Tag Archives: Childhood

“X Marks the Spot”

Text Transcribed from Informant

“X marks the spot (He draws an x on his partner’s back), a circle and a dot (he draws a circle on back of his partner and then pokes his finger where he drew the circle), up the river (he runs his fingers up his partner’s back), down the river (and then he runs his fingers down his partner’s back), cootie shot! (he then gently tickles his partner’s back) Cold breeze (he gently blows on his partner’s neck), Tight squeeze (he squeezes partner’s shoulders), egg….(he puts his fist on his partner’s head) Smashing…down your head (he pulls his hands down around his partner’s head)”

Context

Just like the “giving one the shivers” game, my informant learned of this custom/game in his elementary school years. Generally a student will say the text above outloud, while using their fingers to act out the actions being described in the text. When asked for his interpretation, my informant replied that this motion and speech based game, and other games like it, are called “giving one the shivers,” even though this specific one is titled “X Marks the Spot.” He often played this game as a child, either reciting the words to other students and pretending to have nefarious creatures crawl up their backs, or having the game recited to him and motions done upon him. However, when comparing this specific “shivers” game to the three others documented in the archive, my informant says he partook in this one “the least.”

My Analysis

Like the three other shiver games my informant told me off, I believe this game to be a sort of “proto-ASMR” type of experience. While I remember certain shivers games in my own childhood, this particular one was new to me. I find it surprising personally how many of these “shivers” game my informant was aware of, as I only remembered one or three from my own past. I found all of these “shivers” games to be particularly unique forms of folklore, and am genuinely curious about the future of them.

Beetle on a String – Mayate Verde en Hilo

Informant: My informant is my Mexican mother, who grew up in Puebla, Mexico. While she stayed with her mom for about 16 years before coming to the U.S, she grew up very poor. Therefore, throughout her childhood, she never really had any toys to play with. It was up to her and her siblings to create ingenious ways to create games. My mom explained that one of these games included the following. 

Main Piece: “Creciendo pobre siempre nos inventábamos juegos que no necesariamente involucra tener un juguete. Por ejemplo unos de esos juegos no tiene nombre pero básicamente es encontrar un mayate verde. O, en otras palabras, es un escarabajo que esta casi igual que el size de la pulagade de tu dedo o mas grande.  Después atrapar uno agarras un hilito y lo amarras alrededor del cuerpo del mayate. Y listo!! Tienes un mayate que te guíe. Si usabamos la imaginacion Nosotros usabamos nuestra imaginación y pensábamos aveces que eran hadas o cometas!“

Translation: “Growing up poor, we always made-up games that didn’t necessarily involve having a toy. For example, one of those games, which has no name but basically, it is to find a green mayate (beetle). A beetle that was about the same size as the inch of your finger or larger. After catching one, you would grab a little thread and tie it around the mayate’s body or leg. And ready!! You have a beetle to guide you and that you could fly.  If we used our imagination, we would see these beetles as fairies or kites! 

Context: My mom explained that she usually performed this game in the 1980’s whenever she was by herself between the ages of 5-10 years old because it was the best way to entertain herself. It was easy to just let oneself engage in their imagination when being so young. Just as her mom taught her how to tie a beetle on a string for entertainment purposes, she also taught her siblings how to engage in this game. 

Analysis: I think this game really portrays the innocence of children. As an adult some might see this as practice as wrong because they are hurting the beetle. However, if one puts themselves in the shoes of a poor child, I don’t think these children would have any bad thought/bad intention when it comes to trapping a beetle for a little fun. It’s not like they are torturing the beetle. In fact, I think it’s very ingenious of them to have come up with this game. This practice/game itself demonstrates just how intelligent children are, and how our imaginations can become so powerful. I think it’s a beautiful practice that siblings pass on these customs/games in order for their siblings to have the best childhood despite the challenges that they and their parents might face.

Collecting the tabs off Levi’s jeans

Context:

KR lives in Seattle, WA, but grew up in Windsor, Ontario in the 70s and 80s. He remembers this custom that he never fully understood from the youth he grew up around.

Main Piece:

KR: “I just thought of another one from childhood. One was that everyone was convinced that if you somehow collected the tabs off Levi’s jeans, somehow you were gonna get paid for it. So like there’s this thing where people where people were cutting the tabs off- and cutting the tabs off other people’s jeans ‘cause it was, and like there were extra points for the orange one versus the red one. But no one could ever explain to you what you were supposed to do with these tabs after you had them as far as I could tell. So that one was very strange.”

Analysis:

I have searched the internet and have not been able to track down any other mentions of this custom (or perhaps more of a trend?). As Levi’s has been a long established brand and their jeans are high quality and last for a long time, the longevity of the clothes has become prized. Therefore, Levi Jeans tabs are often used by vintage shoppers and collectors to date the manufacture of the jeans, as determined by the color and graphic design arrangement of the tab. However, this trend does not align with this typical use of the tabs, as removing the tabs from the jeans negates that purpose entirely.

There are multiple angles of analysis that I would use to start to understand this phenomenon. The first is simply that humans like collecting things, and that once your friends start doing something, you may join in simply as a social activity. While the mysterious promise of payment may have been false, the competition within social groups creates incentives to collect more, and better, tabs than others in the social circle. Contributing to this is the idea that certain colors of tabs (presumably rarer colors) were worth more ‘points,’ and the fact that even those who did collect the tabs were not able to explain how their financial end goal would be achieved.

Another interpretive angle to examine is the American entrepreneurial spirit. While KR did live in Canada, Windsor is directly across the border from Detroit and as we know, national borders don’t stop the bleeding of culture. And even without that bleed, Canada is still a western capitalist country, which still implies the teaching of profit motives. This trend of collecting tabs cut from Levi’s jeans was propagated by children and the youth, people who are generally economically dependent and not in a position to work full-time jobs or financially support themselves. The prominence of the Lemonade Stand in popular culture demonstrates how the drive to accumulate money is one taught early, and one that is not easily satisfied as a child that cannot realistically engage in the market. Just like the lemonade stand, this tab collecting is a hobby that promises a monetary reward, satisfying that urge to earn, or at a deeper level, to succeed within the value system of western capitalist society.

“The Johnson Boys” Campfire Song

Nationality: Canada/USA
Age: 55
Occupation: Software Engineer
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/1/22
Primary Language: English

Context:

KR’s grandfather was a Scoutmaster in Ontario who led Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts on camping trips and also enjoyed going camping with his own family. He remembers this piece as one of the songs his grandfather used to sing around the campfire with them.

Main Piece:

“The Johnson Boys”

Verse 1:  
Oh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys,
 They lived on a mill on the side of the hill, 
Verse 2:
Oohh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys, 
They lived on a mill on the side of the hill,
Verse 3:
Ooohhhhh, the Johnson boys, the Johnson boys,
They lived on a mill on the side of the hill.

Continue ad infinitum, with the “oh” being drawn out longer with each repetition of the verse.

Analysis:

KR remembers “The Johnson Boys,” as “the song with one hundred thousand verses.” He says it’s, “a fun little song that everyone gets to chime in on,” since the lyrics were easy to remember and stretching out the “oh” always made the kids laugh. This song fulfills the classic roles of a good campfire song: something easy to pick up and remember, but with a fun twist to entertain the children. Since KR’s grandfather was a scout leader, the trips he led were mainly composed of children, it makes sense that he would have a library of these songs that are easily accessible for anyone.

This facet of folk song is interesting to me because while it is folk culture, it is also in some ways an institutionally pushed song. By this I do not mean that it was integrated into standardized education, or utilized by the government/corporations, but it significantly differs from some other children’s songs because it is a song that was taught to children by adults, and generally performed between children and adults. Often, folkloric children’s chants and songs evolve within the young population, perhaps even against the will of the adults surrounding them. But this song, and other campfire songs like it, are more of a bridge between the cultural worlds of the child and the adult leaders. They are neither the children’s song (because the children did not create it or claim it as their own to change and sing on their own) but also not a song for the adults (because the adults sing it primarily for the enjoyment of the children).

Candy cone


Background: Informant is a 51 year old Israeli American. They grew up in Germany for the first seven years of their life, which is where this tradition took place. They are talking about their first day of school in Germany, describing a tradition that’s done there. 

Informant: On the first day of school, kids’ parents buy them this big cone like in the size of a typical kindergartener. Like, early grade, like first grade of school. It was done on the first day of school. They will fill it with lots and lots of candies and snacks and they close it and that’s how you go to school and you take a picture with it and everyone had a cone. 

Reflection: I loved hearing about this tradition as we don’t have it in America at all. When doing research, I saw how present this tradition is in Germany and how integral it is to kid’s culture there. It represnts the modern creation of childhood and how it operates in the West. We do these things in Western culture to celebrate kids milestones, and this is a largely recent form of folklore; kid’s folklore.