Tag Archives: agricultural folklore

Ritual: Burning of Sugarcane

Date of Performance: 05/01/2025

Nationality: Filipino

Primary Language: Tagalog

Residence: Manila, Philippines

My informant, an older woman in her 80s, recounts to me an annual ritual in her hometown of Bacolod, in the Philippines. The town is on an island known for its fertile, dense soil, and therefore the quality of any plant grown in it. My informant’s family had been sugarcane farmers for generations, and so she grew up around the fields. She describes to me the annual burning of sugarcane plants following a successful harvest, so that new plants might grow in their place, the ash from the burned plants creating soil supposedly twice as fertile for the following harvest season. She remembers how the children of her hometown would gather around the heavy, sweet scent of the burning sugarcane, watching the plume of smoke climb higher and higher. She follows with an anecdote about one of her friends, who, even well into adulthood, would make the pilgrimage from Manila back to her home island during periods of depression and turbulence, and says that the smell of the burning crops would cure any ailment. 

My informant is clearly very fond of her hometown – I’m sure she associates this sensory memory with her feelings of nostalgia and pride. She describes the sugarcane fields and soil with a kind of reverence that I think reflects the importance of agriculture to Bacolod’s local culture and economy.

I was quite touched by this story. The process she describes is known as slash-and-burn agriculture, and is pretty common across the globe, but I can easily relate to her feelings of sentimentality regarding specific smells, sights, and feelings. Often, I think that holidays and festivals are associated strongly with these memories – the smell of pine in the winter, the taste of candy during Halloween – and I think that these sensory recollections do a lot to endear these rituals to those who practice them. The celebration of the practice my informant describes also helps to make the town’s agriculture something close to succeeding generations’ core identities, ensuring prosperity in the future.

Folk Joke: “Make Sure You Get to the Back 40”

Age: 73
Occupation: Retired
Language: English

Informant Information:

Age: 73

Date of Performance: 2/26/2025

Language: English

Nationality: American

Occupation: Retired

Primary Language: English

Residence: Alameda, California

Text:

“Make sure you get to the back 40.”

Definition:

Back 40 – A term referring to the undeveloped or uncultivated portion of a farm, often a hypothetical 40 acres, symbolizing overlooked or less glamorous responsibilities.

Context:

The informant’s parents, who grew up on large farms in the rural South during the Great Depression, frequently used this phrase even after moving to a more urban, middle-class area of Mississippi. The informant’s mother, for example, would say this to the father while they had a family lunch in their relatively small, half-acre yard. Despite no longer living on a large farm, the parents continued to use this folksy expression as a nod to their agricultural roots.

Analysis:

The humor stems from the irony that the informant’s family no longer had a literal “back 40” to tend, having moved to a smaller suburban lot. Yet, the phrase remained a lighthearted reminder not to overlook their less obvious or neglected responsibilities. In essence, “make sure you get to the back 40” playfully urges attention to what might otherwise be forgotten.

By using this phrase regularly, the informant’s parents preserved a cultural tradition, connecting their suburban life to their farming roots. The joke carried both nostalgia and irony, reinforcing their Southern agricultural heritage while simultaneously adapting to a new, more urban environment.