Tag Archives: family

Easter Tradition

“A tradition I have is every year for Easter my whole extended family goes to Cabo. Since Easter is on a Sunday and most of us have school the next day, we celebrate Easter on Saturday because we have to leave on Sunday. During the day we hangout and paint and decorate eggs which will be turned into deviled eggs in a couple hours. Then, we get ready for our easter egg hunt which only involves the grandkids. There are eggs sitting on the grass on the floor, however those eggs are only for the very very young kids. Each of us has a basket we need to find and as well as candy eggs and baskets there are golden eggs that contain different amounts of money. Since we are getting older, it is starting to get competitive because we all want the money. My grandpa always gives us some hints and sometimes our parents do too. After the hunt, we all open our baskets then get into teams and play croquet. After croquet, we all have a nice dinner together at the house.”

The informant does this every year on Easter weekend in Cabo, Mexico. Her whole family is involved, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Her grandpa helps hide the eggs and gives them hints when necessary. Her parents get all of her siblings small baskets, the other parents give their kids baskets as well, which are full of small gifts like bracelets and chocolate. She believes Easter egg hunting has always been a thing for Easter, and her family has been doing this for as long as she can remember.

The tradition is part of the widely held celebration of Easter, the Christian day on which Jesus Christ was said to have risen from the dead after his crusifiction. On this day, it is common for children to hunt for Easter eggs, which are colorful plastic eggs full of candy. This holiday is often spent with family and friends and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. Although the holiday is now a large part of the holiday economy and is very consumerist, it started as a celebration of the coming of Spring before it was Christanized. It is celebrated around the world as an important Christian holiday.

“Cheers” Before a Shot

The informant described a ritual where people taking a shot together tap their shot glass on the table before saying “cheers” and taking the shot. This is done any time taking a shot of alcohol with others, including friends and family, no matter the place or time. This is done to signal everyone to take their shot and as an announcement of celebration, of sorts. “Cheers” is often said to encourage good will as one drinks, and the meaning is the same here.

The ritual demonstrates a culture which engages with alcohol as a means of celebration. The involved parties want to encourage good will and acknowledge celebration as they dive deeper into their party-atmosphere cultivated by alcohol by saying “cheers” and clinking glasses on the table. There is no magic necessarily associated, just a soft of acknowledgment of good will. The sound made serves two purposes, it seems. One, to signal everyone to take the shot so they can time the drink to be taken at the same time. Second, to signal celebration in the same way that a “woop” does. Noises to announce a celebration are common, such as clapping, “wooping,” whistling, clinking glasses, etc… These are not necessarily to start a celebration but for the announcement of continuation of a celebration. The ritual is widely spread, at least around the United States. Other cultures have similar versions, saying something that imitates a sort of blessing before drinking. This is likely due to the spread of the ritual as folklore, stemming from a traditional blessing around food and drink.

Muslim tradition : Eid

Nationality: American
Primary Language: English
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 9 April 2024

Tags: Muslim, Islam, Christmas, Ramadan, family, festival

Text:

Eid can be seen as an “Islamic Christmas”, a time where one can spend time with family and friends to celebrate the end of Ramadan and such. It’s actually tomorrow (April 10 as of this recording) but it usually lasts 3 days minimum, with people celebrating as long as they want or need to for about a week or two. It’s based on the Lunar calendar. People often go to each other’s houses, celebrating with prayer and joy, and the holiday is very familial in nature. Since it starts right as Ramadan ends, the goal is to break one’s fast every day, starting by eating a date, due to the belief that the prophet Mohammed also broke his own fast with a date. The phrase for this festival is “Eid Mubarak”, which approximately translates to “Happy Eid”, simply.

Context:

J is a student studying ANTH 333 in the University of Southern California. She regularly participates in Muslim traditions and cultural activities with her friends and family.

Analysis:

The comparison between Eid and Christmas is pretty interesting, as while both festivals/celebratory periods have virtually nothing to do with each other, the activities and festivities held in each are similar enough to where a comparison can be drawn. It’s evident to see through Eid and various other religion-based festivals that spending time with family to eat and have fun together is a universal experience that goes beyond location or religion-based culture.

Taiwanese Festival: Lunar New Year

Nationality: Taiwanese
Primary Language: Taiwanese, Mandarin
Age: 46
Occupation: Branch Manager
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 19 April 2024

Tags: Lunar, New year, firecrackers, red, family, Asia

Text:

Lunar New Year (also called Chinese New Year) is one of, if not the, most famous festivals/traditions in all of Asia. Starting at the turn of the Lunar Calendar (around February in the Gregorian calendar), families from all around Asia come together to enjoy good food, share fortune with each other, and have good times. Various activities before and after the main celebration include cleaning the house to let the good fortune inside, putting scrolls and characters on doors and walls, decorating various places with red, and lighting fireworks. The latter two are in relation to the mythological story of Lunar New Year, about a fierce beast named Nian who would come and terrorize the local people before they warded him off with firecrackers and the color red. Now, elders give the young red envelopes filled with money (usually after a short give-receive ritual of sorts), eat foods like dumplings in the shape of money and other such cuisine that invoke good fortune, and have an overall wonderful time with each other.

Context:

C was born and raised in Taiwan, and has traveled the world various times due to her work and studies. She regularly participates in Taiwanese and Asian festivities with friends and family.

Analysis:

I put “Taiwanese Festival” in the title, but really, any sort of Western Asian country would do due to how widespread this particular festival is. Virtually every single action one takes and food one eats can be linked to a specific belief or superstition, making it one of the busiest times of the year for Asians due to how much work gets put into everything. It truly is a showing of how various different people from different backgrounds can come together and share in one traditional time.

Myth: Anansi Story from a Coworker

Context:

Informant S is a 25 year old graduate student in the film production department of USC SCA and is the collector’s coworker. S is from New Jersey, and their family is from the Virgin Islands. S has “heard various Anansi stories within [their] family. This one [they] remember partially reading it for a project [they] were doing in a class but it also was within the realm of the ones [they] heard growing up [they] just couldn’t fully remember it so [they] just found one.” The informant has studied folklore for their own personal interest in it and employed it in their own filmmaking.

Text:

Informant: “Anansi is essentially like an African diaspora. It’s a spider, like a trickster-spider, and it’s everywhere in the Caribbean, it’s in the whole diaspora. And there’s one Anansi story I sort of remember where he’s hungry and he wants dinner. So he keeps getting himself invited to, like, dinner parties and pretending there’s a bunch of people and then he steals the host’s dinner and just, like, leaves. I think he killed one of them at one point. But it’s all these different like creatures of the forest I think, there’s a fox, a wolf, and a crow I believe? And then eventually he keeps coming home, eating all the food he stole, and not bringing any back for his wife and kids. So, I think his wife rats him out and then there’s like a fake dinner party made to get him and he eats so much food he can’t move anymore. And then all the people he stole the food from capture him and basically tie him up and leave him tied against a tree. And then he eats the rope and escapes. That’s not… that’s the gist of it, I can remember.”

Collector: “Like that’s how it ends?”

Informant: “Something like that. They usually have kind of dark endings but the… essentially Anansi is supposed to teach you […] lessons about why not to trick people and be greedy and selfish and a bunch of stuff. […] Anansi itself is like a… almost universal… one of the few universal diasporic concepts. There’s a whole bunch of them, that’s just one I remember.”

Interpretation:

I was lucky enough to find an informant for this collection entry that was familiar with concepts of folklore itself. S mentioned that their interest in the African diaspora is rooted in their own personal background, connecting them to heritage or family as we’ve discussed in class. It seems like this kind of interest in cultural folklore is common among the children and grandchildren of immigrants in America. S’ story reminds me of the concept of “universal archetype” – though that theory has been disproved, I can see why some folklorists have considered it. The concept of a trickster god, while not archetypal, appears in a number of folklores – notably in Indigenous American folklore, according to Lévi-Strauss’ work in structuralism. Anansi, like Lévi-Strauss’ examples, acts on instincts that are pretty reminiscent of human flaws, and is connected with a specific type of animal – a spider. Though S believes the story is to teach people not to mess with trickster gods, I believe it has to do with human flaw such as greed and gluttony as well. What’s more, I think it’s interesting that the informant specifically mentioned what they believe the story is supposed to teach, and has a pretty clear understanding of this story as a myth.