First Aid

In thinking of a topic for a transitory post between folk knowledge and oral knowledge, I couldn't find something I liked to write about. So I went (instantly hears Harry and Ron say "to the library" in my head) to the instructor blog where there was a list of ideas for folk knowledge. I ended up deciding that first aid was a good topic. Let me explain why.

When you were a little kid, you probably went to your mom whenever you got hurt. If you just got a little cut, your mom probably put on some neosporin and a band-aid; if you got a bad scrape, she probably put on hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid. Basically, if you got hurt, your mom would put something on followed by a band-aid.

As we get older, we begin to learn to treat ourselves. Seeing someone else treat me when I got hurt was a big part of learning how, but it wasn't enough. I knew that scrapes called for hydrogen peroxide and cuts called for neosporin, but I didn't know why simply from watching. I also never saw my mom call the poison control center, but I knew that I needed to if I saw someone get bit by a poisonous snake. For that matter, even, I hadn't ever seen anyone get bit by a poisonous snake, so I had no actual folk knowledge derived from experience of how to tell if a snake was poisonous or not. First aid was therefore a form of folk knowledge and also a form of oral knowledge.

Shootin' Some Serious Hoop

I wouldn’t consider myself to be a basketball expert, but I’ve spent many hours developing a very respectable jump shot. I had previously played a casual game of H.O.R.S.E. with my friend Jenna, and decided I could help her learn a little bit more about shooting some hoop.

The jump shot is critical to a basketball player’s skillset. Much argument can be had about what is a “proper” jump shot. Practically since Dr. Naismith invented the game in 1891 there have emerged instructional videos, camps run by people like Jimmer, and even instructional books dedicated to teaching this art. I learned in a way more consistent with folk knowledge. My dad taught me as I shot baskets in the driveway nearly every evening before dinner.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche- ou du gateaux!

For those of you who don't know, the first part of my title is the expression from which we've derived the English "Let them eat cake." Brioche, however, is not the typical "cake" that we think of: sufficeth to say it's more kind of like sweet bread. "Gateaux" is the cake we would think about. If you're interested in the origin of the expression (it wasn't said by Marie Antoinette!) you can look here or here.

So when deciding what skill I want to teach someone (the learning portion of the project can be found here), the cake idea stuck the moment I thought of it for two reasons. Monday night, my FHE family came over to our apartment. As each group of roommates arrived, they all asked if something was burning. Why did my apartment smell this way? One of my roommates, Daniel, had tried to bake cookies- you know, those ones you literally place on the pan and put in the oven- and the apartment smelt like ashes once he was done. The other reason, of course, is that I would get to eat cake. An afterthought was that I could add in some cake-humor into my blog, cake humor having become popular in nerdy video games, so hopefully someone will get the references.

The Cake is not a Lie!

Tribal Tatt'n

           Football season is back at BYU, and that means it's time for the annual "Wait, how come our players have tattoos...?" conversation. This got me thinking about tattoos, and in particular, tattoos that seem to have cultural and significant meaning.
            Tribal tattoos have been an important part of Hawaiian culture in the past, and have recently made a significant comeback. In many places in Hawaii, the traditional methods for tattooing are still used. There was a period of time after Christianity was introduced that the frequency and meaning of these tattoos was greatly reduced. Tattooing was associated with non-English, and thus primitive culture. It was also contrary to the Christian doctrines, and thus discouraged.

Eventually Hawaiians resented the attempted assimilation into traditional American culture. When I was in Hawaii, it was made clear to me by many of the locals that they were Hawaiians first, Americans second. Now these tattoos have enjoyed renewed significance and popularity as Hawaiians try to preserve this unique characteristic of their culture.

Learning to be a Superhero

Everyone played games when they were little where they pretended to be a superhero. Over the past week, however, one of my roommates taught me how to actually be a superhero, specifically Gambit (for those of you not familiar with the X-men, Gambit charges cards with kinetic energy and causes them to explode). Well- he taught me half of it. My roommate Connor couldn't help much with the explosions part, but he did teach me something much less useful (and much less likely to cause something to blow up in his room): how to fling cards.

Now, I'd tried card flinging before and simply could not wrap my head- or my fingers- around it properly. This inability to do something aggravated me to the point where I'd get a little annoyed any time I saw someone try to fling a card (especially when they succeeded). So when my roommate asked me if I knew how to fling cards, I was a little irritated. So of course he kept pressing the topic. Finally, I took the cards and tried to throw them.

Memorialized- in Rock

Whenever someone passes from this life to the next, we often strive to memorialize them into something that will last for a very long time, even beyond our own lives. Some people try to do this with something concrete that will last, something physical. Others try to do this with art, thus combining the folk knowledge associated with remembering the dead and creating art. Throughout history, many civilizations have combined these two aspects of the concrete and the artistic and created statues of the dead as their method of memorializing the dead.

As far back as possibly 2900 BC, the Sumerians were creating votive figurines that served a variety of purposes, possibly including memorializing the dead. These figures were often buried at ziggurats once a family member died, possibly to ask the gods for remission of sins. This is the oldest form of sculpture memorialization popularly found, though there are some scholarly disputes as to how accurate they functioned as tokens for forgiveness.

A hippy at heart

I am a hippy at heart. I love peace signs, have at least 6 environmental t-shirts, and love to recycle. I can’t bear to see a pristine piece of paper perish in the garbage instead of being redeemed through recycling. I grew up in the green state of Oregon, outside of the hippy heart of Eugene, OR. There I learned reduce, reuse, recycle both from my family and in school.

            My parents had taught me and my siblings that we could do our part to help the environment by recycling. We had the means to recycle all plastics, glass, paper, newspaper, cardboard, tin, aluminum, etc. It was one of my family responsibilities to take out the recycling and sort each item into its proper bin. I remember awaiting the arrival of the recycling truck with colorful zoo animals on it each week knowing that I was doing my part to help conserve the environment. It was both mantic and sophic knowledge to me.  I learned that it was a created scientific method that helped preserve the environment by reusing resources. It was mantic to me in that these natural resources are a gift from God and we are stewards over the earth.

            What happens when you are taught a life-long habit, but then move somewhere where you can’t enact it? I used mantic and sophic knowledge to help get my new home recycling.

Going to Court

*I apologize ahead of time for not knowing how to use the "Read More" feature so you don't have to scroll through my entire post to get to the previous ones. (Does anyone know how to?) I also apologize for not providing many links to other material, hopefully I will get better with that. They're mostly links to Wikipedia pages, simply because Wikipedia lists other links for more specific and in-depth material, allowing one to not have to place links all over the place to the point that they become a pollutant. Hopefully the professors aren't anti-Wikipedia...*

Courtship (which, in context, I will use as meaning "the process by which two people come to be married" regardless of one's individual willingness and then the continuation of their courtship after marriage) is one example of domestic folk knowledge that has been around since essentially the beginning of time. It is also one that has changed greatly in recent years and that we are often counseled on in particularly from general authorities. It is for these reasons that I am selecting courtship traditions as my form of domestic folk knowledge to focus on from a historic perspective.