Author Archives: Trevor Schmisseur

The White Lady

Background

Informant is college educated and has lived on Oahu, Hawaii for their whole life. Informant was dating the Interviewer’s mother for around a year.

Context

Informant discusses the urban legend of Pele, the goddess attributed to making the Hawaiian islands. Informant speaks on how the encounter will go, what Pele will look like, and what will happen if you disrespect her.

Transcript

Informant: “Ooo, what about the white lady?”

Interviewer: “The what lady?”

Informant: “The white lady, if you see the white lady, you have to pick her up. If you don’t pick her up-”

Interviewer: “Oh, Pele!”

Informant: “Yeah, so she comes out as either a young beautiful woman, or whatever, but if you don’t pick her up she’ll end up in the back seat of your car.”

Interviewer: “What happens then? I heard that-”

Informant: “I think she’ll either stay there until you go to where she wants to go or when you notice that she’s there, you’ll turn around and she’ll be gone. But after you see her you gotta make offerings, like food and drinks so you don’t make her mad.”

Thoughts

The story of the white lady is an incredibly common myth in Hawaii. Even though Pele is supposed to only live on the Big Island, tales of encountering her on all islands are a relatively common affair. I personally have never encountered the white lady while driving alone, but I have family members who swear to have seen her. Nobody I know says she has gotten into their vehicle though. While I respect this story and the culture it comes from, In my mind I chalk most of these up to just seeing a random woman wearing white while driving, as that is not an uncommon outfit on Oahu by any means.

Pali Highway

Background

Informant is college educated and has lived on Oahu, Hawaii for their whole life. Informant was dating the Interviewer’s mother for around a year.

Context

Informant discusses a superstition about taking meat over the Pali, the possible consequences, and where the legend stems from.

Transcript

Informant: “You’re not supposed to take pork over the Pali [highway on Oahu].”

Interviewer: “Do you know why?”

Informant: “So, I forget. But they say that your car will stall if you go over they Pali, but it got something to do with warrior being pushed off the edge? Or something like that? Or the sacrifices that were made? Something to do with that, they had the war right over there and they just pushed the warriors over the Pali. They were just throwing them off the Pali, King kamehameha. Imua. There’s a reason behind it.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I heard there was also like, this thing where on the old Pali, that if you broke these rules, these like bloody ghost warriors would run at your car and try to make you crash or something.”

Informant: “Oh jeez, I don’t know about that one, that’s probably just the old Pali highway, but no one uses it now.”

Thoughts

The pali highway is situated beside a mountain where a very famous Hawaiian battle took place. King Kamehameha, the ali’i who united all the Hawaiian islands, defeated the reigning monarch of Oahu at this mountain by cornering his warriors and pushing them off the mountain. The spirits of these fallen warriors not only haunt the place where they died, but patrol the island in military formation. These spirits are known as night marchers, and will kill anyone who looks at their sacred marches. This legend and pulley legend scare me to no end, but I’m a vegetarian so I never have meat in my car so I never have to worry about it.

La Llorona

Background

Informant is a student at USC who is currently living in the surrounding area. The Informant and Interviewer have been friends for around one year and met through the housing application process.

Context

Informant discusses the La Llorona legend, with the Interviewer throwing in a possible variant of the traditional legend. As classes are online, the conversation took place over discord.

Transcript

Informant: “La Llorona is just like a woman who had her kids drowned in a river, and so uh, I don’t know if it’s like a specific river or if it’s any river. But be careful around rivers because if you hear a woman crying she’ll like drag you in, especially for like children, like she’ll drag children in, because she’s mourning the children that she lost.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, that’s a classic, I, that story fucks with my head still. I heard that La Llorona, like if you hear her, like only cries, and you don’t approach her, you’ll have a shorter lifespan.”

Informant: “Huh, I uh, don’t think that’s a part of the story. Or at least I wasn’t told it like that.”

Interviewer: “Yeah I only know the La Llorona story from like a horror YouTube channel, so I’m probably wrong.”

Informant: “Haha yeah I don’t know about that one.”

Thoughts

La Llorona is an incredibly popular South American urban legend that has proliferated beyond the culture of origin, hence how I found it. The informant’s retelling had all the core details that existed in the internet retelling I heard, but the internet retelling had a few embellishments. The aforementioned shortened lifespan was one, and the fact that La Llorona wears a white wedding dress is another, as she drowned her kids when she found out her husband cheated on her. I think the version I heard had a few added details to get more attention on the internet compared to the original version, but stories evolve over time, so who is to say which story is more valid.

Citations

La Llorona

Maxwello, and Maxwello. “University of Southern California.” USC Digital Folklore Archives, 19 Nov. 2020, folklore.usc.edu/la-llorona-46/.

Ali’i rock

Background

Informant is the mother of the Interviewer, she has been the mother of the Interviewer since the ii Interviewer has existed and has raised them ever since.

Context

Informant recalls childhood memory regarding a potentially haunted rock and how they dispelled the evil spirits plaguing them.

Transcript

Informant: “So there was this rock that grandpa got from a neighbor up the street, he was doing one of those moss rock walls. Anyways, grandma would always be watering outside and she always thought it always reminded her of a gravestone, and we had a pomeranian, Fluffy, Fluffy would always pee on it. And one day grandpa was taking her for a walk, and um, Fluffy got ran over by a truck, and her entire, her entire organs fell to her hind legs, yeah, and-”

Interviewer: “This is the one that survived, right?”

Informant: “Yeah, and the, doctor Higa at the time said that it would be a miracle if she survived, you know? It’d be a miracle, pretty much, if she survived surgery, and she survived, yeah. She had bladder problems after that, but then she ran away. And then grandma would always have this weird feeling, whenever she, she watered and would pass this rock, cause the rock was right outside of the garage, ok? So so then anyway, so she was feeling funny, so she went to all these Hawaiian, she went to Japanese ones, and like-

Interviewer: “Like priests and stuff, right?”

Informant: “Yeah, and she asked grandma if there was a rock in front of the house? Like she could visualize it. And what she told grandma was that that was the rock of the Ali’i, like a gravestone, the Ali’i, so that grandpa had to return the rock, with his friend, and they had to place it on the island, not tell anyone, and give it offerings, like beer and food. So to this day we don’t know where it is, Grandpa won’t tell us.”

Thoughts

This story was told to me since childhood as a cautionary tale to always respect native Hawaiian grounds and never take anything from them. Small rocks are ok, but large, ornamental rocks or any rock transported between islands was always off limits. While traditional Hawaiian culture is sadly a dying practice, the sentiments and influences still factor into the lives of many people who live on the islands. I am not 100% sold on all Hawaiian legends, but I still respect them and have never moved around rocks from island to island, so the story’s intended purpose was successful.

Fertility Rock

Background

Informant is the mother of the Interviewer, she has been the mother of the Interviewer since the interviewer has existed and has raised them ever since.

Context

Informant discusses a folk practice that is supposed to aid in fertility that she participated in. This practice is attributed to why the Interviewer exists in the first place.

Transcript

Informant: “How about the one that relates to my getting pregnant?”

Interviewer: “…what?”

Informant: “So there’s uh, there’s a fertility rock, that uh, what’s it called? I forgot what it was called… It’s like a fertility rock on Moloka’i, so when I couldn’t get pregnant, you know we found out about that, so we went to Moloka’i with Uncle dean, and I went, oh the Phallic Rock! So I went onto the phallic rock and I was like I need to get pregnant, so I like-”

(Informant bucks her hips and twirls a fake lasso, like she is riding a raging bull.)

Interviewer: “You rode the, th-the dick rock?”

Informant: “And I got pregnant after, It’s just one of those things, I had Katie after.”

Interviewer: “Wow.”

Thoughts

Rocks in Hawaii have a great spiritual presence. They can hold energies from fertility, to the gods, to souls of the deceased. You’re not supposed to move rocks from island to island, as you will be cursed and have to seek out either a Kahuna to dispel the bad spirits or return the rock to its original location, leaving offerings of beer and food to please the spirits. I have encountered spiritually significant rocks in my life, but have never actively sought them out for spiritual or personal reasons. Hearing that my mother utilized the help of one of these rocks was interesting, as I did not know she believed in Hawaiian traditions before that. I am not convinced of the effectiveness of spirit rocks, but I respect the practice and the rich culture behind their existence.