General Information:

• Customary Lore (the throwing), Material Lore (the bouquet)
• Language: English
• Region of Origin: England
• Informant: Kathryn Conway
• Date Collected: 5/22/19

Informant:
Kathryn Conway is a 62 year old woman brought up in a Scottish, roman catholic household. She was married in a traditionally catholic wedding in 1986. She worked as a mechanical engineer before retiring in 1997 and she has lived in the northeast of America all her life.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: Like many other wedding tradition this brings people together for a humerus and fun activity. Typically all adult, unmarried women participate and it occurs at the end of the reception. The event requires very little planning and can be spur of the moment.
• Cultural Context: This tradition shows clear elements of contagion magic. The bride is handing off an item closely linked to her good fortune and married status to unmarried women, in the hope that they too will be lucky. It also brings the bride together with other unmarried women in a group for the last time and separates her from the group she was recently a part of.

Item:

At the end of the reception the bride gathers all the unmarried women and turns her back. She then throws her wedding bouquet behind her and who ever catches it is said to be the next one to be married. Ms Conway did not personally participate in this at her wedding as her bouquet was not real flowers and she wanted to keep it. However she saw it done at many friends weddings and participated. The mood during this is generally jovial and the participants do not take it too seriously.

Collector: Rebecca Conway

Note: this photo is not Ms Conway’s and is a stock photograph.

Simrit Singh
Hanover, NH
May 2019

Informant Data:
Simrit Singh, “Sim,” is a Dartmouth ’19 majoring in Economics and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies. She attended the Beijing Language Study Abroad at Beijing Normal University in the fall of 2016. Sim is from Utica, New York. Her family is of Sikh heritage.

Contextual Data:
The informant has an interest in East Asian studies from an academic and cultural perspective. She is fluent in Chinese and familiar with Zodiacs

Cultural Context:
I interviewed Sim as a subject of our Folklore Collection Project as I knew she had visited China for an extended amount of time and had learned about Chinese Zodiac Folklore there for the first time. We met in person for the interview.

Item:
Sim was at a weekend market in Beijing, where many of the vendors were selling various items, including small trinkets and clothing with Zodiac themes. Sim inquired as to the meaning of the various Zodiac symbols, and the woman selling the items explained Zodiac superstitions and a few personality traits associated with some of the animals. She asked Sim what year she was born in, and Sim replied that she was born in 1997. The woman told Sim that she was an ox, and gave her some insights on her compatibility, and recommended she marry a man born in the year of the snake or the dragon. Sim purchased a small wood-carved, painted ox from her stand.

Collector’s Comments:
I found this story very interesting. Sim was learning about the Zodiacs for the first time, and she commented that the lady seemed very happy to explain the context behind the Zodiacs in casual conversation even to someone who is not Chinese. This suggests that Chinese natives apply the Zodiacs to everyone, regardless of heritage, and believe that all should adhere to the beliefs of the Zodiac. I also found the commercial use of the Zodiacs interesting, and their artistic possibilities and the value they add visually and culturally.

Collector’s Name: Lillian Jin

Lillian Jin
2133 Hinman
Hanover, NH
03755

Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring 2019

General Information about Item:

• Material Lore (the items themselves), Verbal Lore (The common phrase)
• Language: English
• Region of Origin: Victorian Era, England
• Informant: Kathryn Keenan
• Date Collected: 5/23/19

Informant Data:

Kathryn Keenan is a 29 year old woman, originally from Albany, NY and was raised in an irish catholic household with many brothers and sisters. She is currently in her residency to be an Emergency pediatric doctor in Buffalo, NY. She was married to Michael Keenan, also a doctor, in the Spring of 2018.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: The practice of completing all of these items is common at American weddings and she not sure when she heard about it first. Though not superstitious about the items, she found butting them all together to be a fun challenge
• Cultural Context: By having people carry something ‘old’ and something ‘borrowed’, the link between generations is strengthened. This connects the bride to the people who have supported her and allowed her to be here today. There is also a level of sympathetic magical belief, as the bride selects items that have a joyful family history, such as lace from a successful marriage’s wedding dress.

The Item:

Ms Keenan used her wedding dress as something new as she felt it was a unique way to express herself and she wanted a modern style. As her something old she used the lace from her husband’s grandmother’s wedding dress and wrapped it around her bouquet. This connects herself and her husband’s family. For her something borrowed she used a diamond bracelet from her mother. Her something blue was a painting she asked her friend to do on the bottom of her shoe. Her friend painted “I Do” and the date of their wedding. She intentionally choose to have an item from each family and one from a friend as those were the groups she felt had supported her and that she wanted to incorporate into the wedding.

Collector: Rebecca Conway

Chinese Zodiac Folklore
“The Great Race and a Monkey Personality”

Francis Jin
New York, NY
May 20 2019

Informant Data:
Francis Jin is my biological older brother. He is 27 years old and grew up in Atlanta, GA before attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He currently lives in New York, NY, working as a proprietary trader. Although his career is in finance, Francis’s hobbies revolve around culture and travel. He has been to all countries in East Asia, and many in Europe and Southeast Asia. He maintains a lively social media presence and often provides travel recommendations to his followers. Through his excursions, he has formed an understanding of Chinese cultural traditions and is strongly influenced by his Chinese-American heritage. Francis’s parents are from Shanghai, China, and Harbin, China. They both immigrated to the U.S. for their graduate degrees in the 80s. Francis was born in the U.S. and has traveled to Asia for weeks at a time for vacation and to visit relative.

Contextual Data:
I interviewed Francis as a subject of our Folklore Collection Project as I thought he might have some insights into the ways in which Chinese Zodiac Folklore is characterized by Chinese culture and perhaps the sociocultural psyche. Having spent a significant amount of time in East Asia, but having grown up in the United States, Francis is ideal for being able to provide a widespread and thoughtful perspective of the unique factors that might inform Zodiac folklore and the societal understanding of it. I called him on the phone to ask him a few questions.

He was generally familiar with the story of The Great Race, which determined the order of the Zodiacs. He also spoke about the significance of this story in Chinese culture, most of his points being speculative and anecdotal, but reflective of his experience as a Chinese-American.

Cultural Context:
[I have recorded the story here as accurately as possible, but because of Francis’s colloquial way of speaking to me, much of the content is stylized and formalized in my own words.]

The story of The Great Race informs both the order of the Zodiacs and the character traits of the people who are of those Zodiacs. The most popular idea is that the rat snuck onto the Ox since the Ox is the fastest of the zodiacs and jumped forward at the last minute, so it is first in the cycle. There are other elements of the story as well, including the rabbit hopping closely behind and the dragon or horse stopping for various reasons and therefore coming in later. People born in the year of the rat, then, tend to be cunning and deceitful, and people born in the year of the ox can be a little more naïve but kind.

Social Context:
The Chinese Zodiacs are distinct from Western horoscope-type legends in many ways. First, they are based on the lunar calendar despite the fact that China utilizes the solar calendar. Chinese Zodiacs play little to no role in popular culture today; many Americans have “horoscope apps” or regularly check their daily horoscope. Zodiacs are barely a part of daily Chinese social culture; they are viewed as an item of the past, an ancient legend associated with the dynastic era. Its use of the lunar year instead of the solar year contributes to this view of Zodiac folklore.

Sometimes, older individuals with Chinese heritage may make remarks that a person behaves a certain way, or performed a certain action, because of their Zodiac personality. To the younger generation, though, this is generally myth and simply an interesting, creative way of justifying personality traits. For example, as a child, Francis was often told by relatives that he was silly, naughty, and energetic because he was born in the year of the monkey.

Finally, Chinese Zodiacs’ main significance today is “celebrating” that it is “your” year. Every twelve years, an individual has one year that is the year of his or her zodiac. This is said to be a special year that brings fortune and pride.

Lillian Jin

2133 Hinman
Hanover, NH
03755

Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring 2019

Title: The Healing Eggs

General Information about Proverb:

• Customary Lore: Egg Healing Magic Superstition
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Antonio Flores
• Date Collected: May 20, 2019

Informant Data:

• Antonio Flores was born and raised in a barrio near Corpus Christi, Texas in the 1950s. Both of his parents passed away at this young age and his brothers and him worked on a cotton farm to make a living. His extended family also farmed and would help him and his brothers out.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context

Aaron collected this folklore when on the phone with his Grandfather Antonio, where they discussed his life as well as folklore passed down to him from his farming background. Due to the circumstances of his father’s early passing, Antonio’s folklore was learned mainly from his extended family or when he worked at the cotton farm. He often describes them as “Old Indian Tricks” due to his Native American ethnicity. His Tia Eva served as a surrogate doctor due to their occupation and circumstance and this is most likely something that has been in the Flores family for many years. This serves as a kind of magical superstition because if one does A(rubbing the eggs) the B(the subject will be healed) will happen.

• Cultural Context

The main reason for this practice in the Flores family was due to their socio-economic status in the 1950’s. They couldn’t afford a doctor so they had to use other means. Due to their status as low-income Hispanic farmers they most likely faced many external pressures which lead them to develop these practices. By avoiding doctors they most likely used these superstitions instead.

Item:

“When I was a young boy, about eight years old or so I came down with a real bad stomach ache and fever. My brothers and I were all farmers so we didn’t know what to do. We were poor so we couldn’t afford a doctor so we had to make do My Tia Eva came over and she said that she could heal my stomach sickness. She took out about ten to twelve eggs and one by one rubbed the cool eggs on my stomach to heal me. She said that the sickness was being absorbed into the eggs and the coolness of the eggs was being transferred into my stomach. Sure enough the next day I felt healthy again and my stomach stopped hurting. ”

Collector’s Name: Aaron Flores

Title: French Farming Meal Proverb

General Information about Proverb:

• Oral Lore: French Farming Meal Proverb
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: France
• Informant: India Cutler
• Date Collected: May 14, 2019

Informant Data:

• India Cutler was born and raised in McLean, Virginia; she is currently a sophomore at Dartmouth College and she works at the Dartmouth Organic Farm. This passion for farming started when she decided to go on a farming trip across Europe in the summer of 2018. During this trip she farmed in France and Germany most notably the towns of Le Pompidou and Corsica(Ole Rousse). Here she subsistence farmed with a number of host families where she learned how to farm as well as common farming practices and folklore.

Contextual Data:

Social Context

India stated that she heard this proverb when initially meeting her first host family in Le Pompidou. She stated that this proverb is something that has been passed down from generation to generation in the farm and is also told to each farmer that comes and works for them. She said it is almost a rite of passage to be able to work on the farm because the specific eating structure allows them to work efficiently in the farm. In the morning they need a large meal before working on the fields, then for lunch they need an even bigger meal because no only have they been working for hours but they also need to refuel for the next work session at the farm. For dinner they eat a small snack like meal to hold them over for the morning. She explained how they truly utilized their calories for work and didn’t simply eat for fun or just because they were hungry; there was always a purpose and reason for most of what they did on the farm.

Cultural Context

It is quite difficult to understand the cultural implications of this proverb when taken out of a utilitarian context and equally difficult to trace this to a certain cultural phenomena tied to the chronology and portion of meals in French farming folklore. What I have found interesting is that this proverb is not a unique one and is often now cited in scientific articles and a similar eating structure is even called to “Eat Like an Egyptian” by History.com. It is interesting to investigate whether this proverb spread through monogenesis like a language, diffusion like migration of cultural traits, or polygenesis a form of convergent validity.

Item:

“Eat like a king in the morning, like an emperor for lunch, and like a peasant in the evening”

Collector’s Name: Aaron Flores