Category Archives: Narrative

Snipe Hunt

Text:

The snipe hunt was a sort of hazing ritual for older boy scouts to conduct and younger boy scouts to take part in. The basic gist was that the scouts would go out at night in order to hunt a mythical creature called the “rocky mountain snipe” or “west coast snipe”, or any other similar name depending on who told the story and where it was told. Said creature was supposed to be a very fast flightless bird, with feathers along its backbone that would glow in the dark. To simulate this effect, the older scouts would break a glow stick, tie it to a black string and have it pulled by a scout wearing entirely black, who would pull the stick as fast as they could through the forest. The older scouts would react to the “snipe”, while the younger scouts would attempt to chase after and catch it.
One night, a kid caught the snipe and was “bit” by it. They applied a crushed up hostess fruit pie to simulate an allergic reaction- with the raspberry filling resembling blood.

Context:

The informant is a Scout Master for a Boy Scout Troop. Their account of the snipe hunt comes from when they were still a lower rank Boy Scout, with them first hunting the snipe as a younger scout before learning about and assisting in the hunt as an older scout.

Analysis:

The boy scouts as a whole is an organization heavily rooted in the wilderness and nature, and I believe that the snipe hunt is heavily connected to that. It feels like a way to encourage that association among younger scouts. While it is used as a practical joke by many people outside of the boy scouts, especially people who attend summer camp, it nonetheless feels like an encouragement to be curious about the natural world through a legendary creature. It also serves to establish the hierarchy of the boy scout troop, with the higher ranking, older scouts being the ones who lead the hunt and call out the snipe, and the younger, low ranked scouts being the ones who chase down the snipe and fail to catch it. When a scout finally learns the truth about the snipe hunt and gets to join in on the activity, they enter somewhat of a right of passage into the higher ranks of the troop as well.

Sighting of Jesus during a storm on the sea

Text:

So this is the story of how my grandmother saw Jesus on her boat ride to America.

My grandmother was in Italy during World War II, and Pacentro, where she was from, was a major bombing area for the Allies. So what they would do during World War II is that they took cities that didn’t have a lot of historical importance, and were very lowly densely populated-like farming villages and places like that. Back then, bombing a place was a show of power, basically. So it was a huge bombing site during WWII, and my grandmother fled Pacentro on a boat going to the US. She was very young, probably 12 or 13. She was on the boat, coming to the US, and she was very strongly Catholic.

The boat was very rocky- they were caught in a storm coming to New York, and everyone thought they were going to die. That’s how severe the storm is, they were all worried, they were all praying, all sort of getting their affairs in order as best they could when they were on a boat and going to a different country. And so, she thinks she’s going to die. The boat is rocking severely- there’s waves crashing on the bow, water sloshing over the edge, you couldn’t even go outside, everyone was hunkered down inside the ship.

So grandmother is down in the hull, she’s sick, she’s been on this boat for a week and a half, and she falls asleep. And in her dream, she sees Jesus in the waves, and Jesus looks at her- she’s standing on the bow of the boat, Titanic style, and Jesus is standing on the waves, he turns to her and says, “Celeste, you’re going to survive. You’re going to be OK. Everyone is going to live.” And when she wakes up, the storm has completely passed. So it’s sunny, the water is calm, there is no storm for the rest of the trip, they make it through the storm and back to America with no issue. So she believed that Jesus came down and told her- basically worked a miracle- she believed that there was some aspect of God that helped her arrive safely.

Context:

The informant was recounting an earlier story told by her grandmother, who was born in Italy before immigrating to the United States.

Analysis:

One of the first things I noticed about this story is how it’s very similar to a specific Bible story within the New Testament. It reminded me of the story of Jesus encountering the disciples during a storm by walking on water to approach their boat (Matthew 14:22-33). As religions tend to play a part in folklore, and as the first teller of this story was from a heavily Catholic region of Italy, this probably isn’t a coincidence. There could be an element of the grandmother finding comfort in their religion, in the face of almost hopeless circumstances, with how there really isn’t much else for them to do in the situation. When you can turn to no one else, you turn to God.

Hotel Del Coronado ghost sighting

Text:

Informant: So, there’s a hotel down in San Diego, it’s a very famous hotel, called the Hotel Del Coronado. It’s an older hotel, and so, a while ago, the company I was with was doing some work there. I went there early and the workers were going to do work at night. So it was evening time and I was walking around, going downstairs and going around the shops and everything, going up into the lobby- if you’ve ever been to the Hotel Del Coronado, it’s just this beautiful place, very old, lots of history. Of course, the rumor is that it’s a haunted hotel. But you never expect to see anything, but you still have it in the back of your mind that something could happen there. So, I was going through the lobby and I was going to go downstairs to where there were some shops, and I was walking downstairs, and there were people walking up the stairs. And as I’m walking down the stairs, this transparent wisp of something just passes right in front of me. And I look at the guy in the stairway who’s walking up, and his eyes are huge. And he looks at me, and I look at him, and I said “did you see that?” And he goes “Oh yeah, I saw that.” And then we just kept walking.

Interviewer: How much of the hotel’s history were you aware of before this?

Informant: Well, not deep into the history, but just the notion that there’s probably a lot of ghost stories. But nothing in particular that I knew of. But yeah, like I said, when you walk into something with that kind of history, you kind of know something going on. But the fact that it wasn’t just me, but myself and a total stranger, that we both saw it, is just… scary for me.

Context:

As mentioned in the account, the informant was working at the hotel as part of their job. They were born and grew up in the United States.

Analysis:

Ghost stories have a habit of taking places in older locations and those with a lot of history. As Ulo Valk puts it, they are figures from the past who uncannily appear in the “wrong” setting. That being said, there isn’t a lot to go off of in terms of the story itself.

As the hotel is rather old, there is quite a bit of history behind it, and its own history of haunting. Kate Morgan, who took her own life in the hotel in 1892, is the main subject of ghost stories, with her death being where the ghost sightings began. Some guests noting flickering electricity, changes in room temperature, unexplained sounds, and breezes from nowhere. Very few guests, however, seem to note an actual present sighting of the figure, which makes this account far more unique. If I had to guess on an “explanation” for the event, it could very well be a result of the informant being tired, as indicated by this taking place during a work trip, and the general “aura” of the hotel itself potentially affecting the teller and other person’s perception. After all, if you expect to see ghosts in a hotel, you are more likely to see ghosts.

Dwendes

Text:

Informant: In the philippines, we believe in these creatures called dwendes, and they’re basically creatures- they could be in the form of- i don’t know, goblins, dwarves, little people, and you can’t see them, but there’s been talk of people being able to see them. They hide, in places like molehills or dark places in your house, trees, under rocks, and so the saying goes that they exist in our country, and they primarily like kids and enjoy playing with them. There are stories that say when we see kids laughing or moving their hands, that’s the Dwendes playing with them. But, there’s also fear of them because they can also be associated with misfortunes, so to speak. For example, there’s an association that you might step on them, and so when you’re walking around in places that are super dark, or perhaps tall grass or rocks, then you actually say “tabe tabe po”, which in our language means, “excuse me, sorry, can you move to the side? I’m walking in this space and I don’t want to get in your way.” So basically, giving them notice because you could step on them, and if you step on them, you could actually have misfortune. So sometimes, people will say stories where they got sick because they were walking at night, and you’re walking at an unfamiliar place, and you can get sick because you step on them.

…

Informant: Not all of them are good- they say some of them are good dwendes and some of them are bad.  You can get sick off them, and they have to call one of those- I call them witchcraft but that’s not what they call them- they call them healers, and these people think these people are healers, and they have to do a ceremony on you to get rid of them- because people think that there are evil spirits on you.

…

Informant: One time, one of the visits I made, I went with my cousins somewhere dark, and I thought what they were doing (saying “tabe tabe bo”) was ridiculous, and literally the next day I got super sick. And, my family was like, “Oh my god, you stepped on one!” And so they called the healer and had to do something on my stomach- I felt like I had a stomach flu because, you know, I had unfiltered water, which in a third world country you would obviously get sick from, but they were like “You stepped on a Dwende, and we need to call someone”. And I think a lot of it- people believe in it because they live in a very rural countryside, a lot of these myths are real, and a lot of them don’t have a higher education- so they’re not really educated to understand how things work- how they get ill, and what they associate with that.

Context:

The informant is Filipino, but she comes from Vancouver, Canada. She has been in the US for over 20 years.

Analysis:

Dwendes (seemingly more commonly spelled as “duendes”) are something I assumed would be an originally Filipino tradition that changed and transfigured during the Spanish conquest. However, I was surprised to learn that the name originated in Spanish folklore, making them something which was transferred during the process of transculturation.

The way the informant describes the healer that they had to work with makes me think about the divide between US culture and Filipino culture in regards to folk practices, such as medicine. As we are a forward thinking society, we tend to place far more reliance on the medical system and institutional medical practices, we tend to forego older folk methods and ideas about the causes for these infections. So, there’s likely some culture shock in places where they are unable to rely on the same medical practices the United States can. Thus, there is also culture shock when these practices and superstitions actually come into play.

While it’s unlikely that the informant actually stepped on a Dwende, the legend could be a way of telling people to be careful in dangerous or hard to navigate places, which would inevitably help some people if there happens to be some unclean water or resource that brings about sickness if you try to navigate such terrain. In regards to the nature of the expression “tabe tabe bo”, it could also be a way of encouraging courtesy, as it associates the phrase with safety and good health.

The Golem

Text:

Informant: So there is this story within Jewish folktales of the golem. So, the golem within Eastern European Jewish tradition is a clay figure and… I don’t remember all the details, but… in Eastern Europe and specifically Western Russia, there are a lot of pogrom within these Jewish communities. And so in order to protect the Jewish communities this rabbi created a figure out of clay. And upon his head, he put the Yiddish word for “protector”. And so the golem grew, and was dubbed “the golem”. It went about and it protected the Jewish towns from the pogroms, and it would come home, basically, and be destroyed- not destroyed, dismantled.

Interviewer: I see. I remember variations on this story. The one you mentioned- you said it came home and was destroyed?

Informant: Yes.

Interviewer:Did you ever hear the version where it’s, like, it goes on a rampage or something? Because I’ve heard that version.

Informant: I’ve heard that version. But it wasn’t necessarily destroyed out of malice, it was… brought in and deactivated kind of. So it was meant to not be, like, forever, it was meant to help in times of woe. I’ve also heard other variations where it continues to live and becomes a part of the community, so it really depends on where you hear about the story from.

Context:

The informant is Jewish, and grew up in the United States.

Analysis:

The story of the golem very clearly reflects anxieties felt by Jewish people in Eastern Europe. It provides a way for these communities to empower themselves, while also relying on specifically Jewish culture- in the case of this account, the use of Yiddish, a language heavily associated with Jewish peoples- as a way to further that empowerment. At the same time, the solution is temporary, perhaps reflecting the more unnatural nature of the golem. As it is something created by clay, it mirrors the creation of Adam, but as the act of creation is something which God handles, it is not suited for humans to fully imitate it. So, the creations, while fitting a purpose, are not fully human, and thus are not meant to last in the same way we do- often being dismantled or destroyed at the ending of the tale for going on a rampage. Alternatively, the temporary nature of the golem could perhaps allude to the idea that it will not always be needed, and that the threats to the Jewish community which these people suffered under would not last forever.