Category Archives: general

Babaeng Nakaputi (The Lady in White)

Performance Date: October 22, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

MAIN DESCRIPTION:

CP: “Oh my god in the Philippines it is CRAZY! These stories, these, um, all of these different things about ghosts..and-and the thing is the ghost stories they, they aren’t like ‘oh my god i was so sacred about it’ its usually ‘oh yeah i saw this person’..and its usually ‘oh it was great to see them’. You know? So um, so my..so my dad when he was in the Philippines he drove uh, he drove one of those Jeepies. So it’s like, like um, one of those taxi’s in the Philippines, right. So you when you’re one of those Jeepie drivers, you start early in the morning, start picking up people and you don’t, you don’t usually finish until late at night. Then you go home at night and usually everybody is already asleep, nobody is out on the streets anymore to pick up or anything. So I guess one night he was on the way home, and you know, there’s always all these stories of, in the Philippines, there’s something called “Babaeng Nakaputi” or The White Lady, Lady in White. That is the most famous ghost in the Philippines. They call her the White Lady because its always, its usually, a female that they find walking…out in the middle of nowhere late at night or something. And she’s all white. White dress, white everything”

SF: “Was she a bride?”

CP: ” Uh..nothing to do with a bride. No-nobody knows her story but everybody sees her. EVERYBODY sees her”

SF: “Is there a specific time of night? Or place that she likes to be?”

CP: “No-Not necessarily, no not necessarily because it could be in different town-it could be-..but it’s usually at night. And it could be, it could be, like early morning, or it could be at dusk, but its usually at night, right. So the thing is, so, so, the things is, everybody has the same story. It’s always this white lady, that’s what they always see, right. So he was um..I guess the story was he was on his way home..after a late night of driving, and he drove by and you know..the streets are empty! And the thing is um..usually she’s seen in the farm areas, in the farm lands. It’s never in the cities, it’s never in the cities where you find her, its always in the farm areas, right. So he was driving down on his way home and all of a sudden he sees a lady, sees someone, you know, thats walking down and..he notices she’s all white! He’s like ‘oh my god..’ and he passes by you know looks at her, and when he looks at his mirror to look back..she was gone. Right, of course she wasn’t there anymore. And the thing is, he-he thinks he recognized her as one of-one of his um, his old old relatives that had passed. And that’s usually the case, usually when you see a White Lady its usually one of your relatives that has passed on..”

SF: “Oh wow, ok. So-so the story goes..when people see her uh..she takes the appearance or a relative?”

CP: “A lot, A LOT of times, its someone that they’ve known, yeah-yeah-“

INFORMANTS OPINION:

SF: “so..do you believe in her?”

CP: “Umm…..I’m not going to say she’s not real?..That-uh-I’m sure that they probably have seen her, right. Of course I haven’t seen her myself but um, but I do believe in ghosts and spirits..and um..but the thing is I believe they’re around for a specific reason. To…finish something..There’s something that needs to be taken care of, there’s something that needed to happen before she goes on, and moves on to her world. You know, but um..yeah I definitely believe in the afterworld and spirits and stuff like that. But I think that comes with the religion, and um..yeah thats one of the stories, yeah.”

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION:

As someone who is Latinx, I was raised knowing and partially believing in iconic urban legends such as ‘La Llorona’. Having friends, acquaintances, and certain family members, from different countries in Latin America, the story of the mysterious woman in white varies, and changes depending on the culture or simply who’s telling the story. It was so interesting to hear and learn of something, someone, so similar to La Llorona, who is of general knowledge in the Philippines. I do agree with the informant that, though I’ve personally never seen Babaeng Nakaputi, La Llorona, or any ghostly apparition, I do believe in the supernatural. Though there are vital differences between La Llorona, and Babaeng Nakaputi, their similarities lead me to believe in the possibility of her, Babaeng Nakaputi, existence.

Instances in a Haunted House

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2015
Primary Language: English

Background 

The interviewer and informant, EM, met in college. EM’s mother’s best friend is sure she lives in a haunted house. 

Context

EM tells the interviewer about two ghostly experiences that the lady has told her. Both instances happened in the supposedly haunted house.   

Transcript 

“Basically, she has had so many instances of a ghost in her house. I remember two specific times where very scary things occurred to her. She told me this five years ago, like 2015. In her bathroom, there is a small circular stained glass window that is tinted red and yellow. There is no image in the stained glass, only patterns made with the colors. At night, she woke up to go to the restroom. As she was sitting on the toilet, her attention was drawn to the little window. The outline of a head and neck- like a headshot- the figure of something, or someone, was outlined in the window. She looked away and immediately looked back to find that it was still there. She got off the toilet and looked again. It was gone for two seconds, then reappeared. Of course, I questioned whether or not she was just kinda loopy from being half asleep. She said she went to check the window and the morning and it was normal- no figure. 

The next instance was a little more scary. I am afraid of her house because of this. She woke up in the middle of the night to a strong presence pushing against her. She is convinced she saw the figure of a man above her. She could not get out of bed due to the weight of this body pressing her shoulders to the mattress. She says she ticked and screamed- tried to escape- but was unable to breath. She said the only way for it to stop was for her to give into it. When she stopped resisting this presence, the terror eventually ended. She did not go to sleep in that room after that.”

Thoughts

According to EM, this woman is a very “animated and dramatic lady”. EM explains that she remembers these stories because the way the lady told them was incredibly captivating and spooky. EM has been scared to go into her house since then, because of the ghost the lady is convinced lives with her. EM definitely believes in her, however, because this lady is “so dramatic and loves telling stories”, it makes it hard to believe everything she says”, EM explains. “Everything has happened whenever she has been kind of asleep. With that being said, because she is so passionate about the supernatural and considering she has not been entirely awake, you may question whether or not she has been dreaming.” 

I agree with EM’s interpretation of this lady’s experience. I am sure something must have happened in that house to make these presences felt. Whether or not that it is related to the supernatural and ghosts, can only be interpreted by the people living there. EM also explained that all three people living in that house have felt similar things relating to their house being haunted. However, because this lady in particular is so passionate about these things, I believe she has a tendency to generalize any presence to that of a ghost. Moreover, just like EM said, these instances have happened when the lady was somewhat asleep which may have had an impact on her perception of her surroundings. On the other hand, being half asleep is a very liminal state and I do believe that contributed significantly to the appearance of these ghosts. 

La Llorona

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 10/26/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Interviewer: Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help me with my project. I asked you if you knew any ghost stories and you said, “Of course every Mexican should at least know one.” Could you tell me what you mean by that?

Informant: Well the reason I said that is because as a Mexican when I was growing up there was always this one story that my parents would tell me. This story is called La Llorona or in English the Weeping Woman.

Interviewer: And the reason that you said Mexican should know this story?

Informant: This story is probably the most told and widely known story in Mexico. I don’t know anyone in Mexico that doesn’t know this story.  So, the story goes that there was an indigenous woman that had 2 children. One day she finds her husband with another girl. In a fit of rage, she grabs her children and brings them to a nearby river, and drowns them. She is instantly filled with regret. She is so filled with grief and regret and roamed the river bank hoping to find her children. She eventually dies there but her spirit still roams around searching for her children.

Interviewer: That is a pretty good story and it reminds me of another story, but before I insert my own thoughts I would like to ask you what this story means to you.

Informant: This story currently doesn’t mean that much to me now but when I was younger when my parents were telling me this story, it was used to scare me from going out at night and also doing bad stuff. It was almost like a scare tactic to keep me from trouble.

Interviewer: That is exactly what I was getting from this story. It feels like a story similar to the boogeyman in its purpose is to scare people.                                                                                                                                                              

Quincho

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 10/27/20
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

 Story: This story is about my great grandpa’s best friend Quincho. Quincho had curly black hair and green eyes and was alive during the Mexican Revolution. One day, Quincho was falsely accused of a crime and the punishment was execution. The place of his execution would be a cemetery. Knowing that his best friend has been falsely accused of a crime goes to the government office to get a repeal for the execution.  He did get that repeal and rode on his horse to get to the cemetery as fast as possible. He was right outside the cemetery before he heard the gunshot and he knew he was too late. When my great-grandpa got to the body, Quincho looked at peace, but another thing that he noticed was river rocks in Quincho’s hair. At his funeral, those exact rocks were seen to be falling from the ceiling. So, whenever these rocks appear we say, “Oh that’s Quincho.”

Informant’s View: When I was first told this story as a little boy, I did not believe it. That was until one day out of nowhere there were rocks in my hair. The exact same as the ones in the story.

The Ghost of Her Grandmother at Death

Nationality: USA
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: October 26, 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Transcription:

Collector: Hello JS, so I know that you have mentioned before that there are ghost stories and interactions in your family. I would really appreciate it if maybe you could share some of your experiences.

Informant: Okay so when I was little my family had like a lot of encounters with ghosts and spirits; it’s happened for me a lot. I will share a story that happened with my mom and myself. I think it’s like the craziest experience. So when I was little I was looking out our window just like looking outside like anyone would do, I was maybe 10 and I saw this person walking down the street and we lived in a pretty small neighborhood so everybody pretty much knew everyone.  I saw this person walking down the street and I’d never seen them before, so I called to my mom who was in the kitchen and said, “Mom, who’s the pretty girl walking down the street?” My mom was doing something and could not see out the window, so I yelled to her explaining what she looks like. I said “she’s in this red dress with flowers on it, she had long brown hair and she’s really pretty.” At that moment my mom walked over and looked out the window and was like “Oh my God that’s exactly what my mom, your grandma, wore when she died”.  I supposedly had seen my grandma that I’ve never met before in the clothes that she died in.  I find this really creepy and my mom tells that story all the time that it looked like real life and we thought it’s a real life person that we could touch, but no one else in our family had had any other encounters with our grandmother.

Collector: Do you think are any reasons in particular why your Grandmother showed herself to you and your mother?

Informant: Well I think that my mom and my Grandma are really similar and my mom talks about my Grandma as like she is her Guardian Angel. My mom attributes small occurrences to her mom.  Little super random stuff like if something like drops in our house or sometimes like come up in her dream. My mom can connect those things, but my mom also sees auras around people.  The auras are the colors that you associate with people and it allows my mom the extraordinary power to know how someone is feeling or if something’s wrong.

Collector: Does she think this ability comes from her grandma? 

Informant: No, I think she thinks that she has like this connection with her, but I don’t think she got it from her.

Collector: Have there been other times where you have experienced other sorts of supernatural events?

Yeah, my sister and I often have the same dream and wake up seeing figures of old people standing in the corner. This makes me sound actually insane, but more often than not, my sister sees the person and I could like feel the spirit. I think it’s crazy and not a coincidence that both encounter similar things at the same time. Okay, that sums up most of it.

Collector: Would you be willing to share any more of your experiences?

Informant: Ummm, for the most part I have told you the interesting parts.

Collector: Well, thank you so much more sharing and I really appreciate you taking the time to tell your story.

Context and Relation:

JS grew up in a small town outside of Chicago. She later moved to Seattle for high school. There are pieces of her story that are from her time in Seattle, but the first encounter about seeing her grandmother took place in a small suburb outside of Chicago. She remembers this story because of the abnormality of the situation. It was extremely strange for JS to see an accurate image of someone that she had never met before. JS is a caucasian teenage girl who is attending an American university.

Personal Reflection:

Personally, I have never had an experience quite like JS’s with seeing a dead grandparent or parent or experiencing a spirit. I found it interesting in JS’s story that her Grandmother was wearing the clothes that she died in and that the grandmother took the body of a younger girl, similar to her age. I don’t know exactly what this detail means, but it is definitely worth mentioning. I agree with JS that these events are scary, but I find it really interesting how nobody else in her family has connected with her Grandmother except JS and her mother. Personally, it would make sense to me if other family members came in contact with the Grandmother ghost being from the same family, especially if her sister has had visions of figures from dreams. In conclusion, JS had an amazing encounter with a ghost of her grandmother that she will never forget.