Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

The Festival of Colors

Nationality: Indian/American
Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“One big Indian tradition is a celebration yearly celebration called The Festival of Colors. Im sure you guys have seen images of things like the color run on the internet but all that actually originates from this Indian festival called The Festival of Colors. There are so many different stories as to why we have this tradition where we just go out and we throw colors at everyone. Some people say its because it’s a celebration of spring but the reason why ww do it  that I have heard the most is that what happened was there were two gods. One was goddess and the goddess asked the god to prove his love for her. So the god thought for along time about how to prove his love for her and in the end he created the colors just to show her how much he loves her. So at that point the god was also able to distinguish between good and evil and so when you’re throwing color you throwing goodness into the people around you’s lives.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “That celebration has always been one of my favorite celebrations because of the story behind it and the idea of colors representing love. In fact I liked it so much that me and my fiancée took our engagement photos at The Festival of Colors. Also throwing colors just looks so beautiful.”

Peruvian Sun ritual

Nationality: Peruvian American
Occupation: Social worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“One thing in Peru thats really important is the sun. In Peruvian mythology because the sun god is who created the Inka empire so it’s a huge thing for Peru to celebrate the sun. To this day they have festivals of the sun and for that everything is supposed to be toned yellow or gold so everything you where is gold or golden white and you try to replicate what Inka’s might have worn during those times to celebrate the sun. And its huge because the sun  featured in lots of Peruvian art and gold and yellows are huge colors in Peruvian clothes and art and architecture. It’s interesting as well because it was the gold and the riches that attracted the conquistadors in the first place to kind of ruin that. Still to this day The Festival of the Sun is a huge festival.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “I began learning about this festival in order to help reconnect me to my Inka roots. This festival has been going on for hundreds of years and I’m very happy that they continue doing that every June and it’s a wonderful festival that is designed to thank the sun and also the  earth. Which for me is important because it is making me closer to my roots and who I am and because so much of who I am comes from the other part the Spanish part.”

Final thoughts: This is a large communal ritual which associates a group of people with an elemental force, in this case the sun. The fact that this festival is still going on helps reconnect the Peruvian people to their Inka roots and reminds them of their own history and importance. In this way they act as both the teller and the audience for this piece of folklore. The celebration also serves the duel pour pace of connecting the people to their culture and connecting their culture to the natural world by using the sun as a symbol.

The origin behind The Qixi Festival

Nationality: Chinese American
Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/16/17

This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“So a long time ago there was a very poor cowboy who was a really nice person and worked really hard in the farms and one day from heaven came down seven fairies. They were the seven daughters of the heavenly father and the heavenly mother. The daughters came down and they really enjoyed what they saw on earth and they played around and had a lot of fun. One of them, the youngest of the siblings, the youngest fairy noticed this cowboy who was very hardworking and she fell in love with him immediately. When all her sisters went back into heaven after that random visit she stayed married to this cowboy and they had an old tree as witness of their marriage and lived very happily. Not ever after though. They had two kids and were very happy however eventually this news went to the heavenly mother shepherd about this and she got really really upset because it was against the heavenly rule that very cant marry earthly men so she came down to get her daughter to take her back to the heavens. This was very, very sad for the cowboy and for the whole family. The cowboy tried to catch them while the heavenly mother was trying to take the daughter away and the heavenly mother noticed that she drew a river to stop the cowboy from catching them and that river ended up actually becoming The Milky Way.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: One well know Chinese festival or holiday which you don’t get work off for but is very popular is July the seventh which is called The Qixi Festival or Chinese Valentine’s Day. The origin of it is from this sad story. The day that the mother took the daughter away was July the seventh and that story became the foundation of Chinese Valentine’s Day. And only on this day can the cowboy and his kids reunite with his wife.”

Final Thoughts: “The fact that this holiday is referred to as Chinese Valentines Day is interesting in itself because it implies the holiday is some sort of offshoot of the american holiday when in reality it is much older. The story behind the festival works as a creation myth. The story both explains why Chinese people should celebrate the festival and also serves to explain the origin for an important piece astrological image.”

Annotation: If you want to learn more about the original myth of the Weaver Girl and The Cowherd read Idema, Wilt L. (2012). “Old Tales for New Times: Some Comments on the Cultural Translation of China’s Four Great Folktales in the Twentieth Century” (PDF). Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies. 9 (1): 25–46.

African Christmas Festival

Nationality: Korean
Age: 19
Occupation: undergraduate student
Residence: Zimbabwe
Performance Date: 2017-3-20
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Main piece:

On African christmas festival, the kids sing african songs such as “christmas in africa” song. The song is about family gathering in Christmas and slaughtering a cow and chimombe (means cow). Whenever there’s a festival, there’s a slaughtering. All of that was in the informant’s school. She said that maybe in rural places they might still be against white people and avoid white tradition. However, she is from the part of Africa that is urban and the capital city.

On that day, they eat Christmas cookies and cake but if they want a more traditional food they eat sadza or fried worms, which some people like and some don’t.

She recalls performing a play. In the play, she married a guy. Since it’s christmas they’re coming back to their hometown and the family celebrates their return. They’re so excited that their son is bringing wife. In a Zimbabwe wedding, the whole family gathers and in a book it says they are supposed to hide in a rock and come out.

Yulule is the sound that comes up from stomach that the natives make. Even though the informant is not a native, she just copies them. The sound means that you’re happy.

 

Background information (Why does the informant know or like this piece? Where or who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them?):

Informant knows about this festival because she participated in it when she lived as a foreigner in Zimbabwe. She was the main character (wife) in the play.

Context (When or where would this be performed? Under what circumstance?):

It happens during Christmas. This particular event was at an elementary school.

Personal Analysis:

This festival seems very different from the American traditional Christmas festivities. I don’t think anything is similar except christmas cookies. Americans sing songs too, but I’ve never heard of a “Christmas in Africa” song before. As a non-native in Africa, the informant has a more objective view on this festival because it was new to her at one point too.

Karva Chauth

Nationality: Indian
Age: 49
Occupation: Finance Manager
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

My informant M is my 49-year-old mother. She follows many Hindu traditions and religious holidays even though she lives in America. She has found a community of friends who also celebrate many of the same traditions as well.

In this piece, my informant goes into great detail about the history of a one-day festival called Karva Chauth. She also explains her extensive experience celebrating the tradition with it to me (AK).

M: (Reading this from a website) Karva Chauth is a one-day festival celebrated by Hindu women in many countries in which married women fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands. … The festival falls on the fourth day after the full moon.

M: Well this is correct, I just fast until I can see the moon.

AK: Do you remember how long ago you started doing this?

M: I have done it ever since I was married because this tradition is for married women and done for their husbands.

AK: Can you tell me anything about how this tradition started or was created?

M: Sorry I don’t know the story that well. I can try though. It’s about a woman named Karva who was devoted to her husband. The husband was killed by a crocodile and after the wife threatened Yama, the God of Death … I think he sent the crocodile to hell and brought the husband back to life. That’s all if I remember it correctly.

AK: Wow, that’s a really great story.

I distinctly remember this tradition because I remember as a child I would love to help my mom look for the moon. Some years, if the sky was especially cloudy, it would be very difficult to locate the moon, and I remember feeling like it was my duty to seek out and find the moon.