Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Moroccan Jewish Passover Custom

Nationality: American-Israeli
Age: 23
Occupation: Security Intern for Disney
Residence: Tarzana, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2018
Primary Language: English

Background: Leigh comes from a Moroccan Jewish family. Her experience with these Passover traditions have been with her mom and grandparents. 

Context: I interviewed Leigh in person and recorded our conversation on my phone. Her comments below are what I transcribed out of our conversation. She described the mimouna (pronounced mee-moo-nah) Passover ritual, which she had previously mentioned at the same time as the henna wedding ritual (published under the title “Moroccan Wedding Tradition”). 

 

“Basically the mimouna is when you break the Passover fast of not eating leavened bread with very decadent festivities. Very decadent sugary desserts, lots of marzipan. There’s something called a mufleta*, which is basically a Moroccan crepe that you fill with all sorts of things like honey, or nutella, you know..butter, bunch of other stuff, sugar. My favorite memory is actually when we were a lot younger and in my grandparents’ old apartment, I think right around the time of my aunt’s wedding, my grandma would prepare these very intricate handmade marzipan desserts that resembled exotic fruits and sugar cookies and all this stuff, which to be honest I don’t love the flavor of but they’re exquisite to look at. She has a whole Moroccan cookbook and I know she sent recipes to that same aunt that got married all those years ago. They’re very beautiful. I learned this tradition from my mom and my grandparents. The set-up is kind of different everywhere you go. My mom was more focused on getting us around the actual frying pan to see her make the mufleta, and also so we could just have them fresh off the press. At my grandparents house, where it was more of an ordeal they would stack up all of these like Moroccan crepes on a plate like a mountain, then you had your assortment of jams and butter and chocolate. In Israel they would serve this kosher chocolate spread called “Shachar” brand but in the States at our house we would eat Nutella. In Israel it was mostly honey and butter, jelly would be kind of apricot, orange marmalade.”

*mufleta- pronounced moof-leh-tah

Carrying the Virgins

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant is my friend (referred to as EP) who is from Brooklyn, New York, but lives in Spain for the summer. Her father is from Spain and her mother is from Puerto Rico. Every year when she goes to Spain she lives on her family ranch that is outside of a town called Porto. She described a special religious holiday that entails all the small towns in the area coming together to celebrate.

 

EP: “Every year in May everyone wakes up at like 6 A.M all of the small villages in the area hike up a huge mountain carrying the virgins of the town up to the top of the mountain. So basically it takes the whole village to get to the top of the mountain because they are carrying the virgins.”

 

CI: “The virgins meaning..?”

 

EP: “Oh the villages each carry large statues of Virgin Mary. And then we walk all the way up this huge mountain and then when they get to the top the virgins meet… I mean all the men holding up the statues do kind of like a dance with the Virgin Mary statues, like kind of introducing all of them. It’s like 3 seconds for each village. “

 

And then basically it’s like 8 AM and we just celebrate. So we put Spanish donuts in red wine and drink at like 8:30 and we eat a lot of octopus.

 

No one has ever really told me what it’s for or why we do that in May and what the significance is but it’s just something we’ve been doing forever.”

 

I find this particularly interesting because not only does it seem like a very sacred and difficult day, but it tells a lot about the culture. People start drinking early on in order to celebrate a very sacred religious holiday. I believe the feasting is a way of praising religion and it is also interesting that after all of these years, the informant does not really know what the event is for. Despite this festival returning every year, the significance has never been explained, meaning they probably don’t discuss the holiday’s meeting at the festival. Therefore, this seems more like a passed down tradition rather than a sacred holiday.

 

Persian New Year

Nationality: Persian
Age: 50-60
Occupation: Uber driver
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English

The informant was an uber driver, Amir I had who was Persian. I was taking an uber and it was the day before Persian New Year, which I did not know until he mentioned it. It was an extremely sunny and beautiful day and while we were making small talk about the weather he started talking about the Persian New Year. Below is our conversation where he tells me about the importance of the blooming flowers and of Persian New Year traditions.

 

Amir: “No one wants to work today- it is spring.”

 

CI: “Yes, the weather is so beautiful!”

 

Amir: “Yes and in my community, it is the New Year.”

 

CI: “Oh really? What community?”

 

Amir: “I am Persian. Tomorrow is the Persian new year. As you can see the flowers growing on the side of the road show new life.”

 

CI: “Wow, so what do you do for Persian New Year?”

 

Amir: “Well first, no one work. Tomorrow is the big celebration. Family and friends come over and we celebrate. We have a table set for everyone.”

 

CI: “Really? What types of food do you eat?”

 

Amir: “We eat at a restaurant, but we set out table to show spring has come. We put the lentils out to show rebirth and we put the dried fruit to show love and apple and vinegar and other things.”

CI: “Okay so you set the table with items but you don’t eat them?”

Amir: “No we go out to eat at Persian restaurant and have kebab and meat”

This was such a great interaction and I also don’t know if it would have occurred if it hadn’t been nice weather outside. It seems as if the celebration of Persian new year is greatly linked to the rebirth with spring and therefore the weather is a huge part of the day. I wondered if the weather was not as nice out if the holiday would be the same. Small talk about weather can inform people about very interesting traditions!
 

Vietnamese

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 26
Occupation: Nail Artist
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English

The informant was a woman (referred to as Sarah) at the nail salon who was Vietnamese. She was telling me she was from Vietnam and moved to the United States when she was 13. She lived in Michigan and now is a nail artist in Los Angeles.  She told me about the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, Tet.

 

Sarah: “Tet is the biggest holiday in Vietnam. Everybody celebrates. It is the Lunar New Year. We cook, special food in the days leading up to Tet and everyone is very busy. The preparations are very long. We have something called Mut, which is candy fruit. It is a snack and very sweet.

 

Then the first day of Tet is exciting. Children give greeting to elders- the grandmas you know? And then in exchange, the children get their lucky money. The whole holiday is about luck. We do not even sweep because that would sweep away good luck. The Vietnamese believe the very first visit to the family shows what fortune and luck the year will be. If good things come to your family on Tet, then the whole year will be lucky.”

 

I think Tet is particularly interesting because it is centered a lot on luck and there seem to be very specific traditions and superstitions that ensure you will have good luck. The worldview here would appear to be very future-oriented because the weeks leading up to Tet are focused on making sure everything is in place for a good fortune for the following year.

Aboriginal Myth about “Dreamtime.”

Nationality: Australian
Age: 19
Occupation: Social Media
Residence: Australia/ Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

The informant is my friend (referred to as CM) who is Australian. She is 20 years old and grew up in Brisbane Australia and lives in Sydney now and has moved to Byron Bay. I was enquiring about the Aboriginal people and if she knew any stories. Below she discusses an Aboriginal myth about “Dreamtime.”

 

CM: “Yeah the Aboriginal people are so beautiful. They’re not as much in Brisbane or Sydney but in places like New South Wales and Queensland. Yeah growing up my best friend was Aboriginal and her mother would always tell me about the belief system of the ‘Dreamtime.’ She would say that the earth was created by all of these spiritual beings who physically were the land and sea and the animals on the earth. Everything that was in the natural world was kind of like, a representation of the spiritual aspect of the world. Dreaming exists before you’re born and after you die.  Your spirit or I guess dream spirit, exists when you can’t humanly perceive it. A lot of aboriginal myths and stories are just so beautiful, but there is still a lot of racism and hate. They’re the oldest people on Earth. They know so much.”

 

I have been to Australia three times myself now and I think that this is such an interesting concept expressed by the aboriginal people I have found that mainstream Australian culture is deeply rooted in spirituality. Along the streets of Byron Bay and Sydney, there are crystal stores, dream catchers, tarot decks and so many “spiritual” healing objects that I find it so surprising that the aboriginals are actually treated so horribly and disregarded. So much of the Australian spirituality culture is rooted in this idea of the Dreamtime, and I definitely see that in all of my Australian friends.