Category Archives: Narrative

La Sihuanaba

Text:

“It’s called La Sihuanaba — it’s like this beautiful woman that sits by the river, and she would oftentimes come and lure men that were either drunk or cheating on their wives. And then she would turn into this monster. She was basically punished by God to be this ugly creature because she was too vain. I don’t know if it’s kind of similar to, um, the one where the king looks at himself in the river too much and he’s too vain. But yeah, so she basically just lures men in and kills them if they’re not well-behaved. And then she also got punished with a son who is very treacherous.”

Context:

La Sihanaba is a widely circulated supernatural legend across Central America, particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. The informant’s family is Salvadoran, and the moral tales that he reflected on were often very vivid for his mother.  La Sihuanaba belongs to a cluster of feminine supernatural figures in Latin American folklore, most notably La Llorona, the “Weeping Woman,” a ghost who wanders waterways and targets children.

Analysis:

The recurring figure of a powerful, marginal woman who tests the moral fitness of those she encounters is recognizable across world folklore as the archetype of the Crone — a figure who sits at the crossroads of wisdom, danger, and social judgment. La Siihuanaba activates this archetype while complicating it in instructive ways. Unlike many Crone figures whose threat is purely spiteful or generalized, her targeting is morally precise: she punishes sobriety violations and marital infidelity, making her less a monster than a supernatural enforcer of communal norms. What gives her lasting narrative power is the irony embedded in her origin: she was herself condemned by God for vanity, and is punished to seek out and condemn that very excess in others. She is a flawed injuster, shaped by her own transgression. This reflexive quality — the punished becoming the punisher— invites an interpretive richness that sustains stories across generations.

Story of Rama

Text:

“There’s this other god named Rama, and he was building a bridge to, I guess, what’s now known as Sri Lanka. It was called Lanka in the book. While he was doing that, it was actually like a small squirrel, which helped him, like, roll in sand and, like, shake it into stone so that he was able to kind of create that bridge to get there, like, through stepping stones. Um, and even though, like, the squirrel literally was not able to do much—the squirrel was obviously limited by size and strength— it still was blessed by Rama because he’s a lord. Because, you know, he gave that squirrel so much of, um, you know, its spirit and its effort to do something, even if, you know, it was kind of disadvantaged by its, like, size and its strength. So it was kind of showing that, you know, sincerity, devotion, and good intentions are sometimes more important than, you know, your ability to actually get something done.”

Context:

The informant is a 20-year-old of Hindu Indian background, in which religious fables and legends are part of a broader tradition that teaches about the origins of their gods while also teaching karmic values. The story of Rama had stuck with him and was something he absorbed deeply as he grew up. He also encountered it among other Hindus is age, exemplifying how it still transmits through the community in traditional oral storytelling. 

Analysis:

This legend is part of the Vaishnava Hindu narrative tradition, in which Lord Rama — an avatar of Vishnu — becomes a central moral figure. The story functions as an etiological legend, as identified by the informant: the tale encodes central values of Hindu ethics—bhakti (devotion, selfless effort, and divine recognition)—the vehicle of the messenger, nor the strength or status confines its spiritual worthiness. The story continues to circulate within Hindu communities, to highlight the dedication of effort rather than being bound by bodily form, serving as an enduring social function that binds community members around a shared understanding.

El Salvadoran Bedtime Story

Age 20

Text:

“So there’s this story that my mom would always tell me. It was like when she was growing up in El Salvador in the 90s. And it was this story — I’ve heard it before, but the way she tells it, she actually kind of lived it. People always said that you had to be in bed by, like, 8 or 9, because around that time this cart — a cart with cow skeletons — would come in, and they would take children away if they were out of bed or misbehaving. So it became really prevalent during the war, because there were a bunch of dead people just because of the war.”

Context:

The informant’s mother grew up in El Salvador during the Civil War (1979 – 1992), a conflict that claimed over 75,000 lives and left detrimental social trauma in its wake. The “cart for cow skeletons” closely resembles La Carreta Chillona (The Screaming cart). In the well-known legend across Central America, a ghostly bone-driven cart haunts the night and brings death or punishment to those who encounter it. 

Analysis:

This legend is an example of how folk narrative can absorb historical trauma. The mythic threat is engulfed by real environmental violence: disappearances, death squads, curfews, etc. The cart became an idiom for real danger and genuinely unsafe streets. The legend thus serves as a practical protection function. For the informant, growing up in a post-war period invokes a liminal space for the story to exist in, as both a piece of his mother’s history and a threat that no longer applies to him. This intergenerational quality is a trait of traumatic folklore: that survives the conditions it was generated it and carries emotional residue long after danger has passed.

Scotty Pippia

Age: 20s

Informant: This is the story of Scotty Pippia. Scotty Pippia, I think, was legit a fake boy that my bus driver made up. We had a small bus, and in small buses, you can lift the windows all the way up, and you can like stick your head out. And to stop kids from sticking their heads out, I’m pretty sure my bus driver made up this legend of this boy named Scotty Pippia, who stuck his head out of the window and got it like chopped off, Hereditary style. And it just traumatized the s**t out of me. I was in like first grade and I went my head wasn’t even out the window. Like, I wasn’t even like someone to put my head out the window. My bus driver would just tell the story of Scotty Pippia. Like, really every chance she’d get. Her name was Paula. And Paula.. every conversation would somehow lead to,”Oh, Scotty Pippia died on my bus”. And I never Googled Scotty Pippia out of fear. This might just be a real story of a boy, but, like, would she keep driving buses? I remember as a kid being like, asking Paula questions like, oh, God, what is his family say? And she was like, his family was sad. And I was like, yeah, of course they were sad, Scotty Pippia died. So it’s like, I still, to this day, don’t know if this is- but my whole bus knew the legend of Scotty Pippia. And Scotty Pippia, I feel like we never really interacted with him, but he was a presence on the bus. You know, we sort of imagined where Scotty Pippia would sit, we imagined what classes Scotty Pippia took. So, um yeah, I guess this just. I want to dedicate this to Scottie Pippia’s family.

Collector: How old were you? 

Informant: First grade.. I was in first grade, and I was in the front of the bus. So the way my bus were got, like, I was in the front as you’d go older, you’d go to the back. So all the cool kids are in the back like being loud. And then I was up right next to the bus driver hearing like horrible tales of like little boys being decapitated. So that was, and then I don’t then of course, I told everyone at school and everyone at school knew about Scotty Pippia. But we never knew if he was real. So that’s kind of a ghost story. kind of a ghost story. I never- sure, I felt a chill on the bus every now and then. That could have been Scotty Pippia. That could have been an experience. And I never stuck my head out the window. That’s for sure. So thanks Paula, thank you for that. 

Context:

This legend comes from Middle Island, New York. The legend is that of a boy who at one point in time rode the same school bus as the informant and was decapttated after sticking his head outside of the bus window. The informant states that though he never stuck his head out the window prior to learning the legend of Scotty Pippia he most certainly was deterred after hearing the legend. 

Analysis:

Due to the inability to verify the existence of Scotty Pippia from Middle Island, NY and the fact that no one other than bus driver Paula had ever shared this information with the informant one can assume that the legend was created as a means to keep the children riding the bus from sticking their heads out the window and potentially putting themselves in danger, as well as a way to lessens distractions for Paula while driving the bus.

Pumpkin Head Joke

Age: 20s

(1) text

Informant: A man walks into a bar with a giant pumpkin for a head. The bartender says, “Hey, you’re walking around with a giant pumpkin for a head. How come you have a giant pumpkin for a head? The man with a giant pumpkin head sits down at the bar and he says, “Well, it’s a long story. But I’ll tell it to you. You’re not going to believe this. But the story starts with, I found a genie in a bottle.” Bartender goes, “Then what happened?” He goes, “Well, I found this genie, and he came out of the bottle and he says, ” you freed me from this bottle, and I’m offering you three wishes.” The bartender is amazed. He’s going, “Well, okay, what happened next?” He goes, well, then, for my first wish, I wish for the most money in the world. I wished for like 100,000 billion dollars. Bartender’s like, oh my God, what happened? He’s like, well, I looked at my bank account. You’re not going to believe what was there. It was $100,000 billion dollars. I was the richest man in the world. The bartender was just floored by this. He goes, “For my second wish, I wish for like the most gorgeous woman in the world to be my wife. Not only someone who was attractive, but someone who could challenge me and I could fall in love with and stay in love. The bartender was like, okay, well, then what happened? He goes, well, then you’re not going to believe who showed up.” The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. And she was smart and talented and funny, and she challenged me, and she proposed to me on the spot, and we’ve been married ever since. Bartender goes, ” oh, my God, this is an amazing story. What happened next? What happened to your for your third wish? And he goes, “Well my third wish is where I really blew it.” Bartender goes, well, what happened?” He goes, “Well, I wished for like a giant pumpkin head.” 

(2) context

The informant explains that growing up in New York, this joke was a common occurrence at family gatherings. The first time he was told it was by an uncle at a family dinner. He later accounts hearing it told by Super Dave Osborn and Norm McDonald.

(3) analysis

The joke follows a traditional structure, starting with “A man walks into a bar…” The joke subverts expectations with the added element of a pumpkin on his head. What makes the joke effective and ultimately gets a laugh from the audience is the long, drawn-out explanation that builds anticipation from the audience as they wait to hear the punch line. They expect something wild to have happened for the man to end up in this position. Instead, they are met with the most obvious answer. The punchline then makes the joke an anti-joke of sorts.