Tag Archives: celebration

Advent Spiral

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: 03/17/19
Primary Language: English

Content: Advent Spiral
Informant – “The Advent Spiral is a somber ceremony for grades 1-8. It happens in the winter. Fresh pine boughs are laid in a large spiral in the center of a dark room. Paper star mats are spaced out equidistantly along the spiral. In the center of the spiral is a single lit candle. A class enters the room. There might be a harp player in the corner, or it might be silent. One by one, a child enters the spiral. Each child has an apple with a candle stuck in its center. The child walks through the spiral, lights their apple candle from the candle in the center, then places their apple candle on one of the star mats. Then the child sits outside the spiral. Once everyone has gone, the room is full of light.”

Context:
Informant – “Walking into the spiral symbolizes walking into the spiral within yourself. Lighting the apple is like lighting the flame within yourself. The apple itself is a symbol of new life. This ritual has is based on the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Celts. They took an ember from their city, from their central sacred hearth of their city temple and transported it carefully to the new land. They took an ember from their holy hearth to whatever land their were colonizing, and then they would light their first sacred hearth with that ember. All the fires were started from that first original coal. That sacred fire is holy, regardless of the religion. It symbolized them carrying their religion forward. It symbolized a unity with the old land, a unity with their culture and religion. That’s similar to the advent spiral. The students place their apples on the stars. Stars represent our connection to the cosmos, an outer world, a spiritual world. It shows that you are giving your light to the whole world. By the end of the advent spiral, the whole room is filled with light. It’s symbolic of what we want the students to do. It’s not Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, whatever. You are a light filled person, and as you grow older share your light so the world becomes a light filled place.”
The informant learned about this ceremony when she started teaching at Waldorf.

Analysis:
The use of pine boughs reminds me of Christmas trees. They are evergreen, a sign of life in the dead of winter.
I couldn’t find any references to Greeks, Romans, or Celts transporting sacred coals on Google. Still, I agree with the informant’s interpretation of the ritual (i.e. it is symbolic of sharing your inner light with the world to make it a brighter place).

For another version and explanation of this festival, see “Winter Spiral and the Meaning of Advent.” www.clws.org/events/winter-spiral-and-the-meaning-of-advent/.

Oysters For New Years in Bayou, Louisiana

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Louisiana
Performance Date: 04/02/19
Primary Language: English

Folk Tradition:

“Basically my godmother’s niece married this guy who lives in Bayou, Louisiana so it’s like two hours away from New Orleans?  And it’s a really tiny town and their whole schtick is that they have oysters. It’s like where they farm all these oysters. So oysters are really special or whatever there. Whenever she married him or whatever it became their tradition to to harvest them on New Years Eve. And then they like all make them. And now we all go over to my godparents house on New Years. And my godfather is a really good chef and shucks them and he makes different oyster dishes and we eat them.

We started having this be a party when I was in high school so like four years ago ish? But they’ve been doing this forever, they just didn’t start coming over till they had a kid. Then it became more of a family thing. Their family will come to New Orleans and we’ll all meet there. Now my friends fight to like come with me. It’s like a fun thing cause my godfather’s a really good chef. Oysters are so special to Louisiana, but its a really niche tradition and cool. But Bayou is not that far away from New Orleans and not that many people in Louisiana know that people there only eat Oysters for New Years. For them it’s like the way thanksgiving is with turkey.” 

Context:

New Year’s in Bayou, Louisiana.

Informant Background:

The informant is 20, from New Orleans.

My Analysis:

This is a perfect example of folklore transcending geography. While the oysters on New Years are a tradition unique to the Bayou region (Informant specified that people in New Orleans, only two hours away, generally don’t even know about this tradition), this family brought the unique folk tradition to New Orleans, where it is now being shared with friends of family and extended beyond the Bayou region exponentially. My informant now resides in LA and she says that should she get married and settle here, she will institute this tradition in her home.

After doing some digging, I discovered that this tradition is of French origin:

Beardsley, NPR. “For the French, New Year Means Good Oysters.” All Things Considered, 04/20/19, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6707229.

This makes sense as Louisiana is proud of its heritage, being colonized by dominantly French immigrants. Perhaps the reason the tradition has only been preserved in the Bayou region is because of the higher proportion of French immigrants there than in New Orleans. Again, this is an example of mobile folk traditions, having been brought to Louisiana by the French.

 

Astrological Indian Wedding Ceremony

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/10/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Context/Background: The Informant is an Indian-American who has witnessed wedding customs tailored to suit an astrological calendar in order to promote success and prosperity of Indian Marriages.

Informant:

“When you get married and you’re supposed to check like… the person’s astrological sign or something- or when they were born and then you like compare the two. And that timing will like… determine when it’s okay for the literal marriage ceremony to take place. So the wedding can go on for the entire day, but the time the wedding ceremony takes place happens at on specific dates and times. Obviously, some people just ignore it… but like… in the summertime, I was in India and my cousin fully like… he fully got married. Like had a wedding in the middle of the night. So that happened. If you look it up online, I’m sure you’ll find something. And there’s like a special calendar that you can buy from the temple that’ll like tell you! Like, Oh! This is your day, and this is their day, like it’s cool to get married on this day. And like, yeah my grandma has one in her kitchen and she like… refers back to it sometimes, and it’s like ‘When is it okay?'”

Introduction: The Informant was introduced to this custom through her family; more specifically, her grandmother.

Analysis/Interpretation: I find this ritual interesting because I’d never seen marriages that strayed from a daytime setting. The notion that the actual ceremony should occur at a specific time is actually really sentimental and I’d find much meaning in designating a particular time to get married. I feel as though many astrological encounters have been accentuated more recently in popular culture, but to find them more engrained seriously in cultures’ traditions opens up another insight on it. This leads me to wonder how other cultures may have additional differing wedding customs which I’d like to explore in more depth.

Italian Easter

Nationality: Italian
Age: 56
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

The informant is my father (referred to as FI) who is raised by two Italian parents and was raised in a very traditional Italian household. His parents have been married for 60 years and knew each other in their Italian towns since they were age 10. Easter is a big deal in Italian culture because it is a Catholic holiday.

 

FI: “Easter is, similarly to Christmas, more of week-long celebration than a one day holiday. All of Italy is very involved in events that occur that week. The Pope is out and about leading up to Easter.

On Easter Sunday people dress in green and white. Green and white are two of Italy’s colors but also I think it represents peace, hope, and resurrection. On Easter Sunday there is a lot of food, but also the traditional candies that we eat in America are not eaten. It’s not as much about Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. I know doves are also released during this time and then everyone heads to church. Sunday mass is a huge part of Easter Sunday.”

I found this to be particularly interesting that these were the traditions my father grew up with because they were definitely not carried down to me/ his children. When I was growing up, Easter was all about the chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs and we rarely went to church. Despite the fact that my father grew up in a traditionally Catholic Italian home, I feel that we were not given a lot of those same traditions because he actually no longer identifies as Catholic. I believe that also now holidays are so commercialized, especially in the United States, so it is hard to celebrate them with many real traditions that aren’t centered around religious ideas or food.

French Candlemas

Nationality: French
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15, 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish

Note: The form of this submission includes the dialogue between the informant and I before the cutoff (as you’ll see if you scroll down), as well as my own thoughts and other notes on the piece after the cutoff. The italics within the dialogue between the informant and I (before the cutoff) is where and what kind of direction I offered the informant whilst collecting. 

Informant’s Background: 

My name is Keveen. I grew in the South Western part of France, a little town called Brive located between Toulouse and the coastal city of Bordeaux.

Piece:

Another tradition that I remember celebrating every year is “La Chandeleur”, French Candlemas. An early February commemoration of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple that French culture embrace by making Crepes and lighting the house only with Candles, that day being called as well the day of the light marking the end of the Christmas period. I remember making crepes with the family during that time, until I moved out of the house after High School. The tradition of crepes comes from the fact that being round they represent the sun (day of the light), easy to make and cheap, required a bit of agility (flipping them and succeeding at it means the household will be prosperous for the rest of the year. My Grandma never did that but a lot of families keep one crepe, place a coin in it and leave it in the closet for the rest of the year to bring money to the household. Also if you’re able to flip the crepe 6 times in a row you will get married that year.

Piece Background Information: 

Growing up atheist but with a catholic Grand mother from Paris who ended up raising me while my parents were working, I took part of a few religious traditions specific to the French culture, each region having their own interpretation of them.

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Context of Piece Performance: 

In person, during the day at informant’s house in Highland Park, Los Angeles.

Thoughts on Piece: 

Upon further research, I found that French Candlemas, which takes place in December, is generally supposed to utilize the remainder of the harvest from the year on the crepes to symbolize completion of the cycle of the sun (as noted by the informant himself- the roundness of the crepe is similar to the roundness of the sun). I consider this folk belief to fall under homeopathic magic as there are thought to be real world effects (a great harvest in the year to come) due to the similarities between the crepes and the sun. Additionally, this ritual falls within/ is coordinated with the Earth cycle too.