Customary DMC Folklore
Talus and Bequests

Decker Wentz
Hanover, NH
May 22 2019

Informant Data:

Decker Wentz is a 20-year-old sophomore at Dartmouth College. He grew up just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Decker has been rock climbing with his dad since he was four years old. He would climb about monthly with his dad, going to climbing gyms but mostly climbing at various outdoors locations. In his senior year of high school, he began to really take ownership of climbing as an activity that he loved doing, not just one that he did with his dad. When he came to school at Dartmouth, it became one of the most important things in his life, as he joined the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club (DMC) and the Climbing Team. His first DMC trip was an ice climbing trip his freshman winter, and since then he has become more and more involved in the club. Decker is now a leader in the DMC and currently holds the position of chair. He has also been quite an involved member in the social aspects of both clubs.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: This piece of folklore was collected in a conversation with Decker at Baker-Berry library. Decker first learned about the custom of giving out Talus and bequests in a conversation with other members of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club his freshman year prior to it occurring that year. At the last feed of every spring (see item: The Feed), the members of the DMC honor their graduating seniors. Similar to every feed, members of the club come together and meet in the basement of Robinson Hall (“Robo”), but the last feed of the spring it is particularly meant to focus on the graduating seniors. The event is usually run by one of the chairs of the DMC.

• Cultural Context: This piece of folklore is exclusive to the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club in particular. It serves as a way to bring together the members of all class years to say thank you and goodbye to the departing seniors, giving them something to remember their time in the club as well as having them give back to it one last time. It also gives the seniors an opportunity to say thank you to those younger than them and offer some departing remarks and recognize some of the relationships that are important to them and have been made possible as a result of the DMC.

Text:

The last feed of the spring term every year is focused on the graduating senior class. In a form of give-and-take, the members of the club give the seniors a parting gift in the form of the book Talus, and the seniors give bequests, which are usually items of clothing (but can be almost anything) that have been passed down through the club every year, and had previously been passed on to them. Talus is a book written by Dean Engle in 1993 which is mainly a history of the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club and describes all sorts of crazy exploits performed by past members of the DMC. Each senior’s copy of Talus is left out for a week prior to the last feed and made available for members of the club to sign and leave a note for the graduating senior, similar to a yearbook but often more personalized. At the feed itself, one club member will give a short speech to honor each senior and what they have meant to the club before giving them their copy of Talus as a way to remember their time in the club. After receiving their copy, each senior then gives back to the club by bequeathing all the club-specific items they have been given over their four years to underclassmen, often citing a reason for giving each one to each person in particular and recognizing relationships and people that have been particularly important to them and to the club as a whole. These are items that have a history of having been in possession of club members for a very long time, continuously getting passed down from graduating members back to younger members in the club. In this sense, the last feed serves as a bit of a give-and-take, fosters continuity within the club, and gives recognition to the seniors as well as giving them a way to remember their time in the club.

Sam Drew, Age 20
Hinman Box 0250, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
Russian 013
Spring 2019