Tag Archives: rite of passage

Jewish 13th (1)

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Customary/Ritual

Jewish Bat Mitzvah

NK

Massachusetts, U.S.

November 2nd, 2020

Informant Data:

NK is a senior at Dartmouth College, where she is a neuroscience major on the pre-med track. She was born and raised in Massachusetts by two Ashkenazi Jewish parents and with a younger sister. She attended an all-girls private school with a very small Jewish student population. However, all her life her family was active in the reform Jewish community – NK attended Hebrew school twice a week as a child and was active in her synagogue Youth Choir.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Bar and bat Mitzvahs, bar for boys and bat for girls, is a large celebration in Jewish culture that occurs at the age of 13 (or sometimes 12, for girls) which celebrates a child’s entrance into Jewish adulthood. It marks the beginning of their Torah studies and their active participation in Jewish adult rituals thereafter.

Social Context: The celebration consists of three parts – a religious ceremony, a formal lunch, and a party. The child spends up to a year beforehand learning and practicing her Torah portion to read on the bimah – a raised platform in the synagogue – in front of their friends and family. The length of the service varies, but for reform Jews it’s usually short, around an hour and a half. The child also wears a talit, or a special fringed shawl, which is often passed down within the family. The lunch usually consists of a few close relatives and family friends and involves a candle-lighting ritual or some other variation to honor important individuals in the child’s life. Though the family also attends, the following party is much more focused on the child’s friends and peers, and includes a lot of food, games, and dancing.

Item:

This information is paraphrased from notes taken during NK’s Zoom interview.

To celebrate their thirteenth birthday, Jewish girls have a bat mitzvah, which includes a ceremony in the synagogue where they read the Torah and give a personal speak, a post-ceremony lunch with a small group of close family and friends, and a large, exuberant party, usually at night. For the Jewish girl, picking out the dress and the talit (if it is not a family heirloom, and must be bought) are very important pre-celebration rituals. The party usually has a theme – in NK’s case, she did a color scheme: blue, purple, and green. NK worked with party planners beforehand to set up decorations, including unique, personalized centerpieces on all the tables. The party room also included a large dance floor and a photo booth. People brought in their gifts during the party, and monetary gifts are the most traditional, though jewelry for girls is common as well.

 

 

Allison Hufford, 21

Dartmouth College

RUSS 13

Fall 2020

Acceptance in the Workplace (Jacob Cruger)

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Title: Acceptance in the Workplace

General Information About this Item:

  • Rite of Passage, workplace folklore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Informant #2
  • Date Collected: 2/20/18

Informant Data:

  • FO+M worker, started working for the college relatively recently (within the last ten years). Not originally from the Upper Valley.

Contextual Data:

  • Facilities, Operations, and Management is a broad department containing numerous divisions, offices, and shops. It hires people from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from young people straight out of school to experienced workers.  There are no specific initiation rites for new employees, but the informant observes one clear trend with new hires.This practice was both observed by the informant and communicated to her by more experienced employees when she started her job.
  • According to current employees, FO+M has changed dramatically in the last 10-20 years. Accordingly, there is a widely acknowledged difference between “New Dartmouth” and “Old Dartmouth.”

Item:

  • Employees are typically vary polite and diplomatic with new employees. Only after some time has passed will employees be willing to joke around with or open up about their lives outside of work to more recent hires.

Transcript:

  • “The only thing I can think of, at least for this area, is when you first get here people are vary diplomatic… when I was new everyone was very diplomatic and very by the book. And the longer you’re here you know you’ve arrived when someone will like tell a joke around you”

Collector’s Comments:

This item seems closely connected to the notion of “Old Dartmouth v. New Dartmouth,” an idea I heard about from multiple informants.

Collector’s Name: Jacob Cruger

Tags/Keywords:

  • Rite of passage, rites of passage
  • FO+M

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Blood Stripes

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Title: Blood Stripes

General Information about Item:

Customary Folklore: Rituals, Rights of Passage

Language – English

Country of origin – America

Informant Data:

Cory Green is a 26 year-old male from St. Albans, Vermont. He is now located in Boston and is attending Northeastern University. He joined the Navy in July of 2008 out of high school to be a hospital Corpsman. He did boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. From 2009-2011, he was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan where he worked in the ER and ICU doing basic hospital medicine. In 2011, he transferred to first Marine division to be an infantry corpsman where he specialized in combat medicine and combat trauma. Finally, in 2013 he transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he worked in family practice and eventually, got out of the military.

He joined the Navy because he was 3-sport athlete in high school, and his grades weren’t the best. He also didn’t feel mature enough for college. His dad suggested the Navy as the best option for him. Cory is 6th generation Navy. He felt that corpsman had the best opportunities for real-life experience and jobs outside of the Navy.

Contextual Data:

After being promoted to E4 or above and receiving your red stripes, there would be a meeting where everyone who is above you punches you in the leg where the red stripes are located.  This serves as sort of a hazing tradition.  The military focuses on hierarchy, and the blood stripes serve as a right of passage where the higher ranked officers put someone through some hazing when they become a certain rank.

Item:

Blood Stripes: After receiving your red stripes for ranking to E4 or above, higher ranking officers punch you in the leg.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Cory: The blood stripes more fell with the Marines. When they became NCOs, an E4 or above, how we did it with 24 was that we had a NCO meeting in one of the rooms and to earn your blood stripes, it’s just that all the people that are E4 and above they’re in a room, and it’s pretty much just like you get Charlie-horsed until everyone does it, and then you just can’t walk for a couple days, you know, nothing too crazy. But that was more for like the Marines, even though I don’t wear blood stripes, I still went through it just because when I picked up E4, it was part of the tradition that we had so even though I don’t rate blood stripes, I still went through it just to do it with them so there’s that one.

Cole: What is a blood stripe?

Cory: When you become an NCO on the dress uniforms of Marines, they have the red stripe going down the pants, and they call that the blood stripe so that’s how they get those.

Informant’s Comments:

Even though he wasn’t a Marine and didn’t get the red stripes, when Cory became an E4, he went through the blood stripe tradition because he was in a Marine unit.

Collector’s Comments:

This process serves as a sort of hazing ritual that respects the hierarchy that the military focuses on.

Collector’s Name: 

Matt Girouard

Tags/Keywords:

Blood Stripes, Rite of Passage, Marines, Red Stripe, Military, E4

Earning Title of Doc

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Title: Earning Title of Doc

General Information about Item:

Customary Folklore: Rituals, Rights of Passage

Language – English

Country of origin – America

Informant Data:

Cory Green is a 26 year-old male from St. Albans, Vermont. He is now located in Boston and is attending Northeastern University. He joined the Navy in July of 2008 out of high school to be a hospital Corpsman. He did boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. From 2009-2011, he was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan where he worked in the ER and ICU doing basic hospital medicine. In 2011, he transferred to first Marine division to be an infantry corpsman where he specialized in combat medicine and combat trauma. Finally, in 2013 he transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he worked in family practice and eventually, got out of the military.

He joined the Navy because he was 3-sport athlete in high school, and his grades weren’t the best. He also didn’t feel mature enough for college. His dad suggested the Navy as the best option for him. Cory is 6th generation Navy. He felt that corpsman had the best opportunities for real-life experience and jobs outside of the Navy.

Contextual Data:

Cory first learned about the honor of being a doc in bootcamp in Great Lakes, Illinois.  The honor of being called doc was only going to be bestowed upon someone that had earned the trust of their superiors.  Obviously, the military focuses a lot on hierarchies, and within the hierarchies there needs to be trust.  This is an example of an unofficial hierarchy within the military.

Item:

Earning Title of Doc: Initially as a corpsman, you are referred to as a nurse.  After gaining the trust and respect of your superiors, you earn the title of doc.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Cory: When it comes to the title of doc, I think, was the biggest tradition for me that I wanted to get because I remember when I first got to the Marine Corps unit I was actually called nurse because I didn’t rate, which means you’re at the bottom of the totem pole, you have to earn our respect to be called doc. You don’t just get the name, we don’t give the name out. That actually like drove me to be the corpsmen that I became. When you’re with your marines, and like they treat you like a marine but they also have a little bit of respect even if you are a boot and haven’t done nothing, but they also know that you still have to earn their respect for them to earn your title. It took me over a year and a half; it actually took me until my 7th casualty to even be called doc just by accident, and even when they called [me] it for the first time, they still like you know, just messing with me were like “ah, you’re still nurse to us, but you know…” So I think that’s like the biggest tradition for me that I liked to hear was earning the title doc. You know, you always heard it in school, in Great Lakes, you know, earning that name, and like how it’s just not given out, and then it’s just that pride that we have of becoming one, that was the best part about it I think.

Informant’s Comments:

Earning the title of doc was a big focus of Cory’s, and he feels it drove him to be the best corpsman he could be.

Collector’s Comments:

This item is essentially an unofficial hierarchy that focuses on respect, and it takes a lot of work to earn this title.

Collector’s Name: 

Matt Girouard

Tags/Keywords:

Rite of Passage, Doc, Nurse, Navy, Military, Corpsman

Corporate Recruiting as a ‘Rite of Passage’

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Genre and Sub Genre: Rites of Passage

Language: English

Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data: Emily Ma is a Biology and Economics double major in the class of 2018 at Dartmouth. She is from North Potomac, Maryland, where her mom is an eye doctor and her dad is a scientific researcher.  Emily has participated in formal recruiting twice at Dartmouth. After college Emily aims to work in healthcare consulting and eventually go to med school.  She is a member of Kappa Delta sorority, is a Design Editor for the Dartmouth Business Journal, and she serves on the Red Cross Club executive team.

Social/ Cultural Context: Emily was interviewed, one-on-one, in a common space on campus.  She has gone through the process of formal corporate recruiting at Dartmouth twice, and when interviewed was interviewed just after completing her recruiting this term. The corporate recruiting process is highly structured and often represents the bridge between student life and the “real world,” thus serving as a rite of passage for these students.

Item: For econ majors working to ultimately go into consulting, finance or technology, corporate recruiting is a rite of passage. It is the process by which students are separated from their peers and their classes, are tested, taught, and ultimately exposed to the real world of searching for a job.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Do you feel like doing Corporate Recruiting has changed your Dartmouth experience? Would you consider it a rite of passage? Yeah, for econ majors and those looking to go into consulting or finance and possibly tech.

Why do you think that? Because it is sort of like a gateway to the quote unquote real world, in the sense that you get exposed to a lot of processes and procedures that adults do in the real world when looking for a job, that you otherwise wouldn’t really be exposed to when you’re on campus.

Informant’s Comments: n/a

Collector’s Comments: Informant is able to give a detailed and experience driven commentary on recruiting after going through the process not once but twice over the past six months. Given that she has completed at least one round fully, I feel that she is well qualified to speak to the process as it pertains to rites of passage.

Collector’s Name: Bridget Dougherty

Tags/Keywords: Corporate Recruiting, Rite of Passage

Blood Pinning

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Title: Blood Pinning

Informant info: Informant name is Jason Laackmann. Jason is twenty-eight years old and attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Army Veteran. Jason served in the Army for five years in active duty and continues to serve in the Minnesota National Guard. The locations in which he has served are Fort Bend, Georgia, Fort Riley, Kansas, and overseas in Eastern Afghanistan.

Type of lore: Customary/Material Folklore, Tradition

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Jason was interviewed at Dartmouth College. He was asked to discuss any traditions he had experienced during his time in the Army, in which he recalled a special and prominent tradition he felt strongly about when he graduated Ranger School.

Associated File: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6KcnEdk7Q4 (start at 3:18)

Transcript:  [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: Um, you know another thing, is graduating Ranger School, when you, when you get pinned your Ranger Tag on your shoulder, instead of pinning it through the fabric, they take the safety pin and put it all the way to your skin as a rite of passage. And uh, it’s the same thing with promotions and uh, combat awards. Or um, like when you, when you pass airborne school, you, they take the pin and push it into your skin and blood pin you without the back and just, hammer it home. Or when you get promoted, um, they’ll put the, the rank on your chest, and punch you quite hard. Uh, the army says all that stuff is hazing, but, uh you know, traditions are traditions. So it’s gonna be done regardless.

Informant’s comments: Jason has experienced this tradition a few times and still remembers it being a bit painful but at the same time humbling and honoring.

Collector’s comments: Jason did a subtle demonstration when describing the pinning tradition, pulling at his shirt sleeve at one point in his explanation. When discussing the blood pinning, Jason punched his chest to emphasize how the pin would be placed in his chest, as well as punching his fist into his hand.