Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Legend- Puerto Rico (Chupacabra)

Nationality: Puerto Rican/American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Legend: There’s a creature that lives in the wild, called the Chupacabra, or goat-sucker, that comes out at night to prey upon all kinds of livestock (not just goats, but also cows, for example) in Puerto Rico. The creature comes from some kind of area where it can be easily hidden like a forest. Oftentimes, farmers will come out early in the morning to find one of their livestock dead and the markings of the dead livestock will have two deep puncture wounds that look like they were created by big fangs. All that is left of the animal is a carcass completely sucked dry of its blood, and with all other parts of its flesh left intact. It’s believed that the creature is “vampiric” in nature: it needs blood in order to sustain itself. It has fangs and glowing eyes.

The informant is uncertain whether the Chupacabra is only believed to exist in Puerto Rico or in other countries as well, and thinks that other features may be added to it, which vary according to the person telling the story. Some of these features, which he believes may also be included and that he may have heard of, include horns, wings, and a distinct howl. The informant learned the legend of the Chupacabra from his mother, who was born in Puerto Rico, during childhood, perhaps around 7 years of age. He is pretty sure the story was told to him while visiting grandparents in Puerto Rico, probably late at night, and in a cautionary way (“Look-out for the Chupacabra; he may get you!”).

The legend of the Chupacabra would be told at night in Puerto Rico. It is probably told most often to children to prevent them from being bad (“Don’t do this or the Chupacabra will get you”), but could also be told to an older individual. According to the informant, besides this, there is “no purpose to the legend” and he doesn’t “see what farmers have to gain by telling a story about the Chupacabra.” He doesn’t think the story has any literal truth, and he notes that the Chupacabra “hasn’t been scientifically proven to exist.” He supposes that it may in fact be some other type of animal, such as “a mountain lion or coyote.” He thinks that this legend puts Puerto Rico “on the radar” and “adds tradition” to Puerto Rico which “otherwise is a region of the world that many people don’t care much about.” The main use of the story, however, the informant reiterates, is probably to scare children.

Though the informant states at one point that he doesn’t think the legend of the Chupacabra serves any purpose, he does offer two distinct and, in my opinion, quite plausible reasons for why the story is continually told: first, that the scary figure of the Chupacabra can serve as a way to prevent bad behavior among impressionable children and second, that the story can be a way of distinguishing Puerto Rico, perhaps an otherwise small and insignificant country, as the place where this extraordinary creature exists. To this latter understanding I think it may also be added that the Chupacabra legend can provide a way of consolidating identity for Puerto Ricans and knowledge or lack thereof of the story provides an easy way of figuring out if one is an insider (a Puerto Rican, or someone of similar heritage), or a nescient (at least with respect to this common story) outsider. Likewise, his other reason for why the story is told—namely, to frighten misbehaving children, or to prevent future misconduct—seems to me to be just as practical and probable reason to pass along the Chupacabra legend. I can, for instance, remember my own parents reminding my young sister every time we passed an old, dilapidated house that it was inhabited by an old witch who, much like the Chupacabra, would come and take her from us if she didn’t behave.

One respect in which I disagree with the informant’s understanding of the legend involves his statement that Puerto Rican farmers (who he believes are the originators of the story) would have no reason to invent the insidious figure of the Chupacabra. The problem with this, first, is that by stating this he assumes that Puerto Rican farmers could (and did) only conjure up this tale in order to serve some hidden agenda, and thus envisions that the story could only be a rather less than ingenious (since it serves no purpose) ploy used by a lot of conspiring farmers. It seems clear that the informant resorts to an interpretation of the story’s origin whereby it must have been made-up by farmers for a certain reason because he views the legend of the Chupacabra as quite patently false; put otherwise, because the story is false, there must have been some other motive for the farmers’ telling it, since it could not be on account of its truth. Here, I think the informant misses an important and quite likely possibility for the origin of the story which seems common to the genesis of many legends, namely, that the beings and events they invoke serve some type of explanatory purpose; they are often extraordinary precisely because the phenomena they are meant to elucidate cannot be understood in terms of what is merely ordinary.  If viewed in this way, the legend could have a very real, and in no way conniving, purpose which was only for farmers to explain why their livestock were being consumed in such a peculiar manner.

Annotation:

Radford, Benjamin. Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. University of New Mexico Press, 2011.

Look Under Your Car

Nationality: American, German
Age: 24
Occupation: Mother
Residence: Cardiff by the Sea, California
Performance Date: 4/24/11
Primary Language: English

“At gas station late one night, a woman was pumping her gas.  She ran inside to grab a pack of gum and when she returned to get in her car … a man underneath her can slit her Achilles tendon so she could not run away.  And then he killed her.  So that’s why you should always make sure no one’s under you car or anything like that.”

The informant heard this story from her physics teacher. Her physics teacher would pinch people ankles in the bathroom stall next to her and then tell them the story.  The informant thinks about it all the time, and she says that if she knew the person in the bathroom stall next to her she would too pinch their ankles and tell them the story.  And she always check under her bed and car to make sure someone is not hiding under there.

This legend is so scary because everyone goes to the gas station.  This is a place one cannot get out of going to.  When the informant told me this, I found myself, for the next few days, looking under my car before I got in.  This story could easily happen and may have already happened.  Another frightening part of this story is that the victim cannot run away.

Dog Licking Hand at Night

Nationality: American, German
Age: 24
Occupation: Mother
Residence: Cardiff by the Sea, California
Performance Date: 4/24/11
Primary Language: English

“One night this woman was sleeping in her bed, and she felt her dog lickin her hand but didn’t do anything about it.  And the next morning after her shower, she sees written on the mirror, “Humans can lick too.”

The informant heard this during middle school at a slumber party.  It was shared when other scary stories were being told.  She says that she never leaves her limbs off the bed.

This is a very scary story because you are in the comfort of your own home and you assume it to be your dog but in actuality is a weird person in your home.  I think this legend is possible. Although this is a very creepy thing to happen, it is still plausible.  The idea of things being written in a bathroom mirror appears throughout folklore, literature, and movies.

Muslim Fable- Caliph Umar bin al-Khattab and his Slave

Nationality: Egyptian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 28, 2011
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English, French

The informant is a nineteen-year old student born in Australia who’s lived in Egypt for two years, England for two years, Jordan for four years, Egypt for two years, India for four years and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA for university.  He is the son of an Egyptian ambassador and speaks Arabic, English and French. He shall be referred to as SH. SH explains that there are a series of fables relating to Caliph Umar bin al-Khattab, mostly morality tales telling of his incredible sense of justness that is admired widely by Muslims. He details that he learned these orally from relatives when he was growing up. Here, he tells one that features the Khalifa entering the newly conquered city of Jerusalem:

SH: He, I believe like, they, this Caliph had actually, um, taken Jerusalem, and so he was traveling to Jerusalem to sort of like enter the city and one of the things he did, for example, was he would switch off between him and his slave, like, they were on a camel traveling the desert to Jerusalem and that’s when he would enter the city as the Caliph and sort of like, I dunno, I’m not sure exactly what that would entail. But he would enter the city so he was switching between him and his slave uh, you know, and, uh, at some point they were about to reach Jerusalem and it was the slaves turn to, you know, ride the camel so the slave tells him ‘you’re the Caliph, you can’t enter Jerusalem except on the camel’ and he says ‘no, no, it was your turn,’ so he enters Jerusalem, you know, holding the camel while the slave’s sitting on top of the camel, so that’s, you know, very fair, very just. This tale exhibits justness to the point of almost-shocking regal humility. While the Caliph is obviously ranked above his slave, he insists on allowing him his proper turn on the camel. As the relative of an important figure, SH heard this story within the context of relatives telling him about leadership. Aside from being an incredibly generous gesture to the slave, it is a very public gesture of his greater devotion to fairness than to his own high ranking. By my own analysis, I feel that this gesture would have seemed even more shocking in that time period. Today, if a president were seen letting an assistant drive his car, this would be worthy of great media attention. The social class difference between a Caliph and slave would be far greater, thus dramatizing the Caliph’s generous nature. By publicly entering the city this way, I feel the story is saying that such an expression was made to set a widespread example, which is clearly demonstrated by the story’s continued popularity in Muslim culture. Thus, listeners should take away that justness and fairness should always be practiced, even in the face of public scrutiny. Annotation: Mukarram, Ahmed M., and Muzaffar Husain Syed. Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2005. Google Books. A similar version of this story appears in an account of the history of Islam. In this version, the Caliph responds to the slave’s offer to ride with, “The honour of Islam (i.e. being Muslim) is enough for all of us.” This story also extends past SH’s version, as it includes the Caliph becoming angry at the Muslim commanders in the city for wearing expensive clothing and not living humbly as demanded by their religion. While still suggestive of great justness and humility, this story also shows a darker side of the Caliph and does not function as well as a fable. The focus of SH’s telling on the Caliph and the slave emphasizes humility in relations with others as opposed to engagement in an opulent lifestyle, thus serving as a better fable about leadership.

Ghost Story

Nationality: American
Residence: IL
Performance Date: 12 April 2011
Primary Language: English

” In St. Charles, Illinois, there is a very fancy hotel on the west side of the river, right downtown on Main Street. The facade is done in a faux-spanish style with a terracotta roof and beautiful painted tiles. Inside, the whole lobby and the ballroom is made a gleaming marble; they are separated by a short flight of stairs and a wall of doors that are always open.  Way back when, a family was staying in the hotel. There was a mother and a father and a little boy that came to the hotel every year in the summer. The little boy used to play in the lobby and the ballroom with his ball. He would roll it down the stairs, and watch it bounce on each step, boing, boing, boing. But one time when he was running down the stairs after the ball he tripped and broke his neck on the marble.  His mother threw herself into the river in grief not long after, and his father only lasted a few years before he also killed himself. To this day, on afternoons in the summer, you can hear the ball bouncing down the stairs. You might see a man and a women standing next to each other in the ballroom, watching the stairs.”

Dawn heard this story when she was 17 and, although it is set in the town where she grew up, she heard it from her manager at a shoe store one town away.

Research failed to turn up this exact story, but there are records of another haunted hotel story in St. Charles that shares some similarities with this one.
From http://www.ghosttraveller.com/Illinois.htm:” As the story goes, a chambermaid was thrown over by her lover, also an employee of  the hotel.  When he left her cold after a bad night of poker, she cried for days and days, finally drowning herself in the shallow Fox river behind the hotel.  Her cries are reportedly still heard by guests to the upscale establishment, and she likes to mess up the sheets once in awhile.”
That story is also documented in About.com’s Haunted Hotel Guide: http://hotels.about.com/od/hauntedhotelsatoz/p/hau_hotellbaker.htm

It is possible that the original ghost story was simply modified into a macabre cautionary tale about what happens when parents leave their children unattended. However, St. Charles, IL hosts ghost tours that are based out of the St. Charles Historical society, so it would seem that there are a plethora of ghosts to be found, and this story could be a distinct, but less-documented one.