Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

The Dybbuk of Boiarka

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 78
Occupation: Psychologist
Residence: Mexico City
Performance Date: 03/16/2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece: A dybbuk is not exactly a ghost. It is the evil spirit of a sinner who takes the form of a deceased loved one to play tricks on the innocent. Shlomo was a poor tailor who lived in the small shetl of Boiarka with his wife Miriam. In one of the stormiest Sabbaths that Boiarka had ever seen, Shlomo came home with Rabbi Gorkshev. He told his wife that he had invited the Rabbi for soup for the Sabbath, as he had helped the Rabbi to get out of the temple on that stormy night. Miriam was overjoyed. It was very uncommon for these low standing people to be honored with the visit of a Rabbi. When their eldest daughter Teibel entered the room and saw the Rabbi she turned as pale as ghost. Miriam and Shlomo asked her what the matter was, and she told them that there was a dybbuk in their house. They asked her where, and she pointed directly to the Rabbi. Everyone started laughing at her remarks; how could the beloved Rabbi be a dybbuk. Yet, Teibel claimed that the Rabbi had been dead for months. See, Teibel was set to be married to one of the Rabbi’s pupils, and though him she found out about his death. The Rabbi explained that the girl must have been confused, as he did in fact fall severely ill, but he got better in time. Teibel was not convinced of this, so he asked the Rabbi for his pupil and her soon-to-be fiancée’s name. The rabbi could not remember, because he said he was very old and he had been very ill, so his memory was not what it used to be. This was enough for Teible. She picked up a a kitchen knife and stabbed Rabbi Gorkshev in the chest. The Rabbi ran out of the house and wandered through the streets in the storm. His parents told her “You have cursed us”, to which she answered, “He was a dybbuk. God had already cursed us”. And so the family was cursed for eternity. If it was because the daughter killed a Rabbi or because a dybbuk entered their home, no one knows. Even so, the villagers of Boiarka say that in stormy nights, they can still hear the screams of Rabbi Gorkshev wandering through the streets.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Ethel Soriano was born to Jewish parents from the Ukraine, where the town of Boiarka still stands. She says her dad used to tell the story to her at nights to scare her, but only made her interested in Jewish folk stories. She visited Boiarka herself because of her fascination with the legend.

Context on the piece: According to Ethel, the villagers of Boiarka tell the story to their children to scare them so that they will stay out of the streets, as the dybbuk still roams them according to legend.

Thoughts on the piece: I think the story lends itself more to simply being a tale for kids to stay out of the streets. The fact that the family never knew if he was actually a dybbuk is fascinating, as their curse could have been a self fulfilled prophecy by the daughter. With her believing that God had cursed them, she stabbed the Rabbi, which could have been the cause of their curse. This could send the message of not jumping into conclusions, but if the Rabbi was actually a dybbuk, the message could tell us not to be so trusting of good faces like Shlomo was. It’s a story where the meaning is dual and even ambiguous, which is unusual for legends in other culture. It follows the Jewish tradition of the public taking out their own meaning form it.

The Coeb Borthers reference a version of this legend in the opening scene of their film ‘A Serious Man’ (2009).

The Biltmore Hotel

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/16/2017
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: It’s the most haunted building in all of L.A. There have been so many deaths, serial killers, and plain weird stuff in there. Where do I begin? Well, first of all, that place was the last sighting of Elizabeth Short, better known as Black Dahlia. The next day, she was found cut in half in a neighborhood lawn with a smile carved into her face by cutting her cheeks open. It remains one of the biggest unsolved murder cases in L.A. The hotel was later used as the residence of serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey, and they killed lots of people while they were staying there. The freakiest one is from last year, where a student named Elisa Lam was found drowned naked inside of one of the hotel’s water tanks. They found out of this because the residents complained that the water was black and had a funny smell. There was no way she could have crawled in there by herself. Those lids are heavy as hell. Someone had to put her in there, but no one knows how. There even a video of her on Youtube in the elevator where it looks like she’s talking to someone, but no one’s there, and then she starts convulsing. Some say that she was being possessed by one of the hotel ghosts. This could be Black Dahlia or one of the serial killers, which would explain why these spirits murdered her. Some even say that they have seen a woman with a wound on her stomach walking around the halls and disappearing into the walls, which we could assume to be black dahlia. I would never stay in that hotel. Bad stuff just seems to happen there.

Background information about the piece by the informant: Melissa is an enthusiast for local ghost stories, serial killers and unsolved mysteries. She knows about all of this because she is n avid reader and investigator on the subject. She claims that the Biltmore in Downtown L.A. is like the Mecca of people fascinated with these subjects. It still operates today and people still claim it to be haunted.

Context on the piece: Melissa brought this up in a group dinner conversation where we were all telling ghosts anecdotes to scare each other. According to her, that was the perfect setting to tell these kinds of urban legends. They are classically told around a campfire in the dark to enhance the performance atmosphere.

Thoughts o the piece: In American tradition, ghosts seem to always inhabit really old hotels or houses. The setting of a ghost story is rarely set in a high tech modernist building. This could be due to the fact that America is a future-centric society, and it might be manifesting guilt of letting go of the past through these legends. Perhaps that is why there is a prevailing theme of unsolved mysteries that haunt the hotel, as the truth behind the cases has been let go of to look to the future which brings guilt and fascination to the problem. It’s also interesting that the de-facto explanation to the odd occurrences in these mysteries is an intervention from the other world. It goes to show that it is a society with great interest on life after death.

“El Coco” and “La Mano”

Nationality: Colombian
Age: 82
Occupation: Real Estate Broker
Residence: Sherman Oaks
Performance Date: 3/25/17
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Both my Grandparents say growing up they were told about the story of “El Coco” it was only when they came to the US was when they heard about El Cucuy from Mexican friends and El Cuco from Puerto Rican and El Salvadorian friends) The story is basically the same regardless of the source, El Coco lives under your bed, in your closet or in the darkest corner of you room — and he will come and get you if you misbehave. Or at least that’s what many Latino kids are told growing up, and in that way El Coco/Cucuy is the equivalent to the American bogeyman. This was confirm my by Mexican Aunt Anyssa and most of my Colombian relatives. There is a wonderful web site featuring the great bilingual storyteller Joe Hayes retelling legend of “El Cucuy” I highly recommend the web site: http://www.cincopuntos.com/products_detail.sstg?id=4
However, my Grandfather had a personal variation, called “La Mano” or “The Hand”. His own grandmother, Celestina, who was widowed and never spoke but lived with my Abuelo’s family, which consisted of his parents and six other siblings. She had been a healer and a seer. Story has it that she foresaw her husband’s death and started to buy mourning clothing one month before her husband died that she wore till she died. It was told that in her grief she had convinced the mortician to give her husband’s hand, which she allegedly kept under her bed in a box. My grandfather’s mom, Margarita, who after trying to get 7 kids to bed would often resort to the threat that if they did not go to sleep “La Mano” would come out from under Grandma’s Celestina’s bed and attack and choke them, so they should behave and be quiet so “La Mano” could not find them. The threat was very effective. One night My grandfather told me “he got up to get a drink of water he was trying very hard to be quiet when he heard a rattling sound coming from Grandma Celestina’s room, he stopped cold and felt cold sweat pour down his back as the rattling turned to scratching as if it was trying to scratch it way out. Suddenly the door pops open and no one is there but a small object was on the floor slowly moving toward him. He felt frozen to the ground and could not move or breath. He saw a couple of skeleton digits come into the moonlight and he was certain he was seeing “La Mano”. He ran back to his room, sandwiched himself in the middle of his two sleeping brothers, thinking if the hand came, it would get them first!  Even though my grandfather moved to another hemisphere and was living in Los Angeles, several decades after grandma Celestina had passed away, he came across a movie poster while waiting in line for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) for a horror movie called The Hand (1981) where a comic book artist loses his hand in a car accident and his hand is never found, The hand begins to follow the artist and kills anyone who angers the artist. Apparently, Grandfather almost fainted when he saw the poster but literally ran out of the movie theater when the trailer for “The Hand” began. He spent 20 minutes pretending to go to the restroom and buying everything the concession stand had to offer. He refused to sit anywhere but the aisle in case he had to bolt. He reported having nightmares for two weeks after, not about Darth Vader but about “La Mano”. As he was telling me about the legend, he became very pale , he kept clearing this throat and his voice quivered throughout.

Analysis: Urban Legends of things that hide in the dark to scare children into compliance seems to be a common universal theme. However, if they made a movie out of a hand hiding in the dark that can come and kill you, then maybe there is some kind of motif about hands that I am not aware of but one that does cross cultural lines.

“Malicia Indigina”-Indigenous ways of knowing

Nationality: Colombian
Age: 82
Occupation: Real Estate Broker
Residence: Sherman Oaks, California
Performance Date: 3/25/2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

There was a proverb often repeated to me growing up by my grandfather. Whenever I had a problem I could not figure out, my grandfather would say just use your “Malicia Indigina” which literally means “ indigenous ways of knowing” and would follow it up with “Si no las sabes, las inventa” which mean “if you don’t know how to do something, invent a new way of doing it.” Or “if you don’t know, then innovate or improvise” which to me always sounded like “go fake an answer”, but he would explain that is was in our blood (Chibcha/Muisca indigenous heritage). Allegedly, they were a very intelligent people and could always figure out a solution to any problem if they just thought hard enough about it even if it was not the common answer, it would work nevertheless. The Chibchas/Muiscas were renowned for their skills because they were one of the very few indigenous tribes in Colombia to survive the arrival of the conquistadores and Spanish settlers. They were famous for getting rid of the conquistadores by giving them a map of “El Dorado” that they knew to be an area infested with jaguars and anacondas. It was a very effective ploy until they made the son of one of the chief to go with them to insure a safe return but instead the Chief sent a group of skilled hunters and killed all the conquistadores the first night with poison from frogs while they slept. After disposing the bodies, the Chibchas brought back the chief’s son and they were left alone for a long time. This story was told to me by my grandfather who was told by his father who was told by his grandfather who was a chief. The Chibchas are currently making a comeback after decades where their verbal language was outlawed punishable by physical violence (caning, whipping etc.). Now there are local schools where Chibcha is now taught as a language and children do not have to hide their heritage. Chibcha is considered the language but the tribe is the “Muiscas” but over time most of the members referred to themselves as simply “Chipchas”.

Analysis: This is considered a personal proverb that does not apply to those who lack indigenous genetic makeup. It seemed as a way to empower a group of people that were extremely marginalized and almost wiped out. However, being 1/16 Chibcha meant I could never receive simple empathy when struggling with a difficult problem, I was expected to somehow tap into my biological hidden powers and magically produce an awesome answer to every single difficulty that crossed my path. I always found this kind of annoying but perhaps contributed to sharpening my creative abilities.

Chupacabra-“Chupee in SoCal”

Nationality: U.S.
Age: 47
Occupation: Outreach Counselor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/3/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My mom really enjoys telling me about The Chupacabra story- meaning “goat sucker”. Ironically, she wrote a paper about the Chupacabra for her college Folklore class. In her contemporary retelling the Chupacabra, or “Chupee”, it is a defender of powerless Latinos against of white people in positions of authority who abuse their power in California and throughout part of the southwest. It was no coincident that in May of 1996 reports of Chupacabra reached an all time high in terms of sighting in light of heighten social anxieties. Chupee was talked about on the radio and television with spoof interviews. Local issues about undocumented workers, border patrol incidents, Proposition 187, and the potential demise of affirmative action worried the Latino community. Projecting fears onto a blood-sucking creature was a safe way to air concerns. San Bernardino had a massive spike in Chapacabra sighting after an unarmed Latino woman was dragged from her car and beaten. It caused the LA Times to run a front-page story about the Chupacabra and publishing the photo attached.imgres

My mom thought it was awesome that Latinos living in the U.S had appropriated a Mexican legend and had unleashed it on Southern California, Arizona and parts of Texas. Several cattle in Texas were found dead with puncture marks on their necks. For the first time white ranchers were suddenly scared because they were dealing with an unknown entity. My mom was shocked when the LA times ran a front page article with a drawing of the Chupacabra. But it validated what she was thinking about the multiple sightings.

Analysis: I think the Chupacabra in this context sounds very interesting with lots of potential. My mom said while doing research for her paper she discovered that Chupee, “goat sucker” was written about in Mayan texts going back as far as 1400 B.C. This contradicts the contemporary belief that the Chupacabra was first spotted in Puerto Rico in 1995. Many Mexicans familiar with the Mayan legend reputed the origins and insisted that it was in fact part of ancient Mayan Mythology. Apparently it was their Mayan ancestor who were now seeking revenge against the white aggressors that almost wiped out their civilization. Many of the undocumented migrant farm workers at that time in California were of mostly indigenous descent. This perhaps was a way for a group of highly marginalized people to empower themselves with a creature that was mysterious and potentially deadly.