Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

The Murder House North of 23rd Street

Nationality: Swedish and English
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English

Contextual Data: A couple of weeks prior, a friend and I were driving from her apartment to Hollywood, and on the way, she pointed out this one house that she and her friends refer to as the “murder house.” We laughed about it and I later asked her to tell me a bit more about the house. The following is an exact transcript of our conversation.

Informant: “Um… I dunno. We have a few stories about what happens north of 23rd Street, because people don’t really live up there. Um, and so we kind of started to create stories to make fun of stuff that happened while we were live there. Um, that’s bad [laughs]. It’s like my favorite place to live. But anyway, um. Okay, so the first thing that happened was, um, we started telling the story about the murder house. And… basically, one day, my friend who lives on 22nd Street was walking me back home to where I live off 23rd Street, and there’s this house and it’s kind of like a one story house and it’s green, and um… There’s always this guy that like hangs out outside the murder house [Laughs]. And he’s like really creepy and, um, he’ll like talk to you when you walk by and sometimes he like punches the air [Mimes punching the air] like…Nobody’s there, but, yeah. Anyway…Um and then one day we were walking back—she was walking me home and it was kind of late. It was probably like after midnight and we heard two men—I think they were…I don’t know, we heard arguing in the room. And all of a sudden we heard this like giant thud. And it sounded like someone—like, a body hitting the wall. And so, um, my friend, being the great friend that she was, was like, ‘Well, goodbye!’ And then she just, like, ran away, and so [Laughs]… And so I was left home to walk back to my house by myself. Um… And we’d heard like apparently—she, I mean she lived closer to the house than I did, but she’d like heard stuff going on there…for a while. And so as she was walking back she said that they were actually passing—she was passing by the door, and…There was the hard, like the solid door inside, and there was a screen door, and then the guy had the inside door open and he was standing behind the screen door and he was watching her as she walked all the back. And so I didn’t really, like—I didn’t really notice all of this, I just noticed her freaking out, and then she told me about it later…And she was basically—she was certain that someone had…died, which was kind of morbid. I don’t know, I didn’t here a lot of it. But then after that we kept—she would—kept referring to it as the murder house, and every time we would—she would walk over to my house, she would be like, I don’t really want to walk by the murder house. And then another girl who lives in my house had, I think, some other weird experiences, and so she started referring to it as the murder house as well. And now, basically, my entire house and that other house know that house as the…murder house.”

Me: “And so everybody in your house now knows that house as the murder house?”

Informant: “Yeah…And we kind of—It’s weird because the guy’s still around. And we actually don’t know what was, you know, actually what happened. Maybe, just kind of, in my friend’s paranoia she made up the whole thing, ‘cause I didn’t really hear…as much as she says that she did. And she seems to think it was more, like, definitive than it was. But she kind of coined the term and then it just kind of…stuck as a landmark of 23rd Street.”

Me: “Yeah.”

Informant: “People kind of have been having weird experiences by the house, and my friend did, like on multiple occasions ‘cause she had to walk by that house all the time—it’s kind of far away from my house, but, um…So, other people kind of adopted the term, because they had experienced weird things too. And we don’t know, like—maybe the guy is, you know, maybe the guy is just kind of…I dunno, doing his thing, you know… I mean, I’m hoping—hopefully nothing terrible actually happened at all, but—but it was definitely kind of a weird, like, middle of the night experience. Um, and a lot of weird stuff has happened near that house. So… Yeah.”

Me: “Why do you think you guys have so much fun saying it? Or like sharing it—spreading it around?”

Informant: “I don’t know. Part of me sort of feels like it’s irresponsible because if we actually did think that someone had been murdered there then we should try and so something about it. And I don’t—I don’t anybody, like, fully believes that anything bad happened there, because otherwise, it would be really serious and we wouldn’t laugh about it. But I think that just because, um… You know, like, DPS doesn’t really patrol up there and while I—while I feel, like, really safe in the neighborhood, there is sometimes some kind of weird stuff that goes on, like, you know people get arrested. Like yesterday I was walking to the bus and on the corner of my street there were two guys in handcuffs, and it’s just kind of like, that’s just the way it is. And I don’t really feel, like, you know, unsafe about it—like just that kind of stuff happens. Um, and so…People, I don’t—I think that if we thought it were true, it’d be really serious, but it’s almost like a way for us to make fun of, like, the unpredictability of, like, the community. [Laughs.] I mean, like, you guys—you know what I mean by…I don’t know. Sort of like the random kind of weird stuff that happens up there, but we can kind of give a name to it, but calling this one house the murder house and kind of… I think by, like, giving stuff—I don’t know, sort of like… In some way it also makes the neighborhood feel like our home as well, because we sort of have started assigning names to certain things and certain places, like, you know, we know that Thursday nights, like the helicopter ratio is so much higher than it is normal nights [Laughs]. And we don’t really know why, but we’re all kind of used to it at that point. Um, and—I don’t know. I just feel like it’s sort of part of making that place your home—you start personalizing things…Yeah.”

– End Transcript – 

My informant did a fairly thorough job of explaining the significance of this joke/urban legend. In part though, it does also seem to speak to the relationship between the USC students and the surrounding neighborhood. In particular, and as my friend hinted at, the fact that the university is located in South Central Los Angeles in an environment where the sound of police sirens is part of the norm. There is therefore an understandable interest and also a kind of a fascination that exists regarding  crimes that take place in the area, which is partly why people spread these stories around and share these kinds of jokes. In some ways then, a joke like the “murder house” works to reinforce this perception of the place, while simultaneously acting as a way of “making this place your home,” as my informant discussed. Adding on to this, when people from outside the area come to visit her, she does share this little joke with them, as she points out the “landmarks” of her neighborhood.

Ogopogo: Canada’s Loch Ness Monster

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15, 2013
Primary Language: English

Contextual Data: After talking about how birthdays were celebrated in Canada, I asked my friend if there were any other “kooky” Canadian traditions or stories. She mentioned that there was this one story she had heard growing up about the “Canadian Loch Ness Monster.” I asked her to tell me more about it, and the following is an exact transcript of her response.

Informant: “Okay, um. So… My relatives all live in Canada, and ay aunt and uncle—well, a lot of my relatives live in British Colombia—um, my aunt and uncle live in Kelowna, which is like a small city. And it’s around a lake. The city is built around a lake called Lake Okanagan. Um…O-K-A-N-A-G-A-N. And, so it’s like… Obviously there’s lots of First Nations people around the area—they actually own a lot the land in Kewlona. So I think it’s like—I don’t actually know really where the story comes from, but there’s lots of, like, myths about the lake and stuff. Um, and the big one is that there’s sort of like a Loch Ness Monster type creature living in Okanagan called Ogopogo, which is an anagram I guess—like the same spelled backwards. It’s just like a a…Just um… The myth is that there’s like this friendly monster with kind of like a serpent, but really big with lots of humps, and um, there’s a statue of it, like, in the town, and stuff. It’s in like children’s books—like everyone knows about Ogopogo. And um, it’s sort of like the mascot of Kewlona, and so there’s all these, like—throughout the times where people claim to have seen it, and like, kind of like, what’s it called [Snaps]… Bigfoot, where they’ll be like this shadowy picture and it’ll be like, ‘See that’s Bigfoot.’ It’s the same with Ogopogo. They’ll be like, ‘That’s Ogopogo right there.’ And it’s like, ‘Where?’ [Laughs.] Like, it’s not exactly—it’s very unclear. And so a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, it’s just two logs’ or ‘That’s just…It’s obviously not real.’ But, um… It’s still like a really big mascot—All the kids in Kewlona know about it…Oh! Not an anagram. A palindrome. Ogopogo is a palindrome. The same forward as it is backward [Laughs].”

Me: “And it’s supposed to be a friendly monster?”

Informant: “It’s a friendly monster, yeah… So it’s—In all the depictions I’ve seen of it. I had little books growing up with like Ogopogo. Like my aunt will give me like Ogopogo or a work of Ogopogo being a friendly monster and guiding boats in the ocean or stuff like that.”

– End Transcript – 

My friend really wasn’t too sure about why people might feel inclined to share this story or perpetuate this legend.

One thought is that it might have to do with the element of the unknown that exists with lakes and other such bodies of water—people can’t see too far below the surface, and so they may invent stories about what exists below, or they might catch glimpses of creatures that they are unfamiliar with and don’t know how to describe, and so they create stories about what they are. The fact that Ogopogo is a friendly monster could speak to the relationship that people in Okanagan feel to the place and to the land—they don’t perceive it as dangerous or threatening, in spite of the fact that what lies beneath the surface of the lake is unknown; they perhaps perceive that whatever is on the other side of this unknown is something positive.

From the sound of it though, Ogopogo also seems very much to be a part of the tourist culture of Kewlona—especially given this idea that it is the town’s mascot. Part of Ogopogo’s prominence in the town could therefore be the residents of the town taking control of this legendary creature as a point of pride and as a way of asserting their identity and identifying what might make Kewlona and the Lake Okanagan area special.

Annotation: http://books.google.com/books?id=EeuXEVththwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
The legend was used as the basis for a mystery in one of the installments of the Boxcar Children series (#108: The Creature in Ogopogo Lake). Part of story touches upon the tourist culture around the monster, as people travel to “Ogopogo Resort” to catch sight of the it, but it also taps into this idea of the unknown as the monster becomes a part of the mystery. It thus seems to touch upon two key reasons as to why the legend is sustained.

Saint Martin’s Day

Nationality: German
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/7/13
Primary Language: English

MATERIAL

 

“On November 11th, we celebrate Saint Martin’s Day. Now, we just have a big dinner that night with whoever is home. I have 3 younger sisters, but one of my sisters and I are already in college, so we don’t go home for it. So, it’s just my parents and two youngest sisters that celebrate it. It’s not as big of a deal to us now as my dad told me it was to his family growing up in Germany. It is a holiday that ends with a huge feast, usually with a cooked goose, at dinnertime. Before November 11th, the children all build their own lanterns. There are lantern parades in towns and cities all over the place, kind of like America on Thanksgiving or St. Patrick’s Day. Sometimes, onlookers will give the children candy. I want to go to Germany to observe this holiday at least once in my life.”

 

ANALYSIS

 

Saint Martin’s Day celebrates Saint Martin of Tours, the third Bishop of Tours. He is remembered as a very altruistic man who, as legend recalls, saved a homeless man in the middle of winter from freezing to death by giving him his cloak. Now, the tradition is to mainly eat a goose at dinnertime, which even in America, my informant’s family adheres to. This is due to honoring the tradition of payday, which in the medieval tax system in Germany, was November 11. Tax debts were usually paid with a goose and so nowadays, Saint Martin’s memory is celebrated by eating a goose with the whole family. One good thing about customs and traditions aimed toward young children is that the customs become ingrained in their mind, even if they don’t know the meanings behind them. However, as they grow older, they will discover the meanings and that will give their favorite traditions some background and make it all the more special. It is a good way to teach children about their culture in a fun way. My informant even stated that she would like to go to Germany, where her father was born, to observe this holiday and join in on the festivities.

Dragon Boat Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/7/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

MATERIAL

 

每年的五月初五是“端午节”，这一天的主要活动是吃粽子，赛龙舟，挂菖蒲，喝雄黄酒等。吃粽子和赛龙舟源于纪念古代爱国诗人屈原。屈原因为愤恨当时腐败的政府而投江自尽，人民爱戴他，不想看到他真的死去，所有大家划龙舟去追赶他；又把粽子投到江中，希望水里的鱼吃粽子而不去吃他。挂菖蒲和喝雄黄酒是为了辟邪。

 

On the fifth day of the lunar calendar, there is the Dragon Boat Festival. The main activities of this day include eating zongzi (a traditional Chinese food made of glutinous rice and filled with different fillings such as eggs and meat), dragon boat racing, hanging a special plant, and drinking special wine. Eating zongzi and dragon boat racing is to celebrate the memory of the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan resented the corrupt Chinese government and so jumped into the river to commit suicide. However, the people really loved him and did not want to see him die, so they raced boats out onto the river to try to rescue him. They threw zongzi into the river in hopes that the fish would eat them instead of the body of Qu Yuan. Hanging the special plant and drinking the special wine is to ward off evil spirits.

 

ANALYSIS

 

My informant did a great job in explaining the symbolism of the different aspects of the Dragon Boat Festival in her retelling of the tradition to me. She grew up in America, but her family still makes zongzi during the Spring Festival to pay homage to the tradition. Although she had visited China once and observed the dragon boat racing tradition, she was very young and barely remembers it. She would like to go back to see it again. However, growing up, her mom had always told her the story of Qu Yuan, so eating zongzi always reminds her of his story and of the reason why zongzi and dragon boat racing is so important to the Spring Festival holiday season.

Hiding Valuables on St. Patrick’s Day

Nationality: Irish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/10/13
Primary Language: English

MATERIAL

 

“On St. Patrick’s Day, you hide all of your valuables. This is the day that the leprechauns come out and get revenge on people who have been bad for the previous year. It is kind of like Santa in the sense that you’re supposed to be good all year so that the leprechauns don’t have an incentive take your stuff.”

 

ANALYSIS

 

Leprechauns first emerged in Irish folklore in medieval times and have since been a staple of Irish culture everywhere. Leprechauns are said to enjoy playing practical jokes, such as stealing valuable items. Sometimes, leprechauns are believed to be fairies with evil spirits. However, this creature has developed into one that will steal your valuables on Saint Patrick’s Day only if you were bad the previous year. So, it is an incentive for younger children to be good year round so that their valuables aren’t “stolen”. My informant remembers that when she was younger, sometimes her parents would take something her or her siblings really loved if they were bad in the days leading up to Saint Patrick’s Day, only to blame it on the leprechauns. As she grew older, even though she stopped believing in leprechauns, her and her family would still hide some of their valuables just because it had become tradition.