The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => General Land Before Time => Topic started by: jansenov on January 13, 2014, 03:03:56 PM
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Basically this is place to list and discuss all customs and traditions observed to by various creatures in the LBT universe. I'll start with one.
The day's first treestar - a custom observed by the Gang whereby at the start of each day a different member gets to eat the first treestar. This is was possibly originally the way a community started the "living" day (eating is a property of the living) after the "dead" night (sleep is similar to death), but it appears that by the time of the Gang the tradition has lost much of its original meaning and was now repurposed as a way to affirm equality among members of the Gang, or possibly among all denizens of the Great Valley.
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The 'giving ceremony' as seen in "Ruby's Starday Celebration". Basically, it's very similar to our modern donating pattern though the things they could donate were a little limited. Hence, they donate food even though there's plenty of that in the Valley. So to make it special, they donate the donated dinosaur's favourite food. Not the food itself is the point though, but the efforts to get the food and the ceremony itself.
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Hatch day - a leaf eater tradition, like a birthday, a the date was only very roughly determined, probably by putting it near the beginning, middle or end of a season
Star day - a fast runner tradition, like the hatch day, but in this case the date was determined by positions of celestial bodies, and hence could be pinpointed with much greater precision, and preparation for the day included bathing
It appears that gift giving is not an obligation for the hatch day nor the star day, but is a separate tradition (the giving ceremony) that can, but doesn't have to, be a part of these two.
The gathering of hard-water sweets - the gathering of frozen juicy fruit on the first day of winter (or rather, the first day of freezing cold), before snowfall makes them impossible to find
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The Great Valley Dinos do celebrate a number of "holidays" throughout the series. We have:
The Time of Great Giving-where they share food and water.
Nibbling Day- where they share the treesweets off of a pretty and probably really tasty tree when it blooms.
The Great Day of Flyers- a festival day of flyers where young flyers give a synchronized flight demonstration in front of judges to show they are ready to fly with the adults.
The Bright Circle Celebration-a seemingly religious kind of celebration where the dinosaurs worship the Bright Circle in the hopes of having a longer summer.
The already mentioned Hatchday/ Starday celebrations which seem to be like birthday celebrations.
Also they have certain stories, like the legend of the Lone Dinosaur, and relating to it, the superstitious beliefs surrounding Saurus Rock about bad luck if anything happens to the "monument".