Category Archives: Celebrations

Homecoming Parties

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Title: Homecoming Parties

Informant info: Courtney Ligh is a current member of the class of 2016. She is 21 years old and from New York, NY.

Type of lore: Customary, traditional, celebrations

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: Courtney was interviewed in her dorm. She has experienced the bonfire three times (once her freshman year and twice her junior/senior years).

Item: Each year, during homecoming weekend, different Greek houses will throw the same parties. For example, Sigma Phi Epsilon throws “pop punk” party every year the Thursday before homecoming. This party consists of playing only pop punk genre music and dancing in their basement. Kappa Delta Epsilon will also throw “tackiez” party every year the Wednesday before homecoming. This party consists of dressing in tacky clothes.

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

Transcript (if verbal lore): N/A

Informant’s comments: Informant has gone to each pop punk party every homecoming she has been here. It is typically very full of people every time.

Collector’s comments: These parties are thrown every year on homecoming, but are sometimes also thrown on other occasions.

Tags/Keywords: homecoming, parties, greek houses

Pin Hitting

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Title: Pin Hitting

Informant info: Michael Rodriguez. Informant attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Informant enlisted in the Army in 2003 and was a member of the 1st Battalion 8th Marines Bravo Company, which is an infantry military unit. He was stationed out of camp Lejeune North Carolina. Informant served in Iraq from June 2004 to December 2004. He was awarded a Purple Heart. He was from a military family, as well. Informant is 31 years old.

Type of lore: Customary Lore, Tradition, Ceremony

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was asked if there were any traditions or celebrations related to the military. He claimed that during promotion ceremonies after the person being promoted was given a pin there would not be a stopper on the back to prevent the pin from stabbing the person. While this was happening the close friends also in the military would come up to the person and hit on top of the pin to stab the person. By the end of the night the person would have “snake bites” on his chest.

Associated file: Pin Hitting

Transcript: “They used to, you know, we used to get promoted they would uh…like corporal or something like that they don’t.. there’s these little stoppers that go on the back of the pin so obviously you don’t stab yourself, ummm, for your ring. But when you do the promotion, you don’t put those stoppers on and so like what used to happen back in the day is like you’d get them pinned on and like everyone afterwards would like very quickly would come up and like (makes hitting motion on chest) ‘How you doin’ Mike? How you don’ Rodriguez’ and so your constantly by the end you get these two little stab wounds.. these two little snake bites on either side of your neck and your chest.”

Informant’s comments: This tradition has been dying down as well because of the connection to hazing.

Collector’s Comments: During the interview he banged his chest to indicate what it looked like.

 

Pushing Coach into Pool

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  1. Title: Pushing Coach into Pool after a Win
  2. Informant: Andrew North, 24, Male.  Andrew North was a four year member of the Dartmouth Men’s Swimming and diving team. In his fourth year on the team he served as one of two captains of the men’s team. He has lived across the US as well as internationally; contributing to his broad knowledge of the national and global swimming communities: his states of residence include Indiana, Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska as well as the Philippines. Andrew continued to swim in all of these places, spanning over more than a decade of competitive swimming.
  3. Customary: Celebration
  4. Language: English
  5. Country of Origin: United States
  6. Social / Cultural Context: This ritual would be performed after a victory in a competition at a high level.
  7. No audio, transcribed Skype interview.
  8. Transcript/ Text: “Well, there are a lot of pretty standard interactions between a swimmer and coach, whether it is at a meet or during practice.  But those are important all the standard symbols that you might see from a coach during a race. But something that was always really unique to swimming outside of that kind of day to day grind type stuff is that every other sports team dumps a gatorade bucket on their coach or water bucket on their coach when they win a championship, but swimming is different in that we push our Coach in the pool. I’ve always thought that was something really unique that swimmers do when they celebrate.”
  9. Informant’s comments:Andrew had also stated that he was on a very successful team in high school and they had celebrated in this fashion numerous times, however he did not have the opportunity to do so during his Dartmouth career.
  10. Collector’s comments: This ritual was especially unique to swimming as it involves a large body of water.
  11. Tags/ Keywords: Celebration

Marine Core Birthday Ball Celebration

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Marine Core Birthday Ball Celebration

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Title: Birthday Ball Celebration

Informant info: Craig Serpa, marine. He was stationed in San Diego.

Type of lore: Customary, Ritual, Celebration

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Craig Serpa was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Craig was asked about any folklore or stories related to his training. He described what he thought of as folklore and then told me about the Marine Birthday Ball Celebration. Every year the Marine Core holds a ball in order to celebrate the birthday of the marine core. At every birthday, there is a cake cutting ceremony where the oldest marine and the youngest marine are honored by getting the first pieces of cake, which represents passing on tradition from the old to the new. The also play the commandants message.

Associated file:

Transcript:

Interviewer: Well now I have fun things to talk about. Did you hear any ghost stories, during training or while you were stationed. So its all about folklore—so any ghost stories related, or really any stories at all—legends, myths, related to your base camp or training experience.

C: So when I think of folklore, I think of passed down oral traditions. Mainly. The marine core actually, we have, a specific marine core order that deals with the marine core birthday. Nov 10, 1775—have a birthday ball celebration every year, and its, they, part of the actual military order is we have a cake cutting ceremony and then the oldest marine and the youngest marine are honored in the cake cutting ceremony where they present themselves the first piece of cake and its supposed to resemble the passing on of the traditions from the oldest to the youngest marine and there’s always—you play the commandants message—birthday message is played every year. And they do the reading of the 14th commandant marine core—general Lejeune? Reread his birthday message as part of the military order now every single year. So that’s a past tradition, oral tradition.

Ghost stories? I would say no.

Informant’s comments: Craig told me that a celebration happens around the world no matter where you are. He said that for most marines, most of their fondest memories happened at this ball.

Collector’s comments: Craig was very excited to tell me about this tradition. He said that this was his favorite event of the year.

Dartmouth Review Gala

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Title: Dartmouth Review Gala

Informant Info: Brandon Gill is a President Emeritus of The Dartmouth Review. He is a ’16 from West Texas. He was interviewed on May 24, 2016 at the Review office in Hanover, NH.

Mene Ukueberuwa is an Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Dartmouth Review. He is a ’16 (formerly ’14) from Princeton, NJ. He was interviewed on May 12, 2016 at the Collis Center in Hanover, NH.

Type of Lore: Customary, Tradition

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: The Review Gala is a formal, black tie event that takes place in New York City every five years. It has been a tradition of the Review since its founding and brings together alumni, donors, and current staffers to celebrate the continuation of the paper.

 

Transcript:

Mene:

Yeah, we’re about to celebrate our 35th Anniversary Gala, these are celebrations that we have every 5 years, in New York City at the Union League Club down there.  So, very similar to our changeover dinner in a sense, it’s kind of a formal gathering of current staffers and our advisory board, but we also like to invite the broader Dartmouth Review family, so lots of our subscribers and supporters are going to be around.  The keynote address at the event is given by one of  our most famous alumni, that’s Laura Ingraham from the Class of ‘85.  We are going to be honoring our founder, Jeffrey Hart, and the contributions that he’s made to the paper.  He was an English professor here at Dartmouth who was in instrumental in getting the Review off the ground.  And again, it’s just going to be a kind of festive, lively environment, to celebrate the culture of the paper, so we’re all looking forward to that.

Brandon:

Yes, so the last Gala was the 30th Anniversary Gala. We have a Gala every 5 years, to bring back Dartmouth Review alumni we met in NYC for the 30th Anniversary Gala, we had Mr. Andrew Breitbart give a keynote address, and it was full of staff members and lots of alumni, and afterwards a significant portion of the staff went out with Mr. Breitbart and barhopped throughout Manhattan until about 4:00 AM and had a really, really good time, and there’s a lot of memories that maybe I shouldn’t repeat here.

So that’s the 35th Anniversary Gala that we had last weekend [May 14, 2016]. We had Ms. Laura Ingraham who is a Dartmouth ‘84, she gave the keynote address. We had a really high turnout, over about 130 people there, including about 100 alums from the Dartmouth Review and students and a few other people who were just big fans of the Review and the influence it’s had on the nation and on the conservative, intellectual movement across college campuses.

Collector’s Comments: The sequence of events for each Gala is published in an anniversary issue of the Review. As Brandon mentioned, the details of the occurrences at each Gala are not privy to the public and cannot be revealed.

EE Party

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Title: EE Party

Informant Info: Josie Nordrum is a 20 year-old junior undergraduate at Dartmouth College. She has been climbing for two years and is heavily involved with the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club. Josie was born in San Francisco, CA and still lives in Corte Madero, CA. She first learned to climb on her DOC Freshman Trip. Josie’s biggest climbing phobia is exposure. She loves the feeling of satisfaction after a good climb.

Date Collected: 5/15/16

Place Collected: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Type of Lore: Customary, Celebration

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social/Cultural Context: The EE party stands for the exotic and erotic party thrown by the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club at the end of winter term every year since 1995. It is a celebration of the last day of winter term and the beginning of spring climbing. This is especially important for climbers because in the winter climbers are only able to ice climb (ice climbing is not nearly as fun and much more dangerous than rock climbing).

Associated File:

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Lore: Due to the informant’s concerns, the specifics of the party were asked to be held secret. However, the party involves a pre-party ritual meant to bring every member into the right mindset for the night. Most members show up to the party drunk and wearing bizarre costumes made from any item but actual clothing. The party has no sexual undertones; it is simply a way to embrace oneself and have strictly platonic fun with friends.

Informant’s Comments: The EE party is a fun way to kick off the spring climbing season. It involves nudity and drinking, but is all in the spirit of fun, embracing oneself, and beginning the spring term. Celebration traditions include a email sent out every year to explain the party to the freshman and creative costumes. Some examples of the costumes worn to the party each year are just climbing rope and hallowed out pineapple shells.

Collector’s Comments: The EE party is an example of a ritual marking the end of something, this time the end of a winter. This a theme which is consistent throughout the majority of rock climbing folklore collected. The EE party is a celebration during the transition period between seasons. The absence of full clothing is related to the DMC’s willingness to embrace nudity and their own bodies. DMCers tend to view nudity as less of a taboo as mainstream society. Instead, they view it as a freedom of expression and a way to embrace their true selves. More than being just a fun celebration, the EE party helps welcome in the spring term and return of rock climbing.

Tags/Keywords: EE, erotic, exotic, party, nudity, DMC, spring, initiation, celebration