Main Piece: Devil Dog

The following was an interview of a Participant/interviewee about ghost stories of her hometown. She is marked as MS. I am marked as DM.

MS: Esta tarde voy a comentar una historia que me paso a mi y mis tres hermanos aproximado cuando yo tenía seis o siete años. Veníamos de la case de unas de mis tías. En ese tiempo había televisión nada más en diferentes casas. No todo el pueblo teníamos televisión y veníamos de ver un programa de la televisión en casa de mi tia. Para regresar a mi casa teníamos que atravesar un río. Veníamos como a las doce de la noche caminando por la orilla del río y cuando veníamos llegando donde estaba une puente donde cruzaba la gente de un lado a otro. Unos de mis hermanos nos dijo voy a sacar mi plátano para comer me lo ahorita. Entonces cuando vinimos nosotros caminando de repente se empezo a oir come un bramido come de un perro o un animal grande y mi hermano quien traía el plátano dijo espérense no caminan y los empezamos a detener nos miramos que salió un perro grande de unos arbustos grandes y empezaba como caminar con una cadenas alrededor del perro y ese perro se atravesó por el río y empezó a tratar come de agarramos y nos ladraba fuertemente. Pero lo que me más superando ver que el perro no se atravesó dentro de la agua si no por encima de la agua y cuando mi hermano quiso correr juntos con nosotros no podíamos dar el paso donde el perro no atorro y cuando mi hermano quiso agarrar y aventarle el plátano para que nosotros podíamos pasar el plátano se partió en tres pedazos con la misa cáscara y mi hermana empezó a rezar a dios que nos quitara eso para pasar. De repente se empezó a meter como un montón de canteras con un montón de ramas secas y ahí se metió el perro y se iba desapareciendo poco a poco. Cuando se desapareció el perro, podíamos empezar a caminar otra vez.

Translate:

MS: This afternoon I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me and my three siblings when I was six or seven years old. We came from the case of one of my aunts. At that time there was only a television in certain houses. Not all the people had television and we came to see a TV show at my aunt’s house. To get back to my house we had to cross through a river. We came as at twelve o’clock in the night walking along the river bank and when we came arriving where it was bridge that people could cross from one side to the other. One of my brothers told me I’m going to get my banana to eat now. Then suddenly we began to hear a roar of a dog or a big animal and my brother who brought the banana said wait do not walk. We looked at the big dog come out of a large shrubs and with a chain around the dog and that dog walked on top of the river. But what more surpassing me to see that the dog did not go through the water if not above the water and when my brother wanted to run together we could not take the step where the dog was. Atorro and when my brother wanted to grab and throw the banana to We could pass the banana broke into three pieces with the shell mass and my sister began praying to God to take that away to pass. Suddenly they got He started putting like a pile of quarries with a bunch of dried twigs and there he got the dog and he was slowly fading away. When the dog disappeared, we could start walking again.

Background/Context:

The participant is 52 years old. She grew up in Michoacan, Mexico. Maria, who is marked as MS, is my grandma. In her hometown, there is a lot of superstition beliefs that spread throughout the whole town. In this specific story, almost everyone in town saw this dog they claimed to be the devil. They tried to avoid the river because that is where the dog appears most of the time. Below is a conversation I had with MS for more background/context of the remedy, which was originally in Spanish.  

DM:Why do you know this ghost story?

MS: I know this story because I am the one who lived through it.

DM: Why do you like telling this ghost story?

MS:  I like telling this story because it is something I want people to know what I have been through.

DM: Where/who did they learn it from?

MS: There was stories already in my town of the dog, but I never saw it until now. I heard about the dog from others but I also learned it through a real life experience.

DM: Why is this ghost story important to you?

MS: This shows that family always need to be united always in every situation especially with family and that God will always hear you out.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

This story shows how this “devil dog” was able to show up in everyone’s life at one point. MS explains to me how her and her siblings heard a lot about the dog before it appeared to them. They were scared of walking or fighting at night because of everything they heard. Finally, the dog appeared to them. When my grandma told me this story, I was scared of the dogs that I had in that moment.