Monthly Archives: May 2023

Legend – Fog of Bellevue

CONTEXT: 

J is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. He is from Mercer Island, Washington, a town within the Seattle metropolitan area. The island lies between Seattle and Bellevue.

TEXT:

“So I lived on an island (Mercer island), and it was surrounded by this big lake, and past the lake, it’s surrounded on two sides – one side by Seattle and the other by Bellevue, and there used to be this legend that the Native American people that used to live on our island would see in the morning – there was a lot of fog, right – and so they couldn’t see through to bellevue on the other side. But in the afternoon, when the fog cleared, they could see the land on the other side. So it was said that they used to believe that the island would rise up out of the water during the day and sink under the water during the night. My grandpa lived right on the lake, and I used to visit him a lot, and so he would tell me that story a lot of times when I was a kid, and one time when I was working at Subway just before I moved here to Los Angeles, there was a guy that came in who said the same thing. As a kid, when I was at my grandparents’ house, I would not see the land in the morning and then see it in the afternoon, and I thought maybe that it was true. I think it’s kind of cool to think about – when you’re a kid, you don’t know that Bellevue – that a city is a city, like you see a city landscape, like “oh those are things,” but you don’t really think about there are people there, so when I was a kid I just thought it was a landmass, and it was a really cool idea that it would sink and rise and it was just part of nature, and I guess I still like to think of it that way, so it’s kind of nice to think of nature as something unaffected by other people.”

ANALYSIS: 

The ways urban legends tend to grow out of a mystical view of indigenous people almost seems like a way to detach oneself from superstition. Especially in more modern and developed areas, there is a strong societal detachment from what is considered spiritual or legendary. In this sense, while modern, non-indigenous people may still believe in this story or be able to perceive it, it is much easier to apply that culturally to an indigenous group much more associated with ideas of spiritualism and natural phenomena. Yet the story regarding those previous folk who believed this still persists, striking a narrative about previously held beliefs that then affect the perceptions by those who currently interpret it. In a sense, this is folklore about folklore.

Legend – Slenderman in Real Life

CONTEXT:

J is a freshman at USC studying screenwriting, and a good friend of mine. 

Slenderman is an online-created urban legend spread throughout the site CreepyPasta. It originated with photoshopped images of a slender, tall and faceless man in a suit.

TEXT:

J: So one time when I was a kid, my cousin and my mom were talking about Slender Man, because I guess they both heard of it. And I was like, eight at the time. And I had never heard of this because I was like, eight years old. And I had no connection to like, creepy pasta or anything on the internet. And so I asked them to tell me a story about it because I wanted to know what he was like. So they told me this story about this girl who was home alone one night, and she forgot to get water before she went to bed. So when she was in bed, she was like, oh, I need to get up and get water because I’m really thirsty. So she went to her kitchen. And as she was getting the water, she saw this weird, creepy figure in the corner of her kitchen, and it really freaked her out. But instead of going back to bed, she continued to get the water. And so then when her parents came home, they saw that she wasn’t there. So they looked around, and they asked a bunch of people. And eventually they found out that she was at the hospital. And so they went to the hospital to talk to her and ask her what happened. But her ears and her tongue and her eyes were all cut out. And her hands were cut off. So that she couldn’t see if he was going to come again. She couldn’t hear if he would come again. She couldn’t speak what happened, and she couldn’t write down what happened. And so that way, he would remain anonymous. 

Me: They told you this when you were eight?

J: Yeah. And so then I remained afraid of Slenderman until I was like, in the middle of high school. Because the legend goes that like, if you cease to believe that Slender Man exists, then he will come kill you. But so long as you believe that he exists, you’re sort of safe. And so that made me not want to stop believing in it. But then it kept freaking me out.

ANALYSIS:

Slenderman is a curious case of folklore in which it takes on a life of its own outside of its place of origin: the internet. Creepypastas tend to be another form of scary storytelling for children and young people, and they are, in a way, a place akin to campfires for the exchange of scary stories. For something as famous as Slenderman, however, it evolves into a cultural being despite having been started with fan narratives that were written down, which is not how we traditionally think of folklore. Yet because there is no official canon nor a copyright, the people are able to be communally creative while making agreements on who this character is and what he should be. 

Legend – Couch Island

CONTEXT:

P is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. In the United States, children tend to go to summer camps, where they spend time with nature and with older camp counselors who supervise and lead them.

TEXT:

P: So the camp was at a lake and across the lake you could see like, I don’t know if it was an island, it was just another strip of land and there was just a couch there. Just a white couch with nothing else around it, just a couch. Yeah, we could see this couch like we could see it and so we called it couch Island. I don’t think it was an island though. That area of land, we called it couch island because it looked like it was surrounded by water kinda, and so I think the legend was, you should never step foot on couch island because — we had boats, like wooden boats. We have like, you know, canoes and we would canoe around the lake. But you’re not supposed to go on couch Island. Because there’s like some shadow guy, some shit that lives there. And like that’s his couch. You don’t want to fucking sit on his couch. But sometimes the couch would get removed and then there wouldn’t be the couch there. Like I would see the couch. Like it just wouldn’t be there some days other days it would be sometimes it was just like a chair. You know, it was switched out? Yeah, it was weird. I think, really there was a house over there. It was somebody’s house and they would just put furniture out sometimes. But we would never see them sitting there, was the thing so we were like they would always switch out the furniture so it must have been like after we’d left the camp because there was a daycare. But sometimes we would have overnights and we still wouldn’t see who was over there. So people would just make shit like people were talking about this they saw like a shadow man over there one time or whatever. But you’re not supposed to go to Couch Island. That’s what I remember. Don’t set foot on Couch Island.

Me: Did you ever hear stories about someone who stepped on couch Island and got killed? Or got caught by the Shadow Man?

P: Maybe, if anything, it was just like they stepped on the island and then they would never be heard from again. Yeah. Like that’s why you wouldn’t go there. Because if you stepped on his couch, if you sat on the couch immediately either the fog and Shadow Man  or the couch just enveloped you.

ANALYSIS:

Folklore tends to be the most believable for children, who are obviously less knowledgeable on how the world works and are more susceptible to believing legends. In this case, there are clear trends on what is unseen and the legends that surround things. When something is foggy or unexplained, there tends to be more mysticism and magic around it. For the couch, there might be a very logical explanation for it. But because there is so much in the unknown, people, and especially children, are likely to come up with a more fantastical and interesting explanation for it. In many ways, the reveal of what actually happened doesn’t matter — what is real is not what’s important, what’s important is what we believe and choose to believe. 

International Women’s Day in Georgia

[T:] 8th of March, International Women’s Day, is huge in Georgia. My grandma was just telling me about it…like she parked in a no-parking zone and came out and they were giving her a ticket and she was like, “Guys…it’s the 8th of March” like they let women get away with anything. It’s tradition to give everyone violets, all of the women, and they’re wild violets they’re really pretty but they’re always wrapped with string so it’s very natural, straight out of the earth kind of thing. You have to give every woman you love that…the men particularly.

[Me]: Do you have any idea why, of all the things you could do to celebrate, why violets wrapped with string?

[T]: It’s called აი ია [pronounced “ai ia”] in Georgian, and I don’t know the exact, or if there is even like an exact thing but it’s…from the very beginning we have this book of alphabets…and it’s called აი ია which translates to this violet…or there’s a violet or something, so that’s the first one…it’s like ‘a’ is for apple, ‘b’ is for blah blah, so that’s how they start it with აი ია so it’s just very associated with beginnings and the first bloom of spring and everything new and very pure.

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific festival traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

Although most of the world celebrates March 8th as International Women’s Day, these specific modes of celebration speak to the way that Georgian culture views women, and how those views are tied into even the more trivial aspects of their lives. T’s use of the word “pure” is particularly interesting to me; the violet represents women to Georgians because it plays a role in their alphabet book that they’ve known since childhood—it’s the first symbol to appear in the book and thus symbolizes new beginnings and rebirth. This kind of rhetoric has followed women for a long time—throughout many cultures and eras—but the fact that it’s tied to something so important as the alphabet book that every Georgian child has read and will read forever makes me wonder about what other aspects of sociocultural tradition are ingrained in other parts of the Georgian lifestyle.

One other aspect from this interview I wanted to touch on was T’s comment that women can “get away with anything” on March 8th. This very much reminded me of conversations we’ve had in lecture about “ritual inversion” being a big part of a lot of festival celebrations around the world—Halloween and Mardi Gras, to name some of the more well-known examples. On International Women’s Day in Georgia, they essentially participate in ritual inversion; it may not be “official,” but there’s a general understanding that the normal rules of social or legal engagement do not apply to women on this day. As women are more often than not seen as the “weaker,” “fairer,” or “lesser” sex, it’s no surprise that this is one of the ways that IWD is celebrated. It gives women a reprieve from the near-constant pressure and simply being a women in the modern world and allow them a day of peace—and maybe even a bit of mischief.

Georgian Funeral Traditions

Nationality: Georgian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: Georgian, English

[T]: Funerals…I hated those things. They’re usually first held in whoever dies…their house. There’s usually a casket, usually an open casket in the living room and everyone and their mother literally has to show up or else you’re the most disgraceful thing known to humankind so there’s like hundreds of people and you know that someone’s died because you walk or drive past the street and there’s hundreds of people going in and out of the apartment building.

[Me]: Is it everybody in the community or just everybody that ever knew the person?

[T]: Everyone that ever knew the person basically…word gets around. And then…you have to typically wear black, you go in straight faced and when you walk into the living room you have to…there’s like all the women that were closely related to the deceased person sitting in a circle around the open casket and then you have to walk in a circle around the casket and look in…which is really traumatizing and then you say your condolences to everyone and typically in like more the villages and the outer areas of Georgia, the women weep loudly…that’s another thing they audibly weep the whole time and the louder they weep the more it shows that they loved the person. After you do that round you turn around and leave and go outside and usually people stand outside and have a drink or two and then they leave.

Day two of celebrations is when you have a huge feast, but that’s a little more intimate. It’s usually only like 100 people as opposed to like a thousand.

[Me]: Is there anything that you characteristically make for this feast? Like a food staple? Does everyone bring something or does the family of the deceased make everything?

[T]: Typically all of our feasts are the same cuisine…just a lot of typical Georgian food: a lot of meats, fish, grains, because grains are tied to the earth and holiness, a lot of greens and spinach and nuts…our typical feast tradition is that is has to look as though no one’s touched it so it has to be a lot of food…like mountains of food and especially when you’re honoring the dead it has to look like no one’s touched it so it’s a sign of respect.

[Me]: Do any of these funeral rites have official titles or are they just understood to be done when someone dies?

[T]: Oh yeah the viewing is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which kind of translates to “letting them rest” or “resting them away” and then…oh no, the first part is called პანაშვიდი [pronounced “panashvidi”] and the second part is called გასვენება [pronounced “gasveneba”] which is when they take them…there’s a bunch of people that drive to the church and then to the graveyard where they’re buried. Part 3 is the feast which is called the ქელეხი pronounced “qelekhi”], don’t know what that translates to but that’s what it’s called.

Translation Key:

გასვენება – pronunciation: gasveneba – literal translation: “letting them rest” – English equivalent: wake

პანაშვიდი – pronunciation: panashvidi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral

ქელეხი – pronunciation: qelekhi – literal translation: ? – English equivalent: funeral feast

T is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior to the “official” start to the interview, I asked if she had any Georgian-specific wedding, funeral, or other ritual traditions that she would be open to sharing with me, and the above conversation ensued.

There’s a lot of insight into Georgian culture from these funeral traditions. From the expectation of women weeping loudly at the wake to the abundant feast, it’s clear that the community places a lot of emphasis on paying respect to the deceased in traditional ways. The way that T describes the foods present at the qelekhi (ქელეხი) also speak to the overarching themes the culture and community value: connections to the Earth and holiness. T is a close friend of mine, and from other conversations we’ve had I know that outside of the capital city of Tbilisi, the villages are rather poor, very religious, and close-knit—these funeral traditions absolutely reflect that fact. Funerals represent, for a lot of cultures, a transition in identity for the deceased as they leave their place amongst the living and join the dead; I would have to do more research to be sure, but these traditions seem to indicate that in Georgian culture, people who have died are still very much a part of the community—just in a different way.