Category Archives: Myths

Sacred narratives

Hou Yi and Chang’e Legend

Context: The informant is a 21 year old USC student and the daughter of two Taiwanese immigrants. She told me that she was definitely missing some details, but this is the story she learned growing up about the origins of the Mid-Autumn festival. The following are her exact words.

“So, there’s a couple, right, and the guy has like superhero strength – warrior vibes. At the time, there were 10 suns in the sky, and they were so hot that they were burning everything up, so he shot 9 of them out of the sky, leaving only one behind. As a reward, some higher power gave him this magic potion to make him stronger, but in the middle of the night, the day before he was meant to take it, his enemy poisoned it. For some reason, he still wanted to take it, so before he could, his wife drank the whole thing to save him. She ended up floating up into the moon, and so during the Mid-Autumn festival, because the moon is full, people say you can still see her silhouette up there.”

After doing some research, I found out that this is known as the story of Hou Yi and Chang’e, an immortal archer and his wife, the moon goddess before the latter becomes the moon goddess; this seems as if it would count as a mythic narrative. Not only is this the origin story of the sun, but it’s also the origin of the designs present on the moon. There’s a pretty common history of humans seeing faces where there are none (tree trunks) and looking at the moon would reasonably yield the same result. It’s not a story that anyone thinks could have happened, but also not a story that one would disagree with, considering the nature of it. Interestingly, there’s multiple different versions of this story online, including ones where Hou Yi goes mad with power rather than having his elixir poisoned and instead Chang’e must protect others by acting against him. It would be interesting to see if these differences revealed anything about typical historical conflicts that a certain region might have faced or a regional variation in values that might have caused this oicotypical difference.

Nigerian Burial Myth

“God was like, to this one dog – cause everyone lived together in a realm or whatever – he was like “dude, go fetch the bones of these little guys to ensure that once they die, they do the little cycle and they come back here” – it’s like a loop. And the dog is like, well let me just go ask this one random sheep to do the work for me. But that doesn’t work out well, cause the sheep is just fucking tired and lazy as hell apparently. And so that disrupts the connection between everyone, being like, in harmony with each other because they couldn’t bury the people’s bones. I think what happened is that it created the separation between the creator and his creations, and condemned the people to mortality, so they couldn’t do the loop.”

Context: The teller attributes their knowledge of the story to their Nigerian mother, who offhandedly and vaguely mentioned the story in a conversation. The teller then individually did their own research into the details of the myth through the internet out of personal curiosity. The story was told to me in a casual conversational context after I asked if they knew of any legends, myths, or stories that they could tell me. 

Analysis: The narrative presented here acts as a creation myth that works to explain the nature of human mortality and separation from the gods as well as provide reasoning for traditional burial practices. The teller does not give a specific identity to the main God, but the identities of the other figures are attributed to specific animals. While the teller originally learns of this myth from a parent, in order to gain the full story, the teller had to seek a full understanding of the story through the Internet. Their process of learning of the story points to the new role that the internet plays in the transmission of myths and other folk narrative through generations and populations; in order to gain the full picture of a particular narrative, individuals may be more inclined to look towards sources on the internet to confirm their understanding of the narrative or fill in the holes of areas that they may have missed. Even so, the telling of the myth still manages to change as it is reconveyed through human speech, and the teller chooses to focus on specific aspects of the story over the other. When comparing the teller’s version of the story to the source that they provided as a reference (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/burydead.html), it is clear that the details and styles are changed, though the core points of the story are still conveyed due to the specific sequence of events and core details that are included. 

Nian Myth

“So there’s this village that gets terrorized by this monster called Nian every year, and they all gathered and said “we’re sick of thai shit! We’re going to go hide in the mountains this year so Nian can’t get to us.” But then there’s this one guy who, last year, Nian got to his family, so he was like “I have nothing to lose, I’m going to stay here! I don’t want to go run, I’m tired.” And so he stays at home, but then, as Nian is approaching – as the day is drawing near – this old lady, who is later revealed to be a God, comes by and is like “I have a request for you: I need you to go hang up a red cloth on the door.” And this guy is like what the fuck why. And later on we found out it’s because Nian is scared of the color red but he [the man] doesn’t know that yet. And then she’s like “actually, I’m hungry, so I want to eat dumplings – you should make dumplings for me.” And he’s like “what the fuck why” but he can’t say no to a sweet old lady, so he goes to make dumplings. And the dumplings make a “dududududududu” sound as he’s mincing up the meat. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it but we find out that it’s because Nian is scared of loud noises, and that becomes the culture of making loud noises and setting firecrackers to ward off the Nian. And then Nian gets scared away, and they’re [the villagers] are like woah, this shit worked. And so this becomes a culture of how to keep Nian away.”

At this point, I asked to hear another version of the same story from a second teller. He began telling the story in a dramatic, kind of sarcastic impression of an old man. 

“A long, long time ago, there was a village in a deep forest in China. This village was terrorized by a monster called Nian everyday… I don’t know.”

We interrupted this moment to laugh at the mistake and correct the line. 

“Then, the village people angrily said “what do we do!?” Then, an old man from the corner says “you want to know how to defeat the Nian?” The village people said “yes, please old man. Please tell me!” And then, the old man says “if you want to defeat Nian, you must wear red colors. The Nian is very afraid of red. And you must also make big explosive sounds.” and the village people listened to the old man, and the next day, they all wore red and played with the firecrackers – “boom boom boom.” And the Nian, very scared, went “ooooooohhh, no red no!” The village people were very happy, and the old man was very happy too. The end.” 

Context: This story was told to me in a group conversation setting after I had requested for any myths, legends, or tales to be told to me. The first teller is a Chinese American student, and she attributes her knowledge of the story to her education in Chinese school as a child. The second teller is a Malaysian student, and he does not attribute his knowledge of the story to any specific source other than just the experience of growing up in Malaysia, as well as the experience of being a lion dancer performer in Lunar New Year celebrations. 


Analysis: This story is a well known Chinese myth that explains the traditions of the Lunar New Year, which as aforementioned involves wearing red, making dumplings, and other noisy forms of celebration. The monstrous villain of the story – the Nian – is the same character for the Chinese word for year, hence it may be explained that the original conception of the year may have come from the cycle of destruction by the beast. There’s an interesting contrast to be drawn between each iteration of this story told by each teller, given their different environments for learning the story. The first teller, who had learned of the myth from a more formal, academic setting, had a more detailed, intricate telling of the story that called back to the involvement of divinity, and an overall more precise version of the sequence of events. The second teller, on the other hand, had a relatively more simple telling of the story, with more drama put into the actual procedure of telling the story. While the differences in style could certainly be attributed to the different personalities of each teller, the contrast in levels of formality and detail can also point to their different ways they learned of the story. For the first teller, the story of the Nian has to be precise and structured in a way that can be accepted in an academic setting, while the second teller does not have the same restrictions and instead may choose to focus on a remember the core point of the story more so than the sequence of details.

The Lady of The Lake

‘ In the late 1800s, in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, there were what were called great Adirondack camps which were these big, elaborate, retreat type of things for wealthy families from New York City and they would spend a few months here during the summers. In one of these families at the campsites, there was a woman who went out onto Lake Placid to go kayaking. Legend has it that she never came back, and the family never found her or solved the mystery of where she was. But, in the late 1900s, at the base of Pulpit Rock, which is now a cliff jumping site, it is also the deepest part of Lake Placid, a team of divers were exploring this area. In the gloom of Lake Placid, there’s no sunlight that reaches the bottom in this part. It was completely dark, and the pair of divers had reached the bottom and found what seemed to be a mannequin… until they realized, there was a chain and anchor strapped to the “mannequin’s” legs, making them aware that this was in fact a real person. At the time, they didn’t know this was the woman who went kayaking decades before and never returned. But they found this woman at the bottom of Pulpit Rock… so, one of the divers went back up to the boat to call for help while the other stayed behind to keep the location of the body. Essentially, because there was no sunlight, and the mineral content of the water at that depth and temperature was just right, such that the skin was preserved almost perfectly, looking like a wax sculpture… But it freaked out the second diver so much that he decided to bring the body back to the surface because he didn’t want to stay there in the dark with this horrifying figure. When he starts bringing the woman up to the surface, the sunlight coming in, the temperature of the water growing warmer, and the changing mineral content caused her body to melt away in his arms… it disintegrates and falls apart. It fades into nothingness right in his hands. So now, in today’s world, when you are climbing out of the lake after cliff jumping, many people say they can feel the lady of the lake grabbing at their feet as they step onto their boats.’ – NZ

This story was told to NZ by his father, during their first family trip to his favorite place on earth, Lake Placid. He and his family went to their cottage up in the Adirondack Mountains and decided to spend their summer day cliff jumping at Pulpit Rock. As they hiked towards the rock his dad shared with him and his brother this legend of the Lady of the Lake. As a little boy, he was horrified of this ghost that lives beneath the water, but also curious as to wether or not he would feel the Lady of the Lake pulling at his ankles when he got back onto his boat. His curiosity got the best of him and nothing could hold him back from cliff jumping. Even to this day, every time NZ goes back he jumps in to try and feel the Lady of the Lake grabbing at him as he escapes the cold water. Now, whenever he takes his friends or family to this spot, he never fails to share and pass this legend onto them to add to their folklore repertoire.

I had never heard of this specific legend, but I have heard many similar ones in the area I grew up in. This piece of folklore offers a legendary tale, a ghost story meant to capture the imagination of those who heard it, a “enter if you dare” tale. It also follows the supernatural elements read in many folklore myths and legends, something that while you can’t prove that it exists, its been told and passed down so many times, there is no reason not to believe it. This legend allows for the local superstition to become tradition and a ritual storytelling experience for those who visit and families who are raised in this area. This story originated as an oral piece of folklore, one can imagine that it was even acted out around campfires in Lake Placid, in which performance is a key aspect of folklore. NZ also noted that he has heard multiple variations of this tale, as when they are passed down orally, they are often changed or even misremembered, thus altering the story for those who continue to share it. The Adirondacks have many myths and legends, and this tale only adds to the mysterious environment the Adirondacks have to many.

ETA Superstition

Nationality: Burmese

Primary Language: Burmese

Other Language(s): English, Chinese

Age: 19

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Performance Date: 02/17/2024

A.N is 19 years old, and is currently a USC student who’s originally from Yangon, Myanmar. She is my current suite mate and has been a friend since middle school, since we are from the same hometown and school. I asked her if she has heard of or is familiar with any tabooistic vocabulary within our culture. 

“One superstition that I remember my mom saying is that we aren’t allowed to say the specific estimated time of arrival, or else we won’t get there on the time mentioned. I first heard that when I was a pre-teen and my family was on a road trip to Ngwe Saung. I asked my mom when we were arriving and she said that she wasn’t allowed to say. She did end up telling me that we can say a more vague description of the ETA, like “evening” but not something as specific as 5 p.m. I remember it clearly because as a kid, I believed it too. Eventually it became a superstition that I try to keep in mind whenever I am answering the same question if someone else were to ask me that.”

As a Burmese person, I can’t say I’ve heard of this tabooistic vocabulary or superstition but I don’t deny its possibility since we have a lot of other superstitions that are just as trivial and non-sensical. A.N states that she is not clear with what the reasoning behind this superstition is but I personally think that it might just be her mom not wanting to give an answer to her child who could start to complain or become impatient. On the other hand, it could be related to our culture of avoiding stating something important, in the chance we might ‘jinx’ ourself. It is our way of holding on to the hope that the outcome, in this situation the ETA, is something that we want it to be.