Rawhide Creek

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI/UX Designer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Latin

The informant grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Here, he explains why a local creek from his home town was dubbed “Rawhide” Creek.

N: There’s a bunch of Native American–Native Indian– stories. Those aren’t technically my culture but– there’s a creek called Rawhide Creek. That supposedly has that name because a young man a long time ago, maybe the 1800s? I couldn’t tell ya. He set out to kill as many Indians as he could. And he killed a young girl. So her family, uh, to get revenge tracked him down. Found, like, the group he was a part of and said “You all die or you give him up” and they immediately gave him up. And so they took him to the creek, beat him to death, and skinned him. And there’s where you get the name Rawhide Creek.

Thoughts:
The informant also told a similar story as to why a local bridge was named “Heartbeat Bridge”. It seems that in this region, it’s important to remember tragedies, and in order to do that, the areas that tragedies happened in are named after them.

THE BACON STATUE AND THE AMERICAN FLAG – Folk belief

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student / Flight Mechanic
Residence: Sonoma
Performance Date: April 29
Primary Language: English

3rd piece – Folk belief
Transcript – informant speaking
“The statue Bacon and Eggs, that sits between Stevenson and Darwin halls at SSU as legend tells it that it represents the American flag. The front red and white representing the flag in peace time; the back is black and white representing the flag at war. The blue base holding up the statue symbolizes a star that has fallen from the flag.”

Background
This was a strange one. The informant of this piece goes to Sonoma state and he studies history, which is probably where his concern for the statue stems from. I couldn’t find anything on the internet to confirm this interpretation on the meaning of the statue. So it definitely falls into the folk category (i.e., non institutionalized) mode of knowledge. I might even guess that this folk belief might reside solely with the history department. However, it’s also an interpretation being levied on an existing piece of centralized artwork. This is why folk belief is probably the best catagory for this information, as the folk element comes in with the idea or interpretation, not the object itself.

Context
This story was provided during a zoom call about college legends. It was told in a very straightforward way, but I think the informant might have been trying to embellish a little. They used the cliche phrase “as legend tells,” even though the story is not necessarily a legend. It was clear while talking that they were trying to hype up what they were saying about the statue.

Thoughts
I’m not a big history buff, but what I find interesting about this story is the attempt to localize this form of artwork. If you look at the original statue, it’s literally just a tall piece of bacon. It’s completely absurdist, and objectively, there doesn’t seem to be that much to be made out of it. But here, we seem to have an attempt among the history geeks at the school to make it more relevant to their field of study. Assuming it was built this way, the statue would suddenly grant far greater importance to the history department. In a way, this can be seen as semi self-centered, but also a much needed boost to a frequently overlooked field of study.

Girl Scout Pins

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: April 5th, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Katie, is a childhood friend of the interviewer. They grew up next door to each other and have been friends for sixteen years. They both went to girl scout camp every year from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Context

Katie discusses the sharing of girl scout pins at camp and the meaning behind it. 

Transcript 

“Every year we went to this girl scout camp, retreat thing. This particular year that I’m talking about it was held at White Pines ranch. Girl scout troops from all over Illinois came to this. Every year we do this pin exchange thing where we basically create our own pins and we create like a ton of them and then exchange them with other girls at the camp. Every troop creates a different kind of pin and they always have some story or meaning behind them. So our troop this particular year created s’more pins. So we took little pieces of tan felt, serving as the graham cracker, and glued on little pieces of brown felt for the chocolate. We then attached a white pom poms as the marshmallow and added another piece of tan felt for the second graham cracker. Then we glued these on to safety pins. Every girl in our troop made like twenty. The meaning behind them was two fold. S’mores were a very important part of our troop. At every campout and get together we would always make s’mores and sing songs and tell stories. The s’mores also represented our troop because many different kinds of girls could come together and make something incredible, our troop, just like how all these different kinds of ingredients came together to make something incredible, s’mores. Kind of cliche, I know, but we were like eight so… Anyway, the first night of the camp all the girls from all sorts of troops all over Illinois would come to the fire and we were each given a blank hat. Then you were asked to trade pins with all the other girls and put them on your hat. By the end of the night, you’d have this really cool decorated hat with all kinds of pins. I think I may still have my hat somewhere in my mom’s attic. It was a really fun activity because you got to meet with all sorts of other girls and talk to them and explain the meaning behind your pin and listen to them explain the meaning behind their pins.”

Thoughts

As someone who also participated in this activity, I thought it was very fun as a kid and still enjoy looking back on it. It is an interesting thing to study from a folklore perspective because we were able to spread stories of our troop to other girl scout troops through the ritual of giving and receiving pins. After exchanging the pins, we would sit back down with our troop and talk about which pins we got and continue to trade even more for the really cool ones. By giving someone a gift you are showing that you appreciate them and they are doing the same to you by giving you one back. This is a great way to make friends. It also allows us to learn about other girl scout troops and the history of their troops. 

Bo Bo Ski Rotten

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: April 5th, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background

The informant, Katie, is a childhood friend of the interviewer. They grew up next door to each other and have been friends for sixteen years.

Context

Katie discusses a childhood game that her and the interviewer used to play with their friends on the playground in Elementary and Middle School. 

Transcript 

“We would all sit in a circle at recess, usually a huge group of us. Each person would put their left hand under the person sitting next to them’s right hand, so if we were sitting next to each other I’d put my left hand under your right hand. Then with the right hand, you put your right hand over the other person’s left hand. We all sing a song and on each beat you take your right hand and swing it around to hit, or more so clap, the person next to you’s hand left hand. For example, when person A’s hand is hit by person Z, then person A must hit the person B’s hand, then person B must hit person C, and so on and so forth, going on in a continuous circle. It’s basically hot potato, but you are passing a hit, instead of a potato. 

The song goes like this [verse one]: Bo bo ski rotten totten / I- I say boys are rotten / Itty bitty rotten totten / Bo bo ski rotten totten / Bo bo ski rotten totten. 

Then the tempo speeds up and you go really fast.

 Verse two goes: Mickey mouse had a house / Donald Duck messed it up / Who will pay the consequences.

Then it speeds up even more.

Verse three goes: Y O U spells you and you are out.

You do not want to get your hand hit on the word ‘out’, otherwise you will be out of the game. So you can try and move your hand really fast to not get out. If the person who was supposed to hit you, hits their own hand instead, because you moved yours off of there’s fast enough, than that person is out instead of you. It’s a really fun, competitive game. We played it a lot at girl scouts too. In middle school, if boys ever played with us we would change the line “boys are rotten” to “fish are rotten” so that the boys would think we were cool and didn’t hate them.”

Thoughts

This game was really fun, I remember playing it a lot. It is interesting how much folklore happens on the school playground. This is just one example of many hand / song game combos we would play. I’m not sure how we originally learned about it. I assume, we learned it from some girl on the playground, who learned it from someone else, who learned it from someone else, ect. When I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles for college I found myself one night talking with my LA friends about this game. They knew the general premise, but had different words for the song that I can no longer remember. This was fascinating to me as it shows how folklore is so malleable and can adapt and change with every person who tells it.

SYTTENDE MAI

Nationality: Norwegian
Age: 50
Occupation: Stay-at-home-mom
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 24, 2021
Primary Language: Norwegian
Language: English

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: So we celebrate the 17th of May because that was when Norway became independent from Denmark. Um… Most people wear the national costume that day, which is handmade, and it’s called a bunad. A lot of families, the moms make the national costume for the children and for themselves.

Interviewer: So what does a typical Syttende Mai day or celebration look like?

Informant: Um, it’s usually a lot of parades. There’s school parades. Almost every single school that’s sort of outside of town will have their own parade where the kids march around their little neighborhood. But if you live close to the city all the schools participate in the city parade… Which means that every school will have their own… Little banner and they will march together and it will be various bands playing throughout the day… And it usually starts in the morning… So everyone gathers in town for that… And then another thing is, there is like a breakfast that people have, like “Independence Breakfast,” which a lot of friends will do and family will do in groups… And then the breakfast itself is very traditional and typical. It’s buffet style. The food itself, it’s a typical Scandinavian breakfast with bread and jelly and røkt laks, which is smoked salmon… So then your closest friends come over and we eat and then walk into town together afterwards and everyone has flags that we fly. And we watch the parade… Yeah, and you know… So then you meet all your friends and your relatives in town after the parade and people hang out and celebrate together… And usually most people have lunch in town where they will just get coffee and cakes… And then there’s another parade later that afternoon, usually around 2 or 3 p.m., where all the organizations, like athletes’ and scouts’ organizations, do a parade. And that one’s fun because it’s more entertaining, because if like the gymnasts are walking, they will stop at certain places and then they will do a little performance… There’s also a separate parade… Kind of in between the two that I mentioned, that is for all the graduated students in town, and that one usually takes place around 12 p.m. and they have buses and cars in the parade.

Interviewer: And what do people do at night? Or in the evenings?

Informant: I think usually that evening, I think most families are just with their families and at like… Mellow gatherings with friends… But the night before is a big party night. The 16th of May is a party night where all the young people go out and party.

INFORMANTS RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: So we used to host the breakfasts, you know… We would invite some of our friends and family to our house early in the morning before the parade started… So they would come to our house and we would then walk into town and watch the parade, and we would meet any family or friends that we haven’t seen yet… And you and your cousins would be in the school parades and then the activities parades, and the activities one is the most fun because there’s a lot of, like, energy and things to watch, you know? And then the schools will normally do things too. So parents will go with their kids to their school after the parade. So we would go with you to that. 

Interviewer: What happens at the schools?

Informant: It’s a lot of games. So you’ll have like… Balls that you throw against these bucket things… Like it’s very much homemade. All of these games are made by the parents… So you like try to knock the buckets down by throwing the ball, and you do the potato bag races, you know. Or running around with the egg on the spoon. Oh and then actually there’s usually a carnival in town. At least in my town there was, you know? Like with all the little merry go rounds and rides.

REFLECTION:

Syttende Mai involves a lot of visual displays of nationalism. From wearing the traditional costume (the bunad) to waving flags to marching in parades, participants are openly displaying and expressing their Norwegian identity.

The activities of Syttende Mai also suggest that Norway has a family-oriented social culture. Parents contribute plenty of time to their children, whether watching them in parades, or setting up and then participating in the games at the schools. The buffet-style breakfast is quite communal, as it entails everyone coming together to serve themselves from the same mass plates at the same table. Having coffee and cakes in town after the parades is a time to sit and talk; cafés are very social settings, meant for conversation as everyone sits at a coffee table with only each other and their food and drinks, no distraction (unlike a sports bar, for example). Even the national costumes have a familial element, as they are often made by a mother for herself, her husband and their children. There is quite a bit of time spent with close friends too, and one might suggest that such friends may be considered extensions of family. Despite being about Norway’s independence, the activities that make up this holiday suggest that Syttende Mai is a celebration of togetherness, especially as it pertains to family.

ANNOTATION:

To Read More About Syttende Mai:
“Norway Constitution Day (Syttende Mai).” Cultural Studies: Holidays Around the World, 2018.