Author Archives: gboyd

Grandpa’s chain gang days

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage and Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text: “When I was a kid, I used to love listening to my grandpa tell stories. One of my favorite ones was from when he was younger and lived as a hobo. It must have been in the 1920’s or 30’s, probably somewhere in the Midwest. He would travel around with his friends on trains, and sometimes they would get in trouble. One day, he and all of his friends got busted and put in a chain gang. And they were forced to work. My grandpa could have gotten out because his dad could have paid for it, but he didn’t want to leave his friends. So he worked with them in the chain gang until they could get out, I don’t know how long it was, but it must have been weeks or months.

“I always liked that story because I think it shows how adventurous our family is. They’ve always valued new experiences and adventures, and I always thought the stories that my grandpa had from travelling were really cool.”

Context: Chain gangs were introduced after the Civil War as a means of punishment and cheap labor, forcing groups of convicts to do construction, ditch digging, or farming. Prisoners chained together endured dangerous conditions and physical pain, and the practice was gradually phased out in the 1950’s.

Informant JB was raised in rural Montana in the 1970’s. Her parents were both part of the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a Protestant Christian denomination that emphasizes health and the Sabbath. Her grandfather on her mother’s side was a doctor and extremely well-travelled, partly because of Adventist-run mission trips.

Analysis:

On a narrow scale, this family legend recounts an ancestor’s escapades and virtues to the younger generations as a source of wisdom and inspiration. JB is known by her family to be adventurous (within reason), preferring to go on largely unplanned vacations so that exciting and unplanned experiences can happen organically. It makes sense that she would be inspired by her grandfather and take pride in her family’s adventurous nature, which is juxtaposed with the conservative and somewhat Puritan culture of the Seventh-day Adventist church. JB’s grandfather also demonstrates impressive loyalty by sticking with his friends in the chain gang, which was a notoriously grueling practice.

More broadly, prison labor has been a controversial issue in the U.S. since the 1950’s due to concerns over abuse. In fact, it became a hot issue in California when voters rejected a measure to ban forced labor in the state’s recent election, although many criticize the practice as ‘modern-day slavery.’

Kwaku Anansi, the Ghanian trickster god

Nationality: Ghanian-Nigerian
Age: 20
Occupation: Freelance color designer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: “Um, so like Kwaku Anansi is like this Ghanian trickster god. I think he’s like, in the form of a spider? There’s like books in my… what was it? My primary school? That were like simple little drawings of him vibing with the world. Nobody liked this guy. Absolutely nobody. Because he would steal, and pillage… is that a word? And he would steal… I wanna say gold. Because it was like the gold coast or whatever, in parenthesis ‘Ghana’, and so at the time, there might have been… I guess… I want to say like a gold rush of sorts? And he would just break into these peoples’ like… [pauses to laugh] properties and steal their gold or food or whatever? But yeah. What is a specific story…? Because I remember reading one about a field, and him being like, chased down by two guys… But I’m not super like… It’s very fuzzy, it was a long time ago.”

Context: Informant OB had a transnational childhood. Their father is Ghanian and their mother is Nigerian. OB was born in Pennsylvania, but they spent several years of their childhood living in Ghana when their father wanted to move there. Their family moved back to Pennsylvania when OB reached middle school. OB is also currently pursuing a career in animation and they were very skeptical of Kwaku Anansi’s recent adaptation as a Marvel character.

Analysis: It is not surprising that stories about Kwaku Anansi were taught to primary schoolchildren, as many trickster stories around the world are used to impart moral beliefs to children and demonstrate ‘what not to do.’ OB’s recounting of the source of their knowledge of Kwaku Anansi also indicates that the mythology was institutionally adopted for the purpose of pedagogy. As for the theft of gold, Ghana has been a major supplier of gold, ever since commercial mining began in the 19th century when Europeans set up mines. In recent years, Ghana has faced environmental disaster due to illegal gold mining.

Ellen White holds up a Bible

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage and Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text: “Okay, so I think I was told this story by my parents when I was a kid, maybe they told it in Sabbath school. There was this story of Ellen White when she was a teenager, and she held up her family Bible for 30 minutes while she was having a vision — I originally thought it was one or two hours, but it was just thirty minutes, I guess. And Bibles were much more substantial back then, you know. And she also quoted verses from it without looking. So it was held up to be some kind of supernatural act. I don’t know if I believe it or not, I don’t think it really matters — I think a lot of figures get sensationalized in religious traditions after they die.”

Context: Informant JB was raised in Montana in a Seventh-day Adventist household, a religious identity which she still identifies with today. Ellen White was an American author and co-founder of Seventh-day Adventism, and she lived from 1826 to 1915. Ellen White is known in the Adventist church as a “modern-day prophet,” and much of Adventist tradition and theology is based on the visions and messages that she allegedly received from God and published as books. She is also known for her health challenges, including chronic pain, weakness, and mental health struggles.

Analysis: In the Adventist church legends such as the one described above are popularly circulated throughout Adventist church communities, despite doubts as to their validity. Other written accounts specify that White picked up the eighteen-pound Bible while “in vision” and held it open with her left hand, arm raised at a right angle from her body. These stories serve to reinforce the authority of White’s writings in the church community by presenting her as a historical figure with supernatural powers. This story in particular also reflects the strong Protestant belief in having a personal relationship with God and reading the Bible for oneself — ‘if this young and frail teenage girl can literally uplift the Bible and receive a message from God, so should we!’ More broadly, the story also points to a cultural emphasis on print as a ‘sacred’ and essential medium of communication in the U.S.

Childhood Bigfoot sighting in San Bernardino Mountains

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Student
Residence: Redlands, CA
Language: English

Text:

AB: “Okay, so when I was eleven years old, I remember I had spent a lot of time in elementary school fighting against the superstitions of the other kids, arguing with them that their beliefs weren’t real. Then one day, in the winter, I was snowshoeing with my younger brother in the San Bernardino Mountains.”

[Younger brother who was present at AB’s retelling]: “I was there?”

AB: “Yeah, you were. We were walking through the woodchip field in the forest. The snow was really deep and at some point we got separated. All of a sudden, I saw this large, dark figure walking in between two trees. I knew it was bigfoot because it was walking weird – they have this really weird way of walking, I’ve never been able to replicate it. Then because the snow was so deep, I fell down and it took me like two minutes to get back up because I was wearing snowshoes. When I looked back at the trees, there was nobody there. 

“I knew about bigfoot because I watched a lot of TV specials about him, discovery channel stuff. My friends had also told me about bigfoot. But then no one believed me when I told them about what I saw, and people kept making little snide comments about it. My family just won’t let it go even now. I would say I grew up in a very ‘scientific-minded’ community. So over the years from all this pestering from everyone, I just stopped believing in Bigfoot altogether.”

Context: Informant AB grew up in a rural community in Southern California called Forest Falls. His parents are both psychologists and members of the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a Protestant Christian denomination that generally condemns belief in all supernatural beings except for demons, angels, God, and Satan. AB does not currently identify with Adventist beliefs and describes himself as agnostic. Among family and friends, AB is known for his sarcasm, intelligence, and argumentativeness. He is currently pursuing a doctorate of psychology at an Adventist university.

Analysis: AB’s story serves as a memorate to the legend of Bigfoot. The details he describes correspond with several popular characterizations of the cryptid (i.e. tall, dark fur, elusive, lives in forests). Interestingly, AB’s parents are both from the Pacific Northwest, where the legend of Bigfoot/Sasquatch has the most cultural weight in the contiguous United States. AB notes that he was not inclined to believe in any supernatural beings before his personal experience, and he then faced skepticism from his family and peers to such a degree that he felt forced to give up his belief once again. AB’s experience demonstrates the dynamics of folk belief in social circles that discourage ‘superstition’ and reflects dismissive attitudes towards children’s beliefs and experiences.

White Peacock Encounter & Mythology

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Director of Student Engagement for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: “So, I was in Scotland for my fortieth… Forty-fifth birthday. Fortieth birthday. Forty-fifth birthday. Yes, I’m sorry, I was in Scotland for my 45th birthday, and I was on my way to find Iona Abbey, because Iona is the birthplace of Scottish Christianity and is kind of a pilgrimage site. But to get to Iona Abbey, you have to go across several little tiny islands to catch a ferry over to Iona abbey. So um.. and these little tiny islands have like a one lane road.

“So, my honey bun and I were driving on the last… across the last little island to catch the ferry. When we came around a bend in the road, out in the middle of nowhere, no like, country, and there was this beautiful white peacock with its feathers fully displayed, standing in the middle of the road, just looking at us. So I freaked out. I’m like, ‘oh my god you see that white peacock?!’ So the white peacock is just standing in the middle of the road looking at us, and we’re looking at the white peacock. And it didn’t move, and it just had its beautiful feathers displayed. And I knew that that white peacock was there for me, I just didn’t know what it meant. But I knew it was there for me. It did not move until we started to creep the car forward, and when we finally started to creep the car forward a little bit, it moseyed — you know, in Oklahoma terminology — it just moseyed off the road. Um… but it was gorgeous, and I’d never seen a white peacock in the wild, and I certainly had never come around a bend and had one waiting for me. But I felt like that peacock had been waiting for me. So I was mesmerized, and if we hadn’t been in a hurry to catch the ferry — because we were catching the last ferry over, and we were of course running late — I would have gotten out and, you know, tried to interact with this peacock. So it always haunted me that I never interacted with this white peacock, because I knew it was there for me.

“So fast-forward to when I’m 50, and I’m reading a book by Meggan Watterson, who’s a Harvard-trained divinity scholar, and it’s called The Sutras of Unspeakable Joy, and I think it was sutra number 14… I think it was 14. She has a line in it that says, ‘I am nothing more than the albino peacock of my own incandescent soul.’ Well, the moment I read that line… You know those moments in life where your whole body goes aflame, you’re like, “Wah!! What does this mean?” It took me down lots of rabbit holes where I was trying to understand the symbology around white peacocks in particular, not just peacocks but white peacocks. Well, there’s a lot of different things. One is that if you see one, it portends that you are on the right path, and because I was sort of on my pilgrimage at that age, I was like ‘yes, this is — I’m on the right path.’ I was sort of starting my path towards my spiritual sovereignty, so for me it was about spiritual sovereignty, and just knowing that I’m on the right path. But there’s a whole mythology around white peacocks that’s connected to Kuan Yin. And I’m gonna totally butcher this, but I want you to look it up. If I could go back to my journaling, I have it written down. But Kuan yin at some point, a goddess, was incarnate. By choice, because she wanted to be here to help the humans. And for some reason she had to go back to wherever that is. And she, like…. um… See, I’m not gonna say this very well, but the mythology is that the eyes on the peacock? She’s the one who created the eyes on the peacock. And the eyes on the peacock are supposed to be looking out for humanity while she is not here. While she is, you know, on the side of the gods and goddesses — the eyes of the white peacock are supposed to do that work for her.

“I just thought that was really cool because part of my growing up years, you know, I did my doctoral research about abusive Christianity, and I framed that through a panoptic gaze, and a punitive gaze, and it was so lovely to have a different framing of a gaze… And these eyes on the peacock feathers were a loving gaze, and a watchful gaze, but in protective way, and not like a “Let me see what all you’re doing wrong,” you know that kind of a gaze. So that’s partially why it was so striking to me. But look up the mythology around white peacocks, its pretty cool. And so now white peacocks are one of my… Totem animals, spirit animals? I don’t know what you would call it, but yes, there’s the story.”

Context: Informant RS is a highly educated individual from the Oklahoma with multiple PhDs. A key part of her life was recognizing and healing from the abusiveness of the religious tradition that raised her. After graduating college, she spent many years exploring different spiritual traditions that valued divine femininity, intuition, animism, and environmentalism. RS currently identifies as Pagan and feels a spiritual connection to Scotland, especially upon learning that she has ancestral connections there. She is also a Carl Jung enthusiast and values his theories of archetypes and synchronicity. Kuan Yin is the Buddhist goddess of compassion.

Analysis: RS’s experience with and reaction to the white peacock is reminiscent of various (and often overlapping) traditions including witchcraft, Wicca, Native American spirituality and Paganism that ascribe magical or spiritual powers to non-human beings. Thus, she interpreted the peacock sighting as a sign of guidance, protection, and compassion during a formative point in her spiritual journey. Her knowledge of Kuan Yin’s mythology in Chinese culture reflects her education and spiritual exploration, and she was able to translate her experience in terms of spiritual and religious folklore she had studied.