Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Carnival de San Miguel (Festival)

Nationality: Salvadorian
Age: 50
Performance Date: 4/8/16
Primary Language: Spanish

My informant is Alice. Alice is 50 years old and was born and raised in San Salvador, El Salvador. She lived there until she was 18 then moved to the United States and proceeded to live in Mexico for a short time before returning to the states.

 

Alice: “The festival is called ‘Carnival de San Miguel’ – the carnival of Saint Michael. It’s basically a town party, San Miguel is a city in El Salvador and there are a ton of coffee plantations around there and at the end of the coffee harvest they have this festival in the middle of the town like a big big party. Everyone goes and they get dressed up, well they used to now not so much, and dance and it’s very, very hot. There’s drinking and dancing and all kinds of merriment”

And this has been going on as long as you remember?

Alice: “This has been going on as long as I remember but there was a long period of time where people from the West of the country couldn’t go to that part of the country because of the war. So I missed this carnival for much of the time that I grew up because I couldn’t get there ecause of the war. When I came back after college I went for two years in a row. But my mother and my grandmother and my aunts and uncles all grew up going to this carnival”

Was it like a carnival here?

Alice: “No they call it carnival but its more like a big party, a dance”

What does this festival mean to you?

Alice: “It just means that it’s the end of a lot of hard work for a lot of people and you get to see everyone socially, people you know. It’s just a fun event, it’s a celebration. And depending on your age was how long you got to stay out and party. As a kid you would go with your parents and leave early but when you’re older you stay until like 4am and party. It’s like a rite of passage”

 

This festival, the ‘Carnival de San Miguel’, seems like a really fun celebration and like a very well known one in a small country like El Salvador where people would travel to come join the celebrations. Alice’s mother and her other’s mother all grew up going to this festival and she even claims it’s a rite of passage. All ages attend this celebration and it just sounds like one big party. This form of folklore is interesting because it is an annual celebration but they continue to do it and naturally it would change every year just a little bit, but from 50 years it could be completely different. Alice notes the change in wardrobe as people used to dress nicer to the festival. It’s also a cool form of folklore because it is something you can visually see take place and physically be a part of.

 

Chinese Lunar New Year

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 43
Occupation: Esthetician
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/23/16
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

The informant gave out the following piece of folklore at my request. They are of Chinese descent, and the setting was casual.

 

They said that a long time ago, there used to be this creature that wasn’t quite a spirit, or like the guardian lions. These creatures were called “年” aka Nián, meaning “year” in Chinese. They would come down and attack this town every year to steal food, and eat humans. The humans heard that these creatures were afraid of loud noises, so they lit fireworks to scare them away. After seeing how Nián never came back, they began to light fireworks every year.

 

Some variations also include the color red and masks to scare off Nián. What was interesting about this interaction was the informant’s reaction when I said I, a person also of Chinese descent, was not familiar with the complete legend behind Chinese Lunar New Year. It reminded of the discussions the class had about what it meant to be of a certain identity.


One thing to clarify is that while several nations and cultures observes the lunar calendar, there are usually a few distinct differences between how one culture celebrates it, and how another celebrates it.

Irish Fest

Nationality: Irish American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Latin

The informant is Catholic, and of Irish descent. They agreed to meet up with me, and share pieces of folklore for this project.

 

What is Irish Fest?

 

“Um, so…I- In Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I’m from, they have this thing called Irish Fest every year, and- because there was a really big population of Irish people in Milwaukee, and Irish fest is the biggest festival for Irishness outside of Ireland and- Like a lot of people from Ireland actually come to Milwaukee for it because it’s, um like a bunch of Irish music and stuff is played there, and they don’t gather as much in like Ireland. Like it’s the biggest music festival for Irish music. Um, so me and my family, every year we go to Irish Fest and, um well- I don’t know. So there’s like Irish dancing and, um there’s Irish music and we always eat reubens, which are like an Irish thing. It’s like corned beef.

 

Do you usually eat reubens outside of Irish Fest?

 

“I… We do, but not as much. We usually eat it on Saint Patrick’s Day, and… and Irish Fest.”


This ties into when the class talked about how heritage is inherited, something one is born into. Despite how the informant does not live in Ireland, they and other Irish descendants seem to feel drawn to the festival as a way to feel connected to their heritage. I also found it interesting how people from Ireland fly in for the festival as well.

粽子 and the Dragon Boat Festival

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/24/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Cantonese

The informant is of Chinese descent and shared this piece at my request. It was an informal environment.

 

Tell me about the story behind 粽子  (zongzi or jung) and the Dragon Boat Festival.

 

“So there was this guy who tried to warn his leader about this- this army that was gonna attack him and their, their little town or whatever but he didn’t believe him so the guy ran away and he committed suicide in this river and the people realized he was right and they felt bad. So they threw-, um they threw the jung inside the river to feed his spirit.”

 

The informant said they remember this well because they had read about it recently online. People tend to overlook what happens in their everyday life because it feels ordinary to them. While festivals and their origins are already one of the more obvious examples of folklore, reading something online seems to present the information in a more formal setting than if it was told in passing. This may cause the audience to be more conscious of its significance. In this case, the informant had not considered zong to be something too notable beyond how it is something fairly unique to certain Asian cultures.

 

Annotation: As it turns out, this is merely half of the legend in some variations. Other variations have another half where a water dragon starts eating the zong and the spirit has to come back and tell the town to wrap the sticky rice in bamboo leaves.


Lee-St.John, Jeninne. “The Legends Behind the Dragon Boat Festival.” Smithsonian. Smithsonian, 14 May 2009. Web.

Christmas

Nationality: Irish American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Latin

The informant is Catholic, and of Irish descent. They agreed to meet up with me, and share pieces of folklore for this project.

 

So what do you do for Christmas?

 

“Ok so for Christmas, we always set up a Christmas tree, which is like, um a pine tree or an evergreen tree and we go… Like exactly a month before Christmas, my family would always go to like an outdoor lot and pick out a Christmas tree. And we- and then the… also a month before Christmas- so like the month before is when it kinda starts. We have Saint Nicholas’s Day which is, we would put our stockings up and we would get like…”

 

That early?

 

“Yeah; Saint Nick’s Day is like… it’s a Catholic thing. Um so, you put your stockings out and Saint Nick comes. It’s like an early… he gives you like… it’s not exactly like Christmas but he gives you like candy in your stocking and like. We’d always get an ornament, like one ornament so we can put it on the tree for that year.

 

And then… when it’s like Christmas Eve, we would go and we had like our- we had like a Christmas Eve… celebration at one family’s house. And then, we would like do- we would open presents there, some presents. The next day on Christmas morning we had this rule that like you couldn’t- you couldn’t open your- So there were presents, you played Santa, or your- and your parents would come and like put, um presents under the tree, but you weren’t allowed to open the presents until you went downstairs an- Ours was outside; we wait until we opened our stockings first, which are next to the chimney. Stocking’s next to the chimney, tree’s like in the family room. And we’d always open our stockings first, and then go and open presents. And that was like the Santa part of our Christmas.

 

We would also go the church, like we’d go to the Midnight Mass so in between- so you know like I said- This is sort of out of order, but you know how I said like the night before, we would have the pre-Christmas where we opened presents? And then immediately afterwards go to the Midnight Mass at church. And then the next morning, we would have our Christmas morning thing.”

 

I included this piece because the way we overlook pieces of folklore within our daily lives because they are so ingrained into us as normal always amazes me. While Christmas is one of the biggest holiday in the U.S., nearly every family who celebrates it has their own take on what is tradition. Thus, if one was to organize those who celebrate Christmas into groups, how one group celebrates Christmas could be wildly different from say, how the informant and their family celebrates the holiday.

 

This also reminds me of when we talked about vernacular religion. Christmas is not necessarily a day-to-day occurrence, but the fact that people celebrate it in whatever way they want still stands. There is no “official” religious text or requirement for people to receive an ornament in preparation for Christmas, but the informant and their family holds onto this tradition anyways as they observe the holiday each year.