Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Origin of the last name Biaz

Nationality: Moroccan
Age: 18
Occupation: Film student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish

My informant was born in Fez, Morocco, then moved to the United States, and then moved back to Morocco but to the mountains when he was five years old. He attended high school in Auburn, Alabama. My informant told me stories about the origin of his last name, how is family got to Morocco, folklore stories about his family, and a family superstition. All three stories that I collected were passed down from father to son to father to son, my informant being the son. My informant’s father, who is one of twelve children in his family, became the active bearer of this family lore. My informant is the only son in his family, so he commented that he will be the active bearer after his father passes. My informant speaks French at home, and these stories were translated from French to English. The setting is an apartment bedroom in Los Angeles.

Informant: The origin of my last name/family.  So this is the story because the Biazes have long been just father son father son father son so the stories have been passed down pretty well. And pretty consistently from father to son. And also because before my grandfather no Biaz had ever had more than 2-3 children which is actually kind of atypical in Morroccan family. SO because of that we had a very small family so it was very easy to track our history. SO, what happened was that sometime in the very very distant past, a sultan in Persia wanted to offer a gift to some nobility in Spain and he decided to send him these birds of prey mainly falcons to be trained to send messages. But with the falcons, he sent a trainer and that trainer is called a Biaz because falcons are called “baz” in the English transliteration of the Arabic word. So that is what happened and of course at this time, people were known by their occupation which was essentially his last name. And he had a family and for a couple hundred years our family was in Spain, and then the Reconquista happened. And that pushed a lot of the Arabs down to Morocco so that’s how we ended up in Morocco, which is wear we are to this day. So we started in Persia, stayed in Spain for a long time, then pushed down to Morocco. And all through this time we remained birds of prey trainer. I think we even had a family crest. And then we were in Fez Morocco ever since. And that’s where I was born.

Me: So those stories were passed down from father to son-father to son? What was the first time you heard this story?

Informant: The first time I heard the family origin story was years and year  and years ago. I don’t remember. I think I’ve always known that story.

This story is important to my informant because it is the story of the origin of his family’s name. He says that when the topic of names comes up, he always has a good story to tell, while some of his friends have no idea where their names come from. He also validates the family stories by the fact that they were passed down father to son for many generations. The small size of his family also makes it easy to pass down.

Orange Blossom- Family Superstition

Nationality: Moroccan
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish

Informant: My next story is relatively recent. So, my grandfather, he had an older brother who is much, significantly older than him. Like, old enough that his nephews were in some cases older than him. And what happened was that the land when their father died, the land was divided in two between the two brothers. My grandfather and his older brother. But multiple families were living on this land. Because my grandfather’s older brother had two sons, so now the people who were living on this land, my grandfather, his older brother and his families and my grandfather had just gotten there. So he only had a wife, he didn’t have any kinds. While half the family had 3 families on it, and one half had just a couple. And what had happened was so on the land that we had. We had a lot of orange trees and the thing that Moroccans really love is orange trees and Moroccans like the extract from orange blossoms. That’s something they did a lot of, was sell these orange blossoms that are used to get an extract that is used for cooking, for perfume, or plenty of things. So when the harvest happened and they got all their orange blossoms, the family on the other side of the land, because we have 4 or 5 families, we should divide them evenly. It’s not fair. When Technically my grandfather had the right to claim half of the harvest because he had half the land. But they were like no, because you are just a young guy with a wife. And his mother realized that there could be a lot of family drama and she did not want that to happen. So she told my grandfather, “look, just let them have it. That’s what’s going to happen. People are going to cheat you all the time.” And she created this rule that no Biaz should ever extract orange blossoms on their own. Like you should always get it from outside. So even though we harvest and have orange blossoms, the rule was not to use it for our own, so just to sell it and go buy it if we needed it. To avoid family drama. And its true, it did avoid the family drama and things were fine and his wife who respected that tradition, that rule. Because a lot of Moroccan wives like to do it, they like to create the extract themselves, like this is mine. And she was like I respect that, I won’t do that. She respected it, but then his second wife, who is my grandmother did not. And she started doing it in secret and she wanted to have her own orange blossom. She was like “No, this is stupid that some lady some time said we should do this.” So when that happened, let me think, where was I… She started doing it in secret. And then there was this, some sort of celebration, I think it was someone’s wedding. She was doing it in secret and she did it one night when my grandfather was off at work. she did it all, she got it all prepared and then the next day, when everyone was having the festivities, my dad, who was the youngest of 12, was 2 or 3 at the time and so he was just wandering around into the kitchen. And there was a large kettle of boiling water on the stove and somehow, somehow, it fell on him. And burned a good portion of his leg. And it was pretty severe burns. And he still has scars form it. And my grandmother flipped out and she assumed that it had something to do with her. She just blamed herself, and felt terrible about it. And she thought okay this must be related, and she never again extracted orange blossoms in secrete. Not only that, but when she got older and all of her sons got married, she made sure to tell every single one of their lives not to do orange blossoms. So to this day, no Biaz does any orange blossom extracts, even though we still have orange trees and orange blossoms.

Me: So what is the orange blossom extract?

Informant: Its like orange blossom, so its like a flower. On orange trees you have fruit, so we have oranges. They create an extract and create an extract out of it. And it’s a liquid and they love it for a bunch of things. They use it for food, cooking, and it smells really good. And they use it for perfume.

Me: When did you hear this story?

Informant: I was in twelfth grade.

Me: Why were you told? Why did it come up?

Informant: We just can’t make that even though we have it. Even the people that live there now, they are distant relatives, they still can’t.

Me: Is your dad scared of orange blossoms now because they burned him?

Informant: (laughs) My dad kind of thinks its amusing. But, but, there are some of his sisters in law who are scared.

Me: Do they want to extract orange blossoms? Why do people want to do that in Morocco?

Informant: Because it is fun, it is something that is your own. And you can have it around the house. And its not always the same, depending on how you prepare it. Its kind of like a dish. Like how certain families eat certain things. Like, “my mom makes it this way and its really nice” so its just kind of their own flavor, you know what I mean.

Me: Did some of their wives, they used to not make it and now they cant?

Informant: Some of them yes.

: Why do you tell that story? Or any of these stories that you have told me

Informant: Well, so my dad is the youngest of 12, but he is the one that tells the stories the most. And they say that he is always telling stories, and most of the stories that he tells me, my cousins don’t know because their fathers don’t tell them. Or they just don’t talk about it. And I think that it is, it is just aw ay for me, after having moved away, to kind of get back. And they say that there is always, that even back, the Biazes, there has always been a son who kind of becomes the storyteller. That’s the one who passes it along. So I guess this time it is my dad. So he took it upon himself.

Me: So now it’s on you, because you have no brothers right?

Informant: So now it’s on me, yes. All the stories. I do like listening to the stories.

This collection was very rich in that I not only got a story, but a story that developed into a strong family superstition. This item is a narrative and a superstition. No one in the Biaz family extracts orange blossoms to this day, because of this story. My informants grandmother made sure to tell every one of her daughter in-laws that they can never extract orange blossoms, and this is actually followed in their family. From this collection, I also learned a lot about Moroccan culture, and the importance of orange blossom extraction. The preparation of the orange extracts is also another form of folklore. My informant told me how Moroccan women love to do this because they can make it their own creation and use it for different things. However, in this family, this traditional practice is banned. The point my informant makes about the passing down of the stories is also important. My informant’s very distant family (see other entries) were very small, so he confirms that the accuracy of the stories by saying they were all passed down “father to son, father to son.” My informant’s father was the youngest son, and my informant notes that he is the one that knows all of the stories and tells them. My informant, being the only son in his family, will be the next active bearer. My informant shares these stories because they are funny and interesting, but also are important to him personally because they involve his ancestors.

The Story of the World’s Smallest Church

Nationality: Bohemian, 1/4 German
Age: 74
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Benson, MN
Performance Date: March 19, 2013
Primary Language: English

The “Smallest Church in the World,” St. Anthony of Padua Chapel is in Winneshiek County, Iowa. It is a Catholic church and seats eight people. My informant, who is my Grandfather, told me the story of how the world’s smallest church came to be, which we had a family reunion at a couple years ago. The setting of the interview is my informant’s living room in a small town of Benson, MN. The “third party” was my Grandmother interjecting into the conversation.  My informant is very interested in family history, so he visits people in various towns and looks up archives to collect the family stories. He has been accumulating more stories and more details of the stories since my mother was a young girl. The conversation is as follows:

Me: Wait, do you know the story of the smallest church?

Third person: We’ve been there.

Informant: I don’t know if Rebecca has been there has she?

Me: Yes I have for the family Reunion. Anyways, what was the story of St. Anthony?

Informant: The story of Saint Anthony was uh, there was this guy, whos mothers said, uh what was his name…Gaertner. Johann Gaertner. He was drafted into the army with Napoleon, he was only 16 years old. But he was a rather big guy, 6 foot tall. So they made him a military police to take care of Napoleon when he was out and about. Anyways, his mother said that if he came back safely, she would build a chapel in honor of our lady. Well, he did come home from the war safely, she never built the chapel, he immigrated to the united states and his daughter said when he was 90 years old that, “you better get that chapel built before you die” and so that’s how we got the chapel built. He donated the first money and the stone, and… And uh they got the chapel built in fulfillment of his mother’s promise. And then they named it, they asked what should we name it? And some priest said, “well, name if after your alleged relative St. Anthony. Your [Rebecca’s] ancestor. So that’s what they did. And every year on the feast day of June 16th or whatever day St. Anthony is they have an annual meeting. So if you want to go down next year, I might be going! That was the story! Yep. They were supposed to build a chapel in honor of our lady and so the daughter is the one that got it done, not the mother.

Me: The daughter of the guy?

Informant: Yes the daughter of the guy. And 5 years ago, some relatives from Minneapolis came down with a gun… that this guy used in the Napoleonic War. So that was kind of interesting. It wasn’t a hand gun, it was a long riffle kind of a thing.

My informant tells this story because he is interested in history, but most importantly because it tells of our family history. He is the one person in the family that knows everything about our family history. He researches our ancestries and makes family trees as well as visit historical sites in various cities to find documents and records or certain events. This is difficult to do because our family is from a small town in Iowa, and we are not in any way famous so the stories are not well documented. My informant heard this story from his mother. My informant also modifies the stories as he learns more information. This is an example of family lore; my family even had a family reunion at the site of the church. My informant tells these stories to his children, in laws, nieces, and nephews when they visit Iowa and we all share the stories with each other. Most of my family knows this story, or at least that we are connected to the church, but my informant is definitely the active bearer; he is the one that we verify the facts with in any family story.

The “Playoff Beard”

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 39
Occupation: Business Analyst
Residence: Wayzata, MN
Performance Date: 3/20/13
Primary Language: English

My informant was a competitive hockey player his entire adolescence and was raised in Elk River Minnesota, a hockey powerhouse. He played Division 1 hockey until an injury caused him to transfer schools where he played Division 3 hockey. His father has been a prominent boys hockey coach and local legend in the state of Minnesota for 26 years.

The “playoff beard” is a tradition that hockey players do where they stop shaving when they enter the play-offs and do not shave again until the team is out of the tournament (or wins). Which results in the stereotypical scruff, mustaches, goatees, or out of control hair seen in hockey players. The playoff beard is a unique practice of the National Hockey League during the Stanley Cup playoffs but has spread to being performed in high school and NCAA teams. My informant participated in this tradition during his time as a hockey player, and noted its importance to the hockey community. My informant said that that they do it “because of superstition.” The tradition started in the 1980s by the New York Islanders, and has grown to be a trademark of hockey.

From personal experience, I have witnessed my high school’s hockey team grow out their facial hair and refuse haircuts when the state tournament came around. Upon my own research, I found that some teams do it to have a sense of team unity. An example of this is seen when the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team all bleached their hair blonde in the 2006-07 post-season. A high school tennis team all gave themselves Mohawks for their trip to the state tournament as well. The growing of hair and beards has been seen in other sports such as tennis, basketball, and football in high school teams or individual athletes. It has also spread to philanthropic organizations such as “Beard-A-Thon” that raises money for each team in the Stanley Cup’s charity, and to the development of the “fan beard,” where fans grow beards to support their team.

Gloomy Sunday

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 11, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Do you know about ‘Gloomy Sunday?’”

Me: “No, what is it?”

Informant: “It’s a song, I think by a Hungarian or a European composer. Yeah, Hungarian, because they also call it the Hungarian Suicide Song. And the composer, there’s a story about him, that after writing it, he killed himself and it goes that if you listen to the song for too long, you’ll commit suicide too because it’s like so sad.

Billie Holiday did like a jazzier version of it; it’s not so depressing, and no one obviously is scared of killing themselves from that one.”

Me: “Where’d you hear about it?”

Informant: “I heard about it in high school. Someone just like, played that song for us and a bunch of people freaked out But there’s been a lot of reports about people dying when they hear that song, or they’ll die like holding the sheet music or something like that. And I think the composer himself did jump or a building, I think because um, he had never achieved any greatness after that one hit he had with ‘Gloomy Sunday.’”

Me: “Were you ever scared of the song’s legend?”

Informant: “Not really. Like, I believed that people would maybe commit suicide after listening to it, but I think they felt like that before and they just sort of got pushed over the edge after listening to this sad song over and over again on repeat.”

Analysis:

The fact that song with Hungarian origins managed to travel all the way to a Chinese school playground proves that children love to scare each other. There is something tantalizing about hearing a legend such as this one, and it naturally creates a environment in which students would dare each other to listen to the song. Competitions could arise perhaps, to see who can withstand listening to the sad song for the longest period of time, or as was the case with my informant, students would just play “Gloomy Sunday” to others in order to frighten them.

If the background of the song was only that the composer had committed suicide, then perhaps its folklore would not be so scary. But as it spread around the world, “Gloomy Sunday” naturally accumulated urban legends that either existed before and became tied to it, or were invented along with the song. Once a person hears that many people have committed suicide directly because one eerie song, then it’s certainly terrifying. When my informant was telling me about it, she herself seemed to mystify the song, almost revering its power in a way. She may have been putting on a show to scare me, in which case it certainly worked, or she herself had some lingering fears from when she first heard about it. Either way, I became too nervous to play the song even though I had originally wanted to hear what exactly made it so depressing.

This Hungarian song isn’t the only song or object that has been claimed to have the power to make people suicidal. There have been pictures that supposedly have a influence on people similar to “Gloomy Sunday,” and even a whole forest, the Aokigahara forest inJapan, has that sort of sway. The forest is one of the most popular places for suicides, and this leads to many urban and ghost stories about the place. Yet one must wonder, does the forest, or the picture, or song actually force people to kill themselves, or are suicidal people drawn to these objects regardless? Most likely, as “Gloomy Sunday” and the Aokigahara forest draw more attention, they will be credited for more deaths, and the cycle will continue.

The way to break this seemingly endless sequence is indeed by lightening the mood. Either the song can be used as a playground game or it can be rewritten into a more cheery melody, the way my informant says Billie Holiday did. No one will link Billie Holiday’s adaptation to mysterious deaths, and that will limit the legends, and potentially, if they really are true, the suicides themselves.