Tag Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Family dinner prayer

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 28, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant comes from a Christian household, and she told me about the prayers she and her family said before meals together:

“So what it is, is we have a family prayer that we say before every meal, but specifically dinner, when we’re all eating together. Um, and it’s something I learned from my parents because they both growing up as kids had their own family prayers that they said before meals, so when they were raising my brother and I, they came up with their own for our family. So my mom typed it up and cut it out with these fancy scissors so it looks nice, and she put it in a frame and hung it up right by our dinner table. So, whenever we sit down to have dinner, we always say it before we eat. And we say, ‘God is great, God is good, and we thank God for our food. Amen.’ And that’s something that when we get together with our other relatives—with our extended family—it’s something that they now say as well, because it’s been a tradition for our family so it carries over. And they have their own prayers that they say that we all say now too, so we have like, three small prayers that we go through as a huge family before we eat.”

Christianity was very important to my informant when she was growing up. She went to church every Sunday, and she says religion was extremely influential on her worldview and morality. Since coming to college, she actually stopped going to church. She is part of a Christian youth group on campus, but she says that her religiosity has waned since high school. Even so, when she returns home from college for vacations, she and her family still recite this prayer before every meal they eat together. She appreciates that they have this tradition. It not only reminds her of her Christian foundation, but also of the closeness of her family. This short prayer is a way for my informant’s family to give thanks for what they have and reflect on what they see as God’s impact on their lives. It also commemorates the beginning of a special time: family dinner. Because of all these reasons, this simple tradition has great significance for my informant. One thing that intrigued me about my informant’s account is that she says it’s a prayer that her parents thought up together before spreading it to their children and other relatives, as well as whoever joins them for dinner. Yet despite my informant’s assuredness that this prayer is entirely her parent’s creation, I remember hearing something very similar to it before. One of my good friends used to say a prayer much like this one before she ate with her family. My informant’s parents might have gotten the idea for their prayer from other similar variants, and then made it their own by writing it down and spreading it to their own family. The development of this prayer is one that reminds me of the way other folklore spreads: it is learned from one or more sources, and then spread in a slightly new way.

Fraternity Bid

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 2/24/13
Primary Language: English

The informant told me a story very recently after a fraternity on campus offered him a bid to join their organization.

He was told to get into the car with two of the brothers and blindfolded. They dropped him along side of sidewalk. One of the brothers got out of the car with him and removed the blindfold. He raises both hands towards the informant, one with a red M&M and the other with a blue M&M. The brother said to him, “you can take the red pill and join us, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Or you can take the blue pill and go on with life without us.” The informant took the red M&M, and the brother nodded solemnly. Then he said, “This never happened,” and drove off, leaving my informant on the ground next to the sidewalk.

Analysis: This is clearly a reference to a popular movie called The Matrix (1999). Whether all fraternities have bid rituals referencing pop culture or if this was a one-off would take more research and collection. The reference may make the ritual more approachable to the new potential initiate, or give the fraternity a sense of coolness and make them seem hip and popular. The blindfold symbolizes the fact that the new member was blind to the world before he found the brotherhood.

Most fraternities are founded on history and tradition, so it is interesting to find this ritual that goes slightly against the grain, as it is a very current reference.

Annotation: “The Matrix”. Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved June 24, 2009.

Rabbit Rabbit

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/12
Primary Language: English

I interviewed my informant, from Portland, Oregon, about his familial traditions. He noted that he grew up with a certain saying that his family would repeat. On the first day of every month, they would all say:

“Rabbit, Rabbit”.

It was a tradition that was passed down from his mother’s family that she had grown up with. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents immigrated to New York from England. The interviewee said that his parents believed it stemmed from the “fact that in some parts of the world, rabbit legs are a symbol of good luck”. My informant remembers his mother discussing the tradition with him when he was a boy. She had always told him to perform this saying right as he awoke on the first day of every month, and that he would have good luck for the rest of the month. By the end of the month, she told him that he would receive a present. This present could have been mental, physical, or any other form of present possible. If it were his birth month, he would have “extra luck”, according to his mother. She had always told him that the tradition had followed her family from back in England, where it is a popular saying. It was also popular, she said, on the east coast where she had grown up. Their family then brought it to Oregon, where they now reside.

My informant remembered a specific time when he realized that it was a rather unfamiliar saying in Portland. “I guess I had always just thought that everybody said it” he noted, “but whenever it would be the first of the month and I would say it with my friends, they would always give me a weird look and ask me what I was doing”. But, the informant said, that didn’t stop him from saying it. “I would always just laugh”, he said, “and think to myself how much luckier I would be than them that month”.

I had never heard this specific piece of folklore before my interview with my informant. I, therefore, have relied on his telling of its history as accurate. I believe it is a typical good luck omen.

Passover

Nationality: American
Age: 90
Occupation: Teacher (Retired)
Residence: Portland, OR
Performance Date: 4/18/12
Primary Language: English

1)   My informant for this ritualistic folklore was my grandmother, Sylvia. She was born and raised Jewish, her maiden name being Gelwasser, and discussed with me her family ritual of Passover. She stated that “for as long as I can remember, we’ve always celebrated Passover. For the most part, we’ve always celebrated it the same way”. She says that Passover is the celebration of the Jewish people escaping the wrath of the Egyptian Pharaoh in the time of Moses. She discussed that she remembered that as a child, growing up in New York, she would attend temple in the evening and head to her grandparents house in the Jewish area of the city where her grandmother had made matzah ball soup and beef brisket for a family dinner. They would follow along an old book, performing prayers and rituals with food, wine, and water that would commemorate the days where the Jews were able to escape Egypt. Her grandparents would hide the Afi-Komen, a special piece of matzah, somewhere around the house, and the child that found it was rewarded with a fifty-cent piece.

She says that now, she performs the same rituals and traditions with her children and grandchildren. She prepares the same meals of matzah ball soup and beef brisket, and the family reads a “very similar” prayer book in the evening. She said “I’m sure that many families have begun to celebrate Passover differently or in a more modern family. But for me, I have taken on the exact role of my grandmother, now that I am a grandmother of my own”.

She says that she thinks the tradition is rooted deep in Jewish history and, fact or not, she believes that the biggest part of the tradition is “to have faith and to bring families and friends together”.

For the most part, I agree with Sylvia in believing that this holiday is about keeping tradition and bringing family closer together. I am impressed that the tradition has managed to stay the same over so many generations in her family, and am curious to see whether that will be the case in the coming generations.

The Meaning of Greens

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

This piece of folklore is actually a custom among Marijuana smokers. This custom states that whenever it is someone’s first time smoking that they get to “greens.” Greens is basically a name for a custom where a person gets to light the marijuana first whether it be in a pipe or a rolled up joint. My informant states that he heard this through his friend who is a big fan of marijuana. He states that offering the person who either put the weed in the pipe or rolled a joint is a huge deal and demonstrates a large amount of respect for the person that did the tasks.

He states that greens is important to smokers as it demonstrates their kindness and also is a common courtesy for guests when the smoke for the first time or smoke with the group for the first time. He states that it is comparable to offering someone a drink of water when they enter your home. He also states that by explaining greens and passing it on, that everyone now is a part of it and keeps the cycle going.

I think this is a very interesting piece of folklore due to the stereotypes users of marijuana have in our culture. They are known as lazy and selfish people, yet this illustration demonstrates that friendship and courtesy that there is in smoking. It is also interesting that the drug culture always seem to have rituals or ways of order to not mess something up. It basically proves that among drug users that there is a personal courtesy or secrecy among them, thus users can decipher first timers from consistent users easily. For example if a first-timer did not offer greens or did not know what greens was.