Monthly Archives: May 2016

Animal House

Animal House
Informant Name: Anonymous
Date Collected: May 27th, 2016
Place Collected: First floor Berry
Genre of Folklore: Legend
Informant Data: The informant is an anonymous Sophomore. His major is Computer Science.
Contextual Data: The informant saw AD, but AD was derecognized when he came to Dartmouth.
Item: “Animal House is a commonly-watched movie among Dartmouth students and alum. It depicts a rowdy, and often intoxicated, group of men. These men belong to the Alpha Delta fraternity and partake in drunkenly activites. John “Bluto” Blutarsky is the main character of this movie and is famous for the iconic photo of his chugging Jack Daniels in front of a American flag.”
Interpretation: This movie depicts AD as a rowdy, drunkely, disordely, and unhygenic fraternity. In the movie, the fraternity has many confrontations with the administration. Eventually, they are put on “double-secret probation”, which is equivalent to expulsion. In real life, the fraternity has had presumably a similarly rowdy behavior. This has lead to the current administration derecognizing them.
 
Collected by:
 
Sam Siegel
Dartmouth College
HB 4024
Hanover, NH 03755
Professors Victoria Somoff & Mikhail Gronas
Russian 13: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds; 16S

Stinson Keg Transport Tradition

Title: Stinson Keg Transport Tradition

Informant info: Jack Stinson was born and raised in Hanover, NH. He runs his family’s beer store Stinson’s Village.

Type of lore: Customary, tradition

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Jack Stinson was interviewed inside his store.  He has experienced the revelries associated with Homecoming for the last few decades.

Item: There used to be a tradition of hiring football and hockey players to transport kegs for Jack during homecoming weekend. Jack would pay these athletes, and they would bring the heavy kegs to the Greek houses for their parties during homecoming. This tradition ended with new college restrictions on kegs.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript (if verbal lore): N/A

Informant’s comments: Jack also recounted how the evolution of kegs to cans has occurred at Dartmouth. He told us about how the rate of alcohol consumption on campus has dropped with the evolution of cans.

Collector’s comments: The informant seems to remember the story very fondly.

Tags/Keywords: homecoming, kegs, drinking, stinsons

Swim Team Wearing Swimsuits

Title: Swim Team Wearing Swimsuits

Informant info: Cody Pennypacker is a member of the Class of 2018 at Dartmouth college. He is a Biology major.

Type of lore: customary, Genre: ritual

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Homecoming is a major events not just to students, but to athletic teams as well.

Item: The swim team freshmen will run around the bonfire in just their swimsuits.

Associated file: See interview file

Transcript: (Beginning is somewhat garbled) -There was a kid who thought it was a good idea to have like, a handle of vodka on him when he touched the fire. Also…(pause), yeah, so apparently, uhm, I’m not on either of the teams, but uh, when the freshmen run the laps around the fire…uh, apparently the swim team has to run in their swim suits the whole way, and the track team runs all the laps that they have to do (garbled)…2018, so 118 laps around the fire, which comes out to be a lot of miles around this hot burning campfire in the middle of the night.

Informant’s comments: This is somewhat of an initiation for the members of this team. Everyone has done it and so they must do it.

Collector’s comments: We believe other teams require similar tasks.

Tags/Keywords: Swim team, Swim suits, bonfire, homecoming

Initiation, Laps, Homecoming, Bonfire,

 

Harassing the Harvard Band

Title: Harassing the Harvard Band

Informant info: Keaton Renta is a current member of the class of 2016. He is 21 years old and from South California.

Type of lore: Urban legend

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Keaton Renta was interviewed inside his room.  He has experienced football game four times (once each of his years in college Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior), and heard about the gille suit-band incident from friends.

Item: Each year, during homecoming there is a football game. It is a tradition at half time for freshmen to hop the banister and rush the field during half time. Usually, the freshmen just run across the field. However, there are stories about how some students took the tradition further one year. They dressed up in a sniper’s gille suit and proceeded to harass the Harvard band attempting to play their half time show.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Informant’s comments: The informant described the legend from the perspective that he heard from his friends.

Collector’s comments: The informant seem to remember the story very fondly.

Tags/Keywords: homecoming, football, football game, marching band

 

Athletic Teams Running All Laps

Title: Athletic Teams Running All Laps

Informant info: Cody Pennypacker is a member of the Class of 2018 at Dartmouth college. He is a Biology major.

Type of lore: customary, Genre: ritual

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Homecoming is a major events not just to students, but to athletic teams as well.

Item: Certain teams at Dartmouth require the freshmen on the team to run the total 100 + their class year laps around the bonfire. They will often do this together as a team.

Associated file: See interview file

Transcript: (Beginning is somewhat garbled) -There was a kid who thought it was a good idea to have like, a handle of vodka on him when he touched the fire. Also…(pause), yeah, so apparently, uhm, I’m not on either of the teams, but uh, when the freshmen run the laps around the fire…the track team runs all the laps that they have to do (garbled)…2018, so 118 laps around the fire, which comes out to be a lot of miles around this hot burning campfire in the middle of the night.

Informant’s comments: This is somewhat of an initiation for the members of this team. Everyone has done it and so they must do it.

Collector’s comments: Cody seemed bemused when he described this event to me.

Tags/Keywords: Laps, Homecoming, Bonfire, Athletic teams

Rushing the Field

Title: Rushing the Field

Informant info: Charles Cai is a current member of the class of 2016. He is 21 years old and from Princeton, NJ.

Type of lore: Customary, traditional

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Charles was interviewed outside his dorm. He has experienced the football game four times (once each of his years in college Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior).

Item: Each year, during homecoming there is a football game. It is a tradition at half time for freshmen to hop the banister and run across the field during half time. Previously, only a few freshmen would rush the field since it would typically involve evading security. However, security generally allows the tradition currently.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript (if verbal lore): N/A

Informant’s comments: Informant has rushed the field his freshmen year and watched subsequent classes also rush the field.

Collector’s comments: Rushing the field was an important and bonding experience for his freshmen friends. Rushing the field was previously a bigger deal than it currently is as security now allows freshmen to rush the field unmolested.

Tags/Keywords: homecoming, football, football game, rushing the field

Fork in the Tray

1. Title: Fork in the Tray

2. Informant info:

Chris Boone is an student at Dartmouth, part of the class of 2017. He is from Trumbull, Connecticut, and is studying government. He was a trip leader for some of the incoming freshmen. He tends to eat at Foco on most days.

3. Type of lore (Genre and Sub-genre): Customary, Superstition, Magic Superstition

4. Language: English

5. Country of Origin: Hanover, New Hampshire, United States

6. Social / Cultural Context: In most dining halls in Dartmouth, there are utensil dispensers that dispense plastic utensils one at a time. Sometimes, someone takes more than one fork and leaves the extra fork in the tray. When the next person comes to get a fork, there is a high chance that they will rather take a new fork than the one sitting in the tray. No one truly understands why people do this, but on certain days you can see multiple forks piled up in the dispenser tray in Novack Café.

7. Associated File: N/A

8. Transcript: N/A

9. Informant’s comments:

“Haha it is kinda funny how this is even a thing… I know I’m guilty of doing it a couple times. But when i go to get a fork from the dispenser and there is already one in there, it just makes me wonder… why was it left there? It just seemed… unclean… haha. It’s a very weird situation, many times i just tell myself ‘this is ridiculous’ and take the fork anyway. But I find it hilarious that people do this.”

10. Collector’s comments:

I believe the superstition of the fork in the tray exists due to a variety of aspects of the human psyche. The way I see it, when most people go up to the dispenser and see a fork already in there, they wonder “how long as the fork been there?” It could be anywhere between 30 seconds or all day. As the fork sits there, people assume its getting more and more unclean overtime, making it more desirable to just grab a new one from the dispenser. I just find it amazing how Dartmouth College students will drink beer after a ping pong ball that was recently rolling on floor of a fraternity basement falls into it, but refuse to grab that fork in the tray.

11. Tags/Keywords: Fork, Tray, DDS, Superstition, Magic

Salty Dog Rag

Title: Salty Dog Rag

 

 

Name of Folklore: Salty Dog Rag

Informant info: Informant Name: James Thompson, Location: Hanover, NH, Date: 5/16/16 Dartmouth student, male, Class of 2017, went on Cabin Camping Trip

Type of lore: Customary (Dance)

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.

Social / Cultural Context: Taught by Croo members during the beginning of trips while in Hanover, and again at the lodge.

Transcript: One of things that I remember most from trips was how much dancing, specifically the salty dog rag, was done on trips. The salty dog rag is this highly choreographed dance that you do with a partner. I don’t really remember much else specifically about it though.  We did it a few times during the day when we all first got to hanover, and I didn’t think much of it, just thought it was a weird dance that they were trying to do to help break the ice, but then we get to the lodge and like every 30 minutes or so they would just put on the song and everyone would start dancing on the lawn. It was kinda weird, and I’m not really a big dancer myself, but it was a good way to meet ppl because you always had to find a partner to dance, and it got everyone involved. By the end of trips I was kinda excited to dance to it again when I got back up for orientation, but it turns out its not a thing outside of trips. Kinda disappointing. 

 

Collector’s comments: The Salty dog rag seems to fit into the incorporation and initiation aspect of trips, since it’s not about the dance itself, but about getting people to meet others and be involved in the Dartmouth community.

Tags/Keywords:  Dance, Salty Dog Rag, Trips, Customary