Category Archives: Tradition

Traditional Greek Meal

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Title: Traditional Greek Meal

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre: Familial Folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: Greece

Informant Data:

  • Katherine Spanos provided us with what her family eats every year for Christmas. She is 19 years old, currently a ’20 at Dartmouth College and lives in Hummelstown Pennsylvania. Her father is from Greece and her mother is from the USA. Her family practices Greek Orthodoxy

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: On large holidays families typically have a traditional meal that they will make for that holiday. Christmas is no exception as all of the people we interviewed spoke about a traditional meal that they have every Christmas.
  • Cultural Context: Pastitsio is a very popular Greek dish. Katherine’s father is from Greece and brought this traditional meal to America. Her father makes this dish for her family to celebrate Christmas

Item:

  • Her father makes her favorite Greek dish, Pastitsio, for Christmas Dinner. He makes this every single year and she has eaten it every Christmas she can remember

 

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

Collector’s Name: Clay Chatham

Tags/Keywords:

  • Greek, Food, Tradition, Christmas

Traditional Indian Christmas Meal

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Title: Traditional Indian Christmas Meal

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre: Familial Folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: India

Informant Data:

  • Sai Davuluri provided us with what his family eats every year for Christmas Dinner. He is 18 years old, currently a ’21 at Dartmouth College and lives in Merced California. Both his parents originate from Central/South India. Sai’s family practices Hinduism and does celebrate Christmas.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: On large holidays families typically have a traditional meal that they will make for that holiday. Christmas is no exception as all of the people we interviewed spoke about a traditional meal that they have every Christmas.
  • Cultural Context: Masala Dosa Is a very popular South Indian dish. Sai’s parents are both from South India and they brought this traditional meal to the U.S. and incorporated it into the americanized version of Christmas.

Item:

  • His mother makes his favorite Indian dish, Masala Dosa, for Christmas Eve dinner. She makes this every single year and has eaten it every Christmas he can remember.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It was interesting that Sai’s family practices Hinduism and celebrates and also celebrates a primarily christian holiday. They open their presents Christmas morning and eat chocolate chip pancakes. They also watch the movie Home Alone on Christmas day.

Collector’s Name: Clay Chatham

Tags/Keywords:

  • Food, Tradition, Christmas, Hinduism

Belsnickel

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Title: Belsnickel

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Legend
  • German
  • Germany

Informant Data:

  • Hendric Tronsson is a Dartmouth 20 who grew up in Berlin before coming to school at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: Almost everyone who celebrates Christmas has a Christmas story that they believe in. These are typically told to children around the holiday times in order to create a festive mood and make everyone excited for Christmas. As the kids grow up, they begin to lose their belief in these legends because they start to realize that there parents were the source of the gifts.       However these legends remain a large source of the classic Christmas symbols and festive decorations for all ages even though the legends are no longer believed to be true.
  • Cultural Context: The “Father Christmas” figure varies greatly between different cultures – changing primarily due to religious and geographical differences. In the United States it is typically Santa, though people from other cultures who have parents from other cultures may also believe in a different legend.

Item:

  • Hendric has multiple Christmas legends but the one that he shared with us was the Belsnickel. The Belsnickel is a man that wears furs all around and is a companion of St. Nicholas. This figure also delivers presents to kids around the holidays.

Collector’s Name: Alec Vaules

Tags/Keywords:

  • Christmas, Krampus, Germany, Tradition, Legend

 

Team Meals

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Team Meals

Title: Team Meals

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Customary Folklore: Rituals, Tradition
  • Language: English
  • Country: United States of America

Informant Data:

Alexis Wyatt, aged 21, is a Director of Ujima who joined the group her freshman fall (2014). She is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and minoring in Psychology. Alexis was born, raised, and currently lives in Akron, Ohio. Before Ujima, Alexis had two years of dance experience in high school with modern, contemporary, and lyrical dance.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: Based on individual availability, as many team members as possible participate in Team Meals. Team meals occur at the Class of 1953 Commons (FoCo) before Sunday practices at noon and before performances throughout the year. The ritual originated at the group’s founding, and Alexis first learned of it when she participated during her freshman fall.
  • Cultural Context: Ujima’s culture focuses on building close relationships both on stage and off. Therefore, team meals allow Ujima’s members to get to know one another outside of practice and form friendships. Many sports teams on Dartmouth’s campus get meals together after practice, and this ritual is in line with that of other groups.

Item:

Ujima members get meals together prior to Sunday practices and performances as a way to converse and grow closer as a group.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

“So, typically on Sundays, since our practice starts at one, if people can make it, we always try to go and get FoCo together, at least an hour or so before rehearsal starts… And then leading up to shows, I would say that our tradition is get dinner together, disperse and go get dressed, and then come back together and continue running or whatever it is that we need to attend to, whether it be continuing to get dressed or discussing what we need to go over. And I’m not sure where that tradition started, but it’s been a thing since I’ve been in Ujima, so we just kept doing it.”

Informant’s Comments:

Team meals act as an opportunity to take a break and relieve anxiety with the team before a performance.

Collector’s Comments:

Aside from being open to every member on Ujima, team meals are especially inclusive because they involve a non-taxing, universal activity—eating.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed By: Shinar Jain

Tags/Keywords:

  • Ritual
  • Tradition
  • Dance
  • Team

Bequest – Commodore Oar

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Title: Commodore Oar

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material, Customary Folklore
    • Subgenre: folk costume, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Sam Lee ’18 is a 21-year-old male from Turlock, California. He has been rowing since joining light-weight crew in college as a walk-on.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: As with any bequest, this item is traditionally passed down from graduating seniors to underclassmen on the rowing team who are deemed most fit to receive the object. This exchange happens annually in the spring after the competition season has come to a close. The event involves the whole team and requires presence for several hours, as each senior may give away several bequests, each with a description of the significance of the item and why it goes to the recipient underclassmen. During the process, teammates must wait until they either bequeath or are bequeathed an item. It is a spectacle for the team and is often humorous and emotional. Underclassmen express gratitude through words and little physical contact as to expedite the process.

Cultural Context: Bequests are handed down through a line of rowers throughout the years. This line is connected through a common trait (e.g., captainship, knowledge of statistics, heavy weight). The bequest links generations, creating team cohesiveness through history. The bequest indicates a unique importance and role in the team and generally shows that the recipient upholds the values of the team. Rowers wear bequests to exhibit that they are deserving of the honor bestowed upon them.

Item: This bequest is a rowing oar that is passed down from commodore to commodore. It has all the signatures of the commodores, who are responsible for the social dynamic and inner squad dynamic.

Associated Image: Not available to collector

Collector’s Name: Yeonjae Park

Tags/Keywords: bequest, D150, crew

 

Bequest – Captain’s Oar

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Title: Captain’s Oar

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material, Customary Folklore
    • Subgenre: folk costume, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Sam Lee ’18 is a 21-year-old male from Turlock, California. He has been rowing since joining light-weight crew in college as a walk-on.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: As with any bequest, this item is traditionally passed down from graduating seniors to underclassmen on the rowing team who are deemed most fit to receive the object. This exchange happens annually in the spring after the competition season has come to a close. The event involves the whole team and requires presence for several hours, as each senior may give away several bequests, each with a description of the significance of the item and why it goes to the recipient underclassmen. During the process, teammates must wait until they either bequeath or are bequeathed an item. It is a spectacle for the team and is often humorous and emotional. Underclassmen express gratitude through words and little physical contact as to expedite the process.

Cultural Context: Bequests are handed down through a line of rowers throughout the years. This line is connected through a common trait (e.g., captainship, knowledge of statistics, heavy weight). The bequest links generations, creating team cohesiveness through history. The bequest indicates a unique importance and role in the team and generally shows that the recipient upholds the values of the team. Rowers wear bequests to exhibit that they are deserving of the honor bestowed upon them.

Item: This bequest is a rowing oar that is passed down from captain to captain. It has all the signatures of the captains and adds unity within each new team.

Associated Image: Not available to collector

Collector’s Name: Yeonjae Park

Tags/Keywords: bequest, D150, crew

 

Bequest – Hard-o Uni

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Title: Hard-o  Uni

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material, Customary Folklore
    • Subgenre: folk-costumes, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Sam Lee ’18 is a 21-year-old male from Turlock, California. He has been rowing since joining light-weight crew in college as a walk-on.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: As with any bequest, this item is traditionally passed down from graduating seniors to underclassmen on the rowing team who are deemed most fit to receive the object. This exchange happens annually in the spring after the competition season has come to a close. The event involves the whole team and requires presence for several hours, as each senior may give away several bequests, each with a description of the significance of the item and why it goes to the recipient underclassmen. During the process, teammates must wait until they either bequeath or are bequeathed an item. It is a spectacle for the team and is often humorous and emotional. Underclassmen express gratitude through words and little physical contact as to expedite the process.

Cultural Context: Bequests are handed down through a line of rowers throughout the years. This line is connected through a common trait (e.g., captainship, knowledge of statistics, heavy weight). The bequest links generations, creating team cohesiveness through history. The bequest indicates a unique importance and role in the team and generally shows that the recipient upholds the values of the team. Rowers wear bequests to exhibit that they are deserving of the honor bestowed upon them.

Item: This bequest is a unitard that used to belong to an old light-weight rowing coach. It is the unitard that goes along with the Stabbing and PR legend where a member of the team got mugged one night and did not realize he was stabbed because his adrenaline was pumping until he got home and his roommate pointed it out. The next day he put on the unitard and went to practice without telling the coach about the incident and the wound opened up again, blooding the unitard. This unitard is passed down each year to someone that is very hardworking and goes to extreme lengths to do his best.

Associated Image: Not available to collector

Collector’s Name: Yeonjae Park

Tags/Keywords: unitard, bequest, D150, material folklore

X.ado acapella conference

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Title: X.ado acapella conference

General Information about Item:

  • Folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

This conference provides a way for X.ado to socialize and connect with more people, and serves as an event for the people within X.ado to connect and socialize amongst themselves. It is probably a fun activity for them to do together that strengthens the group dynamic.

The people in

  • Cultural Context

People that engage in similar activities or are like minded, or have some major factors that connect them like to connect with each other, network with each other, and socialize with each other. X.ado is no exception to this, there are many Christian acapella groups all over the United States that want to find people engaging in the same activity that share their same beliefs and lifestyles, and they all meet together.

Item:

  • Members of X.ado attend the “Break it Down in Boston” conference, which is a conference for Christian acapella groups to meet up.

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

https://youtu.be/o15wfAOuSWk

Transcript of Associated File:

A couple of things that got introduced in the group that changed since we got founded one is that we do more activities as a group. We have prayer partners where you match with someone individual in the group, that helps us bond more and know people on an individual basis since rehearsal’s everyone all together, and also as we become more established and groups like ours spread, we have more interactions with those groups. For example, there’s this conference we do every year called “Break it down Boston” which is a gathering of all the different Christian acapella groups so it’s a very different dynamic than you have with other musical conferences and that’s a cool way to see how our group along with other groups has evolved over time as we become more of a national thing.

Informant’s Comments:

  • Check transcript

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s not at all uncommon for college students to attend meetups and conferences. There are conferences for many different interest groups, such as for demographic factors (race and gender), intellectual interests, and for sports as well. These conferences serve as a way for people to meet people to network with that share some factor with them.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Tags/Keywords:

  • Acapella
  • Singing
  • Conference
  • Tradition

 

X-hour

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Title: X-hour

General Information about Item:

  • Customary folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: USA

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

All members of X.ado participate in this ritual. It occurs once a week. This ritual began when the group was created 25 years ago. The informant first experienced it during his first week as a member of X.ado.

  • Cultural Context

X-hour is a joke about the Dartmouth class schedule. Every class has extra optional class periods that professors use as much or as little as they wish. These periods are often called X hours. This ritual of meeting once a week just to share beliefs, reconnect and talk also reflects the inclusive and close group culture X.ado has.

Item: Once a week, X.ado meets for an hour to have an event called “X-hour”. At this event, members sometimes participate in prayers together, have a bible study, support other members by sharing affirmations about each other, make spontaneous music together and more. The hour is a chance for group members to relax, have a good time and reconnect.

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

https://youtu.be/Ok09mJ4PeNQ

Transcript of Associated File:

X-hour is something we do once a week, for an hour. It starts with an X, it’s kind of a joke about the class schedule. It’s something we’ve been doing for the full 25 years of our existence where we just meet together as a group and have a bible study. Like last week we did affirmations, where we go around the group and everybody says something like really affirmative about the person that they like or something meaningful about that person. It helps us grow together as a group. Sometimes during X-hour one of the things that we’ll do is worship. We’ll have someone bring it like a guitar or something and just do some music to celebrate our faith and people try to like harmonize and stuff, but if you are not prepared for that, where you don’t have sheet music like for acapella then you sound like really really bad. I remember sometimes just like these atrocious noises coming out of x-hour, but people have a good time and it just makes it really entertaining.

Informant’s Comments:

  • See transcript

Collector’s Comments:

This is a pretty unique tradition that I haven’t seen with any other groups. It makes sense given X.ado’s religious roots and serves to strengthen the group as well as their religious connection.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Afnan Enayet/Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • acapella
  • team
  • ritual
  • bonding

 

 

Bigs, Littles & Families

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Title: Bigs, Littles & Families

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Ritual, Tradition
  • English
  • USA

Informant Data:

  • Dami Apoeso is 21 years old and was born in Hartford Connecticut. He grew up in the Bronx, New York City and currently lives in Spring Valley, New York. He is majoring in computer science. He danced for approximately 6 years in a summer camp before joining Sheba his sophomore year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

All members of Sheba are involved in bigs, littles and families. Typically bigs are seniors and littles are freshmen, and sophomores and juniors make up the families. Families, bigs, and littles are set up at the beginning of fall term after new members have joined the team. Bigs and littles have existed for a long time according to the informant, but involving sophomores and juniors and creating families is a new tradition that started this year.

  • Cultural Context

Sheba thinks of itself as a second family, and its tradition of having bigs and littles ensures that freshmen assimilate well into the team and feel included. The new tradition of having families ensures that people from all years are involved and reinforces Sheba’s attempts to maintain its inclusive culture.

Item:

All new members of the team (called littles) are given a big (seniors on the team). Bigs guide their littles and give them advice regarding the team, school, and life in general. The big-little system was created to help new members feel included on the team and make their transition easier. This year sophomores and juniors were also included in the tradition with the creation of families. Families serve a similar role as bigs and littles, and members get close to other members in their families.

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

Bigs, Littles & Families

Transcript of Associated File:

“Typically in Sheba we had big-littles where a senior would take a freshman under their wing as their little and show them the ropes and make sure they assimilate well into the group. This year our directors have implemented families where you still have that big-little relationship, but we have sophomores and juniors join these relationships and form families. That way no one is really excluded. Um you have a freshman that has a senior as their big but they have other upperclassmen in their family, so yeah that was a nice addition.”

Informant’s Comments:

The informant believes the big-little relationships have been successful at strengthening the bonds between team members, and furthermore believes the creation of families has helped with this goal as well.

Collector’s Comments:

This is an extremely interesting tradition because it is very similar to what many greek houses do to help new members transition into joining their house. The tradition has worked very well for greek houses so it is not surprising that it has worked for Sheba as well.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • Dance
  • Team
  • Ritual
  • Tradition
  • Bonding