Author Archives: Marie Griffith

Pina and the Pineapple – Philippines

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me a story about pineapples, and in the Philippines we call pineapples “pinya.” And the story goes:
There was a mother and daughter living along the fields, whose names is Osang, the mother, and Pina, as the daughter, who is the only sibling.  Osang didn’t let Pina to do the chores when she was a kid, and ended up doing them by herself instead.  When people ask her “why don’t you let your daughter to do the chores? So she could learn!”  Osang insisted, “I”ll do it myself because she is still young.  I’d rather see her playing, and eating, and having fun.” But then time flew so fast and Osang got sick, weak.  So one time she asked Pina to do things for her, and Pina did, of course with complaints.  That one day her mother Osang wasn’t really able to get up and cook, so Pina went to the kitchen and supposed to cook, but then she couldn’t find a ladle. She screams, she yells, at her mother, that she couldn’t find the ladle. And her mom get annoyed and said, “I wish you have a lot of eyes to see whatever you are looking for.” And then Pina said, “You just love cursing me like that!” After that, a few days later, Osang recovered from her sickness and got up.  She did clean the backyard and noticed there’s a plant that grew while she was doing the gardening, which is the pineapple plant. And the fruit looks like it has a lot of eyes, and then she worried, “This must have been my daughter!  Because I remember how I wished that she had a lot of eyes.”  

And that told me the story that you should learn how to help, even when you are still young, still a kid.  You should be helping your parents, and have patience in looking for something.

Jennifer, who lives in the Philippines but plans to live here permanently, is very aware of her cultural duties in the Philippines.  The Filipino people are very big on respect for their elders, and the women are very aware of their duties as females of the house.  From an early age they learn to cook, clean, do all the chores while the men are working.  Jennifer is the perfect example of this, as she recognizes my grandmother as the “head” female of the family, and goes around doing chores for her without complaints.  She told me that this story, told to her from a young age, helped teach her how to embrace her role in society.  But, at the same time, even though the little girls in the Philippines are expected to help their mothers and learn how to run an household, there is a very big emphasis on having fun and playing outside.  Jennifer says that she never felt like she missed out on her childhood just because she was expected to help around the house.

When I went to Santo Domingo Ilocos Sur, the province my family is from, I got to witness this dynamic first hand.  Even though all the girls were younger than me, they were helping their mothers and grandmothers around the house whenever they weren’t dancing or playing in the streets.  It was a sharp contrast from what I was used to at home, because being from Orange County, the kids there, myself included, generally aren’t given those kind of duties.  But those kids were the happiest children I have ever seen in my life, despite their busy home lives.

The Rainbow Serpent – Australia

So I’m from Australia, and the Aboriginals have stories about how Australia was formed. And these creation myths are called the Dreamtime stories.  One of the most recognized Dreamtime stories is that of the rainbow serpent.

He was all that existed before people and animals, as in the Dreamtime the whole earth was asleep, and all living creatures were sleeping under the earth’s surface.  But one day the Rainbow Serpent woke up and made her way onto the earth’s surface.  The serpent essentially traveled across Australia and formed the creeks and rivers, he formed Ayers Rock, the bends and twists in our land, all of which resulted from the path his body took.  Now he’s dead, and the only place you see him is in the sky as a rainbow, as he is the Rainbow Serpernt.

There’s a lot of different versions of this story I think, but I learned this one when I was 8 from an Aboriginal man.  I just think it’s an interesting part of Australia’s culture and heritage.  The Aboriginal people are really rarely recognized and they’re the ones that inhabited this land before us so I think all of their culture should be recognized.

Although Jaime is not an Aboriginal, she has a great respect for the Aboriginal people and their culture.  This is the second creation story I’ve collected for this project, and I’ve noticed that both of the creation stories, both from indigenous people, are animal-centered.  We discussed how this is very common in native cultures, as much of their religions and beliefs stem from animals and their spirits.

Ram – India

There was a king, and he had 3 wives.  And he had promised one of the wives, the third wife, 2 promises.  And she wanted her son to become the next king.  But the next king in line was the son of the first wife and his name was Ram.  So the third wife, who had the 2 promises promised her came to the king and said, “I want my 2 promises.” And he says, “ okay what do you want?” and she says “I want you to send Ram, your oldest son, into the forest for 14 years.  And I want you to make my son the king.”  So the king did, and Ram agreed because he wanted to honor his father and stepmother, so he went.  He was married to a lady named Sita, and she went with him, along with his brother named Lakshmana, whose whole purpose was to be with and protect his brother.  So the 3 of them went to the forest to live for 14 years.  While they were in the forest, they made their own home, and I guess there was a lot of evil in the forest, and there were a lot of priests out there that were being hurt by the evil, so  Ram did everything he could to protect the priest and the holy people and protect them from the evil.  And there is a bad guy named Ravana, and when he heard that Ram was helping protect all the priests from the evil, he went into the forest and kidnapped Sita, Ram’s wife.  When Ram and Lakshmana came back from working out in the forest, they found that Sita, who usually stayed in the house, was gone.  They went out looking for Sita, but they could not find her, but instead found Hanuman, king of the apes, who was half human half monkey.  So Hanuman really loved Ram and what he was doing to protect the holy people, so he agreed to help Ram and Lakshmana.  Hanuman went and got an army of apes and went and found Raven.  Ravana had taken Sita to Sri Lanka, and Ram, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and the army of apes went into Sri Lanka and there was a huge battle.  They defeated Ravana, and at this point it was the end of the 14 years, so Ram took Sita and Lakshmana back to their village, and they all celebrated with lights.  And that’s why they celebrate Diwali in India every year, or the festival of lights.  It’s a huge deal in India, and that’s why the tradition was started: to celebrate Ram rescuing his wife and returning home.

This was one of the first stories my father ever told me, and I have always loved celebrating Diwali, so knowing the story behind it made the holiday that much more meaningful for me.  I’m not sure if this story can be found in the Gita, the Hindu holy book, but I think it might be in there.  But I’m not sure because I always heard the story from my father.

I know very little about the Hindu culture, so hearing this story made me feel a tad more knowledgeable.  I researched Diwali after hearing this story, and seeing the pictures of the candles and lights everywhere really makes me want to visit India during Diwali .. It’s a beautiful holiday.  I tried finding the story in the Gita, but I was not successful.  Dr. Supna said it was considered a religious story, since Ram was considered a reincarnation of Vishnu, but she wasn’t sure if it was actually party of the holy books.  But it is a very popular story in Inida, as Ram and Sita are a very well known pair, and their love is known to be unbelievably strong.  Being the helpless romantic I am, having characters be known for their devotion and love for each other makes me enjoy the story that much more.  How Sita insisted on living in the forest with Ram for 14 years instead of in the comfort of the castle, and the trials Ram went through to get his wife back.  That is definitely holiday worthy.

Urashima Taro – Japan

When my father was still in school, he went to the library and read a book about Urashima the fisherman. 
Urashima Taro was a Japanese fisherman, and it was a folklore legend that the Japanese all read and got in their storybooks.

Urashima was known in his village as a good man.  One day he saw a group of boys torturing a turtle, and saved the turtle from their cruelty.  A few days later when Urashima was fishing, the turtle came back and invited him to the Dragon Palace, which was a magical kingdom under the sea.  So Urashima hopped on the turtle’s back, and was taken to the underwater palace.  When he got there, the turtle transformed into a beautiful princess named Princess Otohime.  He stayed as her guest for a few days, then asked Otohime to take him back to his old mother.  Otohime tried to keep him there, but Urashima had duties as a son.  So, when he left, Otohime gave Urashima a box called the Tamate-bako and told him never to open the box.  He promised he would not open the box.  When he came back out to the ground, he found out that his town was changed and his mother wasn’t there anymore.  He realized it had been at least 100 years since he went underwater to the palace. He didn’t know what else to do, so in the end he opened the box.  Smoke came out all around him and made him into an old man, and he died from old age.  The box was what made him stay young, and when he opened it he became his real age.

My father thought that Urashima was a beautiful name, but he didn’t know that in Japanese Urashima was a male name.  He was thinking that just because we have a strong Spanish influence in my country, the Philippines, that anything that ended with an “a” would be of female gender, and anything that ended in an “o” would be of male gender.

This folk story is very important to my grandma’s identity, as she was named after Urashima the fisherman.  Her father took out the “h” and named my grandma “Urasima,” as he thought it was a unique, female name.  She told me that when she was a little girl, she used to be teased by her schoolmates for her unusual name.  In the Philippines, children are often named after saints, as the Philippines is a predominantly Roman Catholic country.  When she went to be baptized, the father refused to baptize her because of her name, so he gave her a new one.  So my grandma is baptized under the name Josefa, but registered as Urasima in the city hall.  She never liked her name, and now just goes by “Racing,” which is still just as unusual in her eyes.  So she has a very negative connotation with a story that I myself really enjoy.  I can respect Urashima for his choice to leave an “ideal” life to honor his duties as a son.  There is a loyalty and respect for his parents that is also very common in the Filipino culture.  So while my grandma looks at the inspiration for her name in a negative light, I see it in a more positive light.

Since I knew my great grandfather first found this story via book, I knew that it had to be published somewhere.  I couldn’t find a version that was published in my great grandfather’s time, as there are so many modern adaptations in children’s books and such, but I found a translated version of a Japanese fairy tale book originally published in 1945.  That’s the oldest version I could find.

Dazai, Osamu. “お伽草紙 (Otogizōshi).” Trans. Ralph F. McCarthy. Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu. Chūō-ku, Fukuoka: Kurodahan Press, 2011. Print.

‘Aumakua – Hawaii

When I was in elementary school, we took a field trip to some fish reserves on Oahu.  There are fish ponds there that let the fish in to feed, and once they are big enough they are let back out because they are grown up and won’t be eaten.  The people who run these reserves take only what they need and let the rest of the fish go, so it is good for both the fish and the people.  There is an ‘aumakua who takes care of the grounds,  and by legend takes the form of a shark.  ‘Aumakua can take the form of many different creatures, and are protective deities that usually come back to protect or help their families. 

I never saw the shark there, but as a kid it helped me feel better that I thought the fish were being looked after.  I also started to wonder if I had any ‘aumakua protecting me, even though I am not really a native Hawaiian.

Tasia knows quite a few Hawaiian legends, but she said that her sister is much more tied to the land than she is.  They aren’t native Hawaiians, but living in Hawaii immerses you fairly wholly into Hawaiian culture (regardless of if you are a native). I have never heard of this one before, and I have been told quite a few Hawaiian legends from my many trips there.  Finding native Hawaiians, however, is harder than you would expect, as I wouldn’t say they make up the majority on the islands.  There are a lot of Japanese, Filipino, and Samoan people there, but not necessarily a lot of true Hawaiians.  So I would imagine that these stories hold much more meaning for them, and they would probably have many more tales to tell.  And I would imagine their variations would be a little different.