Category Archives: Narrative

The night marchers

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Informant: “So in Hawaiian culture, there are these- not creatures but spirits I guess and they are called the night Marchers. A lot of people hear them on Oahu around nu’uanu–Or at least this is what I grew up knowing because I am from Oahu– so in nu’uanu kinda by Manoa where University of Hawaii is in the valley, it is a very sacred area especially deep in the valley. So these night Marchers, they are Hawaiian spirits that are there to protect the land and usually they are there protecting bones like the bones of chiefs. The legend is that you are not supposed to whistle at night because if you whistle then you are like summoning the night Marchers. Usually when you summon the night Marchers you hear drums and you’ll hear like stomping, like uniform stomping. And you are supposed to just get on the ground and close your eyes until you don’t hear drumming because if you don’t, then I’m pretty sure it’s like you are challenging them like if you stand up and are facing them with your eyes open…and you will lose.”

Context

Age: 19

From: Oahu, HI

Her relationship with this piece is personal since she is in close ties with her ethnicity. It is something she actually learned in school where they taught Hawaiian culture, history, etc. She interprets it as just a story to tell with doubt that it will happen. There is a very low percentage of her experiencing it first hand, but she is glad that she will know what to do. She says her friends always forget that you aren’t supposed to whistle, so they immediately stop when they realize. 

Interpretation

I do not really know what to think of this because I want to respect Hawaiian culture, but I find this very hard to believe. When I went to Hawaii recently, I stayed with a bunch of locals and I remember they actively and consciously avoided whistling at night. Right after they realized that they were whistling, it was not a big deal, they would just say “oops” and stop. I feel like if this was something so important, then the tourists should know it as well to respect the land.

Old lady Hawaiian legend

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Informant: “So in Hawaii there’s a legend– And it’s basically like an unspoken rule– where basically if you are driving at night and you see an old woman…”

Me: “Where at?”

Informant: “So on the big island, to get from Kona to Hilo, there are two ways. You can either go around the island which takes like 2 hours or you can cut through diagonally on the straight road called Saddle road. It just got renovated so it is really nice, it has lights and it is very safe, but a few years ago it was basically almost like a dirt road. It was barely paved and there was only one painted line in the middle. The unspoken rule that was– that all of the locals know– is that if you are driving, especially at night, and you see an older woman with really long white hair in a white mo’u mo’u, which is just a really long white dress, you are just supposed to stop and pick her up because that is one of pele’s forms. Pele is the goddess of volcanoes, and on the big island there are I think two active volcanoes right now, so the Big Island residents respect her very much especially because at any point their homes can be destroyed by volcanoes. Basically, you just pick her up and you just keep going about your drive. It’s just a sign of respect and it shows that you respect her, you respect the land, and the culture. Usually she is silent, but then she will just disappear. 

Context

Age: 19

From: Oahu, HI

In regards to her relationship to the piece, it is very close to her since she has such a strong bond with Hawaiian culture. Although she lives on Oahu and not the Big Island, she says this is still important for when she visits. She does not really remember when she found out about this legend, but she has heard stories about people picking her up. Weird enough, she says the stories are never in the present tense though. She interprets this as real, but she doubts it will actually ever happen to her.  

Interpretation

I interpret this legend as something that will be close to never happening. I think people could abuse this in order to get a free ride since there are a lot of homeless in Hawaii. Knowing this though, if I were to ever be in this situation, I would still pick up the lady just as a sign of respect even if I don’t necessarily live there. It sounds pretty frightening as a non local, but I am sure it is not something the residents are afraid of–or at least that’s the way I understood it from my interview with the informant.

la llorona

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Informant: I never really wanted to know the story of La Llorona because it’s scary but it is supposed to be kind of like a bloody mary type of thing; like for that one you go into the bathroom and it has a ritual that goes with it and then she comes out, but I never wanted to know it because I don’t like that kind of stuff.  But what I know is that you are supposed to hear her at night, coming when kids are bad. Like when you hear her coming, they can hear her crying and coming to get you. That’s why they would call her La Llorona because ‘llorar’ means to cry. So they would call her La Llorona because when kids were bad they could hear her crying outside, like coming to get you. Really, it was dogs I think that they were hearing, but the parents would be like ‘do you hear her? she’s coming to get you.’ Parents would use it as a threat to their kids or a behavioral mechanism and say that she’s coming. 

Context

Age: 51

From: Chino Hills, CA

Ethnicity: Mexican

As the informant explained in the text, she does not really like the story behind this piece and prefers not to indulge in it because it is scary. The relationship between her and this piece is that her friends’ parents would use La llorona to make them stop acting up. She heard it just growing up, she doesn’t remember the specific time she found out about it, but she has known the story since she was about 7 or 8 years old. Her interpretation of it is that it is just another thing to help parents when their kids misbehave. She said she would never use it because she would feel mean, but she always knew of other parents using this. 

Interpretation

I have heard a bunch of different ways to tell this story, but from what it sounds like, the informant does not know the details of this legend. I think the different variations of this story are what makes it considered a legend, but I think it is interesting that the skeleton of it remains the same, no matter where you hear it. Personally, I think this is a really scary story and I would not use it on kids in the future. I feel like if I were to know this story as a kid, I would be frightened at every crying sound a dog made. It would have been all the time because where I grew up, and to this day, I would hear dogs crying almost every week at night when the coyotes get them where I grew up.

El Cucuy

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Informant: “So if you know about the Cucuy, that’s the one that my mom used to say. ‘Va venir el cucuy’ (the cucuy is coming) and I would be like ‘¡Ay!’. Which means the devil, it was like the devil is coming to get you. El Cucuy is the devil-like form so when kids were bad, the parents would say ‘Va venir el Cucuy’ and the kids would get scared because they didn’t want the cucuy to come. It would get used for both boys and girls. El Cucuy is usually compared to like the boogeyman but more like a devil and not like a person.”

Context

Age: 51

From: Chino Hills, CA

Ethnicity: Mexican

The relationship between the informant and this piece is that her mom used to use this legend on her. The informant heard about this through first hand experience from her mother. She expressed how she was actually scared of the cucuy when she was younger and did not like when her mom would say that it was going to come to get her if she continued to misbehave. She interpreted it as a spirit-like thing that would do harm when she was little. 

Interpretation

This is one I have never heard about before. It is very similar to La Llorona with similar motive to it–which is to get kids to behave. If anything, I think it is worse that the cucuy is “more like a devil and not like a person” because hearing anything related to the devil when I was younger was considered tabooistic and shunned. I also think that this story or behavioral mechanism would have scared me more as a child than the La Llorona one. I feel like if I had to compare this to a more current day story, it slightly reminds me of slenderman in the way that it is going to come get you if you aren’t careful.

Bloody Mary Legend

Text: Okay, so in my elementary school in the bathroom, if you went in Bloody Mary was supposedly on the wall, like if you stared at a certain spot. And so people got really scared and didn’t want to go to the bathroom. I guess you stared for a certain, I don’t remember, like a number of seconds and a certain tile. It was like a tiled wall. So then all of a sudden you were supposed to see it.

Context:

Informant is a freshman at USC studying Themed Entertainment. She recounts her experience in the cafeteria while drinking a cup of coffee and snacking on some hash browns. She is slightly fidgeting and scatter-brained during the conversation.

“The elementary school I grew up in was in Redlands, CA. I learned about the Bloody Mary thing from just people talking about it. I feel like I wasn’t really convinced, but I had a friend that was so scared that I guess I got a little scared because she’d never go to the bathroom alone. She’d be like you have to go to the bathroom with me. And I was like, Okay. I felt kind of silly, to be honest, because I didn’t see anything when they made you look. So I was kind of just like this is weird. I’m pretty sure it didn’t start in our elementary school. I haven’t researched it, but it just came from somewhere else.”

Analysis: This folk narrative is an example of legend, a story in our world that might be true. This Bloody Mary Legend confronts people with what they believe. Even if some do not fully believe like the informant, they can still participate in the legend because of the aesthetic to belief. This legend was prevalent with young kids because children are high on the continuum context or more likely to believe than others. There is also a sort of legend quest involved with this legend because a ritual must be practiced in order to discover the legend. However, because the legend quest comes with a risk of being endangered, the legend is still able to be proved or disproved.