Text:

Informant: “When people walk alone in the mountains, farms, where no on else is around on the roads, or if you come home late after being out, if you saw a white dog, it was there to protect you. But, if you saw a black dog, the black dog would look for drunk people on the street and attack them. People who saw black dogs that looked like a spirit, they would run to someone’s house. If it was white, they felt it would protect them.”

Context:

This Nicaraguan legend was told to the informant as a child and teen by their mom and grandma, who lived in Nicaragua. The informant was born and raised in Nicaragua until they moved to the U.S. at 16 years old. People who lived in the mountains or farms and saw a white dog were told that it served as a protection. However, if they saw a black dog and they were drunk, they’d get attacked.

Analysis:

I’ve found that a lot of Nicaraguan legends have an underlying lesson that is meant to be shared to young ones. This particular legend served a functionalist approach because it was likely meant to discourage people from getting drunk. It could also have been told to prevent people from being out alone in the middle of the night. Adding the element of potentially seeing a white dog could give teens a little bit of hope that they were safe on their walk.