Category Archives: Chants

Hair Tie

General Information about Item

  • Tradition/Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Informant: GM
  • Date Collected: 11/9/2021

Informant Data

  • GM is from Northern California, outside of San Francisco. She competes in the 6k and an assortment of other races of varying distances – anywhere from a mile to 5k.

Contextual Data

  • Cultural context: According to GM, uptight members of the track team are very superstitious and have lots of pre-game rituals that they believe will help them perform well. Many athletes across many different sport have superstitions pertaining to certain articles of clothing.

Item

  • Before each race, GM ties two black ties to her hair. She then ties a bow to a third black hair tie.

Informant’s Comments

  • The point of the bow is to promote a “look good, feel good” mindset. She believes it will help her perform better in competitions.

Collector’s Comments

  • When I played soccer, I had a similar mindset. I always felt that making sure my apparel looked good was crucial to my actual performance on the field.

Collector’s Name

  • Alex Printsev

“I Don’t Need Luck” Handshake

Title: “I Don’t Need Luck” Handshake

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Verbal Lore, Ritual, Chant
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Germany
  • Informant: Linda Essery
  • Date Collected: 2/23/18

Informant Data:

  • Linda Essery was born in Friedrichshafen, Germany. She then moved to Raleigh, NC and now currently lives in Rockfall, CT. Linda is a freshman at Dartmouth College and attended Loomis Chaffee Prep for high school. She has three brothers and loves dogs.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Handshakes are performed between two of more people.  They usually involve the participants’ hands, but can also involve their entire bodies. There are formal handshakes and informal handshakes. Informal handshakes are a representation of creativity and companionship.
  • Social Context: Many players on the women’s ice hockey team, at Dartmouth College, have one or more handshakes/chants with other players. Some are bequested, meaning passed down from older players who have now graduated, some are simple, and some are very elaborate. There are three minutes in the locker room before every time players go on to the ice, and that time is very special to most of the team. A lot of players use this time to get pumped up by the music and to perform their handshakes and rituals.

Item:

  • In the locker room before the team takes the ice, Linda finds her teammate Alyssa Baker, a junior, and they perform a special handshake. The two of them both bring their hands together and hit the front and back of each other’s hands, while their own remain together. After they each hit both sides, they then bring their connected hands to touch each others at the finger tips directly in front of them. After this is done Linda says, “I don’t need luck, I’m with Baker.” Baker then replies, “I don’t need luck, I’m with Linda.”

 

 

Transcript:

  • “I love this handshake the most because Baker is awesome and such a role mode… it felt so good to have her want a handshake with me. It’s pretty simple and the saying is awesome because we kind of took it from Harry Potter.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Linda feels that this handshake is very special because it makes her feel welcomed and loved on the team.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found it really interesting that the two of them incorporate something from Harry Potter into their handshake. There is a lot of folklore in the Harry Potter books and now it is being represented in folklore we collected too.

Collector’s Name: Kate Landers

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Lore
  • Verbal Lore
  • Chant
  • Ritual- Handshake
  • Harry Potter
  • “I Don’t Need Luck”

Post-practice chant

Title: Post-practice chant

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Verbal and Customary Folklore
    • Subgenre: chant
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Will Kaufman ’20 is a 19-year-old male caucasian light-weight rower from Boulder, CO. He is the middle child between two sisters. He started rowing his freshman fall upon entering Dartmouth. As a walk-on rower, he came in knowing nothing about the sport.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: The chant occurs at the end of each practice. It involves a huddle, hands in toward the center, one person leading the chant, the whole team responding, throwing up the hands, and breaking from the circle. Afterwards, teammates go to dinner together, take showers, or split up. The coaches are not involved in the chant.

Cultural Context: In the athletic team culture, everything is about the group, not the individual. The rowers are a cohesive group that spend a significant amount of time together in the effort of creating strong bonds and success in competition. This chant helps bring everyone together at the end of practice to show that they are part of one team with the same goals. Their effort is beyond one practice or one individual.

Item: This chant occurs at the end of each practice. In a huddle the teammates put their hands in toward the center, recite the chant, throw up their hands, and break up.

Associated media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaI34nMCWuc

Transcript of Associated File: “Let’s get a ‘Green’ on 3! 1, 2, 3 GREEN!”

Informant’s Comments: The informant emphasized the regularity and importance of this chant: “It feels weird if practice ends and everyone leaves” without doing the chant. That never happens.

Collector’s Comments:

  • The chant is a formal indicator of the end of a routine time of bonding.
  • The informant noted that when first learning this chant, the walk-on rowers are separated from the rest of the team, learn the chant, and are incorporated with the rest, where the entire team can perform the chant together. In this way, the events centered around the first chant resemble elements of a rite of passage.

Collector’s Name: Sam Gochman

Tags/Keywords: D150, Dartmouth Light-Weight Rowing, Chant, Customary, Verbal

“Who Dat”

Who Dat

Informant:Libby Flint, age 59, New Orleans resident of 36 years, originally from Upstate New York and Vermont. Collected May 22, 2016 and recorded on iphone.

Verbal Lore: folk speech, slang, chants, cheers

English

United States of America

Context: a phrase used by Saints (The New Orleans Football team) fans and often used to describe those same fans

Transcript:

“‘who dat’  are saints fans  the cheer is ‘who dat say dey gonna beat dem saints’”

 

Informant: Erin Fell, age 21, New Orleans, LA. Collected on May 22, 2016 and recorded on iphone.

Transcript: “Next, “Who Dat?” That is the, uh, rallying cry of (New Orleans) Saints fans everywhere. It comes from “who is that” or “who is that that says they can beat the Saints?” Right so the chant goes Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints?”

 

Collectors commentary:

Keywords: Who Dat, Saints, Football, New Orleans

Post Meetings Chant

Post meetings song/chant

  • Informant info
    • Junior sorority member Dartmouth College
  • Type of lore (verbal, material or customary), Genre, Subgenre
    • Verbal
  • Language
    • English
  • Country of Origin
    • United States
  • Social / Cultural Context
    • this song/chant is performed to end meetings every week
  • Transcript (if verbal lore)
    • “OHHHHh Pat said she what said he tell me the truth said he what do you think is the best fraternity oh said he that’s easy, easy to see said he nobody’s better than KKG. Oh kappa kappa kappa gamma Im so happy that I amma kappa kappa kappa gamma nobody knows how happy I am”
  • Informant’s comments
    • This song has been performed for as long as anybody currently in the sorority can remember

 

 

Bid Day Chant

Bid Day Chant

  • Informant info
    • Junior in sorority at Penn State University
  • Type of lore (verbal, material or customary), Genre, Subgenre
    • Verbal
  • Language
    • English
  • Country of Origin
    • United States
  • Social / Cultural Context
    • This chant is sung at Bid Day to attract new members to the sorority and a bonding experience with all of the younger girls who have received a bid.
    • Transcript (if verbal lore)
      • “Pi Pi beta phi p-i-p-h-i Pi phi. P for I for beta phi for I just love pi beta phi”
  • Informant’s comments
    • This is chanted continuously on Bid Day every year. It is a sense of pride for our sorority as we try to attract new members amongst the crowd of all sororities
  • Collector’s comments
    • The sorority and the informant are kept anonymous. Similar folklore was recorded at Dartmouth.
    • This version of verbal folk is seen throughout the country as a traditional welcome into the house. Over the years and across national organizations, the location of performance, song choice, and dances used during the recruitment process vary greatly, but they all contain key reoccurring components such as full house involvement, matching outfits (potentially material lore), and synchronized dance moves (Texas A&M video below of examples of Bid Day “Door Chants” from 2014 and Colorado State University from 2009).