Context: The experience comes from the Informant’s father when he was younger, around the age of 12 or 13, and takes place in Costa Rica. This story was shared with her by him. It focuses on the Ouija Board, which is used to communicate to spirits and there have been many memorates of bad experiences.

Text:

Informant: “I told you the ouija board story, right?”

Collector: “What? No! What happened?”

Informant: “My dad’s uncle would constantly use the ouija board to reach out to past family members and communicate to them and one day decided to invite my dad along, who was a preteen at that time, with his cousins and they were saying it worked and they were already in conversation in one. My dad joined and they were asking questions to the spirit and the spirit would answer accordingly to appear as the family member. The spirit would also answer questions that only they, like my dad and his uncle, knew the answer to. As they continued communication the spirit would reach out more often every time they played. As a teen my dad thought it was a game and/or that he was actually speaking to his family member until strange things started to happen every time they would finishing talking to the spirit such as things falling on him and things breaking (cups, vases, etc.). He never thought much into this until one day, before the uncles and cousins had invited him to talk to the spirit that day, there was a liquid that spilled on his shoes and melted it and he did not know what the liquid was but it was some sort of acid liquid and this happened before the ouija board. He was scared but dimissed it and puts the shoes on and goes to play with the uncles. And my father didn’t tell anybody what happened with the shoe and when they were using the ouija and talking to the spirit, it starts communicating through the board and asks a question which was “What happened to the shoe?” All the uncles were confused and that’s when my dad knew the spirits were taunting him about the shoes and this spirit attacked him. After the question, my father realizes that all the coincidences were actually the spirit attached to him even though they had said goodbye. My father never addressed what happened to my uncles or the spirit but rather instead stopped going to any of the ouija talks with the spirit. The uncles asked why he wasn’t joining and the spirits also asked. My father never responded and told them that he didnt want to play anymore in which they laughed and continued to play themselves. Later on they found out that the spirit was not their family member because they asked for its name and they gave the wrong name and they knew it was a random spirit.”

Analysis:

I think this memorate only strengths the belief of the bad things that can happen when one uses the Ouija board and sharing these stories adds to the collective belief of using the ouija board with caution and fearing the attachments the spirits can make and how dangerous they can be. The informant mentioned that because of this story her dad never touched the board again and they never did either and honestly, I will even more not miss with the board after hearing this story. I think the sharing of these stories and people still wanting to have this experience also reveals how curious people are with spirits, entities, demons, and just the supernatural in general and seeing what happens when you are able to channel and communicate with them. I think because spirituality is always one of those things were you have to see it to believe it that it draws and fascinates so many different cultures around the world. Also, I think the idea of communicating with the dead or past love ones and this idea that they are always with you is another persisting aspect of why people trade their ouija board memorates.

Context: This personal experience come from the informant’s mother and focuses on a freaky encounter with aliens that happened when they were young girls and having a sleepover with no adults in the house. This was in Costa Rica.

Text:

Informant: “So it was on this farm late a night and my mom and aunts were having a sleepover with a friend and it’s lights out, midnight, quiet, everyone’s asleep. Suddenly, the whole house lights up the entire field and it’s so bright they couldn’t see outside, sort of like a flash but permanent and blocking out everything. Like a beam. So, they couldn’t see and there was a loud noice. They were all scared and didnt know what to do and so they hid under the bed and they keep hearing this noise and then it goes quiet and then after a little bit there’s no lights and no noise and they were so scared they didn’t go outside that night and went back to sleep until the morning to check what it was. When they come out the field of the entire farm was burnt and it was huge and it was all burnt and it was a perfect circle. Apparently my aunt peeked during when the aliens arrived but never wanted to talk about it not even with her own daughter so whatever she saw really freaked her out.”

Analysis:

This memorate further strengthens the typically tropes one sees and hears dealing with aliens. There’s the burnt circle which is suppose to signify the presence of the circular UFO and the bright lights and the big open empty field are also heard with a bunch of stories. Because so many of these memorates have those connecting themes it makes the urban legend seem even that more believable and that’s why people seek to share these stories so they can find similarities. I think the sharing of alien stories all can reflect on this bigger general curiosity of whether or not there’s another type of intelligent life form somewhere out there in the world, on other planets, or other galaxies since many find it hard to believe humans are the only ones and that Earth in the only planet that is inhabited.

Context:

In South Korean culture, it is tradition for the 1st birthday to be celebrated. This celebration is called 돌잔지 (doljanchi) which translates to birthday feast. At this celebration it is all typical that they do a certain type of picking ceremony called 돌잡이 (doljabi). The informant talks about her experience of seeing her baby cousin’s 1st birthday and what she recalls from her siblings.

Text:

Informant: “For the celebration or you know the game what they’ll do is they’ll put a bunch of objects in front of the baby usually like what I see, and it’s like people can do whatever they want really like they could add in their own little things and personalize it, but usually there’s things like a pencil, money, maybe a ball, an apple. Then there can be anything else like I’ve seen maybe stethoscope and stuff like that but then like each one symbolizes a certain thing. I don’t know if traditionally there’s like a set of things..”

Collector (raises hand): “What does apple symbolize?”

Informant: “I’m pretty sure apple symbolizes health I think and ball is athlete and is the pencil I think it’s writer. I feel like these aren’t really like set in stone or anything but you can like put whatever you want and like have it mean whatever you want kind of. I don’t know if there’s like an original set of items if that makes sense but yeah. And then like you’ll set the baby down in front of all the items and they just like crawl and choose one and that’s like their future. I saw my cousin’s baby do it like two years ago and she chose the apple. She was hungry because she just chose it and started eating but I think when [her younger brother] had his, he chose money.”

Collector: “Is there any other traditions that happen at the birthday?”

Informant: “I don’t really know why but usually the babies will wear like a hanbok (한복) like the traditional dress to their first birthday party or like all the pictures or videos I’ve seen where like the babies are grabbing the items they are wearing a hanbok.”

Analysis:

I think this birthday celebration of the first year of life symbolizes how important babies and their futures can be to South Koreans, and that they can be very career and future-oriented. According to the informant, this is a type of rites of passage ceremony in which everyone in their family has been through and they themselves said they would like to continue it. I think the celebration could also show that they believe in free will and maybe being destined to do something since they lay the objects in front of the baby and let them choose although, of course, the babies have no idea what each object symbolizes. Therefore, it seems like the choice is unprovoked and not challenged as compared to if an adult would choose their career they would take into account many different factors.

Context:

The informant’s mother told her about her encounter with los duendes aka the gnomes when she was a young girl. Los duendes are a part of Latin American legend and have different variations across the countries. This specific encounter occurred in Costa Rica when the informant’s mother was young so presumably around late 70s or early 80s.

Text:

Informant: “The gnomes also known as los duendes come in groups to basically lore children, typically mischievous children, into the woods or the forest and would distract them for hours on end with games, music, dances until it got really late. Eventually, the children would want to go back home and the gnomes would not allow that. If the children tried to go home the gnomes were really aggressive like grabbing their hair, scratching their skin and not letting them leave and forcing them to keep having fun even after hours of doing late into the night. This is what happened to my mother and in order for her to leave and safely make it back home she had to turn her clothes inside out and leave while singing or whistling which was to imitate that you’re still playing the game but you’re actually departing and done playing. My mother was able to escape from them this way and when they found her apparently her hair was messed up and scratches were all over her and her toe nails were clipped.”

Analysis:

This memorate corresponds with a type of urban legend that exists within Latin America. I think this is a type of urban legend that was used to warn kids from talking to strangers or venturing into unknown territory like the woods by themselves. With many memorates such as this one contributing to the legend, belief only strengthens and then many people, adults and kids alike are very cautious about trying to get into any encounter with los duendes. And I think stories like these are passed down in families to warn that it can happen and to pass on certain lessons/instructions so that if someone else in the family encounters them then they know what to do. I think this urban legend could suggest that Latin Americans could be very cautious and worried about child safety and that you should be weary of things/people who seem too good to be true or overly nice.

Context:

The informant is from Myanmar/Burma and this superstition is found among their culture. Recently there has been a military coup within the country and so this entry gives insight to how the people are responding and resisting.

Text:

Informant: “So there is a superstition that if you’re a man — so like men in Myanmar have this thing called a pohm (ဘုန်း) or like they have pohm which is like a spiritual, well it’s just like something to make them better than woman basically, it’s like a spiritual thing. But there’s a superstition that if men walk under women’s clothing — like so in Burma we wore a bunch of these skirts like traditional skirts and if men walked under it then they lose their pohm so they lose their like higher spirituality if that makes sense. And recently actually like you know how the coup and everything is happening in my country the women hung up a bunch of skirts on the electrical wires so that the military could not walk underneath and because the military is so superstitious they actually had to take each skirt down before they could walk underneath. So it’s like a superstition in my country.”

Analysis:

From an outside perspective, one can see how superstitions within a country can be very influential on the way people think and act. Based off this superstition, it would seem that Myanmar is a patriarchal society and that they believe in “pohm” and use it as a way to differentiate between men and women spirituality within the society. However, walking under some type of feminine clothing, such as the traditional skirts the informant was talking about, it would cause them to lose that higher sense of spirituality and so they are, for lack of a better term, “downgraded” to feminine spirituality. I think Burmese men must be very proud of and value their “pohm” a lot, and more generally embrace their masculinity. So, in terms of the military, the men would rather take down a bunch of traditional skirts one by one than dare walk underneath them because they want to protect their “pohm” that much. In addition, the people and women resisting must also believe in the superstition a lot too in that they put up the skirts and knew it would cause the military to slow down.