Author Archives: Austen Le

The Lover’s Leap

Informant is from Modesto, California, up in the northern part of the state. This is an area that

“So there is a place off of the freeway right by my city called the Lover’s Leap, and it’s like a big cliff area that overlooks the area. According to legends, there was once a young man and a young woman who were part of different warring Native American tribes who fell in love with each other. However, their tribe elders would not let them be together, no matter how much they pleaded and begged, as the clans really hated each other. So, one day, the two lovers came together and decided to run off with each other, but they were discovered by their respective tribes, who went to go and tear them apart. As a result, they ran until they reached the edge of the cliff, and seeing that there would be no way for them to be together as long as their tribes fought, they both made the leap off of the cliff to their deaths, hence the name The Lover’s Leap. It’s a really sad story actually, and it reminds me a lot of Romeo and Juliet.”

Do a lot of people go there?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a pretty cool place just to get a view of the surroundings, and a lot of younger people our age will go there to hang out and sometimes do illegal things though. I think its a neat part of the city’s history and its background.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This story sounds almost exactly like Romeo and Juliet, although within a Native American context, which makes sense because California was inhabited by many different Native American tribes long before anyone else was here. This makes me wonder if the story itself had originated from the Native American peoples themselves, or if it was made up later by people who had known of Romeo and Juliet beforehand, and had adapted it to fit their own surroundings. Either way, it is a fascinating explanation for the name of a location.

St. Nicholas Day

Informant is from Redlands, California, and is a descendant of Italian American refugees who came to the United States during World War II. This is a holiday that her family celebrates that is not commonly celebrated in California.

What exactly is St. Nicholas Day?

“So it’s a holiday that’s mainly celebrated in the Catholic communities in Southern Europe, like Italy, but it mostly celebrated in small rural areas all over. My family has celebrated it since I was born, but I haven’t really seen anybody else celebrate it, so I feel like it’s pretty unique to us. It’s on December 6th, and is about St. Nicholas, who is a guy who would go around during Christmas and give out toys and candy to impoverished children who are well behaved. It’s very much in line with Christmas, and is sort of a time where the little kids are reminded to be good.”

How is it celebrated?

“On the night of December 5th, you leave your shoes out on the porch, and when you wake up on the morning of December 6th, you find that your shoes filled with candies, cookies, and sweets. We also each got a card from St. Nick saying that we’ve been very good and to keep up the good work because Christmas was right around the corner. Now that I think about it, it was pretty much bribery for us to behave and value family so we would get good gifts for Christmas. If you were bad however, St. Nick’s assistant Rupert would come and beats you soundly with a holly stick, so nobody ever wanted to misbehave. This happens every year until you turn 18 years old, after which St. Nick no longer comes around. Even today, I’m not really sure who brought the gifts for us, cause I know it wasn’t my parents, but I think it was one of my distant aunts.”

Collector’s Comments:

To me, this sounded very much like a part of Christmas tradition, yet it had very unique rituals related to it that I had never heard of before. St. Nicholas is a common figure in Christmas folklore, yet I have never seen him celebrated in this way. This holiday reveals that even within the same religion, there are regional variations and celebrations that are related to similar concepts, but are very unique from each other. To see a celebration that sounds so familiar, yet is unlike anything that I’ve seen before is very interesting, and makes me wonder how all of these variations have developed from the same holiday.

 

 

 

 

A Vietnamese Proverb: Dark and Light

This is a Vietnamese proverb that was told to me by my mother when I was very young:

“Gần mực thì đen gần đèn thì sáng.”

 

Literal translation:

“Close to ink then you are dark, close to light then you are bright”

 

This is a proverb often told to children, meaning that you should be careful with who you surround yourself with. People are shaped by others around them, and if one surrounds themselves with bad people (the dark) they will become bad, while if one surround themselves with good people (the light), then they will be a good person. This is a lesson about peer pressure, as well as a warning to young children about how friends, family, and peers can influence them.

 

Collectors Comments:

This is a proverb that has stuck with me for a long time since my mom first told me way back when. It reminds me of sayings such as “hanging with the wrong crowd” or other proverbs that deal with friend groups and peer pressure. This saying was my mom’s way of trying to teach me that I should be selective with my friends, and only hang around people that would make me better. The proverb makes use of the contrasts between black and white and dark and light that are common in so many cultures. While, I have heard similar proverbs in other languages, this is the first one I’ve heard that relates to ink as black and light to white.

 

The Jersey Devil

Informant is from a suburb in the center of New Jersey, in Monmouth County. She went to a boarding high school in rural Northern New Jersey however, in a very isolated area.

“We had this thing called a Freshman Retreat in my 9th grade year, which was at a campground called Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, which was literally the same camp where they filmed Friday the 13th. Because of this, one of the nights we decided to watch Friday the 13th, and began telling each other scary stories to scare each other before bed. One of these stories was the Jersey Devil, which was a local legend. This is a story that basically anybody who is from New Jersey has heard of, and people tell it all the time.

So the Jersey Devil was like, this winged goat-like creature with hooves and horns that lives in the forests of New Jersey. Some lady a long time ago had a bunch of children, and when she had her 13th child, a devil popped out instead and flew away, which is now the Jersey Devil. Some of the campers said that it was near Trenton, but others said that it was near Blairstown, where we were. Either way, that had me really really scared. So the Jersey Devil would steal away young children from their parents. Uhh… It would either eat you, or raise you as its own child, but I can’t really remember. One thing I can remember though is that someone was saying that if it came into our cabins, it would take people who slept on the top bunk. I was also sleeping on the top bunk, right by the window, so I was thinking about it the whole night and was so scared.”

Why do you think people told this story?

“Now looking back at it, probably mostly to scare people, especially little kids. Like, the cabin we were at was a perfect place to tell it because it was so close to the woods. I even told my little brother the story once when he was being a brat, so he would shut up. But yeah, I guess it was mainly just to give people in New Jersey a fright.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is a pretty famous story that even I have heard of all the way in California, through a TV program about supernatural creatures. However, the informant, being in the woods in New Jersey, probably got the full experience and the most impact from hearing it. This local legend has become widespread across all of New Jersey, making it a piece of folklore that is shared through state identity, and I would say that it has become a part of New Jersey’s culture. It was very interesting to hear about it from a person who is actually from New Jersey, making the story seem more authentic than it was when I had seen it on television.

 

The Weeping River Lady

Informant was told of the legend by her mother, who was born in Laos, whose parents had passed it down to her when she was a young child. Informant’s grandparents were a poor family living in the capitol of Laos (Pakse).

Okay, tell me what you remember.

“I think I was like a freshman in high school when I heard this one. My mom told it to me and my sisters when we were camping once. She, uh, spoke of a very small village in Laos that all of the farmers had to pass through in order to reach the market to sell their crops. According to the story, if anyone tries through the village between midnight to 3 AM, a crying woman wearing rags will walk out of a nearby river and stand to block the path. The woman chants something… like gibberish or some random language maybe?  If the person passing through doesn’t run away and still tries to pass, they become possessed and lose consciousness, and once they wake up, they find themselves in a spirit realm, and are gone from the real world forever. My mom said this is why people said never to pass through the village at this time.”

How did you react to the story?

“I was really scared. I think my mom was just telling it to us to scare us, but I had a really hard time sleeping afterward. So my sisters and I just stayed up together.”

Conclusion of Collector:

Laos, a country in Southeast Asia, is primarily a rural economy, and many rice farmers live and work in the countryside. This legend was passed mostly through the farming communities, explaining why it is related to the market path. This story seems very similar to legends such as La Llorona, which also involve crying, ghostly women, which makes me wonder if the tales are related, or if they formed through polygenesis. However, the legend also seems like a warning to those who would try to make the journey at night, perhaps to prevent people from getting robbed or passing through the village so late. One could say that this legend might even have been used to warn children from staying out too late or leaving the house at night.