Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Devil Dog

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 52
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/19/2018
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece: Devil Dog

The following was an interview of a Participant/interviewee about ghost stories of her hometown. She is marked as MS. I am marked as DM.

MS: Esta tarde voy a comentar una historia que me paso a mi y mis tres hermanos aproximado cuando yo tenía seis o siete años. Veníamos de la case de unas de mis tías. En ese tiempo había televisión nada más en diferentes casas. No todo el pueblo teníamos televisión y veníamos de ver un programa de la televisión en casa de mi tia. Para regresar a mi casa teníamos que atravesar un río. Veníamos como a las doce de la noche caminando por la orilla del río y cuando veníamos llegando donde estaba une puente donde cruzaba la gente de un lado a otro. Unos de mis hermanos nos dijo voy a sacar mi plátano para comer me lo ahorita. Entonces cuando vinimos nosotros caminando de repente se empezo a oir come un bramido come de un perro o un animal grande y mi hermano quien traía el plátano dijo espérense no caminan y los empezamos a detener nos miramos que salió un perro grande de unos arbustos grandes y empezaba como caminar con una cadenas alrededor del perro y ese perro se atravesó por el río y empezó a tratar come de agarramos y nos ladraba fuertemente. Pero lo que me más superando ver que el perro no se atravesó dentro de la agua si no por encima de la agua y cuando mi hermano quiso correr juntos con nosotros no podíamos dar el paso donde el perro no atorro y cuando mi hermano quiso agarrar y aventarle el plátano para que nosotros podíamos pasar el plátano se partió en tres pedazos con la misa cáscara y mi hermana empezó a rezar a dios que nos quitara eso para pasar. De repente se empezó a meter como un montón de canteras con un montón de ramas secas y ahí se metió el perro y se iba desapareciendo poco a poco. Cuando se desapareció el perro, podíamos empezar a caminar otra vez.

Translate:

MS: This afternoon I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me and my three siblings when I was six or seven years old. We came from the case of one of my aunts. At that time there was only a television in certain houses. Not all the people had television and we came to see a TV show at my aunt’s house. To get back to my house we had to cross through a river. We came as at twelve o’clock in the night walking along the river bank and when we came arriving where it was bridge that people could cross from one side to the other. One of my brothers told me I’m going to get my banana to eat now. Then suddenly we began to hear a roar of a dog or a big animal and my brother who brought the banana said wait do not walk. We looked at the big dog come out of a large shrubs and with a chain around the dog and that dog walked on top of the river. But what more surpassing me to see that the dog did not go through the water if not above the water and when my brother wanted to run together we could not take the step where the dog was. Atorro and when my brother wanted to grab and throw the banana to We could pass the banana broke into three pieces with the shell mass and my sister began praying to God to take that away to pass. Suddenly they got He started putting like a pile of quarries with a bunch of dried twigs and there he got the dog and he was slowly fading away. When the dog disappeared, we could start walking again.

Background/Context:

The participant is 52 years old. She grew up in Michoacan, Mexico. Maria, who is marked as MS, is my grandma. In her hometown, there is a lot of superstition beliefs that spread throughout the whole town. In this specific story, almost everyone in town saw this dog they claimed to be the devil. They tried to avoid the river because that is where the dog appears most of the time. Below is a conversation I had with MS for more background/context of the remedy, which was originally in Spanish.  

DM:Why do you know this ghost story?

MS: I know this story because I am the one who lived through it.

DM: Why do you like telling this ghost story?

MS:  I like telling this story because it is something I want people to know what I have been through.

DM: Where/who did they learn it from?

MS: There was stories already in my town of the dog, but I never saw it until now. I heard about the dog from others but I also learned it through a real life experience.

DM: Why is this ghost story important to you?

MS: This shows that family always need to be united always in every situation especially with family and that God will always hear you out.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

This story shows how this “devil dog” was able to show up in everyone’s life at one point. MS explains to me how her and her siblings heard a lot about the dog before it appeared to them. They were scared of walking or fighting at night because of everything they heard. Finally, the dog appeared to them. When my grandma told me this story, I was scared of the dogs that I had in that moment.

Spirit on the Fence

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 56
Occupation: Physician
Residence: San Mateo, California
Performance Date: 4/7/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Interviewer: Do you know any ghost stories or had anyone pass down ghost stories to you?

 

Informant: My Mama Lupe (Grandmother) got married to my grandfather when she was like 15 and my grandfather was much older like 20s or 30s. He was a really kind older man.  But she said that one time they were walking back in Mexico and they were staying in a little town.  But they had to get up really early to catch the bus to get home and she said it was still dark outside.  They were out in the country and they were walking along and she said she saw this lady and on the fence and the fence was there to keep the animals from leaving the fields. She said that my grandfather was walking ahead of her and she looked over and this lady was sitting on the fence and she went to catch up to my grandfather and asked, “what’s that lady doing on the fence?” And when she turned back to look at the lady, the lady was gone. And she said she could see the woman as clear as day.  And she talks about seeing things a lot, but that was the one that she would sit down and tell us about and it even gives me chills to think about it.

 

Interviewer: Would you say that she believed it was a ghost or a spirit or what? Or did it matter? Or was it more of just that she saw “something”.

 

Informant: No, it was like this very adamant belief that there was a woman there and that it was a spirit because just one moment it was there clear as day and the next it was gone.  She believed a lot in the spirits and recalled a lot seeing things throughout her life but not all of them she would share. She like to scare us and believed in a lot of Mexican superstitions that are still around today.  She was firmly based in tradition rather than making something up just to get a reaction out of someone.

 

Background: Maria Juarez-Reyes is the mother of the interviewer and a firm believer in the supernatural or in sci fi as a genre.  She often spent summers with her grandmother in Mexico and would listen to her many stories.  She still believes in the clear distinction of spirits and ghosts as her grandmother did and shares most of her experiences.

Context: This interview took place during a weekend at home with family.  The informant heard this story when she was young and would visit her grandmother in Mexico.  Her grandmother would share stories with her and her brother and often liked to scare them but still believed in the validity of the encounters.

Analysis: This account is considered to be a legend based on the time the story takes place and the debate about whether it is actually true or if spirits and ghosts exists. To those who believe, the story always has validity but varies according to belief. The performance also adds to the believe-ability and the informant also said to experience chills while telling the story which added to the truth of the account.

 

 

 

La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/2/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The following version of La Llorona was collected from a close friend. She is 20 years old and was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Her family was originally from Mexico and they still visit there constantly. The story of La Llorona is a quite common one in Mexico and around the South Western United States. Many versions have been circulated which differ, this version is the one she was always told as a child by her parents. From what I make of her story it is very similar to my own and many that I have heard told before. The major themes surrounding suicide, death and marriage are all found in her version. The interview took place in person and I will denote myself as “A” in the interview and my friend as “B”. The interview went as follows.

A: “Ok, please tell me about your own version of the story of La Llorona.”

B: “Ok, so this is the version I have come to know ever since I was a little girl. All my family tells it this way and everyone near my family’s home in Texas also tell it pretty similar to my own. It begins with a Mexican woman, she doesn’t really have a name but we call her Llorona because of the story. She was extremely poor and her family could not support her on her own so she had to go out and find a husband. She found a white man probably from the United States who was looking to marry a Mexican woman. They instantly got married and moved into a house in town and had a lot of children.”

A: “Do you know how many exactly?”

B: “No, not really it changes depending on who tells the story. Its definitely more than three though… at least in the stories I have been told. Anyways, so the man became very disinterested in her and cheated on her and would abuse her when they were in the house. She began to despise him with everything and for some reason she translated that anger over into her children. One day when her husband was away she decided to take her children to the river down by their house. While they were there she went “loca” (crazy) and in a fit of rage she drowned her children in the river. After realizing what she did she took her own life by drowning herself in the very same river. From now on it is said that La Llorona walks the river moaning out in sadness for her children. She hates seeing other children that are not her own so if a child finds themselves alone when they hear her she is said to drown them and kill them out of jealousy.”

A: “Wow great version! But what do you make of it yourself?”

B: “In all honesty I know its just a legend. It is not actually true that a crying woman kills children near rivers. It’s just a way Mexican parents scare their kids from doing bad things. I mean I know I had nightmares about her when I was younger.”

The Headless Desert Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kentucky
Performance Date: April 3, 2018
Primary Language: English

Note: This story was first brought up to me while camping in Death Valley, around the campfire.

SD: So this is about the ghost of Joe Simpson, ok? So in 1908 there was this saloon manager named Joe Simpson and he murdered the town’s banker. And because of that, the town lynched him, they tied him up, and then a LA Times reporter came down, they put him back up (after they had already taken him down from being dead), and what happened is that they decided to test if he had any diseases. So they cut off his head, and they lost the body of him. And so now, if you go around different parts of Death Valley, you can see this old west guy who is headless just walking around, trying to find his head, and trying to get revenge on the people who killed him.

 

This is a local story to Death Valley. It seems to be a good example of a local legend. A town had a traumatic event in their past, and this continues to haunt them today. This contains the motif of mutilated corpses coming back as ghosts. Many societies believe that the mistreatment of corpses leads to becoming a ghost. Not only was Joe Simpson’s corpse re-hung and beheaded, but he was lynched, tied up, and his body was lost. This could easily lead to the fear that his spirit could come back to exact revenge on the living. SD had visited Death Valley before, but hadn’t seen the ghost. He didn’t seem to believe the ghost was real, but said its was a common story.

Zimbabwean Ghost Story

Nationality: Zimbabwean
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: University of Southern California
Performance Date: 2/28/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Shona

Background:

This is a story a friend from Zimbabwe told me, apparently it is a widely told story in Zimbabwe and a lot of people know it. She has lived in London and Zimbabwe, so she has been exposed to many different cultures throughout her life.

Collection:

“This is a story I’ve been told, I don’t know who it happened too, but it is quite a popular story.

So, a woman met this guy and he was foreign, from Nigeria, and they started dating. Later, he wanted to get married and there’s like a long process for marriage. She went with him to his village and his village is like far away. They drove there, they took a taxi, and they got to a point where they had to walk. Since they had luggage the man said he’d go to the house and get people to help bring the luggage back, so he went and left and didn’t come back for a while.

(Interrupted by a conversation about statistics)

Okay so he doesn’t come back (bless you) after her and the taxi driver waited for a long time. So, when the time had been long enough, so she goes and tries to find him and kind of just went to the village places. She goes and asks for the family name and goes to the house to find him. Once she found the house and is like well guys I’ve been waiting. The family is look who are you and then she explains she is engaged to be married to their son. They’re like that’s not possible because he’s been dead for years. She doesn’t believe them and then they take her to the grave and everything and then it turns out she was lowkey dating a ghost.”

Analysis:

This story seems very similar to Japanese beliefs about ghosts where people are unable to tell whether or not someone is a ghost and not figuring out the person is actually dead until someone points it out. Since this is a story that is very popular in Zimbabwe it shows that the ghost beliefs in Zimbabwe are similar, in at least this one aspect, to the ghost beliefs of Japan. This story seems to be similar to a lot of stories in other cultures which shows a common theme of people believing that ghosts can be present in our lives without us actually knowing.

Personally, I find stories like these very hard to believe for two reasons. One, I personally don’t believe in ghosts, so I find it very hard to believe that a person would be able to come back from the dead and no one would notice, and they would be able to disappear without any warning. Two, this story is so widely told that the chance that this situation actually happened.