Tag Archives: creatures

Lebanon Local Town Hyenas: legend

Nationality: Lebanese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/21/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic

Text: 

Me: “Did you grow up with any legends in your hometown?”

AH: “In Lebanon it’s all mountains, my house will overlook the mountains from a balcony, some noises that no one seems to know of can be heard every night, they sound just like hyenas, like the laughing noise that hyenas make”.

Me: “Oh- have you personally seen hyenas on the mountain?”

AH: “No, no one has ever seen hyenas there. People in my village simply believe that the noises come from a hyena-like person, almost like a werewolf. People in the village try to determine who is a true hyena-like person and they try to find out who could it be. People are determined to find out who it is so they can get them to stop laughing in order to let us sleep at night. However, my parents would always say don’t go to the woods or mountains…they would tell us to avoid it at all costs. So yeah, I always grew up hearing those laughing noises at night”.

Context (informant’s relationship to the piece, where they heard it, how they interpret it):

– AH’s relationship to this piece stems from his Lebanon hometown which allowed him to have various experiences as he would first-hand hear the hyena-like noises constantly in his childhood village. AH would hear this legend be talked about by his parents and from the people in his community. The hyena-like person concept was an idea that was constantly heard about all around town considering many wanted to find the person who kept them up at night. AH interprets this legend as a light-hearted concept within his town considering that not much attention has come about when it comes to doing something about the noises. Given that the village people are not adamant about calling animal control or the city police to investigate, AH interprets this legend as a fun idea that unites his entire community. 

Analysis (what kind of personal, cultural, or historical values might be expressed) YOUR interpretation:

– The overall cultural value within this legend stems from Lebanese culture considering the hyena-like creature is completely precise and embedded in AH’s Lebanon village within their overall lifestyle. Not to mention, the personal values that can be expressed within this legend is that it allows the individual to create different theories surrounding the noise because they have various personal experiences when it comes to hearing the noises from their homes; thus exemplifying their spiritual values. I see this legend as an overall concept of protection or nurture when it comes to the parent’s emphasis on not allowing their children to enter the woods/mountains. Whether the legend is true or not, I think parents use this idea as a tactic to keep their children safe and at home. Considering that I have never experienced any situation similar to this, I interpret this legend to be a nonchalant way for the village people to avoid the sounds in order to save them the trouble of getting to the bottom of what actually keeps them up at night. Not to mention, I interpret this legend as a uniting cultural phenomenon among many generations within their town. Despite the fact that I have never experienced anything similar to this legend, I have heard about similar legends regarding my Mexican culture. I grew up hearing about the legend of La Llorona which had similar motives of making children behave and to stay in at night in order to avoid danger. The legend of La Llorona can be seen as a different oikotype when it comes to the concept of behavioral legends. However, one distinctive difference from AH’s legend compared to La Llorona, was that I grew up knowing that kids in my school would participate in legend quests as they would go hiking in attempt to see if La Llorona was real or not instead of simply being scared and staying at home like the influence of AH’s legend.

Los Duendes

Informant:TH; Interviewer’s Sister

“Okay okay, I have one more you can write about. I know that duendes are like a thing in Mexico, but did you hear that my grandma pissed off a duende?”

Interviewer shakes their head.

“So according to my aunt, when they were crossing the river to get here [the United States], they like, found little rocks in a circle with stuff in it. And at first my grandma thought it was a campfire, so she started piling on like leaves and shrub and stuff. And they used it as a fire for the night. In the morning, my aunt was missing her lucky bracelet and her glasses. And my uncle couldn’t find his cross necklace. And so our tios have a theory that a duende’s belongings were in the little rock circle. And when my grandma used it as a fire all their belongings burned up.”

Interviewer asks: “Can you elaborate as to what that means? What is a duende and why is it taking things?”

“Yeah, so. Um, a duende is like…” *they take a moment* “how do I explain it? They’re like um, little elves or like creatures rather. And they can either be very nice or very mean. Kinda like how the witches on TikTok are always like “don’t piss off the fae or they’ll like curse you or whatever’.They’re essentially little guys that can either reward you or curse you. And so in the context of the story, the duende whose things were allegedly burned started stealing their little trinkets as retaliation.”

My interpretation: I don’t think this happened completely. I do think my uncle and aunt were scatterbrained trying to cross into a whole new country and they may have lost a few things, but the idea of my grandmother angering a mystical little being is the funniest thing I’ve ever been told. I think My uncle and aunt started telling the kids in our family this story as a way to build lore to their journey. I don’t necessarily think there needs to be a lesson to be taught here, I think it was more for embellishment.

NORWEGIAN TROLLS

Nationality: Norwegian
Age: 50
Occupation: Stay-at-home-mom
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 24, 2021
Primary Language: Norwegian
Language: English

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: So… Trolls are what people think of when they think of Norway, I guess… But people don’t actually believe in trolls, I don’t think… It’s kind of like to make childhood exciting, I think. You know how we have these little hikes in the woods where supposedly the trolls live, and you know, they make all these little adventure trails for kids focusing around trolls. And at the cross country ski races there would be troll mascots, right? Mhm.

Interviewer: What are some characteristics of trolls? 

Informant: Maybe a little rascal-like. Not mean, but mischievous… Bushy. Lots of hair… And very small… Big nose. Big ears… Bad teeth… There are big trolls… But when I think of them, I think of them as little trolls… I don’t have a strong attachment to trolls I guess, I don’t know.

Interviewer: But they are like a national symbol? 

Informant: Yeah, they are… They’re in a lot of our fairy tales and stuff…  I don’t know if trolls are officially a national symbol… Or if it’s something people play off of ‘cause they think it’s cool, and it draws tourists. I don’t know. 

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Interviewer: Do you know why trolls are such a big national thing?

Informant: I don’t know where it comes from. I’ve never really… Maybe it has to do with the nature in Norway… I’d be curious to know actually. 

Interviewer: So what’s up with all the troll statues everywhere? 

Informant: Oh yeah… I’ve never even thought about that… I don’t know why that is… Like there’s a big one in Oppdal, but Oppdal is such like a… Rural community, you know? I’m sure that tales are even more… What do you call it….? More prevalent, there. Like I’m sure there’s even more focus on tradition, and that traditions are even stronger in a place like that where it’s so rural and everybody lives on a farm almost.

Interviewer: Were trolls as prevalent when you were growing up?

Informant: Probably. Just not in my life, you know……? Actually! Growin’ up, I had kind of like a troll-looking doll that was really cute. That my mom would like knit clothes for, you know? And I would bring him as my mascot to gymnastic competitions and stuff. And my friend had one too and we’d play with them all the time. 

REFLECTION:

There is no denying that trolls are a large part of Norwegian culture. And yet, the informant does not feel much attachment to them as creatures or symbols; she does not have much information on trolls, nor has she given them much thought throughout her life. This suggests that the emphasis on trolls may indeed be primarily a tourist draw, as tourists may find more appeal in symbols than locals do. In “Early Travellers in Borneo” in Tourism in South-East Asia, Graham Saunders writes, “Travellers…today arrive with certain expectations. They carry with them an idea or image of Borneo, an image which tourist brochures have conveyed” (Saunders 271). Tourists have expectations pertaining to their destination. They are on the outside looking in, and may thus attach themselves to symbols that seemingly represent the place they are visiting; it makes a foreign place easier to understand and digest.

In his book Trolls: An Unnatural History, John Lindow writes, “For centuries…trolls were found only in the landscape of Scandinavia. They were ‘nature beings…’ Their home environment was a pre-industrial society in which people lived by farming and fishing, often on a small scale” (Lindow 9). Trolls largely originated as Scandinavian figures. They are thought to be encountered in nature, and Norway is a landscape made up of forests, fjords, mountains, rivers, and so on. Norway was also a rural place for a long time, and there are still active farming and fishing communities. Trolls may then fit the tourists’ expectations of what Norway is supposed to be like: rural and woodsy. The tourists’ expectations may in turn fuel what tourist brochures, etc. convey, as the tourist industry aims to draw more people in using the tangible symbols that seem to be working (such as trolls).

ANNOTATIONS:

Sources cited above (Note: Also see Lindow’s book for further reading on trolls):

Lindow, John. Trolls: An Unnatural History. Reaktion Books, 2014. 

Saunders, Graham. “Early Travellers in Borneo.” Tourism in South-East Asia, by Michael Hitchcock et al., Routledge, 1993.