The Graffiti House on Sullivan’s Island

Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/1/19
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a student at USC who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. I wanted to know if there were any local tales or folklore she knew of while growing up, so one night in my dorm I interviewed her for the project.

 

Piece:

Subject: “Okay, the graffiti house, right, is this house, this little structure, near the sewage behind a giant hill in a children’s park. Do you remember this, when we went to the park?”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I remember the park, but you didn’t show us a house.”

Subject: “Yeah I should’ve shown you guys the house, cause it’s super creepy. And you like walk down these stairs through this little bamboo forest and then you come to this house with a shit ton — sorry, a lot of graffiti. And, um, stories say that at midnight, the graffiti, they come off the walls.

Interviewer: “What?!”

Subject: “Yup.”

Interviewer: “How does that work, what does it look like?”

Subject: “I’m not sure I’ve never seen it for myself, but I hear the shapes and art and words they all just come off the walls. And turn the people that come in there into graffiti.”

Interviewer: “That’s terrifying.”

Subject: “Especially when you’re a kid, cuz like everyone talked about this place and everyone was so afraid of going in cuz they thought they’d become, you know, graffiti.”

Interviewer: “And who’d wanna become graffiti?”

Subject: “Exactly.”

 

Analysis:

While this may seem like a small childhood fable, the location has a long history. According to Charleston’s local paper, The Post and Courier, “The mound was Battery Capron, an American army ammunition store and mortar battery constructed in 1898 for $175,000. The earth and reinforced concrete structure was part of the Endicott System of seacoast defense. It was active from the outset of the Spanish-American War through much of World War II, according to news reports. In 1947, Battery Capron became the property of the state before officially being handed over to the island in 1975.”

The area clearly holds a lot of history dating back hundreds of years ago, so it comes as no surprise that the children in the surrounding area would create horror stories for their own amusement. The city is looking into refurbishing the area and turning it into a recreation zone.

 

Birthday Dirge

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: Government
Residence: Los Altos
Performance Date: 4/4/19
Primary Language: English
Language: ASL

Text:

“Oh happy Birthday, Oh happy Birthday
Worms and germs are in the air
People dying everywhere
Oh happy Birthday, Oh happy Birthday”

Genre: Folk Song

Background: The interviewee, KP, is an American man nearing his mid-fifties. KP resides in northern California, and his family has been in the states since the second ship after the Mayflower.He also states that he doesn’t know its exact origins, but assumes they are from the South (where he and his ancestors grew up). KP notes that the birthday song was originally passed down orally by his mother. The conversation was brought up after overhearing this song at a family birthday celebration, where he states the song is traditionally sung at since others cultures may not approve of such dark and depressing nature. This depressing nature, however, is not how KP sees the song, he states they “sing it just to be funny and change up the traditional happy birthday song, and never sang it to be mean just to have fun.”

Nationality: American
Location: the South (transitioned into west coast)
Language: English

Interpretation: My initial reaction of hearing this dark and dreary birthday song was the thought of “ Who would want to hear this on their Birthday?” Often when celebrating a birthday we are trying to ignore the fact that we are growing a step closer to our impending deaths and this song seems to capitalize on this fear. After going into a deeper analysis of this text I found that the song or refrain is a variation of the Birthday Dirge a/k/a “The Barbarian Birthday Song”, “The Viking Birthday Song”, “The SCA Birthday Dirge”. This Dirge is sung to the melody of a Russian folk tune known as, The Volga Boatmen” (a 1926 American silent drama film). The Dirge often varies in lyrics based upon who it is being sung to and often is comprised of only 2-3 verses. It is said that after each refrain of “Happy Birthday”, often in Russian tradition, the noise “HUHN”-like a grunt, or a thump on the table or floor is produced. This thumping aspect has not followed into KB’s Birthday Dirge which I find extremely interesting as it is a quite prominent attribute to the Russian rendition. In addition to the thump or lack thereof, I found that the lyrics are slightly different from those recorded in the article I found; the only commonality being the line “People dying everywhere.”

Larson, Grig -Punkie-. “History of the Birthday Dirge.” Punkie’s Web Page – Lyrics for Viking/Barbarian Birthday Dirge, 2019, punkwalrus.net/cybertusk/viking_birthday_dirge.html.

Purses do NOT belong on the ground! – A superstition

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 25
Occupation: Waitress
Residence: Oxnard, California
Performance Date: 04/01/19
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Text:

“It is never appropriate to put your purse on the ground because this will bring bad luck.”

 Context: 

DC told me this belief because when I asked her if she had any interesting folk beliefs that she has heard  she said that her mom passed this one along to her and it just stuck with her because she had hear it in other places before too (but she did not name said places). When I asked DC what she believes this folk belief means and why she thinks it has been passed along in her family and culture she responded, “I’ve never really questioned why I shouldn’t put it on the ground, maybe it is just so it doesn’t get dirty or so someone doesn’t steal it”. I also asked DC if she would tell this folk belief to someone else and why, and she responded that she probably would if she knew them well enough and felt comfortable doing so because she would not want to risk someone getting bad luck when it was onto a simple sentence that she had to say to them in order for them not to.

Analysis:

The idea behind the purse on the floor is that it means bad luck but I believe that more specifically this “bad luck” that is references has to do with financial encounters. I think that putting one’s purse down symbolically represents just leaving money laying around and having disregard towards wealth and because of this bad financial luck will be brought upon any person who leaves their purse on the ground. Another reasonable explanation for the “bad luck” part of this folk belief is that leaving your purse one the ground literally makes it available as easy access to thieves who can steal it in an instant, which is the bad luck.

Another saying that is very similar to this one that I have heard is ” A purse on the floor is money out the door” and I think that this saying segue into another reason that someone would say putting a purse on the floor is bad luck. This reason is that purses have fairly high re-sale values and according to what I have heard from my own family and read online it is possible to resell a purse back for more than half of their original value. This however is only true if it is kept in good condition, meaning not places in places that would cause turmoil to the bag or places that carry a lot of diseases, such as the floor itself. So looking at this folk belief from a financial perspective it makes sense that this would be passed along because it helps to save money for individuals who may need it later on and selling a purse back would be one way to get it.

In addition to the three other reasons I have provided for what I think this saying means and why I believe it continues to be passed down, another fair reason would be the pride found within cultures for the items that they have bought, earned, value and/or were gifted. To put this into context, DC is a Mexican woman who came to the United States at a very young age with her parents meaning they had to start in a new country from scratch. Whatever money they had to spend on basic necessities and luxury items such as purses themselves, they earned and this is the case for many immigrant families. It would make sense for this folk belief to be passed along as a way to teach people to take care of the nice things that they have and that they have earned, because if you don’t and the purse gets ruined it is basically like money out of your own pocket.

American Alabama Tribe Myth: Fire

Nationality: American
Age: 80
Occupation: Retired
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Informant: I have a myth I heard from an Alabama tribeswoman I used to work with. Want to hear that one?

Interviewer: Sure.

Informant: At the start of the world, Bear owned Fire. It kept him and his people warm and let them see even when it was dark. One day, Bear came to a forest. On the forest floor, he found tons of acorns. He set Fire at the edge of the forest, and began to gorge himself on the delicious acorns. As the acorns around him began to run out, the wandered deeper into the forest.

While Bear was eating, Fire was burning at the edge of the forest. Soon, though, Fire had burned up nearly all of its wood. It began to shout “Feed me! Feed me!” to Bear, but Bear was too far away.

Man, however, was not far away, so he, hearing Fire’s cries, wandered over. Man hadn’t seen Fire before, so he asked it what he could feed it to help out. Fire explained that it ate wood, so Man picked up a stick and fed fire. Then he grabbed another, and another, until Fire’s hunger had been quenched. Man, meanwhile, warmed himself by the Fire. He sat nearby, feeding it wood and enjoying its warmth and colors.

After a while, Bear returned to Fire, but Fire was angry at Bear for abandoning him. Fire blazed brighter and brighter until it was blinding to Bear, and told Bear to leave it alone. Fire’s heat scared Bear away, and Bear could not get close enough to carry Fire back with him. Man and Fire were left alone, and that is how Fire came into the possession of Man.

Context: My informant is an eighty year old woman from a very scientifically/factually inclined Midwestern family. This performance was done over Facetime with my informant, since she lives in Seattle. Otherwise, however, it resembled a classic storytelling situation.

Background: My informant heard this story from one of her coworkers while working at a company in Alabama. It stayed with her because she enjoyed how well the story personified the wildness of Fire, but also thought its dependence on other beings for “food” made a lot of sense. Furthermore, the fact that Fire had not been found by Man, but rather had been inherited by a member of the natural world also stuck with her.

Analysis: Personally, I thought the story was great. It shares many similarities with myths I’ve heard from my own home region in the Pacific Northwest, primarily through its use of animals as characters and its personification of elements such as fire. It also demonstrates a really interesting progression where an important facet of our own life – in this case Fire – is not discovered by the ingenuity of mankind alone. Rather, mankind receives Fire from nature, as if we were successors of animals and part of the natural world, rather than detached from it.

Italian–American Proverb about Age

Main Piece

“I was where you are, and you’ll be where I am.”

For a similarly worded proverb with a different usage, see Frederick Hartt. Italian Renaissance Art, Third Edition, 1987, published by Harry N. Abrams, pp 203-4.

Background

Informant

Nationality: Italian–American

Location: Staten Island, New York

Language: English, Italian

The informant learned the above proverb from her grandmother. The informant’s grandmother will first state the proverb in Italian, but the informant does not speak Italian, and so the informant’s grandmother will follow up by saying the proverb in English. Hence, the informant only understands the proverb as it is told in English, which is why I have chosen not to include a translation.

Context

The informant’s grandmother says the proverb when any of her children or grandchildren make fun of her for being old or says something along the lines of “Grandma, you don’t understand,” in regards to the grandmother’s technological prowess.

Notes

I have seen this proverb before, but I have only ever seen it as an epithet on gravestones, which is the usage of the example I cited above. In either instance, the informants example or the gravestone, the proverb speaks to the inescapability of time. Most people tend to shy away from such topics, and the proverb helps state the truism in a pithy, approachable way.