Category Archives: general

Playing with Fire and Wetting the Bed

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tsingtao, Shandong, China
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Main Piece:

DerShann: If you wanna know about folklores, I know a lot. One big folk belief is that if a kid plays with fire, he will wet the bed.

Me: Cool. So, where did you learn that from, and what do you think it means?

Dershann: I just heard it from other people in my hometown. Everyone says that. What it means? I think it is just a way to warn kids so that they don’t do dangerous stuff.

Analysis:

Fire stands for, of course, fire. And wetting the bed is connected to urine, or water. If we look at it in this way, we find that in this folk belief, people draw on two extremes, or two opposing elements. People are using one side to warn against the opposite side.

I found an interesting part in the book Dora, Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria written by Freud. In the book, Freud also connects fire with bedwetting. He draws the links between 1. Dora’s habit of bedwetting, 2. the fire in Dora’s dreams, 3. Dora’s habit of masturbation, or her sexual impulse. Freud first points out the interconnectedness between fire(both the dream and playing with fire) and bedwetting, then expanded the idea of playing with fire, or just “fire,” to the implication of sex, which points to Dora’s masturbation.

I think this kind of Freudian interpretation might also be employed to explain this folk belief, or, maybe it’s the other way around, that this folk belief might be utilized to explain the Freudian analysis.

The Old Man At The Beginning

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/24/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a folk myth that my friend told me. We both went to school together in Oregon, from middle school through high school so I’ve known him for a while. My friend is still at home for college so I asked him to tell me a folk story that he had heard in his childhood. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Story

“Okay, this is one of the only good folk stories I actually know. So I’m just a little bit Native American right, a little bit of the Crow tribe from the Wyoming area I think. This is the only story that I think I ever heard about… probably because it’s pretty important, you know, creation stories and all that. It goes like this. In the beginning the world was just covered in water. And then there was this old guy, I think he was just named Old Man in the story for some reason, not important enough to give an actual name I guess. Anyway, he was looking around, I don’t know if he had a boat or something, but he saw some ducks off in the distance. For some reason the ducks had red eyes, don’t ask me why, I just remember it cause like, why do ducks have red eyes. Anyway he goes up to them and is like ‘is there only water in this world?’ 

And the ducks are like, ‘that’s all we’ve seen but you could try checking underneath.’ 

Then the Old Man tells the youngest duck to dive down and look for land. The youngest duck is down there for a while so the Old Man says, ‘he must have drowned.’

But then the younger duck comes back up and has a ball of mud in his bill. The old guy takes the mud and blows on it three times. They say that the mud grew and filled the earth and that’s how the land got there. I think they believe the Old Man made the land for them.”

Analysis

Of the three folklore pieces that I got from my friend, this was the only one that I didn’t have prior knowledge of going into it. And when I say I don’t have a clue what he was talking about, I mean I thought he was just telling me some made up story. He didn’t know the name of the story, so I had to do some digging into what it might be called. After a while of searching, I found that the Crow people had a deity they would call Old Man Coyote, and that was the man in this story. 

To the Crow people, this was a story that described how the land came to be. To us nowadays, we would see this as a piece of folklore categorized as myth. The Crow people took this story as something that probably actually happened, though my friend obviously does not believe it to be true. Because of this importance in their religion, the Old Man At The Beginning can be considered a sacred narrative of the people. In all my searching for this story, I could only find about three other sources of the story. Despite its rarity, my friend actually told a decent retelling of the story, only missing a few things from the other sources. For another reference, see https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/OldManattheBeginning-Crow.html.

Pigs Eat Everything

Age: 74
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/28/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a folk story from my grandpa. My grandpa grew up in the northwest United States, and went into the Navy when he was 18. He is now 74 years old. I was told this story when asking about any possible stories that his family had when he was growing up, as he had lived an exciting life, doing many crazy things with his time. He now enjoys fishing and gold mining. I recorded him via phone call. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Story

“One thing that I always was told was that pigs, they’ll eat anything. Oh, here’s a story. In 1939 the war started. In 1942 I think the Japanese got into the war. On the west coast, they decided to develop… At least I’m told this was the story (he had heard the story in his days in the Navy), Terminal Island was just a big open gigantic field before it became a port for the government. The army took it over and they built all these port facilities, they had to ship out all this equipment to the people fighting the war against Japan. And so Terminal Island at the time was nothing but a sage brush sticker bush desert. It was full of rattlesnakes, and so how they got rid of the rattlesnakes was they turned pigs loose. Rattlesnakes can’t hurt pigs because they got too much fat. Doesn’t get into the bloodstream. And the pigs would stomp the rattlesnakes and eat em. So whether that’s true or not I don’t know.

But I do know something that happened up here where I live a number of years ago. There was this crazy lady that had these two guys working for her. They got into some kind of conflict and she killed both of them. She chopped up their bodies and fed her pigs. That’s what I’ve been told, I don’t know if it’s true or not. But they say she fed her pigs with the two guys that worked for her. They haven’t been able to find them. So when you hear a story about a pig will eat anything… it will eat anything.”

Analysis

Hearing this weird thing from my grandpa was very interesting. I have no idea how the conversation even came up, I think he might have just remembered a story from his Navy days. But this claim that pigs eat anything is also one that I haven’t heard before. This story has three folklore pieces wrapped into one. The first is the fact about pigs. The second is the story about Terminal Island. And the third is the story about the crazy lady that fed her workers to her pigs. The claim that pigs eat anything is one that I could find many other sources saying similar things. As for the second piece, I couldn’t find any evidence that they actually used pigs to clear out all the snakes. However, it is entirely possible. Terminal Island at one time was called Rattlesnake Island so there were indeed a lot of snakes there. Pigs have also been known to kill snakes out of instinct so the story could be true. The third one I couldn’t find any evidence for being true but that makes sense as it seems like more of a local legend. It was difficult getting stories out of my grandpa that he didn’t experience himself, but when I finally did get some, they proved to be just as wacky as I thought they’d be.

Chinese Dragons

Nationality: Irish, Chinese
Age: 19
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/29/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a description of Chinese Dragons and their importance to the people. My friend first heard the tradition from his parents, specifically his mom who is Chinese. I have known this friend since elementary school. I knew that he had heard many stories about where his parents are from so I asked him to tell me about a few of them. I recorded this over the phone as he was very busy and couldn’t find a time to meet up (also COVID). This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Description

“Ok so, there’s a common thing with Chinese Dragons. First off, they don’t have wings. Second, they have four legs and a head. And they are often associated holding balls in their left or right hand. They are normally made out of either wood or clay and they can be seen holding balls. The reason they are holding balls is because it represents the sun, or fire. And basically in China and in Chinese folklore the sun was seen as this omnipotent thing, or this overarching power. Because back in like, you know like f*****’ 200 AD no one knew what the sun was. So they’re like okay this thing provides good crops, it provides warmth and all these things so the Chinese people really respected this thing, the sun. And they’re like so one of the most important things in our history, the dragon, is going to be seen holding this thing, because they can harness the power of the sun. And it is associated with wisdom and intelligence. And it represents how the dragon is like the overarching thing of the chinese zodiac. So, ya that’s just a little thing about Chinese folklore.”

Analysis

I always knew that dragons had importance in China but I didn’t know that they were seen as such powerful creatures. My friend described dragons as other cultures describe their deities, which I didn’t know was how they were viewed. I also thought it was interesting that they were depicted holding the sun. 

My friend heard all this from his mother, who I believe is 100% Chinese. I know the family doesn’t really have a lot of rituals or anything that they still perform from China (they’re actually all Christians), but I do know that the mother likes to let her kids know the culture that they came from. I don’t know what kind of significance the dragons might have in their life, or if it was just told as a story to the kids. 

La Mano Peluda

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: April 19th, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

MR: So La Mano Peluda translates to “hairy hand.” It’s basically an old legend that my parents used to scare me with when I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, like not taking out the trash or doing chores. So I would literally crawl into a ball at night and make sure that my legs weren’t hanging out of the covers because I genuinely thought that this terrifying hand would come out from under my bed and drag me by my ankles out of my room to who knows where.

HR: Hahahaha. So how old were you when you heard this story?

MR: It went back to when I was probably like 5 or 6. Because I was in school already, and if I didn’t do my homework my mom would be like, “If you don’t do your homework La Mano Peluda is gonna come and get you!”

HR: And do you know where this legend came from?

MR: Well my mom got the tradition from her family in Mexico, but after you asked me about it I did a little googling. Apparently, it was a man’s hand that had survived from the Spanish Inquisition. He wanted to seek revenge on the people who had pillaged his home or something like that. But when I was little, I didn’t really care about the origin and just got freaked out when I thought about an old hand hiding under my bed.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She used to be intimidated by the legend of La Mano Peluda as a young child but grew to see it as a funny way that her parents made her do her chores. 

Context: 

The legend of La Mano Peluda was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. She had told me about the legend before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. 

Thoughts:

The story of La Mano Peluda is a classic legend that is prominent across a wide range of Latin-American cultures. I would equate it to classic American campfire stories where the goal is to scare and entertain the audience. I have heard multiple recollections of this folk tale and they all seem to stem from having a fear of something hiding under one’s bed. For particularly young children, the legend of La Mano Peluda is used as a sort of scare tactic to get them to do their chores, while in older adolecents it is seen as an entertaining folk tale. What is interesting is that there is a pattern of “hairy hand” stories across the globe.

For another “hairy hand” story, see:

Mary Curtis Special to The Star. “Dartmoor Nights and Scary Tales Stir Imagination: SA2 Edition.” Toronto Star, Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, 1990.