Tag Archives: Customary Folklore

Clean Locker Room (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    • Locker room tradition
    • Type of Lore: Customary
    • Informant: KB
    • Place of Origin: Princeton, New Jersey
  2. Informant Data:
    • Kevin Bruce is a twenty one year old male who plays football at Princeton University. Kevin was born and raised in Needham, MA, where he attended Needham High School. He is currently a senior defensive lineman on the Princeton football team, and has resided in Princeton, New Jersey for the past four years.
  3. Contextual Data:
    • Princeton considers themselves to be atop the Ivy League, regardless of their record or season trajectory. They hold themselves to a high standard, and feel they play better when all players hold themselves accountable.
  4. Tradition
    • After every practice, every single Princeton player is responsible for helping to clean their locker room. Princeton takes their locker room very seriously, and believes if they can keep it looking clean (by doing the little things right), it will help them achieve perfection in the season. A clean locker room is the sign of a well organized team, and well run a team. This also brings the team closer together as a whole, helping build trust among players that everyone will do their part, and do it to perfection.

“Locker Room Pre-Game Chant” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    • Locker room tradition
    • Type of Lore: Verbal/Customary
    • Informant: DG
    • Place of Origin: Providence, RI
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Daniel Gioioso is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Union College. Daniel, who goes by Dan, was born in Newton Massachusetts but raised in Walpole Massachusetts. Dan attended Xaverian Brothers High School where his love of football flourished. Currently, he resides in Schenectady, New York, where he attends Union College and has played football for the past four years. 
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. The Union football team has seen great success since Dan joined the team in 2017. They recently won their national championship at the division 2 level. Dan started for the team throughout his entire collegiate career, and has helped Union by recruiting kids, and improving the culture at the school.
  4. Text/Tradition:
    1. To do this, Dan, amongst the other players, employ a locker room chant to get the players riled up and ready to play. This chant is a tradition at Union that had fallen off a little before Dan’s arrival. This chant was inherited from the older players, and said before every game. The chant is 16 lines, and the captain of the team gets in the middle of all the players in the locker room. This chant helps to build character, and ignites the fighting passion of the Union football players.
    2. Here are a few lines:
      1. “As I walk across the field today, it comforts me to know that I am the roughest, toughest guy on the field. I have been coached well, I show no mercy, so help me God”. 

“Friday Night Locker Room Watch Party” (Jake Guidone)

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  1. General Info
    1. Locker room tradition
    2. Informant: Callum Flanders
    3. Place of Origin: Providence, RI
    4. Verbal and Customary Tradition
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Callum Flanders is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Brown University. Callum, who goes by Cal, was born and raised on the south shore in Braintree, Massachusetts. He attended Xaverian Brothers High School where he developed his love for sports. Cal currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island, where he has attended Brown and played division one football for the past four years. 
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. College football was a lot different than Cal had expected. At Brown, the football team is not the focal point of the university (like many serious division one colleges), where attendance and the perception of football are at a low point. This was due to a continually losing football program at Brown. Players were not getting excited when their teammates were making big plays. They were not celebrating like other winning programs would, and it showed.
  4. Item/Tradition:
    1. In order to change culture, a few seniors (who graduated in 2010) began the “Friday Night Locker Room Watch Party”. No one knows who exactly started the tradition, but the players get together as a team on Friday night before the game, in the locker room. There, they watch the Ivy League Friday Night game on tv. They get food catered, bring gaming consoles, and play super smash bros. Players eat, talk and generally spend more time with each other (outside structured time). Friendships and true bonds are built through this unstructured time, and the tradition helps players become more willing to celebrate when their teammates/friends make a big play. 

Visualization

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Title: Visualization

General Information about Item:

  • customary lore, personal
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: JS
  • Date Collected 10/22/21

Informant Data:

  • Male, 20 years old, Born in New Jersey, Currently living in Hanover, NH
  • JS is a 400 hurdler on The Dartmouth Track Team

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Track competitions are often as much mental as physical, especially the field events and hurdles. Since track is an individual sport there is a lot of self-motivated pressure on an athlete to do well. Messing up only leaves ourself to blame so mental training is common in this sport. 
  • Social Context: During a track meet unlike the field events, sprinters and hurdlers only have one shot at their race. Hurdles can be mentally challenging as it is easy to mess up the rhythm and get hurt/loose the race.

Item:

  • JS has a certain visualization routine before every meet where he focuses on the feeling of running and successfully timing up each hurdle jump. He claims that it calms his pre-meet nerves and helps boost his confidence for a good race. He said that he learned this method from an older teammate in high school and has been doing it since.

Informant Comments/Quotes:

  • “I always have to visualize myself running the race the day before the meet.” -JS

Collector Comments:

  • Visualization is a common practice among track athletes because of how mentally challenging the sport can be. Although this practice is somewhat personal, I can personally verify, as a member of the track team, that this practice is extremely common especially at Dartmouth.

Collected By: Chloe Taylor

Don’t Drop the Baton

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Title: Don’t Drop the Baton

General Information About Item:

  • Customary folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: CH
  • Date Collected: 10/22/21

Informant Data:

  • Female, 20 years old, Born in Los Angeles, CA, Currently living in Hanover, NH
  • CH is a 100m, 200m, and 400m sprinter at Dartmouth

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: In every track meet there are individual races and team relays. During a relay a baton is passed from member to member until all four have completed the designated distance. This means only one per team is running at a time.
  • Social Context: There are usually three main relay races in every meet. The most difficult being the 100 meter relay. This is because the baton handoff has to occur in a certain zone on the track. Since the distance is so short, the speed at which the handoff occurs is extremely fast. This unfortunately makes it easy to mess up and drop the baton. Dropping the baton is an instant disqualification from the race.

Item:

  • CH described a tradition in which the relay batons are kept off the ground the entire meet.

Informant Comments/Quotes:

“The relay teams don’t let the baton touch the ground the entire day of the meet so that they won’t drop it in their race.” -CH

Collector Comments:

  • While this tradition is not Dartmouth specific, Dartmouth Track and Field has been practicing it for many years. CH does not know who started this trend, only that it has been with the team for many years. The superstition that dropping the baton before the meet could cause them to drop it in the race is very understandable considering how difficult and high stakes the hand offs can be in competition.

Collected by: Chloe Taylor

Runway Routine

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Title: Runway Routine

General Information about Item:

  • customary lore, personal
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: LG
  • Date Collected 10/21/21

Informant Data:

  • Female, 19 years old, Born in Arkansas, Currently living in Hanover, NH
  • LG is a Heptathalete, meaning she competes in seven track events: 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meters, long jump, javelin throw and 800 meters

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Track competitions are often as much mental as physical, especially the field events (throwing/jumping). Since track is an individual sport there is a lot of self-motivated pressure on an athlete to do well. Messing up only leaves ourself to blame so superstitions are common in this sport.
  • Social Context: During a track meet, athletes have a certain amount of time once they step on the runway to jump. During this time they prepare themselves however they want as their competitors watch. Therefore personal folklore is easily passed around as having a certain routine before a good jump may convince younger competitors to do the same routine.

Item:

  • LG has a specific runway routine (superstition) which she believes she must perform before each jump (in her jumping events) or she won’t do well. Although this is personal folklore she says that it was very common among jumpers on her high school team as well as The Dartmouth team. Her routine may be slightly unique but has shared elements that she learned by observing other athletes in jump event competition.

Informant Comments/Quotes:

  • “I rock back and forth four times on the runway before actually going. If I don’t do this then the jump feels off.” -LG

Collector Comments:

  • As a jumper myself I can verify LG’s observation about runway routines and how they are learned from others. Although it has a sense of individuality, it is also a track-wide practice, especially at Dartmouth, so I thought it was still valid to include in this collection.

Collected By: Chloe Taylor

Christmas in Hawaii

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General Information 

Informant: Naia Morse 

Place: Hanover, NH 

Date: 11/9/21 

Genre/Form of Folklore: Customary/ Material 

Title: Christmas in Hawaii 

Informant Data: Naia Morse is a student at Dartmouth College – a member of the 2022 class. Naia lives on The Big Island of Hawaii, where she was born. She majors in economics modified with engineering and is involved in the student-led organization “Hokupaʻa”, created by and for students who are from or are connected to the Pacific Islands. 

Contextual Data: Christmas in Hawaii is a major annual celebration, as in most of the Western world. The different cultures and ethnic groups that have settled in the Hawaiian Islands celebrate the Christmas traditions of Hawaii in their own unique ways, which may be religious or plainly secular. Even Santa Claus (Hawaiian: Kanakaloka) himself is not wearing his traditional red and white suit but has swapped it for flowery Hawaiian clothes instead. 

Social Data: This item of folklore was collected through a face-to-face interview of the informant just before the beginning of the Christmas season. 

Item: Christmas, a holiday honoring the birth of Jesus, has evolved into a worldwide religious and secular celebration, incorporating many pre-Christian and pagan traditions into the festivities – observed primarily on December 25th. Different types of decorations developed across various cultures and local traditions. 

Transcript: 

Collector: “How does you and/or your family go about decorating your house during the Christmas season? What sorts of decorations do you put up every year and what factors do you think influence this decorative style?” 

Informant: Well, I’d say since we’re slightly disconnected from traditional American holidays and celebrations… Christmas isn’t as traditionally festive in Hawaii, but we’re festive in our own way. Something cool about Hawaii is we have our Christmas trees shipped to us in refrigerated containers. I wouldn’t say we decorate outside of your typical seasonal house decorations. Most decorations are Christmas trees, poinsettias, lights, depictions of Santa in Hawaiian shirts. And everyone decorates the palm trees with Christmas lights.” 

Informant Comment: 

It’s Christmas but Hawaiian style. 

Collector Comment: 

I’ve heard of some roof decorations in Hawaii during Christmas that depict Santa on a surfboard being pulled forward by dolphins rather than reindeer. The Hawaiian Islands, even though they are American, share unique Christmas customs unlike the other forty-nine states. It’s clear that Hawaii decoration during Christmas time is heavily influenced by their own cultural celebrations previously, and their current culture. 

Collected by: 

Joshua Betts, 21 

Bradenton, FL 

Hanover, NH 

Dartmouth College 

RUSS 013 

Fall 2021 

Giant Tree

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General Information 

Informant: Gavin Muir 

Place: Hanover, NH 

Date: November 3rd, 2021 

Genre/ Form of Folklore: Customary/Material 

Title: “Giant Tree” 

Informant Data: Gavin Muir, 20, is a member of the class of 2023 at Dartmouth College. Gavin was born and raised in Connecticut with two brothers and a sister where they attended Greenwich High School. Gavin is majoring in economics and is affiliated with the Greek Life system. 

Contextual Data:  

For those who celebrate Christmas, the tree is typically the holiday’s most cherished centerpiece. Decorating a Christmas tree to mark the holiday season is a tradition that dates back to 16th-century Germany with Americans adopting the custom as early as the 1800s. Now, the giant Rockefeller Center tree, laid under 25,000 Christmas lights, is displayed for the entire world to see during the holiday season. For some families, getting a big tree into the house is truly a Christmas miracle. But for others with the space, it’s just a way to set a very merry tone for the holiday. 

Social Data: This item of folklore was collected through a face-to-face interview of the informant just before the beginning of the Christmas season. 

Item: During the holiday season, in the corner of Gavin’s living room sits an eighteen-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree. 

Transcript: 

Collector: “How does you and/or your family go about decorating your house during the Christmas season? What sorts of decorations do you put up every year and what factors do you think influence this decorative style?” 

Informant: “My parents don’t like to decorate too much, but one thing we’ve always had was a huge Christmas tree. We could never find a real one that big, so we got an artificial tree that’s eighteen feet tall. It’s pre-strung with lights and looks like it has snow on some of the branches. It has realistic-looking branches and needles, but it doesn’t smell like a Christmas tree, unfortunately. 

Informant Comment: 

My living room ceiling is probably 25 feet tall, that’s the only area we can fit the tree. The top of the star is just a couple feet from the ceiling.  

Collector Comment: 

Gavin is one of the few, if not the only person I know that has a larger-than-average Christmas tree, ant it sparks curiosity as to the origin of this family tradition. However, knowing Gavin’s background and circumstances enabled me to deduce that his sub-culture has an expressive body of folklore, and the extravagance of his Christmas tree is exemplary of this. 

Collected by: 

Joshua Betts, 21 

Bradenton, FL 

Hanover, NH 

Dartmouth College 

RUSS 013 

Fall 2021 

A Jewish Christmas

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General Information 

Informant: Josh Greene 

Place: Hanover, NH 

Date: October 29, 2021 

Genre/Form of Folklore: Customary/Material 

Title: “A Jewish Christmas” 

Informant Data: Josh Greene, 21, is a current junior at Dartmouth College majoring in Government while serving as the football team’s starting long snapper. Josh was born and raised in Palm Beach Gardens, FL where he attended The Benjamin School. Josh lives with his parents and younger sister when he is home on off-terms. He follows a Jewish faith and is also a columnist for The Dartmouth and writes bi-weekly to highlight his journey as a student-athlete.  

Contextual Data: For many Americans, December 25 is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but for those of a Jewish religion it is a time to consider one’s relationship to the wider society. Some Jewish families have chosen to adopt the Yuletide festivities. Some have emphatically rejected the rituals and symbols of Christmas. Still others have sought ways to meld Christmas and Hanukkah. Christmas, in effect, has become a prism through which Jewish individuals can view how living in this land of freedom has shaped their religion, culture, and identity.  

Social Data: For centuries, the Jewish people of Central and Eastern Europe feared Christmastime. At any other time, religious Jewish individuals would be studying Torah in the synagogue, but not on Christmas. Wary of being attacked in the street, they took refuge in their homes, playing cards or chess with their families. The story was different in Western Europe, where, for the Jewish elite, holiday symbols — such as the Christmas tree — signified secular inclusion in society. Today, thousands upon thousands of American Jewish people have become vested in Christmas through Hannukah and mitzvot. Now, Christmas is an occasion for many American Jewish people to proudly affirm their identity as both American and Jewish. This item of folklore was collected through a face-to-face interview of the informant just before the beginning of the Christmas season. 

Item: Decorative menorahs and dreidels hung on the walls with festive lanterns illuminating the house. Instead of green and red décor, blue and white items pervaded the scenery. Additionally, Jewish families typically top their trees with the Star of David rather than an angel/star. 

Transcript: 

Collector: “How does you and/or your family go about decorating your house during the Christmas season? What sorts of decorations do you put up every year and what factors do you think influence this decorative style?” 

Informant: “Well I think there is this preconceived notion that Christmas and Hannukah are the same holidays, but they’re not. Jews don’t celebrate Christmas quite the same, at least my family. We never really decorated too much… sometimes put up a Christmas tree, maybe a big family Christmas dinner. We always knew it was Christmas, and still recognized what the day was for, but never felt the need to put up a lot of decorations for it. The most I think my parents ever did was hang the Star of David above the front door, and these blue menorah banners that hung in our dining room. Growing up we had a small artificial tree with a menorah top and with blue and white lights, but we haven’t done that in a while.”  

Informant Comment 

Now, I celebrate Christmas with some of my friends and family the same way most people do – but’s usually a pretty small and informal thing. 

Collector Comment 

Historically and culturally, Jewish people haven’t celebrated Christmas because it was once a tragic day – So I understand why Josh and his family don’t celebrate or decorate the way many other non-Jewish American families do. But I was happy to hear that they are being festive by means of Jewish holiday. Josh and his family don’t celebrate Christmas because of the folkloric tradition of recognizing and utilizing the day as a day of rest in preparation for Hannukah. 

Collected by: 

Joshua Betts, 21 

Bradenton, FL 

Hanover, NH 

Dartmouth College 

RUSS 013 

Fall 2021 

The Whole Nine Yards

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General Information 

Informant: Justin Ko 

Place: Hanover, NH 

Date: October 28, 2021 

Genre/ Form of Folklore: Customary/Material 

Title: “The Whole Nine Yards” 

Informant Data: Justin Ko was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA where he attended William Penn Charter School and was the Class VP and Varsity Tennis captain. He is a current student of the Class of 2023 at Dartmouth College studying economics. Justin Ko is a member of a fraternity on campus, and often attends Sheba dance shows and Rockapella performances. Ko has spent several months in New York City during his Winter off-terms working internships and visiting family. 

Contextual Data: Christmas in the Northeast is nothing short of spectacular. With a fast-paced ambience and excessive festivity, a truly “white” Christmas brings the holiday season to a completely different level. Christmas is most proactively celebrated in the Northeast and most recognized. Culturally, Christmas is depicted in cold, snowy weather, under big city lights where neighboring families actively decorate and transform their properties to fit the spirited theme. 

Social Data: Celebrating Christmas in ways that avoid the aspects of religious beginnings show that for many, Christmas is rather a time of sharing love with one another. Families use this time to recognize that simply being with your loved ones brings joy into their lives. As Christmas becomes a growing secular celebration, we see how decoration amid the holiday becomes a means of exercising this belief. Putting up decorations early extends the excitement of the festive season and acts as a pathway to old childhood magical emotions, ultimately making those who do it together happier. This item of folklore was collected through a face-to-face interview of the informant just before the beginning of the Christmas season. 

Item: Christmas, a Christian holiday honoring the birth of Jesus, has evolved into a worldwide religious and secular celebration, incorporating many pre-Christian and pagan traditions into the festivities – observed primarily on December 25th. Different types of decorations developed across various cultures and local traditions. 

Transcript: 

Collector: “How does you and/or your family go about decorating your house during the Christmas season? What sorts of decorations do you put up every year and what factors do you think influence this decorative style?” 

Informant: “Every year, an entire month before Christmas, my family and I decorate literally the entire house with festive decorations. My mom has furniture and decoration replacements totally designated for Christmas in 5 massive boxes in the attic. My dad and I carry them down and unload them one by one so my mom can set them up where she wants them. There would be lights, ornaments, stockings, a wreath, curtains, pillows, ribbons, candles, and some figurines. After that was all done, we’d set up the tree together as a family and take turns putting up the ornaments. When the inside was done, we’d go outside and put some yard decorations up and finish with the roof lights. We really do the whole nine yards every year. My mom loves it.” 

Informant Comment: 

My family has always been super festive around the holidays. My grandparents follow the same protocol. But most of the decorations we put up aren’t necessarily related to the origins of Christmas, but more whimsical and childish, for lack of a better word.  

Collector Comment: 

For this American family in the Northeast, decorating for Christmas is a ritual that they take pride in and always do together. Regarding their family’s more pagan decorative style, their time living in the Northeast likely heavily influenced this. Because Justin and his family all grew up in the Northeast, where Christmas decoration and celebration is practiced the most, it is probable that the folk custom of pagan-style decorating influences the way they go about decorating for Christmas.  

Collected by: 

Joshua Betts, 21 

Bradenton, FL 

Hanover, NH 

Dartmouth College 

RUSS 013 

Fall 2021