Category Archives: Prayer

Dessert: Suman (Sticky Rice)

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material Lore – dish; Customary Lore – celebration, religious custom
  • Language: Tagalog
  • Country of Origin: Philippines
  • Informant: J.D.
  • Date Collected: November 19, 2020

Informant Data:      

  • J.D. was born in the Philippines in 1963, where he grew up in the Northern region, Ilocos Sur. He grew up in a rural town, where he had helped farm rice as part of his everyday life. During the 1980s, he moved to the capital, Manila, to study engineering, where he would eventually settle to have two kids. He later moved to the United States in 2009 and has since lived in the city with his family. 

Contextual Data:    

  • Cultural Context:  Suman is a traditional Christmas dessert because the Philippines is historically agrarian. Christmas is a time for feasting and represents abundance, so this dessert is made with cheap and accessible ingredients, like rice and coconuts, to be able to serve everyone. However, what sets this apart from a typical dessert is that it is labor intensive, as each suman is wrapped individually, and the coconut milk used for it is traditionally squeezed manually from the coconut meat although more modern takes just use canned coconut milk. 
  • Social Context:  Suman was eaten after morning prayers and masses. Christmas is also similar to the American Thanksgiving, where the celebration is meant to be thankful for everyone and the blessings within your life. It was necessary to pray or go to Church as Filipinos were Catholic, and giving thanks meant being grateful to God. This dish was served after the prayers, as people finish spending a portion of their day with God and are ready to celebrate the rest of the holiday.

Item:

  • The item is a desert called Suman, or Filipino sticky rice. It is made with glutinous (or malagkit) rice, coconut milk, and sugar. It is half-cooked, and then the rice and coconut milk mixture is individually wrapped in either a cylindrical or pyramid shape with banana leaves. Finally, the suman is steamed until the rice is fully cooked and served with sugar. 

Translation of Interview Clip :

X.D. (collector): Hi, please introduce yourself and give a backstory of your life, even when you lived in the Philippines.

J.D. (informant): Ok, my name is J.D. I was born in 1963 and I lived in Santa, Ilocos-Sur. I moved to Manila to study engineering, and I stayed there to raise my family, until around February 2009. Then I came here.

X.D.: Can you give a little backstory on your life in Santa. You’ve mentioned before this interview a little about it.

J.D.: Ok. Santa, when I lived there, was mostly farming. You know, it’s very rural. As a young boy, I would help in the rice fields for some money because we were really poor back then. 

X.D.: So what Christmas dish will you talk about? Please give context to it.

J.D.: Suman, which is a desert, is a Christmas food. They make it with, how do you call it in English? Malagkit?

X.D.: I’m not sure, I’ll research that later for you.

J.D.: Yea, they make it with malagkit rice, coconut milk, and sugar. They pack the rice in a banana leaf, and they steam it. It comes in either the triangular shape or just the regular stick. As a child, I ate it after we all prayed. I’d dipped it in sugar so it was sweeter.

X.D.: Was there a reason why you ate it in Christmas? I know suman is common nowadays.

J.D.: Back then, suman was the only thing that could be made for everyone. The Philippines mostly had farmers, and we only had rice and coconut milk, so suman was the dish that could be eaten. But it was labor intensive! You had to squeeze the milk from the coconut meat and then wrap it. Now it’s easier, but it still takes a lot of time! We ate it after the prayers because usually it was a community prayer, and then after one of the ladies would help pass it around. As a child, I’d be so happy to eat it. 

X.D.: So are the prayers before the dinner? Can you explain more on that?

J.D.: No, going to Church during Christmas is an early morning event. You had to go to Church. Remember, everyone is Catholic, and you have to say thanks to God and your blessings. It’s like Thanksgiving here. After that, people were hungry, which is why Suman is eaten.

Informant’s Comments:

  • There’s different types of suman, depending where you are in the Philippines. In the Ilocos-Sur, suman is popularly in a triangular shape.

Collector: Xenia Dela Cueva

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Ganesh Chaturthi – Aarti

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Prayer
  • Language: Marathi
  • Country: India

Informant Data:

The informant is an Indian woman who wrote out the aarti with her pundit and recites it every Ganesh Chaturthi.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: The informant sings the aarti with her family during Ganesh Chaturthi. The pundit leads the aarti and she reads off her sheets with him.
  • Cultural Context: The aarti is performed twice a day for the duration the idol is in the house. It is a devotional song sung by the people in praise of Lord Ganesh.

Item:

A picture from the informant of the aarti performed during Ganesh Chaturthi. This is the aarti the informant’s family has used for many years and the informant translated it to English for our collection.

Associated file:

Transcript of Associated File:

“Lord who provides joy, removes sadness and clears all obstacles in life,

Who gives love to everyone as his blessing,

Who has saffron fragrance over his body,

Who has a necklace of pearls around his neck,

Hail the God, Hail the idol,

All our wishes are fulfilled by Darshan,

Offering you a seat with jewels for the son of Gauri,

Smearing you with sandalwood paste and Tilak on your head,

Diamond crown suits you,

Whose anklets tingle on his feet,

Hail the God, hail the idol,

Lambodar (Big Tummy) who wears Pitambar (cloth),

Who has straight trunk and is an ego breaker and son of Shiva,

I am waiting for you in my home like a devotee,

Please help us and protect us during bad times,

Hail the God, hail the idol.”

Informant’s Comments:

The informant’s aarti is written in Marathi, but is translated into English for this project and the translation is in the transcription above.

Collector’s Comments:

This prayer has been in the informant’s family for many years.

Collector’s Name:

Celine Guan and Yohann Curmully

Tags/Keywords:

India, holiday, Ganesh Chaturthi, Verbal Folklore

Ganesh Chaturthi – Pooja

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Rituals, Customs
  • Language: Marathi
  • Country: India

Informant Data:

  • Informant is an Indian couple who perform the ceremony every year for Ganesh Chaturthi. The man is involved in the ceremony (as seen in picture)

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: The Pooja is the traditional prayer that occurs during Ganesh Chaturthi. These prayers are directed at a clay idol of god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles as well as the god of beginnings.
  • Cultural Context: This holiday is celebrated in early autumn and the pooja involves the chanting of Hindu prayers and Vedic texts.

Item:

Picture of the pooja being conducted. The male informant follows the pundit’s instructions to honour Lord Ganesh. The female informant is the one taking the picture.

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

Informant’s Comments:

The pooja is done once when the idol comes into the home and once before it leaves. It is meant to first acquaint the God and people of the home, then as a goodbye when the God leaves.

Collector’s Comments:

This couple has been performing the pooja for decades, as passed down through their families.

Collector’s Name:

Yohann Curmully

Tags/Keywords:

India, holiday, Ganesh Chaturthi, Customary Folklore, customs

The Wine Game

Informant info: The informant was Ian Raphael, a Dartmouth ’18, who was born in Kirkland, WA and raised in Miami, FL. He learned to climb when he was 18 from an older, close friend in Port Angeles, WA.

Date Collected: 5/16/16

Place Collected: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Type: Customary Folklore, Ceremony, Prayer

Language: English

Country of Origin: U.S.A

Social/ cultural context: The wine game is ceremonial in climbing culture and is used to bring members together. Climbers often go on day trips together. At the end of each trip, climbers are usually tired and hungry. The wine game is a way to finish off the night and come together to reflect on the day.

Associated File:

Picture1

Lore: After a long day of climbing, climbers gather around in a circle with a gallon of wine and christen it by making toasts into the fire to famous past climbers and the climbing “gods”. The climbers toast to Earl and Valerie, John Joline, DMCers of the past and present, and the “homies and the homeless”. Afterwards, the gallon wine bottle is passed around the circle. Participants may only hold the bottle to drink with their pinky finger. The person who drinks the last drop of wine is considered the winner of the game.

Informant’s Comments: This is a way to celebrate after a climb. It is a fun way to wrap up the day and have fun with your friends. No one knows why we toast to the “homies and the homeless”, but we toast to Earl, Valerie, and John Joline because of their importance to the club.

Collector’s Comments: The wine game begins with a prayer when the climbers christen the wine. It is followed by a game where each player tries to drink the last drop. The game is a celebration of the end of a long day of climbing. It is a way to reflect on the day and relax after a long climb; basically, it encourages mindfulness and team bonding. While playing the game, climbers celebrate their friendships and their outing.

Tags/Keywords: wine, games, prayer, climbing, alcohol, celebration, Customary, DMC, folklore