Author Archives: Matthew Colella

The Generous Jesuit Ghost

Nationality: USA
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Hebrew

“So I have this friend who goes to Fordham, and I live in the Northeast so I’ve visited plenty of times, and she told me this popular legend around the school. There’s a church on campus since it’s a Jesuit school, and one day some girl saw a priest in the church that she hadn’t seen before. She was looking for tutoring in the field of his expertise, so she befriended him. He tutored her for weeks until the end of the semester, but something wasn’t quite right. At the end of the semester, she went back to thank him for all of his help, but she couldn’t find him. So naturally, she looked up the name of the priest in the school’s records, and found the name and picture of the priest who had helped her. The funny thing is, he had apparently been dead for almost 90 years!”


I got this from one of my friends who is from Providence, RI. Her friend is a freshman at Fordham, and keeps in regular contact with her. According to my friend, the legend circulates among Fordham students, and it’s a local legend that that building is somewhat supernatural. Having gone to a Jesuit high school, I kind of have an insight to this legend. The Jesuit priests at my school loved stories like this, and they always told kind of tongue-in-cheek stories about Jesuits helping people, so I feel like this may have originated with the Jesuits themselves.

The Night Marchers

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 28, 2015
Primary Language: English

“The legend of the Night Marchers takes place on the west coast of Oahu, on a beach called Keawa-Ula Bay. Basically, a few days of the year the spirits of dead Native Hawaiians march from the mountains to the ocean in order to somehow reach the afterlife. They pound their drums and carry torches, and anyone who gets in the way of their march is never seen again, so people are supposed to stay inside if they ever hear the marching. My parents told this one to me when I was a kid, and they taught about it in elementary school too. I think it’s mostly used by parents to warn their kids from going outside at night, at least that’s how it was for me.”

 

The person I got this from is one of my 19-year-old friends at USC. He’s lived all of his live in Hawaii, and even though he isn’t racially Hawaiian (half Japanese, half Guatemalan), he and his family are very immersed in Hawaiian culture. To him, this legend evokes memories of his home and childhood, and it reminds him of his cultural

background.

Vietnamese Dragon Origin Myth

Nationality: USA
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

“The legend goes that Lạc Long Quân, the King of the Dragonkind, lived in and reigned over Vietnam in about 3,000 BCE. Sometime in his life he married Âu Cơ, who was a goddess of birds. Quân fathered 100 children who all hatched at the same time with Âu Cơ. Once they were all born, the King and his wife realized that they could not live together anymore and raise all of the children together, so they split and the King went to the coast with 50 kids and the wife went to the mountains with the other 50. According to the legend, all of the Vietnamese people of today are directly descended from these 100 children, making us all dragon people.”


This legend was collected from one of my friends. He is fully racially Vietnamese, and both of his parents emigrated from Vietnam to the US when they were adults. He said his parents try to keep their Vietnamese traditions alive, mostly through cooking traditions, but also through some stories. This is the only one he really remembers clearly. To him, it’s important because his parents identify strongly with it. They don’t actually believe that they are part dragon, but the myth takes on a more significant metaphorical meaning. I don’t really know enough about Vietnamese culture, but I could imagine that this myth provides the Vietnamese with a sense of unity as well as a divide between the mountainous peoples and the coastal peoples of Vietnam.

Sugar Creek Smallmouth Bass

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 19, 2015
Primary Language: English

“There’s a creek that goes through my hometown of Crawfordsville, Indiana called Sugar Creek, and they say it has best smallmouth bass fishing in the country. Apparently in the 80s, some high school kid went down to the Creek after school and caught four 8lb smallmouths, and a massive 12 pounder in an hour. Ever since kids always go down there to try to catch some huge ones, and I’ve caught a couple big ones myself, but nowhere near the 12 pounder he caught.”

 

This is from my friend who comes from a small town in Indiana with a lot of folklore traditions. He’s lived there all of his life, and apparently there are a lot of these little local stories legends about his town which is awesome. He said that this one particularly resonates with him and gives him a sense of nostalgia because it reminds him of his times fishing during his childhood and looking for legendary bass.

 

Vardavar

Nationality: Armenian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Armenian, Russian

“So Vardavar is an Armenian holiday that dates back from the pagan times, and back then they worshipped a god Astghik who was the goddess of fertility and love and water. Since Armenia is pretty arid, they celebrate the harvest time with water mostly. Originally, people would collect flowers like roses and vartivers, some kind of yellow flower, and throw them everywhere. The flower thing kind of died out, but they also had a ceremony of just pouring water everywhere, just dumping it on random people. That’s the big part of it today, and you can douse children, women, men, anyone, and they all enjoy it. It’s basically a way to celebrate Armenian cultural history and remember where we came from.”

 

This is from my roommate who was born in Yerevan, Armenia, but he and his family moved to the U.S. in the late 1990s, before he was even five years old. However, he has spent most of his summers back in Armenia, visiting family and whatnot. He is fluent in Armenian and speaks it at home. He grew up with Vardavar because of those summers spent in Armenia with relatives, so he always participated in it. To him, it’s a celebration of his culture and history, and just a fun holiday, and for him it brings back memories from his childhood summers.