Title: Touching the Homecoming Bonfire

General Information about Item:

• Initiation Ritual
• Dartmouth College
• Informant: Anonymous
• Date Collected: November 5th, 2018

Informant Data

• Due to the legal fallout stemming from the incident, the informant would like to remain anonymous. The informant is a close personal friend of mine who is also a Dartmouth Student in the graduating class of 2021.

Contextual Data

• Cultural Context: I interviewed the informant in his dorm’s common room at Dartmouth College. Anonymous was repeatedly told to touch the homecoming bonfire by many upper-classmen in the weeks leading up to it. When he was running on the green around the 2017 homecoming bonfire, he decided to try and touch it, but the Hanover police tackled him, and he was arrested.

Item

• During homecoming, freshman are told by upperclassmen to touch the fire, despite the fact that they can be injured or arrested. A class is called the “worst class ever” if it does not have a member who touches the fire. Several people have touched the fire in years past out of their own volition. It is a very difficult task to touch the fire, as doing so involves climbing a 10-foot tall fence and evading security officers and Hanover Police Officers. Many students have gotten caught attempting to touch the fire in years past and faced consequences from both the Police and Dartmouth College. However, in 2018, no freshman touched the bonfire due to increased security measures.

• In order to best protect the informant’s anonymity, I left out the audio file and transcribed the interview instead.
• Interviewer: Alright, so let’s start with the obvious question. Why did you want to touch the fire?
• Informant: For the weeks leading up to it a lot of upperclassmen had talked to me about it and kind of made it seem they painted it as a very old Dartmouth tradition that was being threatened by the current administration. It’s actually only a 5 or 6-year-old tradition, but they kind of painted as this very old Dartmouth tradition that Phil Hanlon was trying to destroy. I had almost a contrarian impulse that I had to stop that and like because I hate when Dartmouth administrators try to change Dartmouth, well change isn’t always but, but I hate it when they change the things that people love about it. For example, the bonfire itself is just like this great unique thing that everybody loves.
  But now, this year, like it’s such a far cry from what it once was.
• Interviewer: Can you walk me through what happened your freshman homecoming?
• Informant: So, I didn’t think that I would actually do it so in the weeks leading up I kind of jokingly told everyone “ I’m going to do it.” Then the night of, I essentially was just running around a bunch of times people were screaming at me like screaming at everyone like touch the fire. And I guess In the Heat of the Moment I just did it you know. It wasn’t even really like thought our planned it out because, well, I obviously got caught.

Analysis

• Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In accordance with the old tradition, the separation stage of this initiation ritual occurs when the freshman class isolates itself from the rest of the student body and runs laps around the homecoming bonfire. The transition stage occurs when the freshman class proves their bravery and touches the fire. Finally, the incorporation stage occurs after the bonfire when the upperclassmen have gained more respect for the freshman class due to the bravery they displayed during the bonfire, and generally stop referring to them as the worst class ever

Meaning and interpretation

• Touching the bonfire is a freshman tradition that had occurred for several years before the increased security measures in 2018. It acted as an opportunity for Dartmouth’s freshman to come together as a class by supporting and cheering on their classmates brave enough to touch the fire. Additionally, the stories and legends about the students who touched the fire served as a way for Dartmouth students to bond with one another.

• Comparison:
  • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. Obviously, the main similarity with these initiation rituals is that they all have the three phases of initiation rituals: separation, transition, and incorporation. Another similarity between most of these rituals is that they are experienced by freshmen. A student’s freshman year is a time learn about his or her new community and the traditions that form its unique culture. Freshman year is also the time that most students join the clubs or sports teams that they will be most involved in throughout their Dartmouth careers. Therefore, it makes sense that so many of the Dartmouth social initiation rituals take place during the freshman year, such as the touching the fire ritual. The homecoming bonfire and many of the rituals in our subgroup also involve helping them feel comfortable in their new community and connecting them both with their own classmates and with the upperclassmen.
  • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and rums each initiation ritual. Sometimes these rituals are set up and funded by the Dartmouth administration, and sometimes they are student-run. Another difference is the duration of each ritual. Some social spaces take a while to initiate into or involve various different rituals to initiate new members, while others only require one short ritual. 
  

Transcript

• The informant on how touching the bonfire acted as an initiation ritual “I really feel like because touching the fire was an event that was exciting and that the whole class experienced together, it definitely helped bring the class closer both with each other and with the upperclassmen.”

• Collector: J.P. Mortenson, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018
  

• Tags/Keywords:
  • Initiation
  • Ritual
  • Homecoming Bonfire
  • Freshman class
  • Dartmouth