Monthly Archives: May 2019

Peacock for Dinner

Background

Location: Pasadena, CA

Informant: 21 year old male from Austria, living in Pasadena with his father after moving to America.

Context

Heard from source local to the Pasadena area. This area is heavily populated by wild peacocks that live outside among the homes there. This urban legend was told to me in response to my question of where the peacocks came from. I have paraphrased the response below

Main Piece

The informant heard from his father who owned the property in Pasadena, that the peacocks migrated down to the neighborhood from the mountains above. There, the peacocks bred uncontrollably and now was considered an “infestation.” As a result, some residents had taken to hitting the peacocks with their cars and taking the corpses of the birds home to prepare them as meal, in soups, stews and other dishes.

Thoughts

The origin story of the peacocks is interesting, the informant is attempting to decipher how these peacocks came to be so prevalent in the area based off of what he has heard. Due to the fact that there are an overwhelming amount of peacocks living in the neighborhoods of Pasadena, the emergence of the urban legend points to a possible dislike for the peacocks. It also seems somewhat taboo, as Americans culturally do not regard peacocks as a typical bird for consumption. The legend itself seems farfetched, but it also points to the “quirkiness” and interesting characteristic of the neighborhood that so many wild peacocks roam around.

 

 

 

Santo Toribio Romo and Protection

Background

Informant: A.G.  22 years old current senior in undergrad at USC, third generation from Honduras/Mexico

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Context

A.G. learned this story from his mother who had friends that had crossed the border into the United States from Mexico. Given that Catholicism is a popular religion in that region, many people look to the patron saints for guidance in times of confusion or fear. The saint, Toribio Romo, has become one that immigrants pray to for assistance while crossing the boarder, and has become a widely known figure in the Mexican domination of religion as a result. I have transcribed A.G.’s telling of the story below:

Main Piece

“Before my mom’s friend crossed the border from Mexico to the United States, he did a lot of preparation and praying for the trip. He also talked to a lot of my friends about people they knew that had gone and arrived safely and one of them told him a story about the Santo Toribio Romo. His friend’s  family had traveled across the boarder with another group of their friends. They traveled throughout the day and the night and only stopped when it was necessary but one day, they got lost and then ran out of food and water for a couple of days. They kept walking but had no idea which way to go. As they were walking tough, one of the people in the group said that he saw an oasis and a man who looked like a priest standing next to it telling them to go where he was. Everyone figured that the man was hallucinating from the desert, but they all followed him and hoped it was the way to go. When they went towards the oasis direction, they found out it was the right way to go and eventually made it to the United States. When they all arrived and settled down, the man who claimed to have seen the oasis called his wife and told her what he saw. She told him that it was because she prayed for Santo Toribio Romo to guide them and he was the one who appeared to them near the oasis.”

Thoughts

This story impacted A.G. in its general message of family and the strength of family ties, even in times of separation and turbulence. The initial fear that is experienced when a family must separate in order to immigrate is captured in the story itself, but also the strength and love that is expressed, especially by those that are not making the initial journey with their family. A.G. remarked that the story gave him hope, because to him it illustrated the importance of having family and people who care about you to pray for you and be there for you when you need them, even if they can’t be physically present. It also meant a lot to him, given that his family had experienced something similar and he felt a particular cultural tie to the experience.

There are many stories and variations of stories in which a saint or a guardian angel comes down and intervenes of behalf of the believer and to their benefit. I find that these stories, and belief in them serve the purpose of both inspiring hope, and in validating the religion and the existence of supernatural or other-wordy occurrences that are related to Christianity. Stories like this are important for the morale of people in difficult times, as they can offer a glimmer in an otherwise incredibly difficult situation, yet they still benefit the religion overall if people experience or hear of experiences related to saints.

The Royal Toe

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: February 15, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant is a 22 year-old student of Italian descent. We were discussing a folk tale that she had heard while studying abroad in London in the prior year.

 

Background: My informant expressed that she was unaware of how the tale or myth began, but it was one that she heard on several occasions. There are many different myths regarding what the different length of fingers or toes mean, but this one in particular involves the royal family.

 

Main Piece: “The myth is, if your second toe is longer than your big toe, you come from a royal bloodline. There was a similar one that said you were related to Princess Diana specifically. I was sitting at dinner with a few friends one night, and one girl was wearing open toed shoes. She had this special toe apparently, and our waiter pointed it out and told her it meant that she comes from the bloodline of the royal family. I just thought it was kind of strange, so a few of the times that I was in a conversation with a local I asked them about it and all said the same thing. I couldn’t tell if anyone really truly believed it, but everyone definitely knew about it.”

 

Analysis: I had never heard of the myth of the Royal Toe, so after doing some research I learned that many famous statues exhibit the “royal toe” as well – one famous example being the Statue of Liberty. It’s interesting to see the different symbolic meaning identified to the length of a digit, and how it’s manifested in different cultures and countries.

 

Apples and Lemon Cookies to Remedy a Tapeworm

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 02/12/2019
Primary Language: English

[The subject is KM. Her words are bolded, mine are not.]

ME: Do you want to tell me the joke first, or how you heard it first?

KM: Um… I think the lead up’s kind of… well, no. No, I’ll tell you the joke first.

ME: Okay.

KM: Okay, so, um, there’s this man who comes back from vacation from… somewhere. The place doesn’t really matter, you can change it from time to time when you tell it. But, uh, this man returns from vacation and his stomach is feeling kind of weird, and he’s not feeling too hot, so he goes to the doctor. The doctor, y’know, checks him up, and closes his door, and he’s like, “I’m sorry, sir, but you have a tapeworm.” He’s like, “Oh my gosh, like, what do I even do… do I take, like, antibacterial medication? What am I supposed to do?” He’s like, “Well, I mean you could wait for it to pass, but that could take who knows how long.” And this guy’s like, “I don’t wanna feel like this forever this is gonna suck, so do you have anything faster?” And he’s like, “Well, why don’t you… we’ll schedule an appointment for tomorrow. And I need you to bring an apple and a lemon cookie.” He’s like, “Okay, fine.”

So he schedules that, goes and buys the lemon cookie, buys the apple, is like, why am I even doing this, this is stupid. So he goes to the doctor, and the doctor’s like, “Okay. Bend over and pull down your pants.” He’s like, “I’m sorry, doctor, what?” And he’s like, “You just have to trust me.” And so, the doctor tells him to shove the apple up his butt, which the man does, and then he waits a few seconds, and then he’s like, “Okay, now you have to shove the lemon cookie up your butt.” He’s like, “Okay.” [Makes shoving noise and hand gestures] He’s like, “Oh, god, that was awful, is that it? Is that it?” And the doctor’s like, “I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to do this every day for the next six days, you have to do it for a week. But then, on the seventh day, you come back to me and we’ll talk about it. But you’ll also have to bring a lemon cookie and an apple.” He’s like, “Jesus, okay.”

So then the second day he’s like uuugh, okay, that wasn’t so bad. Alright. By the fifth day, he’s like, I am sooo ready just… to die. This is the worst thing. So finally it’s the seventh day, and he’s scheduled his appointment, so he shows up to the doctor’s office with the apple and the lemon cookie like, “Doc, I don’t know if I can do it again.” He’s like, “No. Sir, this is gonna be the last time you’ll have to do this, this’ll be great. Like, it’s gonna be done after this.” He’s like, okay, but the man doesn’t really know what’s different because he still had to bring the apple and the lemon cookie, so finally, the doctor’s like, “Okay. Shove the apple up your butt.” So he does it, and he’s like, “Okay, then the lemon cookie?” And the doctor’s like, “No no no.” And he waits a few seconds, and he waits a few seconds, and nothing’s happening. Finally, the tapeworm SPURTS out of his butt and goes, “WHERE’S MY GODDAMN LEMON COOKIE?” And that’s the joke!

ME: So how did you come across this joke?

KM: This is like, one of my dad’s favorite jokes in his repertoire. He just, like, really enjoys this joke. But actually, he heard this joke, I think, because he had been listening to the radio back when we did that in our cars instead of phone music, or whatever, and so um, there had been, like, a radio contest. And like, you submit a punchline of a joke, and they would select the joke that you got to tell on the radio based on the punchline. And so, the punchline of that joke is, “and the tapeworm spurted out of his butt and said, ‘where’s my goddamn lemon cookie?’” And they were like, “what’s the rest of the joke? We have to hear that.” So that’s how my dad heard that joke.

Context:
KM is a white female college student who has lived in Southern California for her entire life. The first time I heard this joke, it happened because I referenced a different joke where a man had to shove fruit up his butt and she thought I was talking about this one. Instead, we discovered that we had two different jokes with the motif of fruit going up someone’s butt. I asked her to tell me the joke again so that I could record it.

Thoughts:
When KM had first told me this joke about a year ago, the man in it had just returned from vacation in South America. I think that this has to do with a common fear that many Americans have about illnesses one can get from visiting or drinking the water in South America. I think that this joke is clever, because from the elaborate setup, I expected it to end with the man discovering that the doctor was giving him the wrong advice and a play on words or something would explain the misunderstanding. Instead, the doctor’s advice works, which makes it even funnier. I also think that this joke would be easy to change with each telling of it, whether you were to change the place the man had returned from or the foods that he uses to expel the tapeworm.

The Green Lady

Nationality: American
Age: 27
Occupation: Manager at Auxiliary Services
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English

The informant is marked IN.

IN: There’s this one spirit, called the green lady, who wanders around this botanical garden, that I think has water or like some kind of pond in it. She has green scales and jagged teeth, very Shape of Water, and her hair is made up of seaweed, and so the story goes that she had visited that garden with her children and one of them got lost and drowned in the lake. Because of that, she died with a broken heart and is apparently supposed to roam that area, in search of her child. And anyone visiting this garden is told not to leave their kids alone, because the spirit will like, take them as revenge or a consolation to her own child, you know.

Context: I asked the informant at work if he had any Hawaiian folklore tales he could remember.

Background: The informant is Hawaiian, with Japanese-American family. He heard this story around from locals in the area around this botanical garden.

Analysis: I think that this story is very similar to La Llorona in nature. It also functions as a story to tell children to get them to stay with you while visiting this area, as it will scare them to be alone with a fish-like spirit with jagged teeth.