Yam for Pregnancy

Text:

“Something that a lot of Yoruba and Igbo and just Nigerian people in general will do during their pregnancies is eat a lot of yams. There are many positive associations with yams — they’re seen as a nutritious food, a staple starch in Nigeria, found in many dishes. My mom said that when she was pregnant with me, she ate a lot of yams. And her mom did as well — my grandma gave birth to twins, and my grandma’s mom did too, and my grandma was a twin. I think it’s a good luck thing. It won’t always mean you’ll have twins, but it’s just a superstition.”

Context:

As the informant notes, this practice is common in Nigerian customs related to pregnancy and health. The belief, common among the Yoruba and Igbo people to whom her family belongs, has been passed down through at least four generations of women in her direct family line. She reflects that she has already thought of following the same practice eventually. Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of yams, supplying more than half of the world’s yams, meaning that cultural importance in Nigeria amplifies a value that goes far beyond nutritional benefit.

Analysis:

This belief is a colorful example of sympathetic folk medicine: yams are a food associated with abundance, fertility, and foundational nourishment in Nigerian culture, and it is believed that those same qualities will be imparted to a pregnant body. The association between yam consumption and twin births is particularly interesting — twins are sacred in Yoruba culture, associated with good fortune and spiritual power, and this may be why the belief has such strong associative logic. The documented history of twins in this informant’s family over generations empirically supports the folk belief, at least in the family’s narrative. The community’s encouragement to eat is also an endearing form of support for women during a biologically vulnerable period. Whatever the yams do or don’t do, the practice is an act of cultural continuity: each generation of women who eats yams during pregnancy takes part in a chain of care and tradition that links them materially and symbolically to their mothers and grandmothers before them.

All School Handshake

Text:

“Okay, so I went to a really small private high school and it was a really tight-knit community and to start the to, uh, kick off the school year, we’d have the all-school handshake. So we’d essentially all line up the student body, shoulder to shoulder, along the perimeter of the formal gardens, with the headmaster at one end. And then the headmaster and the entire school president would stand side by side and flip a coin. And if it was heads, they would go to the right, and if it was tails, they would go to the left, or whichever way.

Context:

This was a ritual the informant participated in every year at her small private boarding school in Illinois. The tradition is held at the beginning of each school year as a formal opening ceremony for the entire school. It’s set in the formal gardens, and the coin flip, she noted, decided which way the handshake procession would go, injecting an element of chance into what was otherwise a very ordered tradition.

Analysis
The all-school handshake is a ritual of initiation and collective renewal — a physical enactment of the social ties that constitute the school as a community. By having each member shake the hand of every other member, the tradition performs a kind of annual social contract; each participant touching every other participant materializes the school becoming a web of mutual relationships. The coin flip is especially interesting as a ritual element—it adds a moment of chance to an otherwise highly ordered event, reminding participants that the direction of the community is, in part, determined by forces beyond any individual’s control, and that all are equally subject to that uncertainty.

Wisconsin State Fair

Text:

“I think about our state fairs. Um, and, you know, like one of the biggest things is like, you know, like cheese curds and things like that, and that comes from, you know, the fact that we, you know, pride ourselves on our dairy agriculture and things like that. And then, you know, beer is so, so popular in Milwaukee. There are so many different brands that have come out of Milwaukee that do beer, but it’s like such a popular thing to drink at these festivals.”

Context: 

The informant is originally from Wisconsin and, when asked which folk groups he identifies with, reflected on Wisconsin’s relationship with food. It’s officially considered “America’s Dairyland” and leads the United States in cheese and dairy production. Supporting these foods is almost synonymous with supporting the state’s agricultural workers and products. 

Analysis: 

State fairs function as festivals of regional folk identity, offering a ritualized space where communities can celebrate and distinguish themselves from other regions. For Wisconsin, food is the primary medium of self-expression: cheese curds are a strong signifier of agricultural heritage, and Milwaukee beer has a deep history within German brewing culture. As the informant details, these items are regarded with communal pride. It would be considered ‘foodways’ in which food production, preparation, and consumption transmit and represent cultural values. The state fair on stage is the most public example of this, amplified by the strong agricultural and regional belonging that collectively constitute the state’s identity.

Scotty Pippia

Age: 20s

Informant: This is the story of Scotty Pippia. Scotty Pippia, I think, was legit a fake boy that my bus driver made up. We had a small bus, and in small buses, you can lift the windows all the way up, and you can like stick your head out. And to stop kids from sticking their heads out, I’m pretty sure my bus driver made up this legend of this boy named Scotty Pippia, who stuck his head out of the window and got it like chopped off, Hereditary style. And it just traumatized the s**t out of me. I was in like first grade and I went my head wasn’t even out the window. Like, I wasn’t even like someone to put my head out the window. My bus driver would just tell the story of Scotty Pippia. Like, really every chance she’d get. Her name was Paula. And Paula.. every conversation would somehow lead to,”Oh, Scotty Pippia died on my bus”. And I never Googled Scotty Pippia out of fear. This might just be a real story of a boy, but, like, would she keep driving buses? I remember as a kid being like, asking Paula questions like, oh, God, what is his family say? And she was like, his family was sad. And I was like, yeah, of course they were sad, Scotty Pippia died. So it’s like, I still, to this day, don’t know if this is- but my whole bus knew the legend of Scotty Pippia. And Scotty Pippia, I feel like we never really interacted with him, but he was a presence on the bus. You know, we sort of imagined where Scotty Pippia would sit, we imagined what classes Scotty Pippia took. So, um yeah, I guess this just. I want to dedicate this to Scottie Pippia’s family.

Collector: How old were you? 

Informant: First grade.. I was in first grade, and I was in the front of the bus. So the way my bus were got, like, I was in the front as you’d go older, you’d go to the back. So all the cool kids are in the back like being loud. And then I was up right next to the bus driver hearing like horrible tales of like little boys being decapitated. So that was, and then I don’t then of course, I told everyone at school and everyone at school knew about Scotty Pippia. But we never knew if he was real. So that’s kind of a ghost story. kind of a ghost story. I never- sure, I felt a chill on the bus every now and then. That could have been Scotty Pippia. That could have been an experience. And I never stuck my head out the window. That’s for sure. So thanks Paula, thank you for that. 

Context:

This legend comes from Middle Island, New York. The legend is that of a boy who at one point in time rode the same school bus as the informant and was decapttated after sticking his head outside of the bus window. The informant states that though he never stuck his head out the window prior to learning the legend of Scotty Pippia he most certainly was deterred after hearing the legend. 

Analysis:

Due to the inability to verify the existence of Scotty Pippia from Middle Island, NY and the fact that no one other than bus driver Paula had ever shared this information with the informant one can assume that the legend was created as a means to keep the children riding the bus from sticking their heads out the window and potentially putting themselves in danger, as well as a way to lessens distractions for Paula while driving the bus.

Pumpkin Head Joke

Age: 20s

(1) text

Informant: A man walks into a bar with a giant pumpkin for a head. The bartender says, “Hey, you’re walking around with a giant pumpkin for a head. How come you have a giant pumpkin for a head? The man with a giant pumpkin head sits down at the bar and he says, “Well, it’s a long story. But I’ll tell it to you. You’re not going to believe this. But the story starts with, I found a genie in a bottle.” Bartender goes, “Then what happened?” He goes, “Well, I found this genie, and he came out of the bottle and he says, ” you freed me from this bottle, and I’m offering you three wishes.” The bartender is amazed. He’s going, “Well, okay, what happened next?” He goes, well, then, for my first wish, I wish for the most money in the world. I wished for like 100,000 billion dollars. Bartender’s like, oh my God, what happened? He’s like, well, I looked at my bank account. You’re not going to believe what was there. It was $100,000 billion dollars. I was the richest man in the world. The bartender was just floored by this. He goes, “For my second wish, I wish for like the most gorgeous woman in the world to be my wife. Not only someone who was attractive, but someone who could challenge me and I could fall in love with and stay in love. The bartender was like, okay, well, then what happened? He goes, well, then you’re not going to believe who showed up.” The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. And she was smart and talented and funny, and she challenged me, and she proposed to me on the spot, and we’ve been married ever since. Bartender goes, ” oh, my God, this is an amazing story. What happened next? What happened to your for your third wish? And he goes, “Well my third wish is where I really blew it.” Bartender goes, well, what happened?” He goes, “Well, I wished for like a giant pumpkin head.” 

(2) context

The informant explains that growing up in New York, this joke was a common occurrence at family gatherings. The first time he was told it was by an uncle at a family dinner. He later accounts hearing it told by Super Dave Osborn and Norm McDonald.

(3) analysis

The joke follows a traditional structure, starting with “A man walks into a bar…” The joke subverts expectations with the added element of a pumpkin on his head. What makes the joke effective and ultimately gets a laugh from the audience is the long, drawn-out explanation that builds anticipation from the audience as they wait to hear the punch line. They expect something wild to have happened for the man to end up in this position. Instead, they are met with the most obvious answer. The punchline then makes the joke an anti-joke of sorts.