Ghost of Antetum

Nationality: Salvadoran
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/14/2016
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Background: E.M. is an 18-year-old student at USC studying Cinema and Media Studies. She is Salvadoran but as lived all over the US, so she has picked up folklore and customs from a lot of different places. When she was living in Maryland, she would often take tours to historical sites and picked up multiple stories from each of these sites and the people she met there.

 

Main piece:

When I lived in Maryland, we would often visit Civil War battlesites. Um and one of the major ones that was near where we lived was Antetum in Sharpsburg Maryland? Yeah Sharpsburg. Basically one of the bloodies battles of the civil war happened there. And it’s very chilling to go now because it’s all cornfields and it’s very quiet and lonely and you really get a sense of quiet and foreboding when you’re there. One of the park rangers actually shared this story with me, with us, with our family, um about uhh these strange happenings that occurred around a road known as Bloody Lane in the middle of the battlefield. Some people had reported smelling gunpowder when they walked down the lane and later it was found out that that road had been the site of this kind of standoff between the Unions and the Confederates where they were basically shooting at each other from opposite sides of the road for hours, and thousands of people died there. So it was said you could hear gunshots in the distance or even battlecries. There was also an old bridge in the park, um, where you could supposedly hear distant drumming if you walked over it at night. When I asked the park ranger whether they thought it was true, um she said that uh she had never experienced any of the gunshots or any – she had never heard anything strange. But one time she saw a woman dressed in this very old fashioned style? in the middle of one of the fields? Reading a book. And when she saw her, she assumed she was a reenactor, because there were civil war reenactments all the time, so she assumed it was a costume. But when she asked back at the visitor’s center, when she asked one of the coworkers if they were having any events that day, and the coworker said that they weren’t. So um she didn’t actually believe that she had seen a ghost, but she said that it was definitely one of the stranger things that had happened to her while she was there. When she went back the lady was gone.

 

Performance Context: This legend would be told when tourists would visit the battle site of Antetum in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

 

My Thoughts: I think that this legend was either created or shared as a way to get visitors interested in the history of the place, because everyone loves to hear ghost stories whether they believe in them or not. Such stories help visitors to connect to the site and to make it come more alive, especially for those who are not as fascinated by history.

Cheerleading Sleepover

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/24/2016
Primary Language: English

Background: A.S. is a 22-year-old student at USC studying Occupational Therapy. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, and both of her parents are professors at USC. She was a founding member of the cheerleading team of her high school, and the experience of being on this team helped to define her high school experience in general.

 

Main piece: I went to a really small high school, so we never had a football team, just a basketball team. My sophomore year of high school, a few girls (including myself) founded a cheerleading squad. At first, we weren’t very good. Our coach was a competitive cheerleader her whole life, though, so she began to increase the amount and intensity of practices and we eventually got pretty good after two years. Our second year, we went to state competitions and at this point I was our captain. Making it to competition was a huge deal because we were finally earning some credit in the cheer world. In preparation, my coach encouraged me to do something to get our squad excited and ready. So I decided to host a cheer sleepover the weekend before our competition, a sort of sisterhood-like night to bond. It became a tradition for my high school that every weekend prior to a competition (the squad goes to multiple competitions now), the cheer squad has a sleepover at the captain’s house. I only got to do it twice while in high school, but it’s nice to hear that it’s still tradition! The new captains send me & my old coach a photo each time it happens.

 

Performance Context: This sleepover ritual would be performed over the weekend before a competition.

 

My Thoughts: This sleepover ritual is a way for people to feel that they belong to a group, and that others are looking out for them. It is a way for the cheerleading team to have a shared experience and even have team bonding.

Feasts Natalae

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/15/2016
Primary Language: English

Background: A.S. is a 22-year-old student at USC studying Occupational Therapy. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, and both of her parents are professors at USC. The informant’s mother told this story to the informant multiple times, especially when describing her childhood or her favorite holiday. This was her mother’s favorite time of the year, because it was the one time that she could be all together with her family and celebrate, even though they were Jewish and the tradition revolved around a Christian holiday.

Main piece: “My mom was born in Rome but grew up in New Jersey. Her mother was Italian and she was also Jewish…which is interesting since there aren’t too many Italian Jews. Anyways, she still celebrated Christmas because her father was raised Catholic. So my grandmother would prepare a traditional Italian meal for Christmas in the house when they lived in New Jersey. It wasn’t like other Christmas dinners in the states…it was like specifically Italian. So they would have a bunch of courses, seven I think, because of the seven sacraments or something, and almost all of them included some sort of fish plate, but no meat. I think my mom told me it was called um.. oh it was called Feasts Natalae. It was traditional in Italy to have the dinner on Christmas eve but it was still called Christmas dinner I think. Each course was fish because it’s like a kind of fasting…they just don’t eat meat. My mom said this was a really special time for her because she knew her family would be together. And it wasn’t even about the holiday or religion or anything, it was about being with her family.”

Performance Context: I interviewed the informant while we were both together, sitting on a couch, in the house where she lives on west 28th Street in Los Angeles. Feasts Natalae would typically be practiced on Christmas Eve, and is a prominent tradition in Italy. This tradition would be practiced by Anna’s mom’s family every year.

My Thoughts: I think that this story is representative of the fact that each culture and each family has a different way of celebrating Christmas, both culturally and religiously. Each nationality and each individual family has a way of making the holiday special for them. There are a lots of Christmas traditions around the world that aren’t officially coming from the church, but are still important to families and have to do with Christmas.

May Day

Nationality: British
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: April 27, 2016
Primary Language: English

Informant was a 19 year old female who was born in England and currently lives in Los Angeles. She lives in my hall, and I interviewed her.

Informant: There’s this festival that we have in England called May Day, and it’s the first of May. I don’t really know where it came from. We always have a holiday on the day so I always get a day off school. We do it to welcome spring, in a way. I’ve also heard that it’s to celebrate workers. But it’s not a workers’ day, per say. And I have seen people doing the Maypole dancing.

Collector: Pole dancing?

Informant: It’s not pole dancing as in pole dancing, like kids do it. I learned it at school, it’s taught at schools. At least it was when I was in primary school. Basically, it’s like a big wooden stick and it has like ribbons attached to it and people like dance around it.

Collector: Have you ever experienced that?

Informant: Yeah at like fairs I guess, on May day. There’s always a pole. I don’t really know the purpose of circling a pole to celebrate spring, but people do it. It’s very common. And there’s good food at the fairs too. Oh, and we crown a May Queen. That’s like a girl who does a bunch of things for May Day. Like she’s part of the parades and stuff. I’m not really involved in it, but I’ve heard about it. I also heard this story that in the past they used to kill the May Queen at the end, but like, I don’t know if that’s true or not.

The first thing I thought about this particular piece of folklore was how funny it was that a big tradition in England was called May Pole Dancing, but then my friend explained that it wasn’t really pole dancing, and that it is meant to celebrate spring. I think that’s really interesting, because it reminds me of my Swedish friend’s Midsummer ritual. I think it’s really cool how in both of the festivals there are wooden sticks (a cross in the Swedish culture and a pole in English culture) that little kids dance around to celebrate the arrival of a new season. It make some wonder what the origin of these traditions are, and if they all come from the same place.

London Bridge

Nationality: British
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: April 27, 2016
Primary Language: English

Informant was a 19 year old female who was born in England and currently lives in Los Angeles. She lives in my hall, and I interviewed her.

Informant: Do you know the London Bridge song?

Collector: Yes.

Informant: Ah, yes. Well, I guess it’s pretty popular over here too. But basically, it’s a song that goes like this:

London Bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down.

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

I think the actual song is longer than that, but that’s all that people really use. So what we do, it’s usually a kids game, but what we do is we get two people to stand together and hold their arms together like they’re making a bridge, and then people have to run under it, until the last line. And then the people drop their arms and trap whoever is under it, and like that person loses. It’s like a song, but it’s also a game, which is cool.

Collector: Do you have any idea where it might have come from?

Informant: I actually have no idea the history behind the song. I just know that it’s a really old game, and a lot of kids play it. It’s pretty popular. I don’t think the London Bridge has ever really fallen down. I hope it won’t.

I remember playing this game when I was a kid, and it’s interesting to hear that it’s popular all over the world too. Despite mentioning London in part of the lyrics, I didn’t actually know that this was a traditional English song. I thought that the Americans had made it up during the revolution to show patriotism and strength to beat the British. It’s funny to see that I was completely wrong my entire life, and that the song is nothing more than a mere game that people used to play in England, and passed on to the people in America and all over the world.