Types of Folklore I Collected

TYPES OF MATERIALS COLLECTED
for Alan Dundes' Folklore class

1. Proverbs
Work every day—Portuguese
Mouth/Rome—Portuguese
Shopping—Portuguese
Water/stone—Portuguese
Mouth shut—Portuguese
Commom/uncommon—Irish
Actions/words—American
Parsley/devil—Irish
babysitters/child—Russian
avanti/—Provencal

2. Place Name, Piana digli Albanesi, Italy

3. Song, Josephus
Dandle Rhyme, Albanian

4. Superstitions
step/graves stumble/graves
walking/graves
shiver/graves
take my place in a grave
bird/house/death
stairs
dropped knife
extra plate
extra guest
itchy palms
burning ears
shithooks

5 Folk Narrative
Rhiannon’s birds
Halloween
calendar custom
St. Joseph
Ding Dong Daddy

6 Folk Speech
8-ball
clean-up man
George (3)
I dunno
seat/feet
tea/pee
Foodways
Toofta
Irish bread 

SANTOS folk narrative

SANTOS FAMILY FOLKLORE as if told by Jimmy's grandson, Sean

(We pieced this family folklore together while we were in the Azores, and I added bits to it right after we returned. It's a story for my 1st cousin once removed, Sean Dinsmore, who was a child at the time. Now Sean is 21. I transcribed the folklore as if told from Sean's point of view, so he would have a family record for later. (I was taking a monologue class at the time....I did one for each family name. I was planning to use them in a monologue in several voices, since I couldn't use them for my folklore class.)

At the time, I was desperate to fill my required 40 bits of collected folklore for my anthropology professor, Dr. Alan Dundes' folklore class at UC Berkeley, and this unexpected piece came out of the collecting process. 

My informants were my aunt Canice, who was married to Jimmy Santos, and her daughter, my cousin, Sinead Dinsmore, who was Jimmy's step-daughter. So it all came from second-hand informants. I wasn't sure how to clarify the information from two sources.  It was disjointed, Sinead and Canice would begin a story, we'd be interrupted, then, out of the blue, hours or days later, they'd finish the story.

Alan Dundes said he only wanted first-hand informants, in their own authentic language structure, replete with hem-haws, ahems, and warts. So I wasn't able to use this piece. Then I changed the story, to be read as if told from Sean's point of view. I have the original fragments in my journals, but they are fragments, not contiguous.

How I collected the stories: We were traveling together, over a period of a month, In September, right after 9/11. The fragments were collected in San Francisco, Boston, Azores, London—in hotel rooms, boats, and planes. The stories are fragments, as they were always interrupting each other. A tape recorder would've come in handy. Or not. Canice was on a pilgrimage to the land of Jimmy's ancestors, in the Azores.

Canice and Sinead were the ones Jimmy told these stories too. And my cousin David, too (I've never collected his Jimmy stories). I heard a few stories too at Thanksgiving dinners. Sadly, Jimmy (James J. Santos in the story) never met his grandson Sean. Jimmy died too soon, at the age of 54, in the 1990s, of heart failure, though his heart was big.

I never finished writing this piece. There were a lot more stories that I didn't capture—Jimmy in Mill Valley, and working in Sausalito, etc. Sinead still tells a few Jimmy stories, and I always mean to write them down, but I never do. If I wasn't trying to upload and post-date my old writing for this blog, this piece might have languished in cyberspace forever. Several of my old files from 2000 are corrupted, with bits missing. This blog is an attempt to rescue old files.

Regardless of how this memoir was captured, and transcribed, it does chronicle the times. The story was as true as I could make it. A record for the future. And now that that little boy I traveled to the Azores with, Sean, has a son, Jameson, perhaps it's time to give Sean this small piece of his past, now that he's a father, himself. —MH 11/20/2015)

As if told by Sean Dinsmore:

Great-grandpa John J. Santos and great-grandma Bernice D. Santos were new parents to my grandpa, James J. Santos. Great-great grandma Desalla didn’t approve of how her grandson was being cared for. She took it upon herself to whisk James home to her house. He lived with his grandparents until he was ready for school. 

One day his mother decided it was time, and brought him home. His grandmother would be an important figure in his growing up. He often went fishing with his Uncle James and played in Sausalito amongst the boats. His father took his favorite car and sold it without his permission, because Great-grandpa needed the money. This bothered James for the rest of his life, so he supported his sons when they bought their first cars.

During the Big Fire on Mount Tam in the ’40s, Grandpa told stories. How his father worked on the Fire Crew and all the men. The canteen service that worked the fire, the giant amount of food they served. Grandpa was a small child and the portions of steak and chicken were huge massive servings. These men worked long and dangerous hours that seemed longer and they were filled with emotion. This was a defining memory of his childhood.

Great-uncle Jimmy was a fisherman during his youth, and when he was older, he took men sport fishing. The sea was his environment and he fished and worked the sea his whole life. He lived in Mill Valley with Sally in his parents’ house where Great-great-grandma lived. Stories of Grandpa coming home from school crying and sad because the kids were mean. Great-uncle Jimmy telling James to stick-up for himself.

The next day he came home with a smile on his face. The story is that Grandpa James didn’t back down from the bullies and so his battle was over. Grandpa had problems with discrimination his whole life because he was dark, not black but not pure white. So kids who didn’t know him would think wrong thoughts. Adults that he worked with often mistook his ancestry and assumed it wrong.

The Azore Islands is were my great-great-grandpa was from. The Azore Islands were discovered in the 14th century by the Portuguese and Europeans. My mother and grandmother and godmother went with me to the Azores a few years ago. When we were there, we saw volcanic rock beaches. The landscape is similar to Ireland with fields marked with stone fences. We saw a farmer riding his donkey from the corn field with the fresh corn under his bottom. 

The Soares and Bettencourts and Desallas are names in my family tree. My father John, and uncle James would fit right in with their dark hair and eyes, though they're half-Irish. My father John, is very tall—6’5,” and for his heritage, he’s a little big—with size 15 shoes, a little hard to find. 

After the Azores, we went to Lisbon, and to Fatima, a religious site. Then we went to London, England, and stayed in Maidenhead. In “Harry Potter” they show the train station Mom and Grandma took me through. We visited Buckingham Palace and Westminister Abbey as well as Harrod’s department store. The lemonade was very expensive.

Portugal Journal: Fatima Story 4

10/6 Saturday, Lisbon.

Our concierge, Maria Santos Pinheiro, of Pensão Residencial Estrela do Mondego, walked to Fatima, she said it took her four days. She slept in pilgrim hotels along the way. She said she went because of a promise she had made. She wouldn't say what.

I asked how the custom began, the walking on the knees. She doesn't know how, or when, but said that when people make promises because something bad happened in their lives, and then they just do it. They fall to their knees and walk.

She said there's a big (holm oak) tree on 93 Azinheira, near there where the Lady appeared there at the Capelinha das Aparições (Chapel of the Apparitions, where three shepherd children saw the Virgin Mary in Cova da Iria, Fátima), in 1917.

She said that people took bits of the tree, they even took the land, until there was nothing left. The faithful finished off what the anticlerical liberal factions couldn't destroy, when they cut down the wrong tree in 1922.

On 13 May, when Our Lady first appeared, and every month until October 13, people walk from all over Portugal for the Peregrinación to the Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima. She said "I like it better on the 12th at night, because of all the candles. And everyone waving white handkerch1efs. There's a song the people sing when they go there." 

The  maid begins singing El Adeus de Fátima, as she makes the beds. It's a very touching, if droll, song, perhaps it is a fado, and I am moved to tears.

Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. De Portugal Rainha, dos homens protectora. Ó Virgem do Rosário, da Fátima Senhora. Do Vosso Santuário, forçoso é ir-me embora. Uma prece final, ao deixar-Vos Mãe de Deus. Viva sempre em minha alma este grito imortal: Ó Fátima, adeus! Virgem Mãe, adeus!

On 12 June, Maria said, "On my birthday it's very joyous. And when you're there when you see Fatima, it's very touching. I cried and I cried," she said.

Thousands and thousands of people attend the services, and most of them have walked to Fátima on foot. The Virgin is paraded around the courtyard on a raft of white flowers, and everyone singing O Fátima, Adiós! while waving a sea of white handkerchiefs. Even the rosaries are white.

"The house where the shepherd children were born, is still there", she said. Milagros, the candles... You've got to believe in something." she said. "Heads legs children—that's what the Milagros are made for. You make a wish and you throw it in the fires that burn day and night."

Maria said that sometimes when people get married, they leave their flowers at Fátima for no special reason, other than for a blessing.

She said there's a lava-pés, a place where you wash your feet, and then the nuns will bandage your feet. She said that it's a recent custom, not an old one.

She explained, Our lady was brought to the Basilica on 13 May and was there until 13 October. When she was brought back, we sang a special song, Fátima, adeus! because she went around the world.  People pray with the rosary, they pray for whatever they want, there is no set thing that they pray for. Whether or not they believe, it doesn't matter.

Now the maid is singing it too because she doesn't believe. I left 1,000 escudos with Maria to buy us two heart milagros at Fatima, next May, one for me and one for my aunt Canice, whose heart keeps rhythm with the help of a new pacemaker.

Portugal Journal: Lisbon London SFO
Independence Day, Fatima, Portugal
Portugal Journal: Lisbon to Fatima 3
Portugal Journal: Lisbon 2
Portugal Journal: arriving in Lisbon 1
Azores Journal: Terceira, São Jorge

Folklore: Water, strength

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 
Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001

Agua mole em pedra dura
(‘agwa ‘mo-le em pedra durya
water weak the stone strong

tantu bate ate que fura
tantu ba’te ke ‘furya)
but weak that hole


Water may be weak but it can wear down the stone.

“My father said to me when I was six or seven, when I was a student, when I didn’t understand my homework,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores. His address is Rua do Quartiero, P. Delgada 9970, Santa Cruz, Flores, Azores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he answered that water was soft but it was constant and if you continue to try to work at something as hard as stone, you can wear down the obstacle. It reminded me of a similar Chinese saying. 

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Shopping & weekends

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 

Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001 

Todos as dias vão a feria menos o Sábado e o Domingo.
(Todosh osh dias vanyo a feria menosh o Sabado ee oh Domingo.)
[all the days go to for buying without except Saturday and also Sunday] 

Every day is for shopping except Saturday and except Sunday.

“My uncle in Flores said it to me when I was four or six years old, because I was jumping on the bed,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores. His address is Rua do Quartiero, P. Delgada 9970, Santa Cruz, Flores, Azores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government. As a result of isolated island living, the people are gregarious and helpful, if conservative. And many old customs are well preserved, some dating back as much as 500 years, when the Portuguese first settled there.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he said that his behavior wasn’t appropriate (it must have been on a weekend). Saturday and Sunday are a very quiet day in the Azores, with everything closed up. In fact, it’s very hard to shop in the Azores as most business don’t open until ten, and then there’s the noon to three PM siesta, and most shops close by five or six PM. Some places may open after dinner, but don’t count on it. 

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.


UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Talking & Keeping silence

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 

Urbano, Prereirada da Silva, male, 19
English student, electrician
Azores-born, Portuguese-speaking
Terciera, Azores
Oct. 2, 2001 

"Quem tem boca vai a Roma."
(kejm tem ‘bo:ka va; a Roma)
Whoever has a mouth goes to Rome


“My father said to me when I was a little boy, I was talking too much. I was three,” said Urbano, my flatmate on Terciera Island in the Azores, Portugal. Urbano is studying English, and also studying to be an electrician, he is from one of the distant outer islands, Flores.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean are very isolated, the islands spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite channels. However many are connected by a cell phone, a program subsidized by the government. As a result of isolated island living, the people are gregarious and helpful, if conservative. And many old customs are well preserved, some dating back as much as 500 years, when the Portuguese settled these islands. 

For example, while we were there, the islanders were readying for the ancient annual festival of the running of the bulls, where bulls are literally let lose in nearby Praia da Vittoria, to run the streets. Everybody chips in to spruce up the town. They paint their houses, board up windows and doors, and most important, they move their cars out of town at the last minute, and the festival begins.

When I asked Urbano what he thought the proverb meant, he answered with: “because the Pope lives in Rome.” This explanation didn’t help me to understand it, so I asked again and he elaborated, “Because we believe in the Pope.” 

Could it be related to Silence is next to holiness/Godliness? 

It's similar to Alberto Santo Amaro's proverb that I also collected:

"Boca calada diz tudo."
(boka kaw’lada, di:z tudo)
[A] mouth shut says everything.

And to an Irish proverb: 

“A mouth is sweet in its silence”
“Is binn béal ina thost”
(iss binn beyal eena host)
it’s (a) melodious mouth in its silence/lull 

(From “Seanfhocail,” M.F. Ó Conchuír, Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1997, Ireland; p 35, #615). 

Someone else thought that those who talked too much were sent to Rome to be executed, which gives this proverb a medieval twist. Rome was the center of power. This proverb could represent sedition agains the state or authority (parental). 

There is a Russian saying: To keep silence—that runs along that same vein—to stay under the radar of the authorities, the Soviet police. I don't have the Russian aphorism, as it was always translated to me. But this saying is similar: "In the company of strangers silence is safe."

It was interesting trying to collect folklore from Urbano as he was just learning English, and wanted a chance to practice. That's how we met, in the hotel lobby. We used a lot of intermediary methods of communicating, as I speak a passable Spanish, and can say a few phrases in Portuguese. But I am not fluent in either language. We often spoke an admixture of Spanish & Portuguese peppered with English—including pantomime and pictures. So it took three languages, and then some, to collect Urbano's folklore.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes

Folklore: Talking too much

Genre: Proverb, Portuguese, Azores 

Alberto Santo Amaro, male, 50s
taxi driver, entrepreneur
Azores-born, Portuguese/English speaking
Velas, São George, Azores, Portugal
Sept. 30, 2001

"Boca calada diz tudo."
(boka kaw’lada, di:z tudo)
[A] mouth shut says everything.
“This is something people say when some people talk too much, and say nothing,” said Alberto, a taxi driver, who coyly declined to give his age, but he was well into his 50s, as he had a 27-year-old daughter. 

We were on the island of São George, in the Azores, and he was giving us a special tour of his native isle after my family was stranded by a ferry boat company. The ferryboat owner had decided to cancel the outgoing boat service and there weren’t too many ways off the island until the following week. 

Alberto tracked down the ferryboat owner and tried to bargain with him to honor his schedule, but the owner couldn’t be bothered with providing transport to four Americans. So he moved up the winter schedule by a day, and that was that. We were pretty well frazzled after frantically making special arrangements to fly off the island.

The Azores, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean is very isolated, the islands are spread over a 400-mile radius. They are warmed by the African gulf current, and are actively volcanic. There is an isolation there that modern technology has done little to erase as there are only two satellite TV channels. 

However most people are connected by a cell phone program subsidized by the government. As a result of isolated island living, the people are gregarious and helpful, if conservative. And many old customs are well preserved, some dating back as much as 500 years.

Alberto said he was a kid when he heard this proverb from his grandfather, who was always telling him, “Tu fales muito.” You talk a lot. Or, You talk too much.

This reminds me of an Irish proverb I learned, “A mouth is sweet in its silence” (p 35, #615). 

“Is binn béal ina thost” From “Seanfhocail,” M.F. Ó Conchuír,
(iss binn beyal eena host) (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1997, Ireland)
it’s (a) melodious mouth in its silence/lull 

It also echoes a variant of a Spanish idiom I learned the hard way: "Las moscas no entraron una boca cerrada."

Or the more common (correct) version: "En boca cerrada no entran moscas."

We were very glad that Alberto didn’t take his grandfather’s advice, he still talked too much—and the day was enriched by his stories. Alberto drove us by his house and farm near Velas, which he inherited from his grandfather.

He also left us with another of his grandfather’s proverbs, “Trabalou todos os dias sem parar” Work all the days without stopping—something he does well, as he has several businesses, as well as running the farm and a taxi service. 

Alberto was a gem. He took care of us like family. It was post-9/11 and we were shellshocked. I met him standing alone above the main road of the ferry, having a cigarette; all the other taxi drivers were like pool sharks. I went up to him and said: Disculpame. Ayudame....

And so he did.

UC Berkeley Folklore Collections
Kroeber Hall, Dr. Alan Dundes