Author Archives: crbrowne

The Dark Night of Soul

Nationality: Guatemalan-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Stamford, Connecticut
Performance Date: Monday, April 24th, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“So like there is a night in the year where there are the most evil spirits. The Prince of Egypt – the last of the plagues when the God came to take the first-born sons, they wiped blood on the doorframe. Like what we do one night per year, we shut off all the lights and we light all these candles, and place the virgin Mary in front of the house to protect us from the evil spirits. This is to protect the family. Its just one night a year.”

 

When did you first hear this story?

“My mom has practiced it my whole life, lighting candles, placing of statue, praying on rosemary beads. My entire Latino family practices it.”

 

Analysis:

This tradition references a Biblical story, but is incorporated into the informant’s Latino family traditions. I agree that this story is a form of a protection spell from the Black Angel that is said to take the eldest son.

The Guatemalan Ghost Lady on the Street

Nationality: Guatemalan-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Stamford, Connecticut
Performance Date: Monday, April 24th, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“In the city of Cuyotenaga, Suchitepequeza Guatemala, it is a very religious and spiritual place, so there are a lot of witches. So you have to be careful when you go out late out at night because that is when the witches practice their magic. So my mom experienced a lot of these events. And one specific my Uncle Carlos when was young, around 20 years old, he was going to pick up my mother from school because she was about 16 at this time. And he’s heading there and its late at night, like 11:30pm. Now my uncle is very free willing guy a very, he didn’t believe in magic but believed in God. This night changes everything.

“So he’s walking down the road there are no cars because it is a very poor city. He’s walking down the road and he starts to hear a beautiful singing voice, a woman’s voice. And he, in the distance, he sees a woman in a white dress. He starts walking towards this woman and its starts to get colder and she isn’t facing him. She’s facing a light pole but he can still hear the singing. He gets about 20 feet away from her and the singing stops and she starts to cry.

“So he yells out to her ‘Are you ok and what is the matter, why have you stopped singing?’ And he could see that she grabs the pole and starts to scream. Now he’s scared and he feels like something is wrong. He starts to walk closer to her cautiously and his head starts to hurt. But for some reason he feels like he is being pulled towards this woman but he wants to run. But he can’t run. Her screams are melodic and so he’s hearing a combination of singing and screaming now. And she starts to glow. And he gets closer and closer to her and his hand starts reaching out to her. And for a second he sees the most beautiful woman in the world and is completely captivated by her.

“And so she isn’t crying any more. And she turns around and she looks at him and the lights starts to flicker. One minute she’s a beautiful woman the next minute she has the face of a horse. And then the screaming starts again but so immense that he can’t bear it any more. And then all of the sudden the woman is gone but screaming continues. And everything starts to get blacker and darker but the light is still gone. He feels like he is dying. He starts to pray. He holds the lamp, he praying to the Hail Mary, ‘Save me save me … return me my heart!’ And right before he passes out he hears a voice that overpowers the screaming in the head: ‘I have saved you today’ and with that he passes out.

“The next day my other uncle, (I have four uncles and five aunts) Uncle George, he finds my uncle on the ground next to the light post and this two handprints on his chest, his shirt is gone. When my Uncle Carlos comes to, halfway through the day, he has been out for like 16 hours, he starts to scream. And my Uncle George starts to freak out. Uncle George says: ‘Tell me why you are here.’ My uncle Carlos stops: ‘I don’t know what happened.’ He didn’t realize he was screaming, he just remembered the night. He thought that the last thing he could remember was touching the woman’s shoulder. Now this is the scary part. He still hears, he’s dead now, he died young when he was 28 and he would tell us jokingly.

“We all thought he was drunk that night playing a joke. He would tell us that he would hear screaming when he would go to bed some nights, but he would pray to ward off the sprit. But he said he felt that the evil sprit still had a grasp on his soul. The day he died he fell 12 feet from a tree onto his chest, punctured his lungs and damaged his heart. And that is how he died. This is all a true story and this is very important to me. There is no conclusion to the story, we don’t know if that is actually what happened. In the end that is what some of us believe that the spirit took his heart.

 

When was the first time you heard this story?

“My mom told me it when I was really young, I was there when my Uncle Carlos, he was my role model growing up, he would tell the story when we were all around, it was all a joke until he died.”

 

What does the story mean to you?

“Definitely eye opening, maybe we don’t know what’s out there, maybe there are bad demons out there. I believe in God so there is evil. In some places you don’t want to mess with the wrong people. Most of my aunts and my mother completely after that happened they completely believe in it.

 

Do you believe in this story?

“I don’t know, sometimes. I believe there are bad people that can do bad things but I feel that it is something you have to choose to believe in. maybe you can get away from it.”

 

Analysis:

I think this story represents the numerous Guatemalan stories that refer to a ghostly woman. The informant specified that most of these haunting stories take place at night, during the witching hour. It is interesting that the informant mixed the usage of witches and ghosts in this story, but ultimately concluded that this lady represented a demon like presence in his family’s history.

 

While components of the La Llorana story are different from this one, I think there are many notable similarities. Here is a link to a story about the Guatemalan ghost lady, La Llorana, that exemplifies these similarities:

http://childreninternational.blogspot.com/2007/10/guatemalan-ghost-story.html

“Children International.” : A Guatemalan Ghost Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

The Tangerines

Nationality: Asian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palm Springs, 2016
Performance Date: Monday, April 18th, 2016
Primary Language: English

“The tangerines are supposed to have at least one leaf attached to them … Back story about the tangerines, tangerines are supposed to be picked freshly from a tree and placed in each room of the household during Spring Cleaning. To Chinese culture, it is supposed to ward off negativity and bring in positivity with its citrus scents and the life that it brings to your home because it is a living fruit.”

 

When did you first hear about this tradition?

“My entire life I have done this. My parents and I would always grab tangerines from my … tangerines from our tangerine tree. When the fruit eventually dried up from not being watered or attached to the tree, that signified that Spring Cleaning was over and it was time to start anew.”

 

“Chinese Spring Cleaning is a component of Chinese New Year. As opposed to American calendar years, the Chinese use the lunar calendar. So Chinese New Years usually falls at the end of January or the beginning of February. And each year signifies a new animal. For this year is the year of the monkey 2016. And so the festivities in each house hold is to clean and get ride of all of the hold and negativity that you have been harboring for the past year and start fresh. A lot of traditional China Chinese people pray to their ancestors and Buddha in a mental cleaning sense but also seep out all of the dirt of their house and dust and literal dirt out of their living space.”

 

What do you see as the significance of this tradition?

“For us it is a great way to start a new. As I said, it usually takes place in January or February so it is right before westernized Spring Cleaning so it ties in with that as well.”

Analysis:

The tangerines represent a refreshing start to the year and the cleansing of the mental and physical home. I think that the tangerines also represent the new wave of crops, so the fruit physically represents the new taking place of the old. I think the theme of reds and oranges in Chinese culture symbolizing good fortune or good luck is an interesting trend.

The Dream Catcher

Nationality: Asian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palm Springs, California
Performance Date: Monday, April 18th, 2016
Primary Language: English

“I used to have a dream catcher when I was really little. I went to a summer camp and for one of our projects we made dream catchers. I believe it was in relation to um Native American folklore. So the dream catcher was made of a stick bent into a circle and twine wrapped around the hoop to make a spider web like pattern and feathers dangling off of the hoop by more twine. It is used to ‘catch your dreams when you are sleeping.’ The center usually had beads and so the bad dreams would travel towards the center and disappear.”

 

When else have you heard talk about this object?

“Usually they appear at craft fairs”

 

What do you see as the significance of the dream catcher?

“To ward bad dreams and spirits away.”

 

Analysis:

While this material object does not directly connect to the informant’s personal culture, her story demonstrates that dream catchers have spread throughout American folklore. People from different ethnicities and backgrounds have picked up this historically Native American good luck charm. Growing up, my family and I visited a Native American reserve and had the chance to make dream catchers, so it is clear that these objects offer good luck for more than just the Native Americans. I think that the craft aspect of the dream catchers makes them a common childhood activity and has spread their popularity around the United States.

 

For a deeper understanding of America’s adoption of the dream catcher, please visit:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KeMJCAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=dream+catchers&ots=quZDiwBY19&sig=TQxXFWp7MwGQHYP_-u1ZK2w9z1E#v=onepage&q=dream%20catchers&f=false

Jenkins, Philip. “Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality.” Google Books. Oxford University Press, 2004. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

The 13th Floor

Nationality: Asian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palm Springs, California
Performance Date: Monday, April 18th, 2016
Primary Language: English

“The superstition is that in a building if it has a 13th floor, it is bad luck to live on the 13th floor. Also I’ve heard that elevators will drop once it hits the 13th floor. That is why there is the Tower of Terror at California Adventures in Anaheim.”

 

When did you first hear about this?

“I first heard the superstition from my grandmother who is superstitious in very odd ways. Half of the superstitions she believes are bad luck and some of the bad luck superstitions are actually good luck. For this superstition, she owes a property and believes that the 13th floor is good luck. But when I investigated, most people think it is bad luck. I think it started when she was little and she had a black cat as a pet. There is a superstition that if a black cat crosses your path it is bad luck. But she had a blessed life and lived through WWII. And so she started believing that all bad luck superstitions may be good luck for her.”

 

Do you believe these superstitions?

“I don’t necessarily believe the black cat superstition or the 13th floor superstition as bad luck. If anything I believe my grandma that it may be good luck.”

 

What do you think this story means?

“I have a theory that the 13th floor superstition was created when skyscrapers were not popular and first being made and that if the building got too high it might fall over. Or it is not structurally stable enough.”

 

Analysis:

It seems as though luck plays a large role in Chinese culture and tradition. While this superstition is not originally Chinese, the informant’s grandmother played a large role in her interpretation of the story. The 13th floor and black cats are usually seen, especially in America, as omens of back luck and misfortune. However, the informant and her grandmother’s Chinese background influenced the way that they view these stories.

 

For more stories, information, and details about the 13th floor superstition and other number related stories, please visit:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/02/skipping-the-13th-floor/385448/

Li, SHIRLEY. “Skipping the 13th Floor.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.