Tag Archives: transition

The Nova Scotia Spirit

Nationality: American 

Age: 60 

Occupation: Writer 

Residence: Sherman Oaks, CA 

Performance Date: November 28, 2024

Primary Language: English

STORY: “I was in Nova Scotia staying at my parents’ house on a cove on the water, and my grandmother was very sick, and she was dying nearby at the hospital. And I’d been like two or three times, and it’s grueling. Everytime you leave it’s like you’re saying goodbye to someone for the last time; it’s hard. And she was very very sick. And so, I believe my mother was at the hospital, and I was standing on the dock, overlooking the cove, watching, like, dolphins and whales swim by, and I saw coming down from the sky, this…entity, like, almost like, with like…gossamer, flowing fabric behind it. Came tight down right in front of me, down into the water, up, around me, and then went away. And I was like ‘what the actual?’ And then my mother called and said that her mother just died. So I’m guessing maybe she was…saying goodbye.”

ANALYSIS: Seeing as this happened before the individual knew of her grandmother’s passing, it is less likely that the entity she witnessed was merely a manifestation of her grief, or a way to cope with her grandmother passing away. While it could’ve been subconscious, it is still unlikely. It is interesting, however, that the spirit described in this story with “gossamer, flowing fabric” that came from the sky, is eerily similar to a lot of modern Western visual interpretations of ghosts. It was not a corporal entity, nor one that resembled an animal, but a very traditional “ghost” of sorts. Nonetheless, it could be plausible that it was the ghost or the spirit or the soul of the individual’s grandmother saying goodbye one last time.

Coins on the Ground

Context:                                                    

O is a Pre-med biology major at USC, currently a freshman. O is a Vietnamese American who grew up in Vancouver, Washington — a short drive from Portland, Oregon. 

Text:

Me: Do you have anything you collect or do for good luck?

O: Yeah, actually I collect coins. Not just pennies, but like all kinds of coins.

Me: Really? How do you find them?

O: It’s really ridiculous, I just pick them up from the ground and keep them in my pocket, because I think they will bring me good luck.

Me: From the ground?

O: Yeah, they would be lying on the ground while I’m walking and I’ll pick them up, put them in my pockets.

Me: Do you keep the pennies forever?

O: No. I take them out and put them back on the ground once I think I don’t need the luck anymore. Like, the luck can go to someone else. 

Analysis:

O demonstrates some form of sympathetic magic. He connects receiving luck to picking up coins from the ground, both how lucky he is to find the coin and the luck the coin itself gives him. The luck O has that initially gives him the coin is somehow transferred into the coin, where there is some exchange between him and the coin that gives him luck with the penny as a conduit, collecting and releasing luck for anyone to pick up. The idea of quantifying luck or magic seems like contagious/contact magic, where magic or superstition can transfer from one person to the next with the penny is added as a middle man. Keeping the coin is somehow magic that ensures the luck will be sustained in him while giving it away is also magic, ensuring that luck will be passed on to the next person. If luck was the contagion of magic, the coin would be patient zero.

Spring

Main Piece:

“The geese are honking and the cranes are in the meadow”

Background Information:

The informant heard this from her parents when he was a child and it means that spring is here.

Context of the performance:

This is performed in the beginning of spring or during the transition from winter to spring. This is because in the open country or outside of the city where geese and cranes exist, spring is the time when the geese are honking and the cranes emerge and gather in the meadow.

My thoughts:

I think this piece definitely evokes imagery of what spring looks and sounds like. Everything is fresh and all of the animals are emerging from the winter and getting back to the normal way of things. That is why the geese are honking and the cranes are in the meadow. This is similar to having the groundhog signify the start of spring or decide that the winter will continue. There are many signifiers to the start of spring because winter is a very harsh time of year in many parts of the world because of the cold and the weather. That is why there are many rituals, traditions, sayings, and signals that define and celebrate the transition from winter to spring.

RUSSEFEIRING

Nationality: Norwegian
Age: 50
Occupation: Stay-at-home-mom
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 24, 2021
Primary Language: Norwegian
Language: English

MAIN PIECE: 

Informant: So Russefeiring is a celebration of graduates from high school… I guess high school, sort of… The age is kind of in between high school and college I think, ‘cause most of them are 18 or 19. Um, but, you know, they’re ending a three-year academic education. And so they celebrate in the week before Independence Day, where they, um…  They wear these special suits or coats through that whole time that they decorate and draw on and have their friends sign them and all kinds of crafty stuff. And then they have graduation hats that have this long string coming down. And during this week they have all these obstacle things that they have to do, and everything that they do gives them a little, kind of… Treat, or an award that they tie onto their hats. So let’s say you kiss the president of a school, then you get a knot in the string on your hat… And then if you drink a whole bottle of champagne in one, big gulp, um… Then you get a champagne uh–what’s it called…? The cork. And you tie that onto the string or into the hat… Like silly things, you know?

Interviewer: Can you talk a little bit about the different colors of the uniforms? 

Informant: Yeah so if you went to the schools where you, um, studied economy and finance… Then you were called blåruss… Like “blue russ,” and your hat’s blue. If you were into the STEM subjects, then your hat is red. And traditionally, if you… Went to a school that wasn’t strictly academic, like a trade school, then your hat would be black… I think you can study language, like Norwegian, at both schools, so it just depends on what school you went to.

Interviewer: Can you talk about the bus culture? 

Informant: So their last year, the year that they graduate, the students start early planning for their graduation and for this one week. So a lot of kids will get together and they will purchase a bus and then they will decorate the bus… It’s kind of a van more than a bus though. I would call it a van… And they will decorate it on the outside. They will usually ask a younger student who is not graduating if they will be willing to drive them around for that week.

Interviewer: And can you talk a bit about the drinking culture during that final week?

Informant: During that week the school knows this is happening. I mean, you still have to go to class, but people don’t take it that seriously. Because once Indepence Day has happened, everyone is studying. ‘Cause all the exams are after Independence Day. So before that it’s not really taken seriously. People are probably drunk in class. You don’t really go home that week… You sleep on the bus. You sleep wherever. You go home to shower every once in a while. Maybe. 

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: Our bus was both boys and girls… And I would imagine there were around ten of us, I think… You know, cause it costs money. We had to buy the bus and it costs money to fix it up a little bit… We didn’t have group names or get pins. I think a lot of people do now, but we didn’t.

Interviewer: Did you ever hear about your parents’ Russefeiring?

Informant: No, ‘cause none of them went to school like I did, you know? My mom didn’t go to that kind of school. And my dad, back then, he went to a sort of trade school, and he was much older when he did that. So they didn’t celebrate that way. Cause none of my parents were academic.

REFLECTION: 

Russefeiring is a celebration, commemorating the end of the students’ studies. It is also a rite of passage into adulthood. During this one week, debauchery and mischief are encouraged. The students become trickster figures, of a sort, as they act impulsively, break rules, and emphasize humor and fun above all. The students are in a liminal place, on the threshold between adolescence and adulthood, as they are not quite students any longer, but also have not yet graduated. They are unstable figures, as demonstrated by the mischief they enact. Russefeiring also seems to be a sort of catharsis before final exams. One might even consider it a catharsis preceding adulthood. Once they have graduated, they must find jobs or dive more seriously into their studies at professional schools (ex. medical school). Russefeiring is one last teenage-hurrah; it is a week of instability before the students have to become stable adults.

ANNOTATION:

Further reading:

Sande, Allan. “The Norwegian ‘russefeiring’. The Use of Alcohol as a Ritual in the ‘rite of Passage’ to Adulthood.” Nordisk Alkohol- & Narkotikatidskrift : NAT, vol. 17, no. 5-6, SAGE Publications, 2000, pp. 340–54, doi:10.1177/1455072500017005-603.

BACHELOR PARTY PRANK

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Sales representative and finisher for wood-flooring company
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: They chained a bowling ball to my leg… With a––with a, like chain. And I just kept telling them they had to remember not to push me in the pool that night… And they put me in a 12-year-old’s Superman costume. Like literally stuffed me into it, and everything was so far up my freaking crotch. So I was walking around the streets of Vegas in this Superman costume with a bowling ball chained to my leg. Like a ten- or twelve-pounder… Wasn’t like a kid’s ball.

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: It’s what’s expected, you know…? Especially with my friends, there’s always that… I think it boils down to just playfulness? Like close through playfulness, you know. Giving each other a hard time, teasing each other, playing a prank on each other. Um… ‘Cause we know that we can. We’re so close that we can do it to each other without it, you know, offending anybody or, you know, somebody taking it the wrong way, or, you know… I think it symbolizes… At least in my group of friends, like you know… You know that when…  You’re stuffed into a Superman costume that you’re part of the crew. You know? And everybody’s having a good time at your expense, and everyone––and you’re okay with that. Cause it’s… It’s going to be somebody else’s turn at some point. 

REFLECTION:

Bachelor parties are a transitional period where a man is neither married nor single. He is on the threshold of becoming a husband. Bachelor parties often involve pranks at the groom’s expense, as practical jokes mark initiations into new identities. In International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, Géza Róheim writes that there is a “tendency to punish the main actor of the drama,” with the groomsmen and bridesmaids “abreacting their Oedipal revolt in humorous, permissible form, against the new ‘father’-to-be” (273). Across cultures, the groom is clowned at the hands of the young people involved in the wedding party; he is being teased before entering his new, serious role as a man (which in some societies or families may entail becoming a patriarch, father, breadwinner, and head of the household).

In this specific case, pranks also showcase a closeness amongst the friends involved. The informant is part of a playful group of people who reveal their trust in one another through pranks. Being involved in the pranks demonstrates that you are part of the “in-group”––that you have earned their trust, and that you trust them––that they know you will respond to the prank in a certain manner (by finding it amusing and not upsetting). By pranking the informant, the men are not only marking the groom’s transition from bachelor to husband, but celebrating him as one of their own––he is still considered a part of the group, despite transitioning into a new identity. 

ANNOTATION:

Source cited above:

Róheim, Géza. “Wedding Ceremonies in European Folklore.” International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, by Alan Dundes, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, pp. 243–274.