Category Archives: Narrative

“Coyote & Changing Bear”

Context — This story was told by an elderly Navajo woman in Arizona. She knew many Coyote stories, but told me two of her favorites, including Coyote and Changing Bear–

“There’s this beautiful maiden. She has twelve brothers. Takes care of all of them by herself. She feeds them and cooks for them and cleans for them, all the while they hunt and fight monsters. Her beauty was so great, holy men would come from all over the world in hopes of marrying her. She ignored all of them. Why would she give them any attention? But Coyote, he asks her – what can I do to marry you? And she says he must slay a giant! Incredibly so, he does. All of her brothers tell her not to marry Coyote, they say it will bring a great evil to this world, but she does it anyway. After all, Coyote did what she asked.

“And it’s not so bad. Coyote even teachers her how to turn into a bear! The brothers are right. Coyote manages to turn this woman evil! He turns her into the Woman who Became a Bear or Changing Bear. And so she returns to her family and offers to comb their hair. One by one, the brothers all let her. But as soon as they turn their back on her, she eats them!”

Analysis — This is another trickster tale layering many elements together– heroic quests, gender, and moral imperatives through a subversive taleŁ Coyote slays the giant, but instead of resulting in a happy ending, his actions end in tragedy. By reversing the traditional structure of the myth, the tale reemphasizes Coyote’s role as a trickster and disruptor. His marriage to Changing Bear disrupts the social and familial order. By offering the maiden a supernatural power, he ultimately leads her to killing her own family. The transformation reflects Navajo values about balance, harmony, and beauty – Changing Bear is a physical and profound disruption of the peace that’s caused by the maiden stepping out of expected responsibilities and roles. Coyote and Changing Bear’s marriage ultimately highlight the importance of community and illustrates how personal choice can put the entire familial unit at risk.

“Coyote & The Milky Way”

Context: This was a story told by an isolated elderly Navajo woman in rural Arizona. When asked what her favorite Navajo stories were, she began telling me about the mythical Coyote figure. This story is an explanatory myth about the stars and their appearances –

“He’s just a troublemaker. A mean lil trouble maker who didn’t like to wait for anything, even the stars. So when he sees Black God putting the stars up in the sky, one by one, taking his sweet time lighting and finding the perfect spot for ‘em, he starts pacing. Gets impatient – who cares how the stars look? He gets tired of being in the dark all the time, so one day, he waits for Black God to turn his back on the stars and he steals all the ones that aren’t up in the sky already. He gets ‘em all together into his little bag and just throws them up at the sky. Doesn’t care where they go or how bright they are, just that they’re up. Black God is mad of course, but what can he do? They’re all up there now. That’s why the Milky Way looks like that. Coyote didn’t take his time putting the stars up, so they’re unorganized.”

Analysis: In Navajo folklore, Coyote serves as a cautionary trickster figure. He embodies antithetical values of Navajo cultureŁ impulsiveness, recklessness, and impatience. Compared to Black God, who embodies harmony, patience, and balance with his meticulous star placement. By disrupting a sacred act, he leaves cosmic chaos in his wake, positioning him as an example of consequences of defying harmony and tradition.

Black God’s placement of the stars is a sacred act with deep deliberation given to each, reflecting the importance placed on harmony and beauty in Navajo culture. When Coyote disturbs him, he desecrates a cosmic ritual, the harmony Black God was trying to cultivate in the stars, and by extension, the very harmony that Black God is trying to cultivate in the world at large.

The chaos of the Milky Way serves as a lasting symbol for Coyote’s actions, serving as a visual reminder that disharmony, selfishness, and impatience can affect not just an individual, but become a permanent scar on the sky.

A Ghost at SUNY Buffalo

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Tell me your ghost story:

Was in pharmacy school, in the early 90s, 1994ish. I had just rented a very small apt, in an old house. I was in the upstairs apartment. My room was really small, had space to walk in, my bed, inches, and then the window and the wall. There was no room between the bed and the window for people. One night early in my time there I was sleeping but then I woke up in the middle of the night. I look toward the window side of my room and there is somebody standing there, so real to me that I sat up and said “Hey!” The person was a very small in stature woman, dressed in black mid 1800s mourning garb with a veil, lacy, everything. She was standing there, regarding me. The feeling was like she understood I was a new tenant and she was taking my measure. After a little she disappeared, maybe a minute or so.

Were you paralyzed in fear?

To me it felt like a realization it wasn’t an intruder was positive, and then I had a few moments of getting that feeling. She wasn’t threatening, wasn’t there to scare me, it just felt like she was seeing who she was sharing her apartment with.

Part B:

At the time I had two cats, Punky and Sophie. I was sitting in my couch studying one afternoon. I had put a bag on a chair, and it had been there for a while. All of a sudden it starts to crinkle, and it could’ve been plastic fatigue or something but I was looking at it, and I said out loud “Please don’t do that, you’re scaring me.” Immediately after, it stopped.

Was there anything else that happened in the apartment?

It sometimes felt like the cats were watching something that wasn’t there.

Your version of the house in the 80s:

That house had bad spirits in it, evil ones for sure. Always had a not good feeling. There were two incidencies I remember. I used to have a big typewriter and I must’ve been home from college in my freshman year, my mom and dad were divorced. My dad stayed in that house. One night, middle of the night, the typewriter gets pushed over and clunks against the wall. The feeling was, “Something did that.” It was just “Woah,” and I was wide awake and then eventually I went back to sleep.

There was another night when my dad was dating Kathy and my brother Jason wasn’t there, so I was home alone, my dad and Kathy had gone to the movies. I went to bed. Sometime in the night I’m in bed and I hear distinct footsteps coming up the stairs. I thought, “Oh they came here.” I get out of bed, flip on the lights, and there’s nobody and nothing. There was a pit in my stomach. I remember feeling such relief at the thought of them being home, I hated that house alone, and that is how sure I was I heard someone home.

There was no fear with the spirit you saw, but one felt malevolent?

I never thought about that, but really it’s because you get a feeling. It’s like when you meet someone and the sense you get as to whether they’re positive or not, and maybe it’s the same with spirits.

Context

This is my mother’s story about a spirit she saw while in pharmacy school. Interestingly enough, she had a similar ghostly experience, that being a figure in old clothes standing over her while she was sleeping, to the one her mom had ten years earlier. While doing this interview I realized they had never discussed that, so they didn’t realize there was a throughline to both of them. My mother’s interpretation of the events we got into during the questions, but suffice to say the experience wasn’t negative for her with the ghost in pharmacy school. Her story about the malevolent spirit in the 80s absolutely was negative, but I only snuck that in as a matter of recordkeeping.

My interpretation

The similarities between this story and her mother’s story of ghostly encounters (especially when they had never discussed it) is fascinating. The collection of this folklore and the theorizing of its origins makes it important, but more than anything, the multiple perspectives of the same event is important as well. I was careful to not ask leading questions to either of them about the experiences they both shared, which made it all the more interesting when they would bring up similar details in stories they hadn’t discussed with one another. I think my mother truly did see something hovering next to her bed that night, and that it is plausibly unexplainable. I think she did hear footsteps clamping up the stairs while home alone and see nothing once she opened that door. The world of spirits and apparitions is not one usually discussed, which makes the collections of these stories have all the more value.

Ghost Stories in New Orleans

Age: 23
Occupation: Student

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When did you see a ghost?

Most unbelievable story that happened was in 2020, there were a couple other related encounters in the same time frame, 2016, 2018, in that range.

Briefly describe the experience?

Our house was built in 1865 in New Orleans, so it was very old and some interesting people had lived there. There was an author who wrote the book The Moviegoer, a troubled photographer as well. It had also been an old farm cottage, so we found cow teeth in the backyard.

This time in particular, the one in 2020, my mom and I were sitting in the front room on the couch, no one is sitting at the piano, and the piano plays two keys, boop boop. We looked at each other and made eye contact. I thought, “Maybe a lizard fell into the piano or something? Maybe something is in the box?” Then it happened again, and we could both see the keys be depressed. I looked at my mom after it and audibly gasped.

How did it make you feel?

Made me feel pretty euphoric, and we kept laughing and going what the hell. It was pretty cool. It’s cool to see something you can’t explain. Didn’t feel fearful. Felt like a nice presence. 

Why did it feel nice?

The piano keys that were played were in the higher register. If the piano keys were lower it may feel me worse, but the auditory element of it wasn’t ominous. Also the history of the house with those that lived there we’re proud of, so my mom would say, “Oh its Walker Percy saying hi.”

Do you believe in ghosts after this happened?

Agnostic toward ghosts. Don’t believe at all in the sense of spooky movie ghosts and looking like a white sheet, but maybe something is out there.

Do you think growing up in NOLA made it more likely for you have a supernatural encounter?

You hear a lot about supernatural experiences, like ghost stories are popular. I had friends who worked in old house restorations and they had a ton of stories about weird movement in light or seeing odd things there.

Tell me about the other related incidents you had discussed:

Children’s piano, little stool, put it in the attic and there were times where we’d hear the baby piano playing in the attic. Consecutive notes that sounded melodic together. It was an actual piano, so more odd than a machine of some kind.

Context

This girl is a friend of mine who grew up in New Orleans, and this is her story. I’d been told it once by her mom, but given this happened to both of them, it belongs to them both. She interprets the story well, which my question led her to analyze a little bit. The story took place in 2020, but she said there were multiple occurrences of strange piano stuff happening in her house.

My analysis

MG is not a very spiritual person, nor is she someone who I believe to be susceptible to psychosis, especially with this being something both her mother and her witnessed simultaneously. I think the odds are strong this both happened, and is unexplainable with the evidence we have from the story. There is value here in that it happened in a historical house, to two individuals at a time, and in a place we think of as being more likely to be haunted, that being New Orleans. I think the most interesting part of the interview is her positive experience with the ghost. I think most people experience the paranormal negatively because it’s something out of the realm of their understanding. She didn’t, and the explanation of the notes being more high pitched causing the experience to be less foreboding makes sense.

Grandpa’s chain gang days

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage and Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text: “When I was a kid, I used to love listening to my grandpa tell stories. One of my favorite ones was from when he was younger and lived as a hobo. It must have been in the 1920’s or 30’s, probably somewhere in the Midwest. He would travel around with his friends on trains, and sometimes they would get in trouble. One day, he and all of his friends got busted and put in a chain gang. And they were forced to work. My grandpa could have gotten out because his dad could have paid for it, but he didn’t want to leave his friends. So he worked with them in the chain gang until they could get out, I don’t know how long it was, but it must have been weeks or months.

“I always liked that story because I think it shows how adventurous our family is. They’ve always valued new experiences and adventures, and I always thought the stories that my grandpa had from travelling were really cool.”

Context: Chain gangs were introduced after the Civil War as a means of punishment and cheap labor, forcing groups of convicts to do construction, ditch digging, or farming. Prisoners chained together endured dangerous conditions and physical pain, and the practice was gradually phased out in the 1950’s.

Informant JB was raised in rural Montana in the 1970’s. Her parents were both part of the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a Protestant Christian denomination that emphasizes health and the Sabbath. Her grandfather on her mother’s side was a doctor and extremely well-travelled, partly because of Adventist-run mission trips.

Analysis:

On a narrow scale, this family legend recounts an ancestor’s escapades and virtues to the younger generations as a source of wisdom and inspiration. JB is known by her family to be adventurous (within reason), preferring to go on largely unplanned vacations so that exciting and unplanned experiences can happen organically. It makes sense that she would be inspired by her grandfather and take pride in her family’s adventurous nature, which is juxtaposed with the conservative and somewhat Puritan culture of the Seventh-day Adventist church. JB’s grandfather also demonstrates impressive loyalty by sticking with his friends in the chain gang, which was a notoriously grueling practice.

More broadly, prison labor has been a controversial issue in the U.S. since the 1950’s due to concerns over abuse. In fact, it became a hot issue in California when voters rejected a measure to ban forced labor in the state’s recent election, although many criticize the practice as ‘modern-day slavery.’