Armenian Wedding Money Dance

Nationality: Armenian
Age: N/A
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 8 February 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: Matrimony is a special liminal, or transitional, period in a person’s life. In some cultures it marks the transition from a woman being owned by her father to owned by her husband. In some it marks the beginning of a monetary relationship between two families, like a mutual advancement in social class. Regardless, for cultures that have a tradition about the liminal event of marriage, most often the tradition is in regards to future prosperity, success, or fertility. Here, informant GG explains the Armenian wedding traditions, shedding light on similarities between them and the western traditions.

Main Text: Transcript:

GG: Armenian weddings are known to be really over the top. Parents, relatives, family- they really spare no expense in going all out with like the food, the entertainment…  One tradition is that the bride and groom, they get together… and then people will gather around and they’ll throw stacks of money into the air. It’s just like a constant stream of people… usually it’s the males of the families, and they’ll come up and they throw like a hundred bucks worth of ones in the air and it’s like flowing down. They create a circle where they throw it from all these different angles, and it’s supposed to signify wealth and abundance at the start of the marriage, and it gets intense sometimes. There’ll be like piles of cash on the floor or like little kids running around trying to grab some. Some people need… big ‘ol brooms by the end to sweep all the money up. 

HR: That’s amazing, that sounds hilarious! [Laughs] So lots of western traditions have wedding gifts. Is that like in lieu of a wedding gift, people just instead walk up and throw wads of cash at the bride and groom?

GG: They still do give gifts, but they’re not as big as in the west.

I continued to speak with GG about this tradition and found that he’d been apart of many money dances at Armenian weddings, not as the thrower or the groom but as a kid, running in and trying to snag money for himself! 

Thoughts: I think that the nature of liminal periods includes some kind of uncertainty about the future. When one makes the transition from one stage in life to another, they often turn to traditions regarding luck or guidance. The transition from single to married carries plenty of uncertainty, so the Armenian Money Dance tradition is a way of wishing the newly-weds monetary luck in the coming years. 

Armenian Pre-Christmas Tradition

Nationality: Armenian
Age: N/A
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 8 February 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: Due to the sharing of culture between European nations, many traditions and holidays share seemingly universal themes. For example, Christmas traditions in European countries often have themes in common such as generosity, kindness, and teaching respect to children, even if the details of the traditions are different. The same concept applies to the Armenian Christmas tradition. 

Note: This logic applies strictly to modern European and Western traditions.

Main Piece: Armenian Christmas takes place on the 6th of January, and informant GG explained that the time from New Years (Jan 1) to Christmas was celebrated with a particular tradition. For the first six days of the new year, you can visit anybody in town throughout the day, and “everybody is expected to both have and be company. They set out huge tables, and there’s always food on it because they know that at any moment people could show up!” In many Western countries, Christmas is a time when extended family and friends are invited to eat and give gifts for the whole day, but the Armenian tradition extends far beyond that! GG said that, despite the stress of it, “they all love it, [even though] the wives are a little stressed because they’re always cooking…” to keep fresh food on the table at all times for the whole day! At that, all of this is simply leading up to Christmas itself! 

Thoughts: I think that this tradition is a wonderful example of folklore that encourages and strengthens bonds between people! As GG said it, “It’s like a giant party for 6 days,” and I believe that the reason why it’s practiced is because it’s fun! Regardless of the expense, stress, or waste it might incur, the whole concept of expecting everyone to both be and serve guests seems like a beautiful tradition. 

Gambling: Winning a 50

Nationality: English, Irish, Scottish, Dutch
Age: 76
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Arkansas
Performance Date: 28 April 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: GC’s father used to go and play dominoes and gamble on that. She said that she “always liked it because [her] daddy would give the 50 dollar bills to me,” because he was superstitious that winning a 50 dollar bill and keeping it was bad luck. GC said that her father would never keep or spend a 50 dollar bill he’d won gambling himself, he would always give it away. Whenever he won a 50, he would leave the game immediately so that his bad luck didn’t start during his next game.

When GC grew up and began going to casinos and gambling, she continued the superstition under the impression that it was bad luck. She’s never even “seen a 50 dollar bill in a casino, never, even on the slot machines. They’ll accept 5s, 10s, 20s, 100s, just not 50s.” She said that when she cashes out from a session, they’ll always pay a 50 with two 20s and a 10 rather than one bill. When she asked her husband, who also goes to casinos, if he’d ever kept a 50 dollar bill when he’d won one, she said he was shocked, almost offended. 

Context: This superstition applies to gambling either in a local community setting or a casino, when the winner of a pot gets a 50 dollar bill. GC is a 76 year old woman living in Arkansas. She goes to casinos with her husband semi-frequently.

Informant’s Thoughts: GC said that she would guess the tradition started due to the relative rarity of 50 dollar bills compared to other bills like a common 20 or 10. While she doesn’t know the origins of this superstition, this could be a reason why it started.

Archivist’s Thoughts: I think that this shows the common idea of gamblers being superstitious. So much of gambling relies on luck that it’s easy to formulate superstitions that attribute one’s bad luck to a misstep they made. Keeping a 50 dollar bill, because of their rarity, could have happened to precede a loss streak, and the tradition became so prevalent that even casinos couldn’t carry 50 dollar bills because it would lose them business.

Trojan Marching Band: Traditions on the Band Bus

Nationality: N/A
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 30 April 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: The Trojan Marching Band carries a level of prestige with it that entices many to follow it, meaning that the band’s appearances at USC’s sporting events are imperative. Informant CN states that the band hasn’t missed a football game in 32 years (more than 400 games!), and that creates an expectation for the band to appear. The band travels to away games primarily on a group of buses (this includes bus trips to Arizona, Cal Berkeley, Colorado, and Washington State, as well as a biennial flying trip to Notre Dame), and that leaves several hours of down time. CN described to me some of the traditions that band members use to occupy their time on the bus. 

Main Piece: 

  1. Name Jokes and Open Mic: For reference, the bathroom on the bus is known as “the Head,” which will serve as the basis for many traditions. For example, band members have an open mic where members go up to the front of the bus and use the PA system to tell a joke. They begin by tapping the microphone and saying “Is this thing on?” to which the rest of the bus responds “No!”. They then say “Once upon a time my name was [band name]!” and the bus asks “Why?” (See Trojan Marching Band: Band Names). The member will then make a “Name Joke”, which are most puns involving the band member’s name and very often be inappropriate. The member will then say their main joke, which could be a roast of another member or a general joke they came up with. If the roast or joke hits particularly hard, the band members will chant “Holy Shit” as the joke-teller returns to their seat. If the roast or joke is deemed bad by the bus, they will instead chant “Head! Head! Head!” and the joke-teller must go to the back of the bus and sit on the toilet for a while. CN says that this is all in good fun, but that it’s still never a good feeling to be sent to the Head. 
  2. Rules: There are rules for the bus that every band member must know and that someone will recite at the start of every trip. They are exactly as follows:
    1. “Rule #1: Nobody, but nobody, including nobody, shits in the Head.”
    2. “Rule #2: You can get off the bus, you can get on the bus, but you can’t get off on the bus.”
    3. “Rule #3: Please refer to Rule #1.”
    4. “Rule #4: Fuck ___”

The first and third rules simply state the common sense rule that pooping in the bathroom is not a good idea, as it will stink up the entire bus. The second is another common sense rule to not do anything sexual on the bus. The fourth and final rule is a reference to ___, who CN says was a rude band member whose legacy reflected that. Normally, their name would be said, but for the purposes of privacy it has been anonymized. 

Thoughts: The Open Mic time seems like a good chance for freshmen to break into the band’s sense of humor and thus further initiate into the group (See Trojan Marching Band: Band Names; Band Camp Traditions). CN said that freshmen are commonly asked to make jokes during Open Mic, and this can help them through the liminal transition into the group. The rules seem like a joke, but they’re all common sense and the necessity of every member to know the rules makes it a somewhat unifying experience. 

Trojan Marching Band: Band Camp Traditions

Nationality: N/A
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 30 April 2021
Primary Language: English

“Con”-text: Band Camp is a week or week and a half period before the start of classes where initiates to the Trojan Marching Band will learn the ropes of the TMB’s instruments, marching, and perhaps most importantly traditions. Informant CN, a member of the TMB and previous section leader, discusses many of the traditions that used throughout Band Camp and the ensuing football season.

Main Piece: The following is a list of traditions, for which the individual contexts will be provided below:

  1. Whenever the drill instructor or band director says “Conquest,” “Concept,” “Consequence,” or any other word beginning with “con,” members of the band will repeat back “Con~quest.” They extend and emphasize the “con” for dramatic effect or humor.
  2. Whenever the drill instructor or band director says “You” at the beginning of their sentence, the band will interrupt them by finishing with “S, C, Trojans!” sometimes throwing up the Fight On hand sign. 
  3. Whenever the drill instructor says “Check,” the drumline will make soft noises with their instruments. Snares, quads, and basses will swap their sticks over their drums and cymbals play a small zing. Notably, freshman cymbal players are not allowed to “check” with their cymbals.
  4. Whenever any school other than USC is mentioned, the band screams back “Sucks!”
  5. During Rivalry Week with UCLA, whenever the drill instructor or band director says “UCLA” or “Tusk”, the quad drummers begin playing Tusk, and oftentimes the band joins in and interrupts the speaker. 
  6. If any freshman asks a question, especially during band camp or if the question has been answered before, they will be told “Figure it out Freshman.”
  7. During Band Camp, Freshman are only allowed to refer to their upperclassmen by their band names, and in many sections they are required to learn all of the band names and parent given names of their section, as well as how they got those band names (See Trojan Marching Band: Band Names).
  8. Whenever the drill instructor or band director says anything that accidentally references a band members’ name, they have to “take a lap”, meaning that they run around their section of the band or even the entire band. When this happens outside of practice, band members will walk around the chair they were sitting in or simply twirl their finger to represent taking a lap.
  9. At the end of Saturday’s game day practice, the band director gives a prediction of the score, accompanied by a drumroll from the drumline. 

CN says that some of these traditions continue throughout the year, but they’re really ingrained into the freshmen during band camp. For the origin, CN said that some of the call and response traditions started fairly recently. Nobody knows exactly who started it, but now everybody does it (the example was “con”quest). “It means nothing but you can find yourself doing it all the time. The traditions are just wired in at band camp.”

Thoughts: The beginning of a liminal period can sometimes be seen as a time for “weeding out” those in a group of initiates who might not be committed to the organization while at the same time impressing upon the initiates the procedures and traditions that will unify them. I believe that Band Camp is an example of this combination of tradition teaching and weeding out. Band Camp takes place in the hot LA heat, and it requires new members to constantly prove themselves to upperclassmen in an attempt to be accepted. The traditions that restrict Freshmen behaviors aren’t necessarily meant to humiliate them, but rather to adjust them to Band culture. As for the call and response traditions, those often serve to give the band members a reason to pay attention to every word the drill instructors say, so the tradition is likely allowed to continue even if some members may be making fun of their instructors by it.