Author Archives: Sierra Chinn-Liu

“Lady in White”

So he (my teacher’s friend) was driving on the Pali highway—middle of the day, nothing spooky about it—when he drove by a lady dressed all in white, with long white hair and… a white dog, walking down the Pali highway, hitchhiking. In his head he was thinking, oh my God, what an idiot, hitchhiking on the Pali, that’s so dangerous!

… and so he didn’t stop, just drove right past her…

Then, he was still thinking about it, so he looked in his rear view mirror to try to see behind him and check if they were still waiting there and… there they were, sitting in the back seat of the car.

(inhales deeply) Which is obviously how he ended up crashing the car… So, the lesson of the story is, if you ever see the lady in white, or the white dog—together or separate, you HAVE to pick them up. Otherwise bad things are going to happen to you…

 

How did you come across this folklore: “this is another one told by Hawaiiana teacher, but this time he was talking about an actual friend.”

Other information: “My teacher’s friend was in the hospital… so when he (my teacher) went to go visit his friend in the hospital, having heard that this friend had crashed his car, he asked him what happened. What the friend said in response is the story of the Lady in White…”

There are a lot of legends similar to this one, by no means limited to Hawai’i. This theme of a woman, usually in white, associated with some kind of macabre “aura,” returning dead for some purpose and somehow demanding respect, is found in a lot of places around the world… and these versions also reflect a similar relationship to belief that is contextual. You might not always believe in or expect the Lady in White to show up, but you wouldn’t rule out it happening, especially in a spiritual/”haunted” area like the Pali and much less at night.

For another version of this, see Glen Grant’s Chicken Skin Tales, which was also made into a TV show on a cable channel in Hawaii called “Chicken Skin,” where people tell/reenact various ghost stories from the islands written in the book. This story was featured on an episode, which began by interviewing a man in a hospital…

Grant, Glen. Glen Grant’s Chicken Skin Tales: 49 Favorite Ghost Stories from Hawaii.Honolulu, HI: Mutual Pub., 1998. Print.

“Handprints”

When asked, “why don’t you drive on the Pali at night?” your response will be a sigh because the answer is obvious and comes in the form of various horror stories and unexplainable events. Long story short, no matter what story you’ve heard, driving on the Pali is always sketch. Anyway, this version starts like this:

So it was said that, a long time ago, there was a young couple that after a date, went up to the Pali lookout and (intake of breath) as they’re sitting there, looking out, they start hear something funny (like strange, not humorous)…

And so the guy’s like, “what is this?” and the girl’s freaking out a little bit…

His date was clearly really scared already and so of course he decided to be all “macho” and go outside and investigate. So he goes out and she can’t see him anymore… and then she hears him scream and then she hears the slap of hands on the car (gestures slapping)…

… and she freaks out even more, and then stupidly, also decides to go outside to find him/discover what the noise is… and of course she also disappears….

Then the next day, when people come looking for them, all they find is the car. They find a car on top of the Pali lookout, all covered in handprints (makes a wide gesture), and no one, to this day, knows where they were…

They were never found. And that’s why no one drives/stops at the Pali lookout at night. The End!

 

How did you come across this folklore: “this is something I think everyone in Hawaii has heard throughout life, especially in Hawaiiana class–but this version was one told more saliently/memorably at freshman sleepover by my paddling coach.”

Other information: “I’ve also heard versions where the car is found covered in bloody handprints, or something like that, but I find them less believable. This version, and the other horror stories from the Pali, are so believable that anyone from Hawaii will agree that driving on the Pali highway at night is a terrible idea.”

This legend, among the others forewarning those intending to drive on the Pali highway at night (which is passes through several areas than many would consider as “sacred” to the native Hawaiians), illustrates that belief really is contextual. One might not believe the story in broad daylight, in the comfort and safety of one’s home, but when obligated to or given the option to drive on the eerie Pali at night, all of these legends suddenly become a hundred times more plausible and a lot of people will go out of their way to avoid this.

 

 

 

 

The Patron Saint of Mexico City

This is one of our saints, and the mini-story of how he became a saint…

He was named for Guadaloupe, kind of like the virgin Mary; she was a great virgin or something… but she’s different, not like any of the saints that we (Catholics) have, she’s more distinctly Native American, her symbol is these thorny thorny roses that only grow in the deserts in Mexico.

Anyway, the man left and she came to him, and when he came back he tried to tell everybody what had happened; what he had seen and what she had said to him. But he was an Indian so no one believed he’d seen a virgin, and he went to her and she told him as long as he had faith, everything would work out. So he returned to his people again, and told them that everything would be good, that they would be blessed by God if they were faithful…

After he spoke, on his poncho appeared an image of the virgin, and then out form under it fell roses––her special thorny symbolic roses––a sign that she was actually there. And then people believed him…

Now she’s like the patron saint of Mexico City and that’s what our nativity stories and stuff were based on afterwards.

 

How did you come across this folklore: “I refer to these as “sketchy stories from my (step)father”/sketchy things he did when I was a kid…”

Other information: “My dad has a lot of stories like these, but my mom was big on not sharing them, or letting us hear them—so I heard this in my teens, when were allowed (finally) to ask and he would actually answer… my mom said it would invite bad people/things to us or something…”

This shows the incorporation of religion into folk mythology, where eventually no one questions its truth, which is transcended by its meaning. If you remain faithful, things will work out. This story actually bears strong resemblance to a traditional biblical story (for example, Moses in the Old Testament). The way my informant found out about this piece of folklore also reflects the conflict between mainstream society and minority folk groups, in this case the folklore was hidden from the second generation to protect them from being stigmatized.

Dia de los Muertos

When we made the offerings for Dia de los Muertos, we left out water. I asked other families, and they told me you customarily leave oranges, and bread, and you leave salt in the shape of a cross to symbolize something good for the returning dead. You also light a candle for each person that had died in your family, so they could find their way back to you during the festival of the dead… I have all of these aunts and random people, tons of them, on my mom’s side, and eight on my dad’s side, so it was a lot of candles. But I didn’t understand about the water, so I asked my dad for the explanation…

Water represents light, like a lighthouse, leading them (the dead), asking them, showing them the way like a beacon, making sure they go to the right house.

Also you’re not allowed to put out the candles, they HAVE to die out themselves. But as for the water, dad said that if you saw bubbles in it the next morning, you know that they visited… I believed it as a kid, but I’m pretty sure it always had bubbles, no matter what…

 

How did you come across this folklore: “I refer to these as “sketchy stories from my (step)father”/sketchy things he did when I was a kid…”

Other information: “My dad has a lot of stories like these, but my mom was big on not sharing them, or letting us hear them—so I heard this in my teens, when were allowed (finally) to ask and he would actually answer… my mom said it would invite bad people/things to us or something…”

This ritual is almost like a more spiritual version of what kids are taught to do for Santa, leaving out cookies the night of Christmas Eve and in the morning there would be bitemarks or crumbs as evidence that he had visited. But Dia de los Muertos is not quite as commercialized of a holiday, and unlike Christmas, offers another opportunity to connect with the dead.

The Turtle and the Great Spirit

It goes something like this…

The Great Spirit wanted to create a world with animals and people, so he asked the Turtle to come up to the surface so he could build on the turtle’s back. But he wasn’t able to finish, so he just had the mountains and the valleys and the land created. So he went to sleep, and he dreamed of the animals and people crawling and walking and flying on and above the earth and he didn’t like what he saw in his dream… but when he woke up and discovered that his dream had populated the earth, it had turned out to be good…

 

How did you come across this folklore: “This is something I researched for a school project a while ago.”

Other information: “It’s a message to young children of the tribe—I don’t remember which tribe it is, maybe Abenaki? to pay attention to their dreams, because that is what created them.”

This is another example illustrating how the story within the constructed-truth of a myth doesn’t matter as much as the lessons embedded in, setting up some moral value for people, in this case, listening to dreams because a dream is how they originated.