Author Archives: John Keating

Pocahontas

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Interior Decorator
Residence: Chatham, MA
Performance Date: 3/11/17
Primary Language: English

The story of Pocahontas and the reason I know and was told the story is because…. supposedly I am related to her.  Her story is that when the Europeans, English people, came to Jamestown, long, long ago, it was a harsh, harsh climate and environment, and they did not know how to survive and she was the princess of the Powhatan Tribe, she was a young girl though, and her father was chief… of the Powhatan Tribe, and she was very curious about the settlement and, um, was kinda always, you know, peering in and looking around, and finally she got braver and braver, um, came into the village, the people invited her in, but really, these people– the settlers– had no idea how to live in this climate and when winter hit, it was super harsh.  And they didn’t know what the land had to offer, I don’t even think they knew what sweet potatos were, they’d probably never seen corn before– things like that.  But the Indian people knew how to live, uh, they’d been there for millenia, so they– winter was not an issue for them, but it was killing all the Jamestown people.  And so, um, Pocahontas, who’d kinda befriended them, I think she was kinda  a pet, and particularly to John Smith.  So anyway, Pocahontas teaches these people how to live, but her father did not like her running over to the white men’s camp, and she had particularly befriended John Smith, and he didn’t approve of that at all.  So, I guess, John Smith– you know they were exploring and took a group of people out to the wilderness to look around and the Indians captured them cause they didn’t like the white people.  And I’m telling this so badly haha cause now I’m realizing that, like, Chief Powhatan didn’t know that Pocahontas had been sneaking into their village and he didn’t know that she had befriended any of those people.  So, uh, all he knew was that the white people were bad and he was afraid of them and thought they were bad people and so when he captured John Smith and his crew, he was gonna kill him, they were gonna kill them all.  So, supposedly, he was gettin’ ready to cut off John Smith’s head and Pocahontas came up on the scene and rescued them.  Said “Ohh, you can’t!”  She threw her body in front of the hatchet or whatever, the axe, and said, “No, no, no, you can’t do this, you cannot do this!”  And she protected John Smith from her father and from the Indians.  And then… the Indians helped, because of Pocahontas, the Indians helped the white people survive there, for the winter.  And that was the way it was told to me by my parents, and they said we should be so proud cause we were related to her…. and that she did such a huge thing– the beginning of a civilization.”

 

Conclusion:

 

I had obviously heard of Pocahontas before, but I had never heard just a detailed telling of the story like this one I received from my mother’s childhood friend, Mary.  It was very cool to learn that she was a descendant of Pocahontas.  I was a little skeptical of this at first– Mary is white–, but she had proof.  A couple years ago, her son’s biology class went on a field trip to a lab to code for a sequence of DNA that was found in all Asian people.  At the end of the day, her son– who is white– and two other Asian kids were the only people to have the sequence in their DNA.  Surprised, Mary’s son, asked how this could be possible.  He didn’t have any Asian heritage that he knew of.  One of the lab’s scientist asked if had any Native American blood in his family.  The scientist explained that Native Americans originally crossed a land bridge to North America from Asia.  Baffled, Mary’s son told the scientist that his mom had always claimed their family was descendants of the Powhatan tribe.  

 

The Legend of Pecos Bill

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: lawyer
Residence: Burlington, MA
Performance Date: 3/13/17
Primary Language: English

The legend of Pecos Bill.  He was from– I think he was from… Kansas or Missouri or something?  Somewhere in the midwest, middle of the country  and he was famous for riding broncos.  He could ride any bronco you gave him.  He would just never fall off, incredible… So he was like, “Bring me your wildest creature and I can ride it.”  He could ride lions and tigers… and any bucking bronco, camels, anything crazy… he could ride anything.  He was just a huge cowboy, bronco rider.  And then somebody, then um, that area, Kansas and Arkansas and all that area– maybe that’s why I know this story– is, you know, famous for tornados, and cyclones, same thing.  And sure enough a cyclone came along, and it was gettin’ ready to wreck a town, and the townspeople said, “Hey Pecos Bill, can you ride that cyclone outta town?  Can you tame it and ride it out of town?”  And he said, “Well, I’ll give it a try, I’ve ridden everything else.”  And, um, so he hops on the cyclone, on the tornado, and it crashed him around and spun him around everywhere and everywhere… and he kept on it for miles and miles and days, ya know, a whole day of ridin’ it.  Um, and it was just nuts for him,  going all around in circles.  But he stayed on it, and, ya know, he had the tail and he’d whip the tail, ya know, how a cyclone is kinda triangular, like a cone.  And he’d whip the tail of it, tryna tame it and everything and he rode it all the way to…. Arizona.  Up in the sky, ride it all the way to Arizona, and it, um, finally just fell out in water.  All came down in water, and they say it rained really hard and, uh, it rained so hard it formed the Grand Canyon.  Rained so hard it drove it all the way down.  And then he fell off so hard that, um, he made… what is it?  Death Valley I think?  Or something like that.  I can’t remember, but that’s supposedly how those things were formed. Death Valley.  Which is the lowest part, you know, the lowest sea level, lowest part of the country I think.

 

Conclusion:

 

This story was told to me by my Aunt Susan.  It’s a classic folktale employing a legendary, mythic figure with supernatural abilities.  I like how the story ended with the explanation of how the Grand Canyon and Death Valley were formed.  It’s cool when stories seem to be relatively narrow and focused and then, at the end, open up to cover some part of general, well known history..

The Brooks Mansion Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Winchester, MA
Performance Date: 3/15/17
Primary Language: English

The interviewer’s comments are denoted through initials JK, while the interviewee’s responses are denoted through initials MJ.

 

JK:  Got any stories weird stories from your past growing up in the suburbs around Boston?

 

MJ:  Yea I’m from a town called Winchester about ten minutes north of the city.  I live across the street from these woods called the Brooks Parkhurst Forest.  So, there’s an old mansion called the “Brooks Mansion” in the middle of the forest close to this pond.  Apparently it was built at some point in the late 1800s.  The town tried to restore it and turn it into this kind of landmark at some point over the last 20 years, but people didn’t keep it in good shape and… so it kinda fell into ruin.  Anyway, me and some of my buddies had always heard it was haunted by the ghost of the lady that owned the house and died there sometime in the early 1900s.  Now, being normal people, ya know, we all thought this was bullshit….  We did not believe in ghosts.  In the past, I’d walked by the house with my dad.. but I’d never gone inside.  I’d heard stories about other kids going there to drink, but that was pretty much it.

 

JK:  Was there specific kind of story that you had heard about this ghost?

 

MJ:  Yea, a couple kids who were a few grades ahead of us told us they went in the house one night in the early fall.. had heard a bunch of weird noises, got freaked out, and left.  They mentioned they had heard the front door slam while they were upstairs in the mansion, and that made them freak and run out one of the back doors.  I told them it was probably the wind, but they all said it was a super calm night with no breeze at all.  So anyway, like a year later, me and two of my friends are smoking a spliff out in the woods and we start talking about the mansion and how some people think it has a ghost.  We all decide to take the 10-15 minute walk through the woods to get to it.  It was a mid September night, probably around 60 degrees– and get this– no wind.  Like none.  It was a wicked nice night, that’s why we were out there smoking in the first place.  So basically, we get to the mansion, open the front door and roll inside.  At this point we were definitely all a little high, but no one was stoned.  The inside was pretty run down.  The floors creaked, the walls were a mess.  A lot of windows broken, some graffiti on the walls.  It was all typical abandoned house stuff.  So we walk around taking it all in and head up stairs.  As soon as we get to the top we hear this noise that sounds exactly like wind blowing through an empty house…. But there’s no wind at all.  The night is dead still.  We look outside and none of the trees are blowing around.  This starts to get us scared.  Maybe we were higher than we thought.  After like 15 seconds of this, we hear the door slam, like loudly slam, beneath us.  We all let out a couple swears and bolt down the stairs and out one of the back doors.  Freaky stuff.  I’ve never gone back in the house.

 

Conclusion:

This sounded like a classic old haunted house story:  old lady dies in her mansion and then her spirit stands guard over it for the rest of time.  When I asked the kid if he now believes in ghosts, he said, “Uh well before I didn’t but now I don’t really know what to think.  Maybe I was higher than I thought, but that door definitely slammed and there was no wind– or other people around– to do it.  Definitely makes you think.”  From this response, it is clear the interviewee is still unsure about the existence of the supernatural, but– if I had to bet– I would say he is slightly leaning towards believing in ghosts.  

“Lift your feet up when you drive over a bridge.”

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 27
Occupation: banker
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/16/17
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

This little saying was told to me by one of my buddy’s older brothers, Emilio.  Their family grew up in Irvine, CA and to get to school everyday, they had to drive over a bridge.  Everyday, throughout elementary and middle school, their mother would tell them to lift their feet up when they drove over the bridge.  He recalls his mom telling him pick up his feet and look out the window because they were ‘flying’.  Unfortunately, Emilio’s mother passed away a few years ago.  He says when he drives over a bridge now and lifts up his feet, it gives him a fond memory of his mother.

 

“When you know a thing, allow that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, allow that you do not know it. This is knowledge.”

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: financial executive
Residence: Winchester, MA
Performance Date: 3/17/17
Primary Language: English

 

“So in other words, knowledge– know it alls are kind of… stupid and the fact that they think they know it all.  Really knowledgeable and smart people are those that are open– they open their mind to learning… all the time.  And so if you don’t know something then you say, “Oh, tell me about that!” you know?  You don’t just act like you know it already.”

 

Conclusion:

 

This was told to me by my Dad’s friend, Evan.  He says his mother used to tell him little sayings like this all the time.  He says that this one stuck with him more because he’s found it to be the most applicable in the different stages of his life.  He explains that the jist of this saying is that you have to accept your lack of knowledge on a subject before you can really start learning about it.