Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Three Kings Day

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student Worker
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/18/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Information:

Juan Lucero is a student at the University of Southern California studying Mechanical Engineering. He also works at the USC Bookstore in his spare time. He is from a Mexican (Spanish) background, and moved from Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA for college.

Tradition:

“Every year after Christmas we put a little toy statue of one of the three wise men into a cake. As we eat it for the Day of the Three Kings. In Spanish we call them kings but in English it’s wise men. We cut up the cake and whoever gets the piece with the king in it, they have to make a bunch of tamales for Easter”

Q: Is this celebration normal in your culture?

“I think so yeah. I’ve seen other people do it”

Q: Does your family have a personal twist on the tradition?

“We don’t make the cake we buy the cake. Instead of tamales for Easter, we make and eat them the next weekend”

Analysis:

The informant’s celebration of the Day of the Three Kings is very standard. The cake as well as the figure hidden inside the cake remains true to the traditional celebration. The one thing the seems to differ is what happens after the figure is found. In the informant’s version, whoever finds the figure is required to make tamales. They also make the tamales the next weekend as opposed to Easter. In traditional celebrations, whoever finds the figure is required to purchase the next cake for the next year, not for Easter.

Freshman Traditions

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 41
Occupation: Principle
Residence: Sante Fe Springs, CA
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

St. Mary was an all girl’s school and Cantwell that was an all boys school at the time, now they’re mixed, umm… but they made the freshman at Cantwell come and sell us rolls of toilet paper for a quarter and they were like “You wanna buy some toilet paper”(IN A DEEP VOICE) They were all like embarrassed about it and I was like “NO!”

My informant experienced this high school tradition while she was an eighth grader at school and freshmen boys were forced to sell toilet paper to the younger students. This came a tradition and sort of an initiation for the freshmen boys. I enjoyed this piece of folklore because it reminded me of the freshmen traditions at my own high school. The seniors would make the freshmen pay them money in exchange for a ticket to get in to the pool on the roof of the gym, however this pool did not exist. My informant grew up around the Montebello, California area where this piece of folklore took place.

 

Kolu Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Tamil

Informant Information:

Vivek Ramachandran is a student at the University of Southern California studying Computer Science and Business Administration. He is originally from Milton, WA and moved to Los Angeles, CA for college. He is from an Indian background and enjoys watching the Seahawks win.

Tradition:

“So my family celebrates this Indian festival called “Kolu” yeah and it’s basically a festival where you… basically it entails displaying trinkets and dolls and figures of various Indian gods and then you have a bunch of people over at your house. It’s generally a good time because you get to see a lot of people. And then like my family liked to make it a potluck style so you’d always have a lot of good Indian food. I was a popular child so I always got to have my friends over and that would result in a lot of Smash tournaments or Pokemon tournaments or in one very specific case Star Wars the Force Unleashed tournaments.”

Q: What is “Kolu” for exactly?

“I’m not exactly sure which Holy day it falls on because it is a celebration of a Holy day and there are many of them. I think it’s to like welcome a god or celebrate the beginning of some season but I really couldn’t tell you.

Q: Is your celebration of “Kolu” similar to other people?

“Yes, so there’s actually… not like a correct way, but it generally does involve displaying dolls/figurines and most other families do that as well so I’d say we have a very standard celebration. I think that the biggest difference was that, at least for me, I had an excuse to have a ‘kid party’. So I found that pretty fun.”

Analysis:

Though the informant didn’t seem to know much about Kolu and only participated with his family, I was able to find some more information about Kolu from other sources. Kolu, otherwise known as Bommai Kolu/ Bomma Golu/ Bombe Habba, is a festival that praises the goddesses Saraswati, Parvati and Lakshmi. It takes place during the Dasara festival which is a festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil. The way the informant’s family celebrates is somewhat similar to other Indian families in that it involves food, but it is less “religious/ritualistic” than other celebrations.

A Baseball Pre-Season Tradition – Burying a Fish

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Phoenix, Arizona
Performance Date: April 15, 2017
Primary Language: English

My informant is currently on his high school baseball team and I remember him telling me about this strange legend that morphed into a tradition for every season thereafter, here is what he said.

“Once year, these few guys on our baseball team, like one night they were really drunk and had gone fishing at the lake near school, and had caught a fight. They thought it would be funny if they buried under the visitor’s bullpen and it would smell or something. Then they snuck into the Camelback Inn Hotel for fun and because they were drunk, and hung out in the hot tub. The season before had been a loosing season, and yet somehow that season we nearly got to state and they all thought it was the fish. So every then out, as a team we catch or buy a fish, bury under the visitor’s bullpen and then sneak in to the hotel and hang out in the hot tub. It’s for good luck, we call it team bonding, they told me we have always just done it. And every year there are new, funny things for the new player to do. Everyone does it, one scoop of dirt at a time per person, a team effort, no special attention.”

Analysis:

Sports, especially baseball have quite a lot of superstitions, legends and taboos because of the uncertainty of the game. A lot of the game and the season is out of complete control so these superstitions and traditions have a lot to do of putting control back into the player’s hands. In this case, the control is of the whole season. They continue this tradition in the interest of having a good season and if they do not do this strange tradition, they will not have a good season. It is not merely good luck, but defining the whole season based on this occurrence. Baseball players are truly creatures of habit who don’t stray from routines, traditions or habits unless they are in a slump then, they will venture a change, but in this case it is a long-standing tradition. This not only bonds the team together, but it is also performing identity as part of a team. Only the varsity team at this school performs this and thus only they would get to know and appreciate this experience.

Pre-Game Water Polo ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/15/2017
Primary Language: English

My informant is my roommate and she was a high school and college athlete and has had many years of sports-related rituals. She was recounting to me a high school experience.

Me: “So, being a college athlete, you are pretty intense, do you have any rituals or superstitions before a game?”
CB: “Before a water polo game we would all huddled together and the shower inside of the locker room we all hold hands and say the Lords prayer, then the captains would give a small little speech about what we are looking to do in the upcoming game after the speech we would put our arms around each other shoulders and we would do this cheer three times, louder each time that  would go “oh I feel so good, like I knew I would do, I feel so good a little bit louder now.”
Then after we would do the cheer three times we were basically screaming like all the parents could hear us outside the locker room then we would say SFA just go fight win on three and then we would all run out of the locker room super pumped for the game.

Sports has an incredible about of rituals, especially in team sports, because there is a lot of the game which is out of the player’s immediate control and which they desire to take back control through ritual. Pre-game rituals like this are designed to bring good-luck to the team and to promote confidence for the game as pre-games are rife with anxiety and fear of the unknown outcome of the game. In this case, the ritual was for an entire team, creating good luck through ritual. Additionally, the team prayed the Our Father before, this is a common occurrence in many sports pre-game. This may be a case of putting the game’s outcome in heavenly hands or asking for God’s help in the upcoming game. This can be attributed to again the uncertainty of a sports game, and many occurrences may seem like divine intervention. This ritual’s purpose is to boost confidence, unite the team and to dissipate any uneasiness about the upcoming game.

Sports rituals such as these are learned through participation on a team, outsiders usually don’t participate in them, therefore it is restrictive to a particular team. Knowing such rituals and their purpose is a part of their identity as athletes, performing them solidifies their team identity and loyalty.