A Best Friends Handshake!

A Best Friends Handshake

The tradition that I could think of on the top of my mind would have to be one that is between two best friends, Eryn and I. For as long as I could remember we have always had this certain handshake between us we call it the fist and explode. But since I have to think back to when it actually happened and why, would have to be because of a movie that we had watched together. In this movie (step up 2) there was a kid named moose who thought that this handshake was cool, so he showed it to his new-ish friend. By doing this handshake it showed that moose didn’t care about what others thought of him, he was just himself. From seeing this movie and every moment from then on Eryn and I thought it was cool and would be awesome if we had our own handshake. Even though we don’t truly do it just like Moose in the movie Step up 2 we still have a form of it because it did originally come from him and that movie. How moose does it is that he fist bumps, then he sucks in then he “blow’s it up”. How Eryn and I do it is by doing the fist bump and then we explode it! When we do this is usually when we do or say something clever/ funny. Sometimes we even do it just to make a laugh or just when we look at each other. I would say that the folklore groups that practice this would have to be between two friends (Eryn and I). We practice this tradition not for the fact that it’s a routine but for the fact that this is us, this is how we show are true and utter self. We practice this handshake in the beginning because it gave us a laugh, made us happy. But now? Now we do it for the same reason that moose did it, to show people that we are who we are, and there is no shame in this. We have gone these five some odd years hearing others tell us that they don’t understand us, that they don’t understand our kind of friendship. We got tired of hearing this, and yes people still say things but this handshake means us, means our friendship. With this handshake we have learned that yes people can have their opinion but that does not mean that we have to abide by them, listen to what those others say about us, put us down and make us feel low. Yes we would allow others into our group but like I said no one understands it truly, so we are true friends. Now see if someone did come along like us and did are handshake with us we would be glad to allow them to join our group, it would actually make us very happy to have others in our group. We would feel liked. This tradition identifies us as a group, as true friend.

I interviewed my best friend Eryn Eccles, and as best friends we agreed on how we originally came up with are fist and explode handshake and the reasons behind it.

My Family: The traditions of decorating the x-mas tree

My Family: The traditions of decorating the x-mas tree

Folklore group: My Family

Genre: Material and Customary

I will go into more details on my final project this is only an over view of what I will be talking about.

Decorating the x-mas tree is a big and valuable tradition in our family.

Music: why

• My family must listen to x-mas music during when we decorate the tree.

• And the reasons behind this.

• The certain songs, and cd’s that we like to listen to

Specific ornaments:  why

• Certain order we put the ornaments in

• Reason behind most (special) ornaments.

• New traditions that we have started

Angel on the top: why

•   came from my mom side of the family

•   who puts it up

•  the finish part of decorating the tree

When we put up the tree: why

• specific time that we put the tree up and why

When we put it down: why

• specific time we take down the tree and why

I will be interviewing my mother, since she is the reasons behind why decorating a x-mas tree, and asking why it is so big in my family.

ARIZONA'S BEST FEST!!!!!

1.       Your text says that rituals are "stylized, highly contextualized, deeply symbolic activities that enable groups to acknowledge, exemplify and/or act out certain traditional ideas, values and beliefs" (p. 95). In what ways does the Best Fest fit this definition? Are there ways in which it does not? In other words, is the AZ Best Fest a ritual?

Some parts of the best fest yes was part of a ritual such as the Native American Village, even the Western part had its ritual. Each section had their values and beliefs. Like the Native American Village I saw so many values and beliefs.  Like their baskets, or their weaving, and their dance rituals. I didn’t understand how the military section was a ritual and or how they had their values and beliefs, because they can’t really show it.

2.       What traditional ideas, values and or beliefs are being expressed in the Best Fest? How are they expressed?

I spent my time at the best fest in the Native American Village because they showed their traditional ideas by telling us stories of why and how each dance symbolizes different meanings.  Then they showed their values by what they made like paintings, baskets, and how they cooked their food (what tools they used).  Then the best part is how they showed their beliefs! How they did this is by making dream catchers, their singing and lastly their dancing. How this shows their beliefs is with the dream catchers, singing and dancing you realize that they believe in spiritual things. They also believe in purifying the ground they are on. How they do this is by burning herbs and blowing it around them, they also breathe it in too. I found that all in all the Native Americans express themselves through their dancing, singing, and their art. With all these things you can fit them in folklore genres (material, verbal and customary).

3.       Does the Best Fest express (or try to express) a single group identity? If so, what identity is that and how is it expressed? If not, what groups are included in the Best Fest and how are they distinguished from each other?

All together the best fest was expressing Arizona’s past we had the Native American Village, we had the Wild West days. So yes I believe it is expressing the history that Arizona the state has been through and see. The Native Americans lived here telling their stories of earth and doing their dances to either the spirits, food, water and or marriage. We still carry many of the traits that they brought to us. Like while I was at the best fest I tried for the first time fry bread (with honey) it was ultimately amazing! Then while I kept eating it I realized that I have sort of already had fry bread already before, but instead of calling it fry bread we now call it funnel cake! I was amazed at this connection. Also when it came to the dancing we now a day still dance to get a boys attention do we not? So I thought we could of also got this trait from the Native Americans that we ran into. Then the wild west even though I didn’t stay around very much on this section of the best fest, but best fest still expressed it, by showing the gun shows and the different costumes the wore back in that time.

4.       Identify and document five examples of verbal folklore, material folklore and customary folklore demonstrated or expressed at the festival.

MATERIAL!

VERBAL!

CUSTOMARY!

5.       Is there a frame to the festival as a whole or to the event/activity/area that you observed that sets it apart from "ordinary" life? If so, what was it? If not, how was the event/activity/area distinguished from any other part of the festival or from the town of Prescott?

Well the whole thing of the Best Fest is out of the ordinary because we don’t have it come every day. Also the each section didn’t fit apart the everyday/ordinary life either because we don’t where those sorts of costumes, we don’t talk that way. We live completely different than we did then, that’s why these things are so interesting to use now.

Journal of American Folklore

Journal of American Folklore Vol.124, No. 492, April 2011, the issues are all verbal folklore. I was sort of surprised from the issues I read in these articles. To tell the truth no I would have never minus the one on Harry Potter but even that one was hard to place for me. Folklore to me is hard to categorize. Well yes my definition of folklore did change. It was hard to understand what went under folklore but now that read these articles it makes it easier to categorize them. Well they chose these article’s maybe because they were interested in the issue and they knew what followed under folklore.  In the articles "It Takes a Village to Change the World": Proverbial Politics and the Ethics of Place by Wolfgang Mieder is about how even people from the past like Abraham Lincoln, and martin Luther king and how they efforts to bring about human and social improvements regionally, nationally, and globally. Then you have The Wisdom of Wizards-and Muggles and Squibs: Proverb Use in the World of Harry Potter by Heather A. Haas is about the proverbs verses real life and the fantasy world. Gestures, Intercorporeity, and the Fate of Phenomenology in Folklore by Katharine Young is about how you gesture when you talk and how those gestures are proceeded. "May the Devil Take Your Head and Brain": The Curses of Karpathos, Greece, Social Counter structures, and the Management of Social Relations by Evangelos Gr. Avdikos which is about the curses helping keep a world view of the cultural area of Greece this custom might be more about the customary of folklore because of the rituals of everyday. They thought it was important which is good and they knew what they were talking about.

URL is http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jamerfolk.124.492.issue-492