Rites of Passage: Heritage Debutante Ball

Last Saturday night I attend the Heritage Debutante Ball. It was held at the Birmingham Country Club. My friend, Neily, was formally being introduced into society. Debutante Balls are common among wealthy and socially influential families in the south. Neily was invited to be a debutante at this particular ball. Some of the balls you can apply for, others you are asked and if you aren't asked you can't participate in them. The Heritage Ball only asks young women from old southern blood lines, hence the name "Heritage".

The ball itself was beautiful. All the debutantes were dressed in long white gowns, similar to wedding dresses, and wore elbow length white gloves and pearls. They were escorted by their father or a close male family member. You weren't allowed to wear a white gown or any type of pastel color so that it wouldn't take away from the debutantes gown. I was able to choose between a floor length dress or cocktail dress in either black or jewel toned colors. I chose to wear a classic black cocktail dress. All the men wore tuxedos and it was split evenly between cocktail dresses and floor length gowns for the women. Most of the younger women wore cocktail dresses.

 After everyone was presented they had a dance with their escort. It was a lot of fun to witness. The decor of the country club was timeless. White flower center pieces covered the tables and hung from the ceiling and chandeliers. White gauze draped across the tables and ceiling. The theme was very chic with an understated freshness about it. Candles burned in tall calibres and floated on top of water flower arrangements. There were tables to either side of the long runway where the debutante talked down that the family and friends could sit at. Each seat was designated for a specific guest. It was very formal and displayed a lot of old southern tradition.

After the presenting, the party began. There was a stage set up at the other end of the ball room with a huge dance floor. The band played for hours while everybody danced to song like Living on a Prayer and even Party in the USA. There was an open bar and buffet that was free to guests and members. I had a great time.

I had always wanted to be a debutante, but my heritage has prevented me from doing so. I moved down here from Michigan about five years ago. To be a debutante in Birmingham, you have to come from an old southern family, or have at least one or two generations that have established themselves in society. So, unfortunately for me, I was unqualified to be presented.

People may say that the negativity between the South and the North is gone, but I can be the first to tell you, it is definitely still there. I received a lot of prejudice moving down from the North. I remember in high school people would pick on my accent and call me a Yankee. I remember on my first day of school, this boy that I sat behind started talking to me. After he found out where I was from her said, "you're hot, too bad your a Yankee." He made fun of me for the rest of the year in that class, telling me to "put your hand down you damn Yankee" and stuff like that.

I love the south now and feel like I have acclimated very well. It was definitely a culture shock at first though. I hated it for at least a year and missed Michigan. But after awhile the south started to grow on me, and even though time to time I do miss living on the lake and snowboarding, I like living in the south. It's funny because when I go up north to visit family and friends, they all think I have a strong southern accent. I was an outsider down here and now I go home and I'm the outsider there. It's a little similar to how the Amish teenagers felt during Rumspringa. At first an outsider to the modern world, but then once acclimated an outsider to their Amish world, stuck in between both of them.

I have lived down here long enough to call myself southern. Meeting me, you would think that I lived down here all my life. The south and the north share similarities, yet are entirely different. It's so strange that such different cultures can be from one same country. They say the south is a different world, and there right. I've never heard of my northern friends participating in a debutante ball. But it's southern traditions like that, that make me proud to live where I do.

Foods: A Vegan Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving this year was like any other Thanksgiving. There was stuffing and cranberry sauce. Friends and family gathered around a big table to celebrate and enjoy a wonderful meal, which included pumpkin pie and carrot cake for dessert. Everything was how it should be...except for the turkey. My younger sister decided that she was going to become vegan. Vegan is when you don't eat any animal bi-products, this includes: milk, eggs, meat, honey, yogurt, cheese, anything that came from an animal. So following suit, my mom wanted to accommodate her decision and instead of basting and stuffing a beautiful bird, she seasoned and salted a Tofurky. The main dish of a Thanksgiving meal was replaced by tofu that was suppose to taste like turkey.



Looks appetizing right?!


I was really hesitant to try this. It looked disgusting to me. Tofu is made up of soybeans and other ingredients for flavor, but mainly soybeans, so its more like a pureed vgetable that has been baked. That's what I tried to remind myself as I took a bite.



The texture was really weird, and the taste was bland but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. All you needed to do was give it some more flavoring and it would have tasted good. It didn't taste like a turkey though. The stuffing inside the Tofurky was delicious though. It was a riced based stuffing with carrots and potatoes. The rest of our dishes were made with almond milk and soy cheese. You really couldn't tell that the meal was vegan except for the Tofurky. Right before we were about to sit down and eat, my dad surprised us and brought in a real turkey he had been secretly grilling outside. My parents embrace my sisters decision, but they weren't going to sacrifice a tradition for it. I was really happy when I saw the real turkey.

I enjoyed trying the new food and lifestyle for one night. My sister has told me all the benefits of becoming vegan and it's definitely appealing. She first got the idea to change her eating habits from the Kind Diet, a book by Alicia Silverstone. Here is the link to the Kind Diet website.

http://www.thekindlife.com/

She gave it to me and I have been flipping through it occasionally. It seems really interesting. Becoming vegan not only makes you feel better apparently, it is scientifically better for you. A long long time ago, humans didn't drink milk. The gene to digest milk evolved beginning with the herding populations, or Europeans. That's why most Asians are lactose intolerant, that didn't have a reason to inherit a gene to digest milk. People who are lactose intolerant were the norm before the gene modifications. But think of it this way too, your drinking other animals breast milk meant to feed their babies. That's disgusting and selfish. The human population, especially Americans try not to put a limit on what we can and cannot do. We are always trying new things and pushing the boundaries. And it appears we not only inherited a milk processing gene but that idea as well. This is my guess for what happened with milk. Somewhere someone saw calfs nursing from their mother and thought it would be a good idea to try it too. Think of how taboo that must have been in the beginning. Living in a population that only drinks water and wine and then someone comes up to you and tells you to try cows milk. It would have been weird, but obviously it caught on and people like it because now we have altered genes to drink it and its a household commodity.

Diversity and Cultural Events: Moundville Native American Festival

On October 7th, I and fellow Anthro-Teach members went to the Moundville Native American Festival at the Moundville Archeology Park. We were conducting research for the Anthro-Teach Native American Presentation that are going to be held at the Botanical Gardens on October 24th. Moundville is located right outside of Tuscaloosa and about an hour and half drive away from Birmingham. The park itself used to be thriving town for the ancient Mississippian culture, composed of mysterious mounds that scholar believed members of high social society used to reside upon. When the town was thriving, it was 300 acres large and housed about 1000 inhabitants. Because of the close proximity of artifacts, its highly likely that there were many houses built around the mounds, somewhat like a town around a castle, but all that is left now are the mounds.
Driving up to the park, I saw the big open field and the mounds that surrounded it. There was one that was bigger than the other and I was told that the Chief lived on the top of that one. I expected the mounds to be a lot bigger than they were, but when I actually got to the base of them they seemed pretty large. I also reminded myself that it has been hundreds of years since the town had been abandon and the mounds were much larger back then.The mounds actually were burial grounds for their dead. The Choctaw buried their loved ones into the floor of their houses. So since the mounds acted like a platform for prestigious residence, they were also a burial ground fog high authorities.

The Bad:

The Festival was actually really disappointing to me. I LOVE Native American culture and was really hoping the experience was going to be authentic. I had imagined I would walk around the festival and there would be fires set up with Native Americans dancing around them, along with the steady beat of the drums and chanting. There would be demonstrations of games and cooking, such things like that. And don't get me wrong there were some exhibits like that, but the majority of the Festival was made up of people trying to sell you things. All the booths that were set up were booths that had arrows and dream catchers, t-shirts and hats, jewelry and decorative trinkets, pretty much anything the buyer could think of that related to Native Americans. The whole festival it seemed was really trying to capitalize on that. Some of the things they were selling were authentic. Some vendors had sage that was burned for cleansing and prayer. Other booths were chipping away stones and making arrows. There were a lot of artists, mostly carvers and some (two or three) musicians. So it was neat seeing some of that stuff, but I felt I saw the same things over and over again. If I was coming to shop, all I would have to do is go to the first three booths and I would have seen everything being sold a the festival. Some of the things they were trying to sell didn't have anything to do with Native American culture either. there was one booth I noticed that was selling picture frames made out of bamboo! Last time I checked bamboo was not native to Alabama.
And then were booths that were selling food. When I first saw the sign for food I thought, "Oh cool! Authentic Native American food!" I imagined they were age-old recipes passed down from generation to generation but instead, the Native American festival decided to sell its guests elephant ears and cotton candy. It was food more fit for a carnival than a festival celebrating a culture.

The Good:

Even though the event was about 80 percent exploited, there was still some people that grasp the true meaning of the festival and wanted to tell guests about ancient culture. There was one women that stood out to me. She was in her seventies and was selling books about Native American life, but she also had another booth set up that show cased things that were not for sale. She asked if we would like to hear about her people and the significance of the artifacts that laid on the table. Of course we said yes and she began telling use about creation beliefs. She took a conch shell and pointed to the carvings on it and told us the legend about the afterlife. When you pass away you are taken up to the sky in a boat on the milky way. There are certain things that have to be accomplish for you to succeed in the after life and find a place in the sky as a star. As she told us this she pointed to the corresponding carvings in the shell. She also talked to use about certain books that she had laying out and answered any of our questions.
After about an hour of us walking around it was finally time for what we had come to see in the first place. There was a stage set up that had a PA equipment and bleachers for people to sit. They had been showing people native birds of Alabama but it was finally time for a demonstration of Native American dancing. We found  our spot on the ground and watched as the people began explaining the dances and their meaning. One of the dances that we ended up using in our presentation at the Botanical Gardens was called Bear Dance. This one was only danced after the children went to bed because it could get really racy, it was a mating song. What the Native Americans did was find a partner and walk around in a circle to a steady beat picking up acorns from the ground. When the beat sped up really fast they would turn towards each other and pretend to be attacking one another. It was a really playful dance, I guess it was an ancient way of flirting. We picked this dance only because we thought it would be really easy to teach the kids and if done right, would be completely innocent. Another dance was the Snake Dance. Participants would line up in two lines perpendicular to each other and follow the leaders of the line dancing and moving in a symmetrical way to each other.
Some of the people were dressed up in the traditional dress and that was neat to see. That was the kind of thing that I had been expecting to see.

I really enjoyed this glimpse into the ancient Native American life. I feel like I might have romanticized the culture alittle bit and expected to see unrealistic things because there is no way, no matter how hard you may try that you can re-create life like it was over 500 years ago. I was content with the tiny taste of what I got. I would really love to come back and do some excavating at some of the sites down there. I'm happy I went, we got a lot of research accomplished and I learned a lot of new things.

Arts and Leisure: Widespread Panic Show

On September 25th I experienced my first Widespread Panic show. It was insane. The music was awesome, the lights were crazy and the people were really into it. The concert was right outside of Atlanta in Alpharetta GA in the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. There was a certain parking lot that was the "cool" place to park if you wanted a true panic experience, it's called "the lot" and it was located right in font of the entrance of the Amphitheater. We were able to talk our way into parking in "the lot". Once I got out and started to walk around I realized that this was like no other concert I had ever been to before. If you like to people watch a Panic show is the perfect place for you to be. I saw people with dreads all the way down to their ankles, people with piercings in places that I didn't even know could be pierced and people wearing anything from a full wool coat with pants, scarves and boots, to barley enough fabric to be legal, and tie-dye everywhere! People were all over the lot playing Frisbee, drinking, smoking, eating and openly doing drugs. It was definitely surreal.
Towards the front of the lot by the entrance were tents set up with all sorts of vendors. Some were selling vegan meatballs and hummus, others were selling Panic t-shirts, and others were selling all sorts drug paraphernalia. You could literally find anything you wanted; food, clothing and recreation.
Finally after waiting in line for about a half hour I got into the concert. I was blown away by how perfectly they set up the lights with the music. It was like two shows in one; a concert and a light show. I stood in general admission on the back lawn and could see out over the entire crowd because it was slightly on a hill. Throughout the entire crowd I watched people throwing glow sticks up in the air, lighters and waving hands...it was really cool. There was one song called Chilly Well Water. My friend ran to buy a bottle of water right as the entry chords began. I didn't understand why he did that until it got to a certain part of the song and everyone threw water up into the air at the same time. That song was by far my favorite part of the night. I had the birds eye view of everybody in the crowd throwing water up into the air, it was REALLY neat with the lights going at the same time.
Out of all the concerts that I have been to, this one had the most drugs I have ever seen, and all in one place. People were not afraid to openly take acid, and do all sorts of things that I have never even heard of before. As I looked around the lawn, it seemed like everybody was smoking weed as if it were a cigarette. The entire place smelled like pot. It was a huge culture shock, something that I was not used to. It made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I tried to ignore it and just listen to the music.
                


I took a picture with my friend and in the background you can see someone passing a joint.

    There are some similarities and differences between this culture and my own, but mainly more differences than similarities. First and foremost, I don't do drugs and a large majority (pretty much everybody) of people at the show do, it's kind of what WSP shows are known for. Secondly, this band attracts a lot of a sub-culture "hippies". I had to go out and buy a new dress to wear just so I would fit in. If I had worn my usual concert attire (probably a sun dress and wedge heels) I wouldn't have fit in. I figured out there's an underlying contest to see who can look like they tried the least. Thirdly, many of the panic fans are just that, die-hard fans. I talked to a lot of people that were there following the band from show to show. They knew everything about the band, the band members, the songs...EVERYTHING. This was my first concert, and my friend who I went with told me not to tell anybody it was, I would look like a loser. Fourthly, Panic fans have almost their own language. I learned you don't call a concert, a concert...it's called a show, hippies are called wooks, and a whole bunch of other stuff. My friend sent me this link before I went, just so I was prepared.

http://week4paug.net/general-topic-discussion/guide-to-being-a-widespread-panic-fan/

There were some similarities though. The band does attract college students as well, and obviously I'm a college student. Also, the music was really good, and every culture has music!

Honestly, all my stereotypes and ideas about the show were true. There were a ton of hippies, drugs, tie-dye shirts, drinking, and everything else that was associated with the band. The music was great, "jam band" music and the lights were awesome. It was hot and sweaty and the people were nice, all coming for the same thing to have a good time and listen to some good music.

All in all, I had a great time, but I probably won't be listening to their music everyday or seeking out tour dates, I wouldn't mind going to another one but only if the opportunity presents itself. It was a great experience, I had a real emic perspective. WSP is really like a religion to this culture. They live, eat and breath this music...they worship it.