Tag Archives: Holidays

Diwali Holiday and Legend

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: College student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/19
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant, a 19-year-old female college student of Indian and Pakistani descent, described the Indian holiday of Diwali to me when we were discussing how her mixed cultural background has shaped her worldview today.

Text:

Informant: Probably the most popular holiday in the Indian culture is Diwali. Basically, the way my family celebrates it, is that my dad always turns on every single light in the house. So, like he lights a bunch of candles, and it’s supposed to serve as a symbol of light in darkness. So, when the sun goes down, you turn on all the lights in your house. Basically the way my dad told me the story of like why the lights in the house are on is that there was once a prince and he had a wife. There was this demon character who kidnapped his wife and somehow the prince defeated the demon. Then, in order for the princess to find a way back, everyone in the town lit candles so she could find her way back to him. So, the holiday is a symbol of love conquering all and light overcoming darkness. I think it usually happens in October… or November… usually around my birthday. There are other activities that go along with it, but I don’t really know…. I think it’s like a family-oriented holiday. I actually think people give money… people give… we go to my grandparents’ house and they give us money! I think it’s supposed to be like how in some cultures people give money on New Year’s for good luck and wealth and good fortune in the new year. We celebrate with family and food and that kind of stuff. You mostly just stay in and light candles and eat good food and celebrate with family.

Informant’s relationship to the item: The informant typically celebrated Diwali growing up in her household, but it has been several years since she last took part in the festivities. Her excitement about the holiday increased as she continued to describe the rituals associated with it; the details of the holiday came back to her as she spoke, despite not celebrating Diwali since her childhood. She explained how the holiday not only helped connect her to her immediate family, as her dad taught her about the legend surrounding Diwali, but also to her extended family, as the holiday included visits to her grandparents’ home. The informant also clearly understands the symbolic importance of Diwali (light overcoming darkness), as well as the holiday’s similarities to celebrations in other cultures that include giving money as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune.

Interpretation: In addition to the informant’s insights on the symbolic importance of Diwali, the holiday, like many others around the world, clearly has spatial and temporal significance. The informant mentioned that the events of Diwali typically take place within the homes of family members — both immediate and extended. This prescribed space relates to the holiday’s legendary origin, as well as its association with family bonding and connection. The holiday also takes place around the time of the harvest season (specifically, between mid-October and mid-November). This time period is significant on the circular calendar because it takes place after the conclusion of the summer harvest, and typically coincides with the new moon — the darkest night on the Hindu lunisolar calendar. The main event of Diwali — the lighting of lights and candles — is meant to overcome this darkness at the onset of winter, reminding people that light overcomes darkness and wisdom triumphs over ignorance. After conducting my own research on the legend surrounding the holiday, I discovered that there are several different versions of the story my informant recalled. The most popular variation on the legend is the story of the homecoming of the Lord Rama, returning after his exile and journeyings of 14 years to take his rightful throne. He brings with him Sita, his wife, rescued from Ravana, the demon king. The palace and the city were illuminated for him to help him find his way back. Despite having slightly different plot points in her version of the story, with the most notable difference being that Sita makes the journey home alone in her retelling, my informant understood the symbolic importance of the legend: that love conquers all.

Works Cited:

For another version of the legend surrounding the Indian holiday of Diwali, please see p. 53-54 of E.F Coote Lake’s 1960 “Folk Life and Traditions.”

E. F. Coote Lake. “Folk Life and Traditions.” Folklore, vol. 71, no. 1, 1960, pp. 52–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1258790.

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/.

College Rugby Post-Game Tradition for Rookies

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/19/19
Primary Language: English

Folk Tradition:

“So I was on the rugby team and so there’s a lot of stupid little rugby traditions that exist, but there’s like 3 fuckin’ million of them. If you’re new, a rookie, and you score your first try (it’s like a touchdown) in a game or a match, after the game there’s always parties, after the game it’s always customary to invite the other team to get shitfaced with you so at the party, so after the game you have to ‘shoot the boot’. You have to fill the cleat you wore with beer and chug it, and while you do it they sing a song and they go like – yell – ‘shoot the boot’ and if you don’t do it fast enough they sing, ‘why are we waiting we should be masturbating’ you have to chug like you would chug anything.” 

Context:

This is a college rugby team’s post-game tradition. My informant watched people do it and has done it herself. 

Informant Background:

My informant is 21, from Omaha Nebraska. She is on a college rugby team at a university in Los Angeles.

My Analysis:

I think a lot of young community groups do hazing rituals as initiation ceremonies. They can be mild or dangerous in extreme cases. This is a gross, but mild initiation ceremony to the college rugby community. It makes sense that only those who score in the game get to participate because those are the people who will most likely become the leaders of the community in the future. Drinking is also a common factor in college age initiation rituals.

I think the college rugby community is relatively small compared to other college communities like Greek Life, so it makes sense that opposing teams would convene after to celebrate together. This speaks to the fact that they are more concerned about building community than competition.

High School Post-Rehearsal Chant

Nationality: Israeli American
Age: 23
Occupation: Writer's PA
Residence: Studio City
Performance Date: 04/19/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Ritual:

“At the end of every rehearsal, no matter how tense it ended, no matter how bad of a note it ended on, we said this chant. It was something like, “I have one last thing to say, goo cacti. Wu-tang, wu-tang, wu-tang crew ain’t nunckuck, who? With tight groups and apple…proceed.” So how this came to be was that apparently our director started it when he was at that high school and people over the years just added on different phrases to it. Cacti was the name of my director’s friend group in high school I think.

Context:
This was the post-rehearsal ritual of a high school theater group in Los Angeles.

Informant Background:

The informant is 23, from Los Angeles.

My Analysis:

High school in general is a place that likes to memorialize people. While sports teams can hang banners in gyms to immortalize sports achievements, high school theater groups must come up with alternate methods to preserve their “greats”. For example, the kids in my high school theater program would save costumes of respected peers as a way to preserve their memories. This chant seems like another way of doing that as well. The actual chant is completely indecipherable of any sort of meaning to me, and the informant I interviewed couldn’t explain any of the segments besides the first one, “cacti”. Therefore, it seems that each group of kids that adds to it gets to add their own private meaning to the chant through their own nonsense word. This is an example of cultural intimacy that would seem weird to outsiders, which only makes members of the group more proud of their tradition.

First-foot

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 51
Occupation: Occupational Therapist
Residence: Placentia, CA
Performance Date: 4/14/19
Primary Language: English

Context:

I conducted this interview over the phone, the subject was born and raised in Scotland before moving to England, Canada, the United States, then to Northern Ireland, and, finally, back to the United States. I knew she continued to practice certain traditions which were heavily present in her childhood and wanted to ask her more about them.

 

Piece:

“I’ve learned this from my childhood, from Grandma and Grandpa. It’s this big tradition in Scotland, when you grow there it’s what you know. It is a New Year’s tradition, at midnight, we call it “when the bells ring” on Hogmanay, um you, either go first footing if you’re a young person, or you get a first foot, which means it’s the first person to step inside your house for the new year and they have to have dark hair. Usually they have a gift, nothing big, maybe a drink or something, to bring luck to the house, and they cannot, under any circumstance, have light or blonde hair.”

Interviewer: “Why do you carry this tradition?”

Subject: “Because I’ve been taught to believe that if you don’t do this, or have someone who’s blonde come in, then your year will have bad luck. This is purely Scottish.”

 

Analysis:

First-footing is a common practice in Scotland and Northern England. Some areas have more elaborate forms of this practice, such as in Worcestershire where you must stop a caroler and bring them inside. Sometimes the ritual must also be accompanied by some entertainment, such as with the caroler, or with a dance. It is considered unlucky to have a female, or a male with female-hair be the first-foot.

A resident of the home is allowed to be the first-foot, so long as they were not inside the home at the stroke of midnight. The gifts the first-food brings also vary, such as coin, bread, salt, alcoholic beverages, etc.