Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/27/2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish
- “Once upon a time there was hill. On the hill, there was a tree and there was a hole in a tree. In the hole in the tree, there was a nest. In the nest there were three eggs. On the three eggs there was a Cuckoo. So one day a fox comes to the tree and says, ‘This hill is mine, this tree is mine, there is a hole in the tree.’ He calls up to the bird, ‘What do you have up there?’ The bird says, ‘It’s just me and my three baby birds, living peacefully.’ And the fox says, ‘Nope, that is too many birds. Throw one down or I am going to go get my axe and cut down the tree.’ And the bird says, ‘I found this hill, on this hill I found this tree, in this tree I made a nest, and laid three eggs. I’ll give you one if you let the rest of us be.’ So she threw down a baby bird and the fox left. A few seasons later, the fox returns. The fox comes to the tree and says, ‘This hill is mine, this tree is mine, there is a hole in the tree.’ He calls up to the bird, ‘What do you have up there?’ The bird says, ‘It’s just me and my two baby birds, living peacefully.’ And the fox says, ‘Nope, that is too many birds. Throw one down or I am going to go get my axe and cut down the tree.’ And the bird says, ‘I found this hill, on this hill I found this tree, in this tree I made a nest, and laid three eggs. I’ll give you one if you let the rest of us be.’ So she threw down a baby bird and the fox left. The mother bird starts crying and a crow hears and flies to the tree. The crow asks the mother bird why she is crying and she recounts the story. And the crow goes, ‘Don’t be naïve, this hill is everyone’s, it does not belong to a single person. Besides, where would a fox get an axe?’ The next time he comes back, don’t listen to him and he will go away. So the mother bird thanks the crow and the crow flies away. A few seasons later the fox returns. The fox comes to the tree and says, ‘This hill is mine, this tree is mine, there is a hole in the tree.’ He calls up to the bird, ‘Throw down a bird or I will cut the tree down.’ The mother bird sticks her head out and says, ‘No this is everybody’s hill, it does not belong to you. And you don’t even have an axe.’ And the fox goes, ‘Is that so? Who told you that?’ And the mother bird says, ‘The crow told me that. Go away you’re not getting anything.’ And the fox goes away and walks around for a bit thinking. He decides to get back at the crow for what he did, so he goes and he plays dead in a field. The crow flies overhead and sees the seemingly dead fox in the field. The crow swoops down to harvest his eyes. Right as the crow reaches the fox, the fox jumps up and bites the crow’s neck, trapping it. He asks, ‘Why did you tell the mother bird that I don’t have an axe, what’s it to you?’ And the crow says, ‘I’m sorry, but if you let me go I’ll make it up to you by giving you my hidden stash of treasure, if you want it it’s all yours. So the fox lets the crow go, and the crow goes to show the fox where the treasure is hidden. From above he notices that there is a farmer’s dog taking a nap under a bush. He tells the fox that my treasure is in the bush. The fox dives into the bush looking for treasure, and the dog wakes up delighted in the fact that he now has lunch. The fox then laments about his life and his past evils. The fox gets eaten by the dog. Everyone else lived happily ever after. The end.”
- They know it because they needed it for a project
- They learned it from a friend of his
- It’s just a cute little tale about cleverness and how to outsmart certain situations
- Context of performance was that he just happened to recall this story so he read it to me from what he had previously recorded.
- I think it’s a cute story explaining how to outsmart the cunning fox. I also, however, find it interesting how two of the seemingly most commonly referenced animals, the crow and fox, are referenced as enemies. While they’re both not usually friends in stories like this, I find it interesting how the crow is actually a good guy in this situation, helping the cuckoo, when normally the crow is more similar to the fox and causing trouble.
Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 22
Occupation: EMT
Residence: Rancho Cucamonga, California
Performance Date: 4/25/2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish
- So growing up in elementary school we’d be shown this presentation about stars and constellations and whatnot. Every year they’d bring in this big inflatable tent thing where we’d go into that was dark inside except for the night sky which was projected onto the walls of this thing. It was shaped like a dome too. And every time we would get inside this big tent thing Mrs. B, the teacher who gave this presentation, told us the same story about how the stars came to be. I don’t really remember what Native American tribe told this story but it was one of them. She talked about how one day the animals of the world were being bad and unappreciative and selfish, so the gods saw fit to punish them by covering their world with night. It was pitch black and the animals were sad that the daylight was taken away from them. But one of those nights, a crow, or was it a raven, decided he would go and try to remove this blackness from their skies. So he flew way way way way high up and tried to push it with his beak, but he only successfully poked a hole in the blackness. All the other birds thought they’d try help too, and that’s what made all the little tiny holes in the black blanket, or as we know them, stars. However, seeing how the birds all tried to work together, the gods took pity on how sad all the animals were so they made a compromise and only took away the daylight for half the day, and made it night with the stars for the other half, thus explaining night and day as well. The story doesn’t really explain constellations though so I don’t really know what to say about that but this is what I remember”
- He knows it because it was an explanation of how the stars he saw every night came to be. And, even if it’s wrong, it’s an entertaining way to think of the beginning of stars.
- He learned it from the science presentation in elementary school.
- What does it mean? It’s just a fun explanation for stars’ existence he learned which the Native Americans at some point believed.
- The context of the performance was actually very happenstance. We were just walking along the streets in LA when we looked up, saw stars, and he was reminded of this story.
- I think it’s a very compelling piece. I feel like Native Americans have many interesting ways of explaining how certain things came to be, but I also find it interesting how they choose to explain things considering their relative lack of scientific capabilities. But I find this piece charming and a cute way to explain such a phenomenon. I imagine that this might have been something they told the children as well, to explain how those bright twinkly things ended up in the sky.
Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 22
Occupation: EMT
Residence: Rancho Cucamonga, California
Performance Date: 4/25/2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish
- We did this thing for Christmas or anytime family was together we’d get in line, oldest to youngest, take a sip of wine, make a public wish, and a private wish, then pour the little shot of wine into a chicken that was cooking over the stove. It was a Venezuelan cultural thing we learned from my grandma who has been doing this since she was a child.
- He knows this because his family still partakes in the tradition
- He learned it from his parents who picked up the tradition from his grandmother
- To him and his family it’s an opportunity for them to bond and express their good wishes for each other. However, beyond this, he doesn’t know the significance of the chicken, wine, or wishes. They just do it because that’s how things have been done for the last couple generations.
- The context of this performance is that we were just talking about interesting traditions around the house that we have experienced.
- I find this incredibly interesting, however I’m failing to find any connections between the chicken and wine and long life, beyond the idea of the coming together over food a traditional way for family to bond. Perhaps it has to do also with wine being a common Catholic symbol of importance, and when you’re sharing wine with someone it’s representative of being open and friendly with one another.
Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/26/2016
Primary Language: English
- In Michigan there’s a place called Sleeping Bear Dunes. Apparently back in the day there was a mother bear whose cubs drowned in Lake Michigan and she tried to get them out of the water by digging at the bottom of the lake but at some point she got too tired so she went back to the edge of the water and waited for them. But they never came. So she just laid there never moving so over time the wind blew more and more sand over her thus forming the Sleeping Bear Dunes.
- He knows this story because he’s from the Midwest and it’s one of the more popular tourist sites in that area
- He doesn’t quite remember who he learned it from but he learned it when he and his family went to those dunes for vacation
- it’s just a story told in order to explain the random desert like formation in the middle of one of the coldest places in the United States
- The context of this performance was when he and I were exchanging cool stories we learned in our childhoods
- I think it’s really interesting how this is the explanation for the sand dune. It definitely feels like something you might hear as a Native American story, similar to the one of the origin of the stars in the sky.For another version refer to the National Park Services website under Park Home, then Learn about the Park, History and Culture, and then stories. This is their version: Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The bears swam for many hours, but eventually the cubs tired and lagged behind. Mother bear reached the shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. Too tired to continue, the cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the faithful mother bear. https://www.nps.gov/slbe/learn/historyculture/stories.html
Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/26/2016
Primary Language: English
- “In 1851 there were hills in the way of a railroad that was trying to be built. They began work on a tunnel in the western end sat the town of Florida and east Adams holding up the eastern end and in between there there were five miles. There was no small undertaking. It took the twenty-four years to finish, and 21.2 million dollars, aka 40649207 dollars. Construction came with the cost of 200 men losing their lives. One of the first major tragedies occurred on march 20 1895. Three men did their work, did they work, and ran down the tunnel to the safety bunker. They set off the explosion a little too early so two of them died except Kelly. He went missing. The accidents didn’t end there. By October 1867 there was a 500 ft deep hold in the ground which was to act as ventilation. There was a pump system to remove ground water each day they would lower a dozen or more crazy miners and set them to work. On October 17 leaky lantern made the place blow up, as a result things started to fall down the shaft. 300 freshly sharpened drill bits, the burning wreckage of the building, and the shaft also began to flood. The workers up top tried to reach the bottom but they guy who tried to go down had to go back up. The workers in the area apparently frequently heard the sound of people crying for help. Highly educated people recorded similar experiences of seeing shapes and ghastly apparitions appearing briefly and leaving no footprints in the snow. Voices, lights, shapes in the darkness. A full year after the accident they drained the shaft and they discovered bodies in a raft because apparently some of the men survived long enough to build a raft but they died because they had been abandoned. After that the tunnel began to be called the bloody pit. 4 years later, James McCinstry and Dr. Clifford Owens in the tunnel both educated had an encounter beyond unusual. Owens wrote on June 25 1872 at 1130 pm and traveled about 2 miles into the shaft. Except for the dim smoky light from the lamp, and when they were bout to turn back they heard a strange mournful sound. The next thing they saw was a dim light approaching them yet as the light grew closer it took on a strange blue color and a person without a head, it looked to be floating about a food above the tunnel floor. The temperature suddenly dropped and the thing came soo close that he was too scared to move. The two men stared and the blue light remained motionless. Then it moved on and disappeared into thin air.
- He knows this story because he finds something especially interesting about things difficult to explain
- He doesn’t remember where he learned this one
- The context of the performance is that we were merely sitting and exchanging interesting stories and tales we’ve heard over time
- I think this story is interesting because the railroad industry was such a huge and booming time period and so it seems only natural that there would be folklore occurring around it, similar to how American folklore really took hold in the industrial era where people could try to relate to each other more when they were in similar predicaments with each other. It also reminds me incredibly of the story of how people would be buried alive in coffins and people thought there was ghostly activity when in reality it was the person buried alive trying to escape from their coffin.
