Tag Archives: material folklore

“The Brick” (Jake Guidone)

  1. General Info
    1. Locker room tradition
    2. Informant: Andrew Irwin
    3. Place of Origin: Cambridge, MA
    4. Material Tradition
  2. Informant Data:
    1. Andrew Irwin is a twenty-two year old male who plays football at Harvard University. Andrew was born and raised in Altoona, PA, where he attended Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School. Andrew is currently a senior linebacker on the Harvard football team, and has resided in Cambridge, MA for the past four years.
  3. Contextual Data:
    1. In recent years, Harvard has always been at the top in terms of Ivy League football. But it wasn’t always like that. Back in the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s Harvard football was a disaster. They were not playing well, and it was like the program had hit a roadblock. The coaching staff and players were unsure if it was just their time in history to be average, or if they were cursed. Something had to be done in order to get the program back on track. In the year 2000, after having lost to the Ivy League champions (University of Pennsylvania) by just one point, things seemed to be trending in the wrong direction. However, things changed after a team trip to the local swimming spot nearby. 
  4. Item/Tradition:
    1. No one is sure of how this tradition started, or by whom, but on that trip to the swimming spot, a Harvard football player picked up a brick in the middle of the lake. He began throwing in the air as high as possible, and everyone had to run away before being hit. Apparently, the team was enthralled by the brick since there was nothing to do at the lake besides swim. They ended up bringing the brick back to their football locker room. As a joke, the player who found the brick brought it to the team’s first game. They pumbled their opponent by 35 points. Since that point, the team brought the brick to every game, and would make sure to safely return it to the locker room immediately after. That year, Harvard went 9-0, and was one of only two teams to ever go undefeated in the Ivy League. Now, the brick resides in the Harvard Locker room, and is brought to every game for good luck.

Christmas in Hawaii

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

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

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

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

Wreath Making

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

Broccoli Dish

General Information Data:

Material Folklore, Food

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Informant: S.T.

Date Collected: 11/12/2021

Informant Data: S.T. is a 40 year-old mother born and raised in Portland, Oregon. The informant is the Aunt of the collector, and their two families celebrate Christmas together. She is a Mother of two who enjoys making homemade jewelry, cooking, and leading an active lifestyle. The informant says she loves spending time with her family and enjoys wholesome holiday celebrations.  

Contextual Data

Cultural Data: The holiday season in America is a time for gatherings and camaraderie. Around Christmas time, large holiday events are hosted for families and friends to gather in a festive setting. These parties are put on as “potlucks”, in which each member in attendance brings a dish to provide to the party. This culture of potlucks and holiday parties creates the opportunity to observe unique folklore. 

Social Data: S.T. comes from a large but tight knit family. The family has resided in the Portland metropolitan area for generations, and the Family is known to host large holiday parties for both friends and family. S.T.’s mother and grandmother were both great cooks, and they have passed down family recipes through generations. 

Item: For every Christmas party, a member of S.T.s family brings a Broccoli Dish. Originally, S.T.’s mother was responsible for bringing the special dish. After her mother passed away, S.T. inherited the tradition of making the Broccoli Dish for parties. The recipe has been committed to memory and passed down through generations of women in the informants family. It is a baked dish consists of broccoli, multiple types of cheese, a guarded spice mixture, and breadcrumbs. However, this is the extent of information S.T. was willing to provide, as she doesn’t want to give away the recipe. 

Associated File:

This is an image of the Family preparing Christmas Dinner. At the bottom of the image is a platter of Mashed Potatoes. The platter above to the potatoes with a spoon in it is the esteemed Broccoli Dish. 

Transcript: “After Momo [the informant’s mother] died, I have been the one who makes the Broccoli Dish to Family Christmas. I love doing it, and I learned how to make the dish by cooking with Momo around Christmas time since I was a kid. I know it’s popular every year because it is always gone by the end of the night. I remember a few years ago, [my husband] forgot to bring the dish from home and we all made him drive back home to get it!”

Collectors Comments: This appears to be a great example of a customary folkloric food item. The origins of the Broccoli Dish’s original recipe are unknown. It has been passed down orally through generations in the informants family. Family members learn how to make the dish through collective effort and collaboration. Over time, due to changes of availability and preferences of ingredients, there have been multiple iterations of Broccoli Dish, exemplifying multiple existence. 


Collectors Name: Jackson McGinley

Stockings (Julia Cross)

General Information about Item:

  • Material Lore
  • Language: English
  • State of Origin: California, USA
  • Informant: T.M.
  • Date Collected: Nov. 5, 2021

Informant Data:

T.M. is a Dartmouth Student in the class of 2024. He was born and raised just outside of Los Angeles, California, and has lived there his whole life until coming to Dartmouth. He and his family love the holidays and have many family traditions to bring the family together. 

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: The informant is American and not religious. While this may seem confusing, as Christmas is a Christian holiday, American Christmas traditions are often only loosely related to its original religious roots. Gifts, the purchasing, wrapping and giving of them, is a very important part of an American Christmas. The presentation of these gifts are equally as important to uphold other Christmas lore, such as the belief in Santa Claus. 

Social Context: This folklore was collected in a planned interview, the informant knew the subject was going to be on Christmas beforehand. Before I decided I wanted to focus on gifts, I asked a wide variety of questions and decided the relevant bit of folklore was the use of stockings. The folklore was originally learned when the informant was a child, and since the practice stockings has been in the family for awhile, the first family member to use them is unknown. The social function of stockings, and the gifts that come inside them, for this informant is primarily humour.

Item:

Although the interview covered much more than just stockings, I will only focus on this one item for this post because many of the things mentioned were lovely family traditions, but I couldn’t make a strong case for them being ‘folklore’. Stockings are large sock-shaped bags in which smaller presents are placed into. The original inventor or location is unknown, but many families across America use stockings for storing gifts in addition to putting gifts under the tree. While gifts under the tree may be more ‘intimate’ and a lot of thought goes into them, gifts in stockings tend to be more light-hearted, and in this case, humorous. 

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

Recording of interview with Theory

Transcript:

Please listen to the audio recording for more detail, but here is a relevant paraphrasing about stockings:

“Stocking gifts are usually smaller and more funny than intimate…there’s usually some sort of nude calendar for some member of the family”

Collector’s Comments:

I’m not American, but I also use stockings with my family, although our stocking gifts aren’t humorous. They are more trinket-like, for instance I used to get little candies or fun-shaped erasers. I think stockings count as material lore because they are “things people make with their hands” (Wilson) for a specific occasion, for entertainment. Although they aren’t commonly made by hand anymore, they still exist as a folkloric relic of that era. 

Collector’s Name: Julia Cross

Dartmouth College

RUSS13

Fall 2021

Invitation Letter/Card

Title: Invitation Letter/Card

Information about Item:

  • Form of material and customary folklore
  • Informant: S.I.
  • Date Collected: 5/8/2020

Informant Data:

  • S.I. is a female member of the Class of 2021 at Dartmouth. She is affiliated with Greek Life, and she is from California.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural: A letter or card is given to you that invites you to be part of the house. The letter is usually signed by the president and the recruitment chair of the house.
  • Social: This information was collected through a video chat interview.

Item:

  • A letter or card that is sent to the individual as an official invitation to be part of the house

Collector’s Name: Gia Kim

Tags/Keywords:

  • Material folklore
  • Customary folklore
  • Letter
  • card
  • rush

Rush Round Themes

Title: Rush Round Themes

Information about Item: 

  • Material folklore
  • Customary folklore
  • Informant: H.W.
  • Collected 5/13/2020

Informant Data:

H.W. is a member of the Class of 2020 at Dartmouth from Portland, OR. She is affiliated with Greek Life at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural: Rush rounds are the three steps of the Inter-sorority Council (ISC) sorority rush process taking place over 1.5 weeks.
  • Social: The item was collected through a video chat interview. Only current members of the organization dress according to the theme. According to the informant, the social significance of this item is that it is a way to “be memorable” to potential new members and ultimately tells something about the specific organization.

Item:

Current members of sororities may dress according to different themes for the three rounds of the rush process. Some examples given by the informant are Outer Space theme and Rock and Roll theme.

Collector’s Comments:

This item made clear the importance of how the Greek organization presents itself to potential new members during the rush process.

Collector: Meredith Srour

Tags/Keywords:

  • Material folklore
  • Customary folklore
  • Sorority Rush
  • Themes