt because of wildfires that were started by children.
  2. Informants Context: Once you reached a certain age, probably sometime within middle school, you inevitably find out who the Char-Man is. It’s the most popular scary story of Ojai, or at least it was at my school. If you found yourself on a bus ride telling scary stories, the char-man came up. If you found yourself at a sleepover, trying to terrify some of your friends and say something gnarly, the char-man came up. If you wanted to scare a girl, bring up the char-man. All this aside, the biggest reason why young people came into contact with the char-man was because of a rite of passage event that basically everyone participated in at one point or another. Again, late middle school, probably early high school once you have a drivers license. The ritual is as follows – you drive to creek road after dark. You get on the bridge, get out of your car. Then, alongside your friends, you call out for the char-man. You usually just yell his name, sometimes people cry for help. I did this with my buddies after a night of drinking. In all honesty, we got out, quickly called his name and then got the hell out of there because it actually was pretty freaky. There’s not much light and it feels like you could actually get jumped at any moment. That’s usually the extent of most peoples stories. Every now and then though, you’ll have someone who comes back from the bridge and claims they saw a shadowy, deformed figure emerge from the forest, walking toward them. Tough to say what’s true. Ultimately, I think Char-Man just represents a rite of passage for young kids. It’s the kind of lore and event that everyone looks forward to participating in once in their life. Everyone bonds with their friends while it’s happening, you create lasting memories. You also quickly find out who is and isn’t a wuss. It’s something that unites a common sense of identity for the city. It’s a scary story, but it’s a scary story that we collectively own and know about with each other. There’s something very nice about that.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: The Char-Man is a clear example of folk legend storytelling at its most fun and pulp. It can clearly be defined as a legend as the story revolves around circumstances and locations that are part of our actual history and life. The entire thrill of the informants described rite of passage is dependent on them not truly knowing whether the story is real or not. Insofar as Char-Man fits into the greater values of the community of Ojai, the informant told me about one iteration where the old man burned from getting caught in a wildfire started by children. This speaks to dual values. Firstly, this wildfire variation could represent values in favor of environmental preservation. There is a traumatic communal history surrounding wildfires in Ojai, as there often with California locations. The Char-Man is a cautionary tale, a lingering shadow of the collective trauma that develops when people don’t take care of the environment. More obviously, the Char-Man is also clearly a folk legend that’s meant to inspire children into behaving. He is watching, embodying the lingering consequences of tomfoolery and hooligan behavior gone too far.

Fields

AGE: 22

Date_of_performance: May 9, 2025

Informant Name: (Confidential)

Language: English

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: United States of America

Minor Genres: Proverbs – Salt

  1. Text: “Δεν γνωρίζεις πραγματικά κάποιον μέχρι να φας ένα καράβι αλάτι μαζί του” or “You don’t truly know someone until you’ve eaten a boatload of salt with them”.
  2. Informants Context: In my village where I was originally born, we were not educated. We had very little compared to what people have today. I was born and raised in the village of Nestane, in the province of Arcadia, Greece. Because we had so little available to us, our lives became dependent on how we could trust one another within our small community. There was no one who could help us besides the people who were in the community. We had no technology back then, there weren’t big cities near by and travelling to the ones that were farther away was very expensive. We had very little money. So again, the only support we had around us was through the people we knew. This is why Greeks are so close to their family – when you come from humble means, your blood is the only thing you can trust and rely on. So, when you meet someone new who isn’t your family, you can’t know whether to trust them or not. It’s not possible to truly know someone until you’ve spent a large amount of time with them. That’s what the saying means. You don’t know the true character of a person until you’ve shared enough meals with them that you can fill all the salt from those meals combined into a filled boat. This was a common saying that emerged out of my village, often spoken by people around us. It was my father who first gave me this advice. He always intended to make me aware of how two-faced people could be. Be very careful about who you let into your house. Once you have shared meals with a person though, you will have “passed through salt” with them. This is all one needs to know that they have become like family.
  3. Collectors Interpretation: This is not only a succinct and revealing proverb, it is also a ritual of initiation. Anyone who participates and upholds this mantra must first go through a long and intimate relationship with another Greek before they know they can truly trust each other. It reflects how Greek culture hinges around concepts of loyalty, perception and trust. It’s typical that Greeks will have said they have, “passed through salt” together once they’ve known each other long enough. This means that the two people have known each other long enough to pass this initiation alongside each other and become true friends. This proverb also relates to personal concepts of trust and trauma that the informant may have lingering from their childhood of humble means. As this is the proverb of a village, it comes with great authority – it is the voice and agreed upon value of an entire community.

Fields

AGE: 87

Date_of_performance: May 9, 2025

Language: Greek

Nationality: Greek/Canadian

Occupation: Retired

Primary Language: Greek

Residence: Canada