Category Archives: FA21

Content created by Russian 13 students, fall term 2021

Pre-HEPS Dinner and Cheer

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General Information about Item:

• Ritual / Tradition
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: USA
• Informant: TBS
• Date Collected: 11/15/19

Informant Data:

TBS is a ‘23 from Portland Oregon on the Track & Field team. She has been on the team for three years and participates in the throwing events, specifically hammer and weight throw. She began competing in track and field her senior year of high school.  

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Dartmouth is one of eight colleges in the Ivy League. The Ivy League is a Division I athletic conference made up of colleges and universities all located in the eastern U.S. and extremely rigorous academically. The biggest competition each season for the track and field and cross-country teams that compete in this conference is the Heptagonal Championships, or HEPS for short. This meet is referred to as the heptagonal championships because there used to be only seven teams in the Ivy League. Throughout the years some schools left the league and others joined to create a total of the eight teams there are today, however the name of this championship stuck. This meet is the only one all year where only all eight teams compete against each other, and it is extremely important.
• Social Context: Although not every athlete on the team qualifies to compete at HEPS, the whole team comes together to send off those competing. It is important for overall team comradery and spirits going into the competition. It is also very common for all athletic teams to eat a meal together before competition so they can form deeper connections with their teammates.

Item:

• The tradition is that before the HEPS meet, the whole team comes together and has a team dinner at 53 Commons and does a team cheer at the end as a sendoff for those competing.

Associated Media File: 

Video of the 2010 Dartmouth Track and Field Team doing the team cheer before the 2010 Heptagonal Championships.

Informant’s Comments:

TBS says that before every big meet, specifically HEPS, the whole team sits at the “track team” table at 53 Commons and eats dinner together. At the end of the meal, one of the captains begins the team cheer and the rest of the team joins in and chants together. This is done in front of all the other people eating in the dining hall. While it can be somewhat embarrassing to draw attention to yourself by participating in the cheer, you know you are not alone because the whole team is participating in it. It is a great bonding experience and one that makes you feel really special and proud to be a part of the Dartmouth track and field team.  

Collector’s Comments:

  • As a newer member of the track and field team whose experience has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this is not a tradition that I have been able to participate in yet. However, I am very excited to do this before the indoor HEPS this upcoming winter. The cheer is something that all new athletes on the team learn very soon after arriving on campus. This is a great example of verbal folklore because the author is unknown, it is passed down orally through generations, and it doesn’t have any true meaning other than for the team itself. The team dinner is also important because of the bonding it encourages between event groups and upper/underclassmen.

Collector’s Name:

Madyson Buchalski

Arabic Lullaby – Reem Atallah

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Arabic Lullaby

General Information About Item: Short Lullaby in Arabic originating from Egypt.

Verbal Folklore
Language: Arabic
Country of Origin: Egypt
Informant:  E.S.
Date Collected: 10-24-21

Informant Data: 
My informant (E.S.) was born on February 27, 2001, in New York, NY. His mother and father are from Cairo, Egypt. He has one younger brother. He enjoys playing golf and basketball. His family was pretty conservative growing up. He mentioned that his mother would primarily recite lullabies in Arabic and rarely ever in English.

Contextual Data

Social Context: 
Arso Baba y Mama was one of many lullabies that E.S.’s mother sang to him growing up. She would sing this lullaby to him and repeat it over until he fell asleep. She also sang this to him while patting his head as a way to comfort him. She would sing this to him in a very careful and gentle way which reflects her personality as she has always been quite a gentle person.

Cultural Context: 
This lullaby does not really have a date or location origin as it was spread throughout families in Arab/Arabic speaking countries for years. Each Arab country has a slightly different version but it is primarily sung with these same lyrics. This lullaby has been in E.S.’s family for a long time and has been passed down from his grandparents down to him.

Item: 
Arso baba
Arso mama
bil alwan bil alwan
Hatta y jiranna
doma miyo
h’tah fil nom

I draw my dad
I draw my mom
With all the colors, with all the colors
I keep the picture
they are always with me
even when I sleep

Associated file: 

Informant Comments: “I think it is a nice memory to reflect on my mother singing to me. It reminds me of having a very peaceful childhood”

Collector Comments: Although I am North African, I had never heard this lullaby. Though, my mother also did sing very short lullabies to me so that it could be easily repeated.

Collectors Name: Reem Atallah

Tags: Dartmouth, student, male, Arabic, verbal, family, childhood

Mamemaki (Quinn Calhoun)

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Title: Mamemaki

General Information about Item:

  • Ritual, Holiday
  • Language: Japanese
  • Country of Origin: Japan
  • Informant: DP
  • Date Collected: 11-14-21

Informant Data:

  • DP was born in 1999, in Southern, VA, where he has lived all of his life. He is half-Japanese, his father having immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1990s from Japan. However, it was his paternal grandparents who primarily taught him about Japanese culture and rituals.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In Japanese folklore, the Oni are evil demons, trolls, or ogres who are born when evil people die and are transformed into these evil creatures. Usually large and ugly, and both strong and capable of shape-shifting. While the Oni vary in size and color, they are all malignant, often seeking to murder people or wreak havoc such as war, disease, or famine.
  • Social Context: QC learned about the tradition when QC reached out to DP about his cultural traditions involving defenses against supernatural creatures. DP learned about the holiday through his grandfather, who, while he didn’t believe in the Oni, thought the tradition was an enjoyable one and important to the culture. 

Item:

  • Every year during the Setsubun holiday celebrating the end of winter, a family would roast soybeans and throw them at a person wearing a mask to represent the Oni while shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” and chase them out of their home. This ritual would help cleanse the house of evil spirits for the upcoming year. 

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

Informant’s Comments:

  • Not something his family did often but still remembers it being fun.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found this ritual to be a uniquely fun and simple way of driving out evil spirts: by simply throwing them at them until they leave.

Collector’s Name: Quinn Calhoun

Tags/Keywords:

  • Ritual
  • Holiday
  • Japan
  • Oni
  • Setsubun

Sweatpants

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Title: Sweatpants

General Information about Item:

  • Magic Superstition, Sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: D.H.
  • Date Collected: 11-3-2021

Informant Data:

  • D.H. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022.  He was born in Massachusetts.  During his time at Dartmouth, Daniel enjoys playing xbox and video games in general. While at home he often watches sports and would love to gamble if it wasn’t against D1 rules for athletes. He is currently studying economics and government and hopes to find a job in either of those fields after graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In sports there is always an expectation to perform. Therefore an item of clothing is often associated with a good or bad performance. If a player wears a different pair of socks than normal and performs badly, then they will often associate the poor performance with the pair of socks. For lacrosse, a lot of good older goalies he played with always wore sweatpants instead of shorts and pads on their legs. D.H. saw this as a kid and begun to wear the sweatpants instead in order play well
  • Social Context: D.H. explained that his team has a large number of individual superstitions. While he picked up the sweatpants superstition from older teammates, he has found that it is a particularly rare occurrence for lacrosse goalies to wear sweatpants. He has been wearing sweatpants for around six years and does not know if he will ever stop wearing them (maybe if he has a really bad few games in a row he would consider changing). 

Item:

  • The sweatpants he wears are not a specific pair of sweatpants, but he always wears a set of sweatpants that represent his team. He knows that the sweatpants do not protect his legs from blocked shots in the game, but he finds them comfortable and relates them to his good performances over the years.

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

Transcript:

  • “Most of our team’s superstitions exist from individual standpoint rather than team actions. My superstition originates from a time where I played particularly well while trying something new from an older teammate, so I adopted a new superstition. On the other hand, if I play a bad game, I perhaps will find a new superstition. I’ve been wearing sweatpants for probably 6 years.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I’m not sure whether it is a superstition or just a tradition I’d like to keep going, but I do know that if I went into a game without the sweats, I would be uncomfortable.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • D.H.’s superstition of wearing sweatpants is really interesting to me because when I grew up playing lacrosse, I never saw a goalie wear sweatpants instead of shorts and pads. Therefore, when I originally saw D.H. wearing them during the game I assumed maybe he was cold or thought it was for style. After hearing the origin of his sweatpants, I now consider it to be a superstition and find it extremely unique. 

Collector’s Name: 

  • Brock Paul
  • Class of 2023
  • Dartmouth College
  • Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Tags/Keywords:

  • Sympathetic Magic
  • Dartmouth College Athletics
  • English
  • Northeast America
  • Lacrosse

Bandana

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Title: Bandana

General Information about Item:

  • Magic Superstition, Sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: D.R.
  • Date Collected: 11-3-2021

Informant Data:

  • D.R. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2024.  He was a 2023, but took a gap year due to covid. He was born in Massachusetts.  During his time at Dartmouth, D.R. has played squash and enjoys philosophy. He is currently studying philosophy and economics in his sophomore year. He has not made a decision on what his plans are for after graduation. However, he has mentioned plans to see his family in France for a year or two after college.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: D.R. has played squash since a kid and has always worn a bandana during his matches. The matches are one on one matches forcing him to rely a lot on his mental fortitude. When he was younger he just wore a bandana because he liked them, but as he got older he was forced to develop his mental abilities in order to stay dialed during his matches. He then began to focus on his pregame methods and actions in order to prepare him for a match.
  • Social Context: D.R.’s father often wore bandanas when D.R. would play squash with him when he was young. So he developed a desire to wear them due to his father. He began wearing them during matches. After beginning to focus on the mental aspects of his squash matches, D.R. began to fold his bandana into parallel quarters. He also began to wear the same bandana every game as he associated it with good luck.

Item:

  • The bandana D.R. wears did not begin as a specific bandana, but it developed into one specific bandana that he must wear for each match. He uses the bandana and the method of folding it into parallel quarters to sharpen his focus before matches and believes it helps him stay dialed while performing. 

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

Transcript:

  • “I always wear the same bandana when I play, and my ritual comes in the form of the folding/tying process of the bandana. I lay the bandana on my knee and fold it in half, then proceed to fold the bandana into equal parallel quarters. Focusing on the perfection of each fold helps me lock in and focus, and I’ve been doing this ritual since I was 15 years old.

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I don’t really believe in superstitions, but I do believe that mental triggers can help put a person in the right mood to compete, and beliefs are a strong way to get there. In other words, I don’t believe in superstitions, but I believe that they can positively or negatively affect humans due to our psychology.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • D.R.’s method of folding his bandana is particularly interesting to me. It seems to be an effective method to help him focus and is extremely unique. Wearing the same bandana makes a lot of sense to me seeing how he got it from his father (His grandfather also wore bandanas so it seems to be a trend), but the method of folding the bandana is completely his own. The emphasis he places on the folding of the bandana over the bandana itself is also inspiring as it exemplifies a routine and work ethic that D.R. has maintained for almost 6 years.

Collector’s Name: 

  • Brock Paul
  • Class of 2023
  • Dartmouth College
  • Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Tags/Keywords:

  • Sympathetic Magic
  • Dartmouth College Athletics
  • English
  • Northeast America
  • Squash

Wreath Making

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General Information Data:

Material Folklore, Decoration

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Informant: AJ

Date Collected: 11/15/2021

Informant Data:

AJ is a Dartmouth ’23 originally from Potomac, Maryland. At Dartmouth, AJ is a member of the Men’s lacrosse team. Outside of athletics, AJ enjoys spending time with his friends while engaging in outdoor activities around the Upper Valley. A History major, he enjoys his studies but is unsure what he wants to do after college.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Data: Many Americans follow the tradition of decorating their homes around the holiday season. Christmas decorations include trees, ornaments, nativity sets, and images of Christmas characters such as Santa or Reindeer. It is common for Americans to hang a wreath on their Front Door.

Social Data: AJs family enjoys sharing in holiday traditions by decorating the house together. Generally, decorations consist of a Christmas Tree adorned with ornaments and pictures carrying holiday messages such as “Merry Christmas.” As a part of this tradition, AJs family goes to a tree lot every year to pick a tree

Item:

Every year, while the informants family is picking their tree, they gather extra pine branches to make a wreath at home. This wreath is adorned with fall foliage such as flowers, and pinecones. The family does this every year as a tradition passed down from AJ’s grandparents. It is a form of collaboration around the holiday season.

Associated File:

Holiday Wreath Making Workshop (Sold Out) - Queens Botanical Garden

Transcript:

“Each year we choose go to the lot to choose our tree, we always make sure to pick one with extra branches at the bottom so. When we trim the tree, we keep the extra branches for the wreath. We dry the branches out for a few days before making the it. My mom and sister usually make the wreath, but I help out decorate it with colorful branches and pinecones. It’s a pretty cool process to see. They’re better at making it than I am, but its a good tradition”

Informant Comments:

“I think my mom learned how to do this when she was a kid”

Collectors Comments:

AJ’s wreath making tradition is an interesting family event. I have personally never seen someone make a homemade wreath, but it sounds like a rewarding process. This tradition of making a wreath appears to be folkloric. It is a collective event which features multiple existence, because every year the wreath is new. Furthermore, the skill of making a wreath is passed down through generations in AJ’s family through oral and visual means. This certainly appears to be a folklore tradition.

Collector’s Name:

Jackson McGinley

Brush Every Time (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: Brush Every Time

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, Homeopathic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: D. E.
  • Date Collected: 11-3-21

Informant Data:

  • D.E. is a 20-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2024. He is from Arizona and is on the Track and Field team where he participates in the javelin throw. He played many sports growing up and kept the same mindset for his performance through them all.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: D.E. grew up under a lot of influence from his coaches. He takes a lot of pride in their advice and tries to be like them. He played a lot of sports growing up and was always taught to respect what they taught him and always work his hardest.
  • Social Context: D.E. has been doing this since high school. He picked it up from a coach that told him many great players have done and do this superstition. It is meant to give him performance powers and he does the superstition right before putting on his last piece of equipment (hat or helmet) or right before he heads out to his competition surface.

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition that D. E. has performed since high school. He takes a brush to his hair before putting his hat on during his meet. Even if he doesn’t wear a hat, he still brushes his hair back.

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

Transcript:

  • “When I was 15, I was a freshman in high school and one of my coaches told me that an old superstition in the sport of football is, if you brush your hair back under your helmet, you’ll be faster than every guy on the field. I’m not sure where this came from or where he learned it, but he passed the info on to me. I don’t play football anymore, but I still perform in the Javelin throw for Dartmouth. So, before every meet, I still brush my hair back into my hat with the belief that it will give me a great performance. At this point it is more so just a habit of tradition and I don’t really believe that it makes me perform better.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • He doesn’t think that this really changes anything but practices it out of habit of the tradition. It’s a force of habit for him at this point and on a side note he also told me he plans to pass this down to his kids or a younger teammate someday.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This is a great superstition. I think that everyone has their own unique performance techniques that can help them, but they don’t always have some supernatural power. Maybe this is one of those. I think Derek may just do this out of respect for his old coach now.  

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Introduction

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Group 7 Folklore Collection Project

The goal of our project was to find any pre-competition superstitions and rituals that existed among the Men’s sports teams here at Dartmouth. We were open to both individual and team rituals, and then categorized them into their respective magical forms of superstitions.

            While many of the found superstitions were seemingly individual, we found that their origins were from deeply prior to Dartmouth. None of the informants were aware of the origin of their superstitions, but they all noted that it was either something that they grew up with in their region or were introduced to at Dartmouth.

            We conducted 35 total interviews and then graphed the results. At least one member from every Men’s Varsity sport was interviewed with the same five questions. We asked about superstitions on the individual and team level. The questions were as follows:

  1. Do you have any pre-competition superstitions, and if so, what are they?
  1. Does your team collectively practice pre-competition superstitions or rituals?
  2. Where did this superstition originate?
  3. How long has this superstition been practiced?
  4. Do you truly believe in this superstition, or is it just a routine/tradition that you like to keep doing?

In the folklore we collected, we found that the overwhelming majority of superstitions were classified as magical. Only one was sign and zero were conversion superstitions. We felt this was because many athletes feel like they create their own luck and success. Sign superstitions and conversion superstitions are based on outside influence. For example, a sign superstition is like if they see a black cat then they will not play well and a conversion superstition would be if they saw a black cat they would have to do ten pushups to have a good game later that day. Both of those types of superstitions involve the outside source of the cat that the athletes do not control. However, for magical superstitions, these are things that people can control for example, if an athlete eats well then they will play well. The athlete can choose to do something he knows will make him play better. So from this we concluded as we stated before, athletes believe more in creating their own luck and success rather than depending on an outside source to tell them how they will perform.

Breaking down the Magical superstitions by type, sympathetic was the biggest category, followed by homeopathic and then contagious. We think contagious was lowest because a majority of superstitions in this category include a severed body part or part of some magical item. Not many people carry around parts of magical items with them in modern times and most people do not carry around severed body parts to help them in sports. The contagious magic we did find involved someone changing their physical features like cutting their hair, not body parts. Finally we believe that sympathetic was the biggest category because sympathetic magic involves a connection between two things and the main goal in sports is to connect what is learned in practice to execution in a game. For example, if a player practices their rail shots then they will perform better in the squash match. The two are connected as the what the player does in practice should connect and happen in the game as well which is the basic principal of the cliche practice makes perfect. We think this sympathetic property in sports opens athletes up to having a larger number of sympathetic superstitions than magical superstitions of other types.

Same Socks Skier (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: Same Socks Skier

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, Homeopathic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: D.P.J.
  • Date Collected: 10-29-21

Informant Data:

  • D.P.J. is a 21-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2023. He is from California originally but then moved to the area of Vail, Colorado.  He is a member of the ski team. He was raised very closely to his family and has a special relationship to his father.    

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Skiing is an individual sport but also has team competitions as well. D.P.J. has been skiing since he was young and has always lived in mountainous areas where skiing is popular. The team competition has always driven him to succeed.
  • Social Context: Skiing requires a lot of detail put into their equipment and skill into their performance. D.P.J. learned of his superstition from an older teammate and was told that this was something all great skiers have done since skiing was first invented. Dash believes it has been the key to his success.

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition where D.P.J. has worn the same pair of lucky socks his whole ski career. He still washes them and keeps them clean and sanitary but he has the same ones that he always wears in his ski boots.

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

Transcript:

  • “When I was young, an old captain on my team said that I should pick out a pair of socks and make them my lucky socks. He said it was a superstition that all the great skiers have and that if I wanted to be great I had to do the same thing. So when I was 13 I picked out a pair and have been wearing the same socks ever since. I think now looking back, I realize it was just a mental tactic to make yourself think you have luck on your side, but I am a believer in the motto of ‘You create your own luck’”.

Informant’s Comments:

  • He is not a strong believer in this as shown in the transcript. Even though it has always been a popular thing in the ski world, at the end of the day you just need to perform. There is no actual magic that will help you.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This superstition made me laugh a little bit. It’s interesting to see what pieces of equipment (merely socks in this case) are valued throughout different sports.

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas

A Chant and a Prayer (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: A Chant and a Prayer

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: C.B.
  • Date Collected: 11-1-21

Informant Data:

  • C.B. is a 21-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2023. He is from Texas and is on the football team. He was raised very closely to his family and has a special relationship to his father.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Superstitions are important to sports teams. In football there are many players on the team that all contribute to the win. In C.B.’s case, Texas football is one of the most serious things in this country. They have a ton of pride in their teams and victory.     
  • Social Context: Team’s rely on every guy to contribute toward a winning effort. C.B.’s superstition came from his father who may have learned it from his father before him or somewhere else, he wasn’t certain of the whole chain. He is strongly religious in the Christian faith and performs his superstition before every game. This is something that puts Cameron in the most optimal mindset heading into

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition unique to C.B. Before every game he calls his father on the phone and says a prayer right before he is about to go on the field. He believes that God’s power gives him strength and confidence going into the game and that this will help him perform to the best of his abilities. Another is a team superstition where they all say the same chant before heading out for the game.

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

Transcript:

  • “I pray with my dad before going out to the field before every game. I started this my freshman year in high school when he would physically be with me to do it but now I just call him before each game right as I’m about to go out to the field and he is expecting it as well. This one originated from my faith and just the fact that I want to glorify God before anything else in my life. I definitely believe strongly in this one.”
  • “As far as team stuff goes, we all start chanting “juice” together loudly in the locker room. Then one of the leaders on the team (it will be the same guy for that whole year) will chant “juice check” three times and then we all finish it off with one more shout saying “juice” And that tradition has been going since I’ve been here”

Informant’s Comments:

  • He believes in these superstitions and believes in their power to help him perform and the team get a win.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I think this is a very powerful superstition. It clearly has some power that enables him and their team to perform. They have an extremely good record and won the Ivy League Championship last year.

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas