Tag Archives: holiday

Paștile Blajinilor (The Easter of the Gentle People)

This first story is about what we would call here (Romania) Easter of the Gentle People. Gentle as in nice, kind, you know? And one week after Orthodox Easter, uh during the first Sunday, people come out, out of their homes, and they go in the fields and spread uhhhh eggs and they try to make as much noise as possible because apparently they say that there is such a people, the gentle people, that lives in an unseen area. And these people are incapable to harm anyone. So all the, the whole country, this is a umm I don’t know, this is present everywhere in the country, not only in one specific area. So the only problem that they have is that they cannot calculate the date of Easter. So that is why people must make a lot of noise to signify that this is finally Easter day. In Romania it is called Paștile Blajinilor. It means gentle, kind, nice, sweet. 

Background: This informant has lived in Romania their whole life and is very interested in the folk traditions of various countries. They found this piece of folklore from other people in Romania.

Interpretation: This tale shows the blending of religious tradition with folk tradition. The tradition of Easter Sunday is blended with folk belief about fairies in order to create this holiday. The reason that the gentle people in the story cannot calculate the date of Easter could be connected to how in many tales about fairies, time moves differently in the land of the fairies than on earth. This may be the result of christianization of local folk belief in fairies in order to show that even they believe in Easter and affirm Christianity.

Thanksgiving Song – “I Heard Mr Turkey Say”

Song Lyrics Transcribed from Informant

I heard Mr. Turkey say

gobble, gobble, gobble

Soon will be Thanksgiving day

gobble, gobble, gobble

People say it is such fun

But I know that I must run

and hide until the day is done

gobble, gobble, gobble

Context

My informant learned this song from her mother at an early age, and would sing it in November around Thanksgiving. When asked how she interpreted the song she said she that it was about a “Mr. Turkey” trying to escape the fate of many turkeys on Thanksgiving. She remarked that compared to Christmas and even Halloween, there weren’t a lot of Thanksgiving songs, but even though she learned the song from her German-Russian mother in North Dakota, she wasn’t certain that the song was necessarily invented by German-Russians.

My Analysis

I find this song to be really catchy, and I think it’s fun that it’s Thanksgiving-themed as that’s not necessarily a super-popular subject matter for musical composers. Overall, it’s a fun song about a Turkey trying to hide during Thanksgiving, and features a fun onamonapia with the repeated “gobble, gobble, gobble.” I agree with my informant that the song maybe wasn’t entirely invented in North Dakota, but I was unable to find a source of where or how the song was made.

Song Sung by Informant

Windsor/Detroit Friendship Festival

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

Context:

The informant grew up near Windsor, Ontario in Canada which was right across the US border from Detroit, Michigan. Since the United States celebrates Independence Day on July 4th and Canada celebrates Canada Day on July 1st, the two towns would join to celebrate together at some point over the long holiday weekend.

Main Piece:

“Detroit and Windsor would do this thing, The Friendship Festival, because it was international friendship. And so they would have shared fireworks between, and they would compromise, do, like, whatever day worked out best over the long weekend, but, you know, sometimes it would be on my birthday, which was July 3rd, so it was especially great to go to Windsor and they’d have fireworks for my birthday.”

Analysis:

These two cities were so close to each other and both celebrate a major holiday on the same weekend, so it makes sense that they would join forces. Some other compounding factors include the fact that the drinking age is two years lower in Ontario than in the US, which already made Windsor a popular destination for those slightly too young to drink alcohol in the States. This tradition makes me consider how a folk does not necessarily end at a national border. These towns, only separated by a river and an artificially enforced border, institutionally celebrate their national holidays three days apart. But because their proximity to each other, and therefore their connection, cannot simply be negated by the borders of their nations, they compromise to create a new festival out of the two.

German Easter Fire Tradition

Nationality: German/USA
Age: 56
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/10/22
Primary Language: German
Language: English

Context:

AH grew up in Westergellersen, a small village in northern Germany and attended these Easter fires throughout her childhood.

Main Piece:

“Leute in vor allem ländlichen Gegenden sammeln Holzmaterial und Buschwerk und türmen es möglichst hoch auf. Es soll weithin sichtbar sein. Es entsteht ein Wettstreit um das höchste Feuer. Am Karsamstag wird es angezündet. Das Dorf versammelt sich dann um das Feuer, es gibt Bier, Glühwein und Würstchen.”

Translation:

People from all the surrounding rural areas gather wooden material and shrubbery and pile it as high as possible. It should be able to be seen from far and wide. There is a contest for the highest fire. On Karsamstag (Holy Saturday, the day before Easter) it is lit. The village gathers around the fire, there’s beer, mulled wine, and sausages.

Analysis:

This part of the Easter festival celebration in northern Germany seems very useful for promoting unity and connection within a town. Because the villages compete for the tallest fire, the one that can be seen from the farthest distance away, this creates an in-group out-group boundary. Also, since gathering the materials for the highest bonfire takes time and work, the townspeople must work together, as they wouldn’t be able to achieve this highest fire on their own. Then, on the evening before Easter, when the fire is lit, this festival ritual turns into a communal gathering place for the village people. Beer, mulled wine, and sausages are all extremely common foods in northern Germany, and are generally associated with any festivals and gatherings, or seen as something like ‘fair food.’

Canadian Victoria Day Celebration

Nationality: Canada/USA
Age: 49
Occupation: Barre Instructor
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/2/22
Primary Language: English

Context:

AS now lives in Seattle, but grew up in Blenheim, Ontario in Canada and remembers how people celebrated Victoria Day every May.

Main Piece:

“Our holiday in May is called Victoria Day instead of Memorial Day, and it’s very widely known as the May 2-4 Weekend because cases of beer come with 24, and it’s typically around the 24th of May. So it’s May 2-4 Weekend, everybody loses their minds, it’s generally warm enough that you can go camping. There’s tons of underage drinking which is saying something because the drinking age is pretty young in Canada anyway.”

Analysis:

This holiday tradition seems to parallel many American traditions as well. Holidays that are not associated largely with spending time with family tend to instead turn to drinking and partying instead. While Victoria Day is an institutionally enforced holiday, the extrapolation into the full May 2-4 Weekend and the subsequent packaging of 24-beer cases seems to have arisen from the folk. It is apt that a holiday weekend in May would generate such interest in Canada since Canada is a very cold country for the winter season and, like AS mentioned, May is when the weather starts heating up again. It seems like it goes hand in hand with other festivals of springtime, celebrating the end of the winter.