Tag Archives: Pot

Wedding Tradition: The Water Pot

Text: 

Informant: “So one of the traditions that we have during weddings is that woman go and they get a pot, and they grab get water from the holiest river in India and this well and you fill it into this pot. And when it’s time for the bride and groom to get married, after they get married, the woman, um, kind of stands for a very long time with this pot on her head. It’s like this very pure water and the bride and groom’s like families like negotiate with time or how long to stand with this pot on her head. It’s usually like a symbol of like honors as well to be standing there. You know, it doesn’t sound like that because like everyone else is dancing and whatnot, but I think my mother stood for like 6 hours.” 

Interviewer: “What’s an average time?”

Informant: “Average. I would say at a recent, um, sort of, like, I think maybe like a year ago, 2 or 3 hours. I definitely think that longer you are back in time, it’s more like like the definitely like a rite of passage and this feeling of like you’re about to get married and you basically afterwards when the woman is getting down from standing, usually what will happen is like someone from the bride’s family will be like, no, we’re just not gonna let her go just that easily, so they like demand money from the groom side of the family. So they like kind of shower her with money as she like steps down and takes this pot off her head. And then the water, that’s like this really holy entire water, is later on, like supposed to be, um, kind of like splashed at the house of the new couple to like show that you’re getting brought a lot of this like good energy, I guess.”

Context: The Informant is from Coorg, India. Their ethnicity is called Coorgi or Kodava and they speak Kodavathuk (it is a South Indian Dravidian language). Weddings last three days and this is a pre-wedding ritual. The Informant also mentioned that there they don’t use caste systems but do have a huge emphasis on ancestors. 

Analysis: In this we see a high context marriage ritual that is repeated through multiple generations. According to Van Gennep, rites of passage have three stages, separation (preliminal), transition (liminal), and reincorporation (postliminal). In this ritual, the separation comes when the bride puts the pot on her head, entering into a state of semi vulnerability and trial, liminality, holding a pot of water on your head is not necessarily stable which clearly signifies a transition period. Then the reincorporation stage is where she steps down and can take off the pot of water, interestingly this can be postponed, holding the bride in this state of liminality and in between to demand a price from the groom’s family, though seemingly in the interest of the bride. Many wedding rituals or traditions are a test to see if you are ready for marriage and this one is no different. The purity or holiness of the water invokes the idea of virginity going into marriage. Holding the water on the bride’s head could also be seen as a metaphor for pregnancy. The long duration of the ritual, the instability of holding water on one’s head, and the symbolism of it being literal water, a woom, might be a nonliteral test to see if the bride can carry a child to term. In this ritual we can also clearly see the remnants of the transactional nature that marriage has traditionally held in the past in a patriarchal society. The woman is the one who being put in this liminal state while the families are negotiating on her behalf how long this ritual will take place. This is even more firmly cemented when the brides family demands money before she can step down, before they will hand her over, interestingly a subversion of the dowry system which usually has the money going the opposite way. 

Double-Cross Blunt and Other Shaped Blunts

Nationality: Italian-Irish-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student (Mechanical Engineering) and Technology Assistant at USC
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles 90007
Performance Date: 2/8/21
Primary Language: English

This friend knows a lot about marijuana, and on Halloween (a few days after his birthday) he made a double-cross blunt or a large blunt with two smaller blunts inserted at the far end. The goal is that the smoker will get two friends to light all ends of the blunt so that the smoker gets an initial rush of smoke. This rush of smoke is more powerful than smoking a single blunt, and the idea was first shared in the movie Pineapple Express.

“Basically, it’s this guy, who’s a process server. That’s Seth Rogen, by the way. And then this is James Franco… And then there’s Danny McBride, who’s read and he’s this kind of comedic in the movie. But in the beginning of the movie, when Dale when Seth Rogen picks up his weed from James Franco. James Franco goes, Oh, Bro, I got this sweet Pineapple Express. And you know, like, Oh, they said the name of the movie. But he’s like, Oh, I who am I gonna smoke this cross joint with? I need two people. Because you need three lighters to light the joint. You need to light all three tips. I needed somebody to light the first two tips on the double cross joint and then like the other two for me as I lifted the front.”

There is no religious association with the blunt.

The speaker continued to explain that there are all sorts of shaped blunts (note: a blunt is not the same as a joint). There are turkey-shaped blunts and tarantula blunts (the legs or ‘feathers’ are additional blunts).

When asked what this double-cross blunt meant to him, the speaker said, “You’re smoking with two boys, or whoever’s there. But like, you’re just chilling out. You’re having a good time you’re smoking.”

*

I know that this piece was important to the speaker and he was very proud of his double-cross blunt. I do not smoke but it is interesting to see that there is an art to creating blunts and edibles (this speaker also creates cannabis butter from sativa which he then uses to make very strong edibles.) Because this speaker has knowledge of weed, I respect him more than were he just a regular ‘stoner.’

In this example, the speaker learned about the cross blunt from the film Pineapple Express, but this tradition is seen in other online weed forums and even Pinterest boards. Lighting the blunt is a group activity because the speaker cannot light all ends of the blunt at once. Adding the double cross shows that the speaker has improved the movie’s version of the blunt, and it allows for multiplicity and variation.

The Crow and the Pot

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Delhi
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: English, French

“So, there’s a crow, and he’s really thirsty, and he’s flying around looking for water, and it’s a hot summer day.  So he comes across this pot, and because pots usually have water in them, he flies down to the pot.  So the crow finds water in the pot, but he can’t safely reach it, so he thinks about how he can get the water safely.  So he finds some pebbles around the pot and decides to start throwing them into the pot, slowly raising the water level of the pot until he can safely drink from it.”

ANALYSIS:

What I found really fascinating about this folk story wasn’t just the story itself, but the fact that the informant didn’t have anything to say regarding the moral or meaning behind the folk story.  This is a great example of folk stories being passed down but the meaning being lost from generation to generation.  The meaning that I took away from it as a listener is that intelligence should be valued just as highly as strength, because, in the end, the crow didn’t get to drink the water because of his strength but because of his intelligence.

For another version of this folk story, see Aesop’s Fables “The Crow and The Pitcher”.

 

The Beatles Lighting Up with Bob Dylan

Nationality: USA
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/16
Primary Language: English

Folklore Piece:

“Uh, so the Beatles… This was around 1964 I believe. John Lennon and Paul had discovered a Bob Dylan record in 63 when they were in Paris, they thought it was amazing, and they really wanted to, well John in particular, really wanted to meet Bob. And they came to the US, John decided he wasn’t ready to meet Bob Dylan because he thought he had to be as ego equal. John Lennon didn’t think he was like up to bar to meet Bob Dylan. Finally, the Beatles had a little bit of success in 1964, if you know anything about the Beatles history, probably the biggest band in the world. Finally, they decide to meet Bob Dylan at this hotel, I forget the name, in New York City. And The Beatles are in there waiting with their posse. There were several rooms that Bob had to get through, like media and things, but he finally gets through and The Beatles had some wine, like some really nice wine, and they offer it to Bob and he says ‘Uh… No. Do you have any cheap wine? I’m not into super nice wine’ and they were like ‘No, so what should we do then?’  They were trying to figure it out, and Bob says ‘Well I know you guys like to smoke, so like, do you wanna, do you wanna get high?’ and they were like ‘Oh shoot, we’re not… we’re not gonna do that. That’s like, we’ve never done that, we’re not really sure about that.’ Bob actually thought they sang about smoking in one of their songs, saying ‘We get high,’ or something, when really it was something else. Um, so anyways, Bob lights up and hands it to John and Paul who are both way too scared to try it, so Ringo tries it and they all just start laughing. Hot-boxing in this room with Bob Dylan. And that’s what inspired them later when, anytime the Beatles wanted to smoke, they’d say ‘Let’s have a laugh’. Um, but yeah they all got super high with Bob Dylan and that led into the really self-concious period of The Beatles for Revolver and Rubber Soul, which I would argue are some of their best music.”

 

Background information:

This was told to the participant in his two unit class on The Beatles. The professor told him this story, but he claimed to not know if it was true or not. Considering that The Beatles and Bob Dylan are both rock and roll legends, he said he would not be surprised if the story was embellished over the years. He likes the story because of what impact it could have potentially had on The Beatles career and is a fun way to explain the difference in sounds between The Beatles’ records.

 

Context:

The informant says that the story would most likely be told in a format that people were talking about music and/or The Beatles. He doesn’t think it would be a story that he would tell his family, unless they had brought up an interest in the band or a conversation about it.

 

Analysis:

Legendary Figures can span from athletes, like Babe Ruth, to politicians, like Abe Lincoln, to musicians, like Marilyn Monroe, and everyone in between. What is unique about the legendary figure is that we know, for a fact, that these people existed. It is both their actions and the way in which they are talked about that becomes folklorized.

What helps transform these somewhat ordinary celebrities into the status of legend is often what they do beyond just their physical work. If all we had in a vacuum of knowledge was The Beatles’ CDs, we might think they’re pretty good, but would not understand the iconic image they represented for decades. To familiarize and identify ourselves with these legends, we’ll often tell folk stories that we feel are representative of their character. In this story, The Beatles make the transition from proper European rockers to far out psychedelic rockers. While the genre shift is evident in their music, this story helps explain why it may have happened, which, when combined with the personality of Bob Dylan, is what makes it so entertaining.

White Lighter Superstition – Police

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: January 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college student, artist and avid pot smoker. He knows a lot of “stoner tricks” as he calls them, most of which he learned from friends in high school. These and other aspects of weed culture mean a lot to him because he sees pot as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity. Uniquely, as far as I have heard, he also uses it as a form of self-medication; he has ADHD and takes Ritalin, but says that it makes him feel mentally cloudy and slow, and that weed, for him, clears things up and makes him able to focus more easily. Thus, pot is an integral part of his daily life, both socially and personally.

 

He learned about the white lighter superstition from his freshman roommate, who was also an avid smoker.

 

This interview was conducted in the informant’s bedroom, with another friend of his who had a different version of the superstition.

 

“So the legend of the white lighter… One version I’ve heard is that it’s bad luck because normally the… ok, this is more of an omen… whatever man. So what happens is the uh, ganja smokers will tap the lighter down on the pipe to push down the ash, and that makes it like stay on the bottom of it so you use dark lighters to conceal that but like, a white lighter, sometimes the police will look at the bottom of it, and if they see ash stains then they know that you’re using it for illegal activities. Well, depending on where you are.”

 

This is one of two versions of the white lighter superstition I collected, and has more to do with the illegality of pot and the luck component to getting caught or not getting caught. He learned about it within the context of smoking in a college dorm, where he was more worried about getting caught with pot because the risk and consequence was higher, and I assume that’s why he remembered this superstition.