Tag Archives: custom

“Oscar Mayer Lullaby” (Piper Stevens)

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Title: Oscar Mayer Lullaby

General Information about Item:

  • Lullaby: Verbal Folklore   
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: C.S.
  • Concord, Massachusetts
  • Collected: November 11, 2021

Informant Data:

  • C. S. is a 19 year old freshman at Dartmouth College from Concord, Massachusetts, but was originally born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was raised by her mother Karen, who is a research doctor, and father Bobby, who works in healthcare, alongside her sister, Amy. C.S. plans on majoring in engineering, and in her free time, likes to ski and play sports. Her family practiced Catholicism, but C.S. does not currently consider herself Catholic.

Contextual Data:

Social Context:

  • C.S.’s mother loved the Oscar Mayer commercial when she was young because she thought the little boy singing the song was so cute and the jingle itself was so clever. When she had C.S., she realized that C.S.’s name fit perfectly with the jingle from her childhood, so she began to sing it to her as a baby. She sang C.S. the lullaby every night after she read her a book, so it became an integral part of her childhood.

Cultural Context:

  • Since the lullaby is customized to C.S.’s name, her family is likely the only one who sings this lullaby. However, C.S. wants to pass the lullaby down to her daughter or son, catering it to whatever their name happens to be. This lullaby is an example of how culture can influence lullabies, as her mother got the lullaby from a memorable commercial.

Lullaby Text:

(to the Oscar Meyer jingle): 

My little baby’s first name starts with C-O-U-R-T

My baby’s name continues N-E-Y-R-O-S-E

Oh, I love to kiss her everyday

And if you ask me why I’ll say

Because Courtney Rose is the cutest S-E-P-U-C-H-A

Audio:

Informant’s Comments:

“I’ve never seen the Oscar Mayer commercial, but I know exactly how the jingle goes because my mother has sung both versions to me so many times.”

Collector’s Comments: 

I had to look up the commercial to see what the tune of the lullaby was, and the commercial is from 1973. 

Collector: Piper Stevens

Tags:

  • Verbal Folklore
  • English Lullaby
  • Dartmouth
  • Students
  • Custom

Chants

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Title: Chants

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and sub genre: Customary and verbal folklore: custom, myth, tale, song
  • Language: Hawaiian/English
  • Country: USA

Informant Data:

  • Collected from myself: Marlo Mundon ’20 from the Big Island of Hawaii in 2009 from peers and teachers.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: This chant is used to ask for knowledge, wisdom, and guidance from ones ancestors. It is used mostly in formal and educational settings.
  • Cultural Context: There are many different kinds of chants that have different contexts, meanings, and styles of performance. Sometimes they are simply songs on their own or with hula (which usually tell stories and myths), or during seasonal ceremonies (for the gods or ancestors) or special occasions. There are many styles that range from sing-songy to monotone chants performed by societal leaders.

Item:

E ho mai

Ka ike mai luna mai e

na mea huna no’eau o na ele

E ho mai

E ho mai

E ho mai e

Audio Interview:

Transcript:

Michael: Do you have any like cultural tradition or superstition that you would like to share?

Marlo: One tradition that is really prevalent throughout all of Hawaii is chanting. At my old charter school we used to do chants every morning, they can be used in all kinds of contexts with a whole bunch of different meanings and stuff. Often times they’re used for ceremonies or special occasions, sometimes just announcing your presence if you’re a guest somewhere. Sometimes they’re just songs, or used for hula. A lot of them have specific meanings like some of them are in dedication to the ancestors or the gods. Some of them are for making your crops grow really well or asking for knowledge. That one in particular, asking for knowledge, there’s a short chant I know called “E ho mai” and that’s basically asking your ancestors to grant you knowledge.

Michael: Okay, and what are your thoughts on the social and cultural context of the chant and why?

Marlo: Socially, it’s super duper normal. The most common time you’ll hear a chant is before a meal, it’s kind of like saying grace. Some even end with “amen” but we say “amene” and like we do it at graduation, before school. It’s used all the time in many contexts. Culturally it’s a really, really old tradition that goes back to the beginning of Hawaiian culture. Like I said it has a lot of uses and it’s still used the same way today for cultural practices. It’s a good way to stay connected to the past and keep it alive today. When Hawaii was annexed it was illegal to practice um, like to do hula, speak the language, stuff like that and even now people don’t speak Hawaiian so doing the chants in the Hawaiian language keeps it alive because it’s dying out.

Michael: You should do the chant if you can remember it.

Marlo: Absolutely. It’s a short one but it’s repeated three times. I’ll just do the first time. And it raises an octave every time so that’s it.

 

Collector: Marlo Mundon

No Turning Back

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Title: No Turning Back

General Information About the Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Superstition
  • English
  • Italy

Informant Data:

  • Nancy Canepa has been an Italian professor at Dartmouth College since 1989. She is descended from Italian immigrants on her father’s side. Her paternal grandmother is from the Lombardy region of Italy, and her paternal grandfather is from the Liguria coast. She has attended two Italian weddings. Her husband is from the Apulia region of Italy.

Contextual Data:

  • Social/Cultural Context: In Italy, once a groom leaves home to go to a church for his wedding ceremony, it is important that he goes straight to the church and does not stop anywhere on his way there. The groom’s best man usually helps to make sure that he arrives at the church on time.

Item:

  • Once the groom has left home to go to the wedding ceremony, he cannot return home until after he is married. If he forgets something at home, he has to send one of his friends to get it for him.

Associated File (audio):

 

Transcript of Associated File:

  • “The groom – once he leaves his house to go to church for the wedding, he cannot turn back. And, if he’s forgotten something at home, he has to ask one of his um you know best men or friends whose with him to go back and get whatever it is.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • The informant said that this custom is an example of a superstition, that, if violated, would cause bad luck for the newlyweds. Therefore, it is important that the groom has someone with him who can retrieve anything that he forgets.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This superstition probably comes from the groom’s anticipation or fear that, by going back home, he might be delayed and be late to the wedding. This superstition is also based on the logic of magic; it follows the logic of “if I do A, some bad effect will happen.” Therefore, the groom would probably fear that going back would jinx the wedding.

Collector’s Name: Peter Loomis

Tags/Keywords:

 

Music as Communication among Peers

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Music as Communication among Peers

Informant information:

Mary Kate resides in Andover, Massachusetts. She has a daughter who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Her daughter is nine years old and participates in the” My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Type of lore: Customary

Genre: Children’s Folklore

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social / Cultural Context:

Mary Kate and Neal’s daughter cannot speak even though she is now nine years old as a result of an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Among the challenges this presents, she often has a difficult time connecting with her peers. This video captures how she and her peers created a methods of sharing a common act on a daily basis.

 

Informant’s comments:

The “typical” girls that [our daughter] is friends with at school also use music and songs to connect to her. They make up dances to show the teacher and even have a secret handshake which is really an elaborate high five routine with some dance moves and a sing songy recital of the moves. I would say this is the most included that [she] has been in the classroom in a long while and it is through music and movement.

Collector’s comments: 

This seems to be a piece of true children’s folklore, the girls work on songs, dances and routines like this together. What makes this particular one special is how it is in an effort to communicate with the girl who has special needs in a way that she is capable of reciprocating. At the end of the video one girl raises her hands and begins to shake them, which symbolizes applause in American Sign Language.

Tags/Keywords: Music, Communication, Custom, Special needs, Children, Dance, American Sign Language

Music as Communication within Families

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Music as Communication within Families

Informant information:

Mary Kate resides in Andover, Massachusetts. She has a daughter who has an undiagnosed developmental disorder. Her daughter is nine years old and participates in the” My Own Voice” choir, a choir for children with special needs in Andover.

Type of lore: Customary

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States of America

Social / Cultural Context:

Mary Kate and her husband Neal often sing to their daughter as a way to communicate with her. Other people in their daughter’s life use this technique as well, since her developmental disorder makes it more difficult for her to communicate using spoken language.

This use of music as a form of communication was something we found to be consistent across many families with children who have special needs.

Informant’s comments:

Music has always been used by many people in [our daughter’s] life to communicate and interact with her. As you do with all babies, Neal and I sang to [her] as we cuddled and held her close to sooth and help her sleep. [Her] grandmothers also did the same thing when holding her close. What is unique with [our daughter] is that even though she is almost 10 years old we still do the same thing.

[She] often times still drifts off to sleep with the “soothing ” tones of me or Neal (and trust me we cannot sing) in her ear. The songs vary based on her mood and how long we are singing. Neal and I both sing songs that we heard from our parent. We sing songs from movies and musicals ­ right now Mary Poppins is a preferred choice. We make up songs to melodies that she knows and use current information to keep her engaged such as what happened that day or what is happening in the future. I even sing commercial ditties ­ the oscar mayer wiener song is popular as is the oscar mayer bologna song.

Songs can be used as a reward as well. [She] has a token board at school and if she complies with the rules and expectations she receives positive marks throughout the day. If she receives enough checks she earns the opportunity to pick something from the treasure chest. When she gets in the car at parent pick up, if she has a good day (earned treasure chest) I sing this song… I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you. I hope that you are proud of you too! [Our daughter] loves this and beams while I am singing. Honestly, 99% of the tangible rewards from the treasure chest are forgotten and returned to school. She really is motivated by the song.

Collector’s comments:

We found this behavior of communicating through song to be a piece of customary folklore because it was something we saw consistently used across multiple families with children with special needs.

Because of the unique nature of certain developmental disorders, we saw the use of music to be an effective mode of communication between parents and their atypical children. This mode of communication is customary because of the way that parents of children with special needs share this technique with each other.

Tags/Keywords: Music, Communication, Custom, Special needs, family