Title: Kill the Principal

General Information about Item:

• Verbal Lore, Joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: Marshall Islands
• Informant: Sanders Leon
• Date Collected: 10-27-18

Informant Data:

• Sanders is a native to the Marshall Islands. He was born in the Marshall Islands on the capital Majuro. Sanders moved to the Hawaiian Islands in the United states when he was five years old. He spent two years serving a mission for his church in Texas with Marshallese people.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: The Marshall Islands are a part of the larger Micronesian island group and are largely surrounded by water. The typical diet of the Marshallese people includes a lot of fresh fish, tropical fruits and nuts. The Marshallese Public School system is similar to the United States in that the system is a network of elementary schools that are guided by central guidelines but managed by an internal leadership staff.
• Social Context: The interviewee heard this joke when he was a kid on the Marshall Islands. He was educated at a young age in Majuro where the country’s public school system is headquartered. For young Marshallese children, jokes and other forms are verbal lore are sometimes used as educational tools for learning the language.

Item:

• English Translation of the Joke:

In school one teacher was teaching his class. He said follow me. “Banana taste good”

Then the class said “banana taste good”

Now coconut “coconut taste good”

Then the class said “coconut taste good”

Pandanus?

Then the class said “pandanus taste good”

Breadfruit?

Then the class said “breadfruit taste good”

In the class the teacher saw a rat, then he yelled “kill the rat!”

The class also yelled out “kill the rat”

The principal hearing the teacher came to see if there was any problem.

The teacher saw the principal and said “principal!”

Then the class yelled out “kill the principal”

• The joke is sort of a play on words, or rather a play on the situation. You can see the prevalence of foods that are important in Marshallese culture. Particularly the mention of pandanus and breadfruit which are fruits native to the old world tropics and the south Pacific region of the world.

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

Transcript:

• “Mā”? Im class eo raar ba ‘enno mā.’ Ilo class eo rikaki eo eaar lò juon kijirik. I’m eaar lamuj ñan class eo ‘mane kijirik eo.’ Im class eo raar ba ‘mane kijirik eo.’

  Principle eo eaar roñ rikaki eo I’m eaar tal im lale ewōr ke joran. Rikaki eo eaar lo principle eo im ba ‘principle!’ Im class eo raar ba ‘mane principle eo!’

Informant’s Comments:

• This joke was something from the informants childhood that stayed with him. He enjoyed the joke when he was young and still enjoys telling it today.

Collector’s Comments:

• The joke may seem kind of silly, however, this is just the type of humor that would thrive in a group of young school children. The food elements of the joke make it distinctly Marshallese, but the punchline is one that could be familiar in many cultures.

Collector’s Name: Jimmy McHugh

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore
• Joke
• Marshall Islands
• Elementary School
• Teacher
• Principal
• Fruit
• Food

Title: Swimming with Sharks

General Information about Item:

• Verbal Lore, Joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: Marshall Islands
• Informant: Karson Alder
• Date Collected: 10-28-18

Informant Data:

• Karson was born in Dayton, ID. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Many men in his church serve full-time two year missions when they leave high school. Karson spent his two year mission in Texas with the Marshallese people. He learned the language in his time there and became very fond of the language and the people.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: The Marshall Islands are a part of the larger Micronesian island group and are largely surrounded by water. Fishing and Boating are a central part of Marshallese culture, and the islands are home to the largest shark sanctuary in the world. The sanctuary spans over 2 million square kilometers and sharks are frequently encountered when fishing off the shores of the Marshall Islands.
• Social Context: The interviewee was a native English Speaker who learned Marshallese while serving a mission trip with native speakers. The joke was told to him by a native Marshallese speaker and served as a way to connect the interviewee with the locals as well as educate him on the culture of the Marshall islands.

Item:

• This is a Marshallese joke about a man who falls overboard during a fishing trip. His cries out for help are misunderstood by the two other fisherman on the boat above and he is eaten by sharks because of this.

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

Transcript:

• “Alright, here goes the joke; Three guys are fishing on a canoe, and they’re fishing for sharks. And so one of them goes down, and he dives down, and, um, and he ends up getting, like, eaten by sharks, but he tries to say ‘Jipañ! Jipañ!’ and then the bubbles go up to the other two who are waiting on the boat, and all they hear is *Jibong* *Jibong* from the, from the bubbles. And so, they don’t save him and he dies.”

Informant’s Comments:

• This was a joke that was told to the informant at the start of his mission as he was learning the Marshallese language. It was a fun way to learn about the language and the prevalence of onomatopoeia in Marshallese language and culture.

Collector’s Comments:

• The joke here is a great one for people outside of Marshallese culture to analyze and appreciate because it was collected in English, so that outsiders can understand it, but it also includes aspects of the Marshallese language. You can see the importance of Marshallese fishing and ocean culture, as well as the use of onomatopoeia, or “sound-associated” words, that is present in the language.

Collector’s Name: Jimmy McHugh

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore
• Joke
• Fishing
• Boating
• Sharks
• Marshall Islands
• Onomatopoeia