Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Taiwanese superstition: The Colour Red

Nationality: Taiwanese
Primary Language: Taiwanese, Mandarin
Age: 46
Occupation: Branch Manager
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 19 April 2024

Tags: asia, superstition, red, colour, lucky

Text:

Red is considered a very lucky colour in Asian countries, being a sign of good fortune and luck. People wear red clothes on Lunar New Year and give red envelopes full of money to the younger ones. The colour red was said to scare off the fearsome beast Nian, who’s story is the legendary backdrop for Lunar New Year in general. Lots of people wear red underpants when they gamble.

Context:

C was born and raised in Taiwan, and has traveled the world various times due to her work and studies. She regularly participates in Taiwanese and Asian festivities with friends and family, and is said to be quite lucky whenever she wears her red dress.

Analysis:

Like with Lunar New Year, I write Taiwan in the title, but the superstition covers a large portion of Asia as well. Red can be contrasted with thoughts in the West, as red can be seen as a sign of aggression or anger, while green is the colour of luck and good fortune due to being the colour of money. This goes to show how a similar concept (colour) can twist and change within various cultures based on their pasts and histories.

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ Joaquin Murrieta Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “My parents said they were just finishing up a picnic at Alumn Rock park on the East side of San Jose and were getting ready to head home when a man who looked like he had been dug up (his clothes was old and tattered and resembled clothes from the cowboy days. He came up to their car window and just stood there not saying a word but staring in a daze. They believe it was the ghost of Juan Murrieta who lived during the late 1900’s. He was famous for robbing people in that area of the park. My dad started the car and got the hell out of there! My parents were very scared and they were familiar with the legend of Juan Murrieta and never stopped talking about the incident!”

“Ps: The cowboy did have an old style revolver as well!”

Interpretation:

I’d like to note that people often confuse Juan and Joaquin Murrieta, and that my grandpa was almost certainly referring to the latter. I did some research after being told this story, as I hadn’t heard of either figure until now. Juan was a pioneer, whereas Joaquin is a Mexican figure commonly known as the Robin Hood of the West. More specifically, stories about Murrieta rose in California during the Gold Rush. I find it interesting that my great-grandparents claim to have seen Joaquin Murrieta, because they associated something strange with something they already knew about (ghosts), and their knowledge of it is heavily influenced by culture. Even though my family was Mexican-Texan, they had heard enough about this specifically Mexican-Californian legend in the little time that they lived there that they assumed the figure was him. What’s more, this story hints at a combination of folkloric beliefs, as my great-grandparents claim to have seen a kind of undead version of Joaquin Murrieta, who is more of a legend than a popular ghost. There are debates over whether he existed, but stories of seeing him are rarer. But my great-grandparents seem to have believed in ghosts in general, so this memorate only furthered their personal view of the world.

The night marchers

text

Informant: “So in Hawaiian culture, there are these- not creatures but spirits I guess and they are called the night Marchers. A lot of people hear them on Oahu around nu’uanu–Or at least this is what I grew up knowing because I am from Oahu– so in nu’uanu kinda by Manoa where University of Hawaii is in the valley, it is a very sacred area especially deep in the valley. So these night Marchers, they are Hawaiian spirits that are there to protect the land and usually they are there protecting bones like the bones of chiefs. The legend is that you are not supposed to whistle at night because if you whistle then you are like summoning the night Marchers. Usually when you summon the night Marchers you hear drums and you’ll hear like stomping, like uniform stomping. And you are supposed to just get on the ground and close your eyes until you don’t hear drumming because if you don’t, then I’m pretty sure it’s like you are challenging them like if you stand up and are facing them with your eyes open…and you will lose.”

Context

Age: 19

From: Oahu, HI

Her relationship with this piece is personal since she is in close ties with her ethnicity. It is something she actually learned in school where they taught Hawaiian culture, history, etc. She interprets it as just a story to tell with doubt that it will happen. There is a very low percentage of her experiencing it first hand, but she is glad that she will know what to do. She says her friends always forget that you aren’t supposed to whistle, so they immediately stop when they realize. 

Interpretation

I do not really know what to think of this because I want to respect Hawaiian culture, but I find this very hard to believe. When I went to Hawaii recently, I stayed with a bunch of locals and I remember they actively and consciously avoided whistling at night. Right after they realized that they were whistling, it was not a big deal, they would just say “oops” and stop. I feel like if this was something so important, then the tourists should know it as well to respect the land.

Old lady Hawaiian legend

text

Informant: “So in Hawaii there’s a legend– And it’s basically like an unspoken rule– where basically if you are driving at night and you see an old woman…”

Me: “Where at?”

Informant: “So on the big island, to get from Kona to Hilo, there are two ways. You can either go around the island which takes like 2 hours or you can cut through diagonally on the straight road called Saddle road. It just got renovated so it is really nice, it has lights and it is very safe, but a few years ago it was basically almost like a dirt road. It was barely paved and there was only one painted line in the middle. The unspoken rule that was– that all of the locals know– is that if you are driving, especially at night, and you see an older woman with really long white hair in a white mo’u mo’u, which is just a really long white dress, you are just supposed to stop and pick her up because that is one of pele’s forms. Pele is the goddess of volcanoes, and on the big island there are I think two active volcanoes right now, so the Big Island residents respect her very much especially because at any point their homes can be destroyed by volcanoes. Basically, you just pick her up and you just keep going about your drive. It’s just a sign of respect and it shows that you respect her, you respect the land, and the culture. Usually she is silent, but then she will just disappear. 

Context

Age: 19

From: Oahu, HI

In regards to her relationship to the piece, it is very close to her since she has such a strong bond with Hawaiian culture. Although she lives on Oahu and not the Big Island, she says this is still important for when she visits. She does not really remember when she found out about this legend, but she has heard stories about people picking her up. Weird enough, she says the stories are never in the present tense though. She interprets this as real, but she doubts it will actually ever happen to her.  

Interpretation

I interpret this legend as something that will be close to never happening. I think people could abuse this in order to get a free ride since there are a lot of homeless in Hawaii. Knowing this though, if I were to ever be in this situation, I would still pick up the lady just as a sign of respect even if I don’t necessarily live there. It sounds pretty frightening as a non local, but I am sure it is not something the residents are afraid of–or at least that’s the way I understood it from my interview with the informant.

la llorona

text

Informant: I never really wanted to know the story of La Llorona because it’s scary but it is supposed to be kind of like a bloody mary type of thing; like for that one you go into the bathroom and it has a ritual that goes with it and then she comes out, but I never wanted to know it because I don’t like that kind of stuff.  But what I know is that you are supposed to hear her at night, coming when kids are bad. Like when you hear her coming, they can hear her crying and coming to get you. That’s why they would call her La Llorona because ‘llorar’ means to cry. So they would call her La Llorona because when kids were bad they could hear her crying outside, like coming to get you. Really, it was dogs I think that they were hearing, but the parents would be like ‘do you hear her? she’s coming to get you.’ Parents would use it as a threat to their kids or a behavioral mechanism and say that she’s coming. 

Context

Age: 51

From: Chino Hills, CA

Ethnicity: Mexican

As the informant explained in the text, she does not really like the story behind this piece and prefers not to indulge in it because it is scary. The relationship between her and this piece is that her friends’ parents would use La llorona to make them stop acting up. She heard it just growing up, she doesn’t remember the specific time she found out about it, but she has known the story since she was about 7 or 8 years old. Her interpretation of it is that it is just another thing to help parents when their kids misbehave. She said she would never use it because she would feel mean, but she always knew of other parents using this. 

Interpretation

I have heard a bunch of different ways to tell this story, but from what it sounds like, the informant does not know the details of this legend. I think the different variations of this story are what makes it considered a legend, but I think it is interesting that the skeleton of it remains the same, no matter where you hear it. Personally, I think this is a really scary story and I would not use it on kids in the future. I feel like if I were to know this story as a kid, I would be frightened at every crying sound a dog made. It would have been all the time because where I grew up, and to this day, I would hear dogs crying almost every week at night when the coyotes get them where I grew up.