The Man in Black

Age: 21

Folk Narrative: Memorate

Text: The Man in Black 

“The rancho (in Los Mochis, Sinaloa) we used to live in was owned by a middle-aged man before we bought it. He lived in a small house with his crops and cattle. He had a rifle, and one day, while he was cleaning it, he shot himself. It was a slow death because there was nobody there to help him, so he eventually bled to death. My dad then bought the rancho from his brother. Now, they call the man the Man in Black because you can only see his shadow when he appears. Our rancho was close to the rest of the town, so it was widespread knowledge that the Man in Black might appear. Years passed, and people said they sometimes see the Man in Black, just a shadow of a man walking around. In 2013, we celebrated my sister’s birthday party at the rancho. We were in the back of the truck, and I saw a shadow behind me. When we got home, I ran inside and told my mom what I had seen. My sister said she saw it too. My dad’s workers were inside the house, and they said not to worry because that was the Man in Black. I’ve seen him, my sister, brother, and dad’s workers have all seen him.” 

Context: When asked, my informant told me that this is an individual experience affecting only those connected with the rancho, yet it is widespread knowledge. He mentioned that when he first saw the shadow in 2013, he did not know what it was because nobody had told him until it happened. People knew about it because they were close enough in time to witness the man’s funeral. They all accept his existence and act normally around him. There is no curiosity about it because there is no purpose in looking for an explanation for what happened since it happened so long ago. People in the small town live complicated lives and need to worry about their crops, cattle, and next meal, so they don’t have time to worry about the Man in Black. My informant mentioned that these stories appear during parties or social gatherings, but not in day-to-day life. He noted that people need to focus on their survival so they are not bothered by him. When asked how he interprets this, my informant also mentioned that part of his culture in Los Mochis involves understanding entities and supernatural beings. The community believes some people are stuck in limbo and can’t pass on to the next life. They think the Man in Black stays around the property because that is all he knows. The entity does not understand ownership, so it cannot distinguish between its old rancho and the one that now belongs to my informant’s family. Being a very Catholic town, they grew up believing in the afterlife, and during uncertain moments of one’s existence in space and time, they resorted to less institutionalized beliefs. Because of this widespread understanding of these beings and the communal teachings of wishing them luck and light, the members of Los Mochis have peacefully co-lived with the Man in Black. 

Analysis: Looking at this narrative, we can see how it fits the criteria of a memorate. First, it is a personal story that my informant and his family experienced at different times. This reinforces that the encounter with the Man in Black is not just folklore passed through hearsay but something rooted in lived, personal memory. My informant is connected to the memorate by having ties to the rancho where the Man in Black died and still wanders. Additionally, it is rooted in a real-world place—Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and is tied to a specific, known individual’s death. It is grounded in firsthand experience and is not widespread or passed down enough to be considered a legend. However, it could become one. Because the figure has taken on well-known characteristics such as a shadowy presence and always wearing black, it suggests that the narrative could eventually develop into a legend. This memorate also reinforces the idea that ghost stories exist because people keep seeing ghosts. Others like my informant may see a shadow on or near the rancho and translate it into seeing the Man in Black because that is the widespread communal knowledge. This narrative also fits into the Friend of a Friend (FOAF) property because the family members are reassuring each other that what they saw was indeed the Man in Black. They continue believing this narrative by reinforcing the narrative amongst those closest to them. 

Leyenda de la Mujer de Blanco en la Pérgola

Age: 21

Folk Narrative: Legend 

Text: Leyenda de la Mujer de Blanco en la Pérgola (Legend of the Woman in White at the Pergola)

“It all started in the early 1900s. The Johnson family came to Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and founded the city. It was just a few families and a very rural town. The Johnsons came in and built the city. In the city, there is a very famous hill, and at the bottom is a cemetery that the Johnsons founded. They call it Cerro de la Memoria, which comes from Memorial Hill. The story goes that at one of the parties they would throw at the park at the hill, a lady was dancing and a man was attracted to her. So he approaches her and politely asks to dance. She accepts, and they dance for a while. It gets late, so he takes her home, and it becomes very chilly at night, so he gives her his jacket. He drops her off at her house and leaves her his jacket with the excuse that he will come back for it. The next day, he goes to her house and knocks at the door, and an older woman answers. The gentleman asks if she has seen the young lady, and the older woman says, no but he should come in. They sit down, and she tells him that what he is saying can’t be real because that young woman was her daughter, who had passed away a couple of years ago. They proceed to go to the cemetery and see his jacket on the cross on top of the woman’s grave. Now, whenever a party is at the bottom of the hill, they say she might appear dancing or waiting for someone to ask her to dance”.

Context: When asked, my informant told me that he knows this legend by heart. It is a legend that all of his town knows and children learn at a young age. He said he doesn’t remember when he first heard it, but it was at his elementary school from the teachers or from one of his mom’s friends. He let me know that its setting is in the city’s first cemetery that still stands today, so it is a landmark legend for all the area’s inhabitants. He mentioned that everybody has been to that hill and knows to look out for the Woman in White may appear. My informant mentioned that when the narrative is told at a social gathering, everybody jumps in to correct the plot or to give their opinion on what happened, even coming up with their own names for the woman, and experiencing chills. When asked why people continue telling this story, he mentioned that it brings the community together. Los Mochis is a small town, so people rely on each other for entertainment, one of which is storytelling. When asked how he interprets this narrative, my informant mentioned that the community lives for the thrill of knowing that maybe one day they can see the Woman in White and experience a supernatural encounter. It also served as a way to warn people not to be out late at night because they may stumble into the undead. 

Analysis: Looking at this narrative, we can see that it fits the properties of a legend by taking place in the ‘real world’ in this case, Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and having a truth value dependent on whether someone believes in it or not. For the community of Los Mochis, there is a widespread understanding that this happened. However, until somebody is able to prove it, it remains a legend. Another legend that this narrative fits into is its overlap with history. My informant actually started the narrative by giving historical context to set the legend in our place and time. It makes it more believable and establishes what people believe. The community does not wonder if the legend is true because that is not what is essential. Instead, what matters is the relationship it builds by connecting the inhabitants of Los Mochis to a legend that overlaps with their daily lives. My informant’s experience also relates to the Friend of a Friend (FOAF) principle that we tend to believe things when they come from people in our inner circle. Because the legend of the Woman in White is so localized, those who tell it are all familiar with each other and most likely trust each other’s words for it. 

Worker Chosen by Babe Ruth

Nationality: American

Occupation: Corporate Event Planner

Residence: New York, NY

Language: English

Text:

When Babe Ruth showed up for work, he didn’t look or act like a professional athlete. He ate way too much, drank way too much, and would often wake up with a different woman in his bed. When he was playing he was often hung over, which made it harder for him to deal with all of the attention he was getting as a superstar baseball player. Back in that day in the late 1920s, a bunch of kids would line up outside the stadium in hopes of being the bat boy, and the players would pick one and they’d get paid a nickel for the game. [My aunt’s] great-uncle lived in the Bronx, and after a few weeks of showing up at the stadium he finally got chosen to be the bat boy. He was always very quiet, which Babe Ruth loved; all the other bat boys would constantly try to talk to him which he found annoying. With him as bat boy, the Yankees went on a winning streak and went on to win the World Series. Because of his quiet nature, Babe Ruth gave [my aunt’s] grand-uncle the nickname “Silent Pete”, which stuck for the rest of his life. Eventually Pete became the full time equipment manager for the Yankees, and was with the team for 20 World Series titles.

Context:

The truth of this story is very difficult to measure. The nickname of Pete was given to him by the Yankees (although it is unclear if it was Babe Ruth himself), and he went by Pete his entire life instead of his real name of Michael. There is some proof that he was paid five cents per game to be the bat boy, and the reports of Babe Ruth showing up hungover were likely true. However, the part of the story where kids lined up outside the ballpark and the players personally would pick a bat boy is probably false; he held the bat boy job for almost a decade, which would not make sense if they were picked fresh each day, and it is unlikely that the incredibly famous players would choose the bat boy themselves. My aunt claims to have told me this story exactly as she heard it from her father, who claims he tells it exactly as he heard it from Pete Sheehy, but it is likely that they both enhanced elements of the story.

Analysis:

There are two main elements to this story in my opinion. The first is a simple, classic American rags-to-riches story, where Pete Sheehy was a poor young boy living in the Bronx during the great depression, and through hard work and a positive spirit he worked his way up the ranks of the Yankees organization and ended up as their equipment manager. This is very similar to the common stories of someone starting in the mailroom and working their way up to being the CEO of the company. The other main element to this story relates directly to my family. My family were at the time recent immigrants to America, and faced many of the hardships that recent immigrants face. This story was used to tie my family to Babe Ruth, an American legend, which was a way within my family of solidifying status as being “real Americans” when many other people would have discriminated against them as recent immigrants.

Yankees Eating Contest

Nationality: American

Occupation: Corporate Event Planner

Residence: New York, NY

Language: English

Text:

In 1919, during Yankees spring training in Florida, a Yankees player boasted that he could eat more spaghetti than anyone else on the team. His teammates did not argue with him, because they had seen how much spaghetti he could eat. Eventually, his teammates got tired of him talking about how much he could eat, so they arranged for a spectacle of a competition they were sure he would lose; they would have him compete in an eating contest against an ostrich. Somehow they set up this eating contest between a ballplayer and an ostrich, and in the end the ballplayer won. He passed out after eating eleven plates of spaghetti, and the ostrich ran away after eating seven, making him the winner.

Context:

My aunt told me this story, and she first heard it from her great-uncle Pete Sheehy, who is famous for being the equipment manager and clubhouse attendant of the New York Yankees for 50 years. Sheehy had not yet joined the Yankees in 1919, so he would have heard this story from other players or employees that he worked with. When I asked her if she had any folk stories to share, she said that there were tons of stories involving the Yankees that were famous and well known, and she listed some like Babe Ruth calling his shot and Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, but then she remembered and shared this story as a more niche Yankee moment.

Analysis:

There are tons of stories about the New York Yankees in the early 20th century that have become legends, but almost all of those stories are about how dominant the team was and how great all of the players were. This story is not about a great player, nor is it even about baseball. It is just a bizarre story. However, the detail that the food being eaten in the contest was spaghetti jumped out at me. The Yankees fan base has always had a large Italian American population, and at the time of this story Italian Americans were a marginalized group. The fact that a member of the “Murderer’s Row” Yankees, which is often still regarded as the best baseball team ever, was Italian and ate a lot of spaghetti would be incredibly significant to the Italian American fans who were underrepresented at that point in time. Given how my aunt repeated numerous times that the food was spaghetti, it was clearly an important part of the story.

What to do With a Runaway Horse

Nationality: Irish

Occupation: Horse Race Track Manager

Residence: Waterford, Ireland

Language: English

Text:

“O’Flangagan had a racehorse, the fastest racehorse in Ireland. Every race, the horse won by at least ten lengths, it was never close. But everytime the horse came to the end of the race, instead of crossing the finishing post, it would veer off the side and run off into a field. O’Flanagan was going mental with this horse, so he went to see Seamus, the town vet, he said “I’ve got the fastest horse in Ireland, but every time he gets near the winning post he runs off to the side into a field and the next horse wins. What am I ever going to do?” Seamus said “I am familiar with that problem and I have the solution for you, you must get a small lump of lead and put it in the horse’s left ear, that will solve the problem, guaranteed.” O’Flanagan asked “How will I get the lump of lead in the horse’s ear?” to which the vet replied, “With a gun.”

Context: Before my aunt told me this story/joke, she spent a while nervously laughing and going on about how dark it is. She owns two horses and leases two more, and her job is entirely built around horse races. Her reluctance to share this story shows her admiration for horses, as well as their admiration across rural Ireland. She, along with many of her friends, have had to put down sick horses, and from our conversation it seemed like telling this story reminded her of those experiences and helped her laugh about such a difficult experience.

Analysis:

This joke reveals a lot about the way in which horses are viewed; they are both loved and thought of as precious, but also can be incredibly frustrating and uncooperative, and are still seen as animals below humans. The idea of killing a horse because it ran a race wrong is ridiculous, but the idea of needing to shoot a horse to put it down is not. Combining a ridiculous reason for putting a horse down with the somber act of actually putting it down brings a sense of humor into a difficult situation, similar to other dark humor. The fact that putting a horse down requires this type of humor to cope shows how horses are treasured and loved in this rural area in the South of Ireland.