Tag Archives: flowers

Midsommar

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 8, 2014
Primary Language: English

My friend was born in Sweden to a Swedish father and American mother, but moved to the United States as a child, so she sat down with me and told me about the different holidays that are celebrated in Sweden. Some were holidays she had celebrated frequently, while others we less important to her, but she still knew about from her family. Since midsummer includes children in the celebration, she had fond memories of past holidays in Sweden.

“Then we have midsommar, which is midsummers, it’s like the middle and it’s usually the summer solstice and that’s where it’s like the typical maypole, it’s almost like a cross with two rings and kids will have strings and dance around the maypole. And that’s also fertility”

Q: Have you celebrated this?

“I’ve done it ever since I was little. Usually it’s like the entire community gets together and there’s a central maypole for that community. So it’s not like it’s a fair, but everybody comes out and they picnic. And what the girls are supposed to do, is you’re supposed to collect seven different types of wildflowers and you make wreaths, like crowns, that you wear and you wear it all day and the girls usually wear white dresses and you’re supposed to jump over five different fences, and what you usually do is eat strawberries, strawberries and cream are like, in season, so you usually have strawberry cake and stuff like that. And you’re outside and you play games and it’s really, really fun. There’s specific songs and dances that you do while you dance around the Maypole. One of them is små grodorna, which means little frogs, and you jump over people…it’s for kids but it’s really, really cute. But when you get older, it’s like you drink and, but everybody still dresses up and it’s really pretty. But what girls are supposed to do is you put the wreath under your pillow and then you dream about the man you’re going to marry. I really remember actually making the crowns, because my mom was really good at doing it, because you have to like, braid, because they’re like wildflowers, you don’t buy something, you braid the flowers to create these really pretty things. It’s super fun and it lasts throughout the day”

Festival de Amancaes

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 22
Occupation: student
Residence: Lima, Peru
Performance Date: February 15, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Informant is a Peruvian friend who was visiting me this week. She first heard of the Amancaes festival from her grandmother. The Fiesta de San Juan was a festival that took place in the hills of the Amancaes located in the seaside Rimac district of Lima. The Amancaes are bright yellow flowers that grew on these hills during the months of June and July.
The Festival of Amancaes evolved from the pilgrimage site because of the beautiful Amancay flowers that blossomed during the months of June and July and covered the hills in their entirety. In these celebrations, limeñans of all classes and races came down to the hills for unlimited food, music and dance. This celebration went on until 1952 when it was discontinued because the hills of Amancaes were invaded by squatters coming from the outskirts in search of better opportunities in the capital.
This festival was meaningful because Limeñan society has always been very stratified and segregated by class and race. Limeñans of European descent always looked down upon the indigenous and African populations, but on this one day (like Mardi Gras and the Ancient Roman’s Saturnalia) all of these social mores are forgotten and people of all races and classes would party together and share food and drink. Now, there is a festival that was started two years ago called Mistura, this is a gastronomic festival organized every year in Lima and it has become so popular that tickets are sold out almost immediately after they go on sale. This festival is doing the same purpose that the Festival de Amancaes used to do which was to bring society together by providing them with something that people of all ages, races and social classes enjoy: good food.

Folk Practice

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Landscape Architect
Residence: Northridge, CA
Performance Date: January 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Cut flowers last longer if you put sprite or aspirin in the water”

Michael was born and raised in Northridge California. He has three brothers all still living on the West Coast. Michael studied horticulture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and then opened his own business in Beverly Hills. Michael is extremely knowledgeable in regards to plants- he knows all names both common and scientific. He has mastered how to care and maintain plants. Michael taught me how to prolong the life of cut plants in my house like a vase of flowers. The simple procedure  of adding a dash of sprite soda or an aspirin into the water will keep flowers alive longer. Chemicals in the 2 additives keep the flowers healthy. Michael remembered investigating this folk remedy at school, “sometimes people even add a small amount of bleach in the water for the same effect. There are many little tricks to maintaining cut flowers, scientifically I’m not sure which have been proved but I know what works for me and my clients.”

Alan Dundes claimed Americans have always been a society to further advance science and this remedy falls in line with that claim. People tend to invent and experiment with improving their surroundings and this is a popular remedy for quick dying flowers. Michael explained that “he always adds a splash of sprite” when he has some in the refrigerator. He explained his remedy to me as he prepared some flowers for his house, pouring about 1.5ounces of sprite into the vase before he added his freshly cut flowers.