Tag Archives: family history

Apache Tear Mountain

‘ In Arizona, there is a mountain called Apache Tear Mountain. Back in the mid and late 1800s, the Apache people lived around this mountain. They were peace-loving and wonderful people. They raised their families in this area, but at one point, the Apache that lived around there went to war with another Native American tribe. The tale goes that the warriors of the Apache tribe met and fought the other tribe on top of the mountain. They fought and fought and fought… Many warriors of the Apache tribe were killed. At the end of the battle, the wives and daughters went to the top of the mountain and saw their family members… grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and brothers… dead from battle. The women wept and cried, and as they cried their tears fell down the mountain and turned to beautiful black glassy stone which then turned into obsidian… the Apache tears.’ – PB

Growing up, PB and his dad would travel to Pima, a town in central Arizona. It was on this drive his dad would always remind him of this legend that many people in Arizona know and share with others. His dad learned this from his father, who was actually a miner in central Arizona, mining silver, copper, tin, and manganese. PB remembers when he would travel to Apache Tear Mountain, he would ask for Apache Tears and would be brought beautiful black stones, stones of obsidian. He even went into the mountain on hikes and trips, and recalls that when he would dig in the soil, it would unearth even more beautiful obsidian. While he learned this from his father, PB has also shared this tale with his own family and children, taking them to the exact spot he grew up going.

This legend was told to me as a child, and has been a story I share with friends on road trips throughout the Arizona deserts. This piece of folklore follows many of the trends that lore is known for. It latches on to the cultural beliefs of the Native American peoples in Arizona and combines it with the legends that were told among these communities. While it can be assumed that these legends were adapted as they flowed through the many diverse communities who told them, this is still a key aspect of folklore; the adaptation of the tradition as it follows through many cultures. Furthermore, this legend combines the tradition and cultural beliefs with an origin for a mineral formed among a mountain, allowing the imagination to give reason as to why and how obsidian was created there in the first place. This tale also allows these communities to uphold the sacred connection to the land in central Arizona. History and legends are combined into one, giving a unique oral tradition to a tale told thousands of times.

Buried Alive

This story um… is from our Paine side of the family and it goes back to I believe around 1727, the year 1727. And we had a relative named William Winston and. . . he wasn’t a wealthy man, but he worked hard, but he was relatively poor. And he lived up in Northern Virginia and he met a woman who he fell deeply in love with. She was. . .she became his paramour. She was all he had hoped for in a mate and he decided this is going to be the woman that. . . I. . . I am going to marry, and her name was Sarah Dabney. And, so he started courting her as they did back in that day, and the courting process went on for quite a while. Um. . . long enough for him to save up a lot of the money that he had and he had made from work in order to buy her what was going to be one of the most beautiful rings that anyone in Northern Virginia had ever seen as an engagement ring. And. . .they were going to get married in mid spring, and it had been a terrible winter, and William Winston lived in a small, small house. You know back then it was probably a shack. But, the poor weather continued and it snowed and then the snow to rain and sleet for quite a while but he and Sarah went ahead and got married. I think it was. . . late. . . late April of 1727 if I am correct on the date, and word got out that she had this incredible engagement ring that he had gotten for her that was (you know) a sign of their betrothal. And, the word got out. . . and she fell sick with pneumonia and he thought um she became really really sick and. . . to the point to where the doctors pronounced her dead. And this was like a month. . . this was not long after they had been married. And he was devastated, he was totally traumatized. And he buried her . . . I guess he buried her in a somewhat shallow grave and the word had gotten out that his wife who had this beautiful ring. . . that this–this laborer who had married a woman and given her this just almost priceless wedding ring–that she had died.

And  three–I guess they would have been equivalent to highway men,robbers, grave robbers–after she had been buried, they dug her up, and because the ring fit so tightly on her finger that they couldn’t slide it off of her finger, and they cut her finger off! Well he was back in his home, and they dug her up in this dark and stormy night, and he’s (you know) probably sitting at his little table in his little shack with the candle flickering and the wind howling and the rain beating and the roof leaking and you know just crying into his hands. . . and there was a scratching at the door! And he’s– and he (you know) he’s just just sobbing and the scratching continued and it got louder and louder and louder and he finally realized somebody or something is scratching at my door! And he got up and he went to the door and he opened the door and there was Sarah and she hadn’t died, she had been buried alive! When they dug her up and cut the ring off of her finger it. . . it. . . it resuscitated her enough, along with the oxygen that she was able to breathe again. . . and that’s the story. And they lived happily ever after after that.

Chinese New Year Superstition

Nationality: chinese
Age: 26
Occupation: environmentalist
Residence: LA
Performance Date: May 2 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant is a 26 year-old woman who is of Chinese descent. She grew up in Hong Kong and lived there until she moved to Pasadena at the age of 7. Listed below is an account of a Chinese holiday called “Harvest Festival”. She detailed her experience of Chinese New Year and specific beliefs and practices her family had. She knows and loves these stories from personal experience. She knows and loves these stories from personal experience.

Informant:

“On Chinese new year, you are not supposed to wash your hair or your clothes because it is thought to be washing off the good luck. You are also only supposed to wear red, even your underwear. The elders also give the younger people money in red envelopes as a sign of good luck and prosperity. On the first day of the year you only eat dumplings, second day you eat fish and vegetables, and on the third day you eat ‘longevity noodles’ because it’s supposed to give you a long life.” 

Thoughts:

The superstitious aspect of “washing good luck off” was one thing that I found particularly interesting. It is believed that one possesses a high amount of good luck on Chinese new year and you will wash it off if you wash any of your things. The connection to red in Chinese culture is present in many stories that this informant told me and I am curious to know where red ties into their history and how it came to be such a symbolic color. I love the way that food ties into this holiday over the span of several days. It almost seems as though one is preparing the two days before in order to eat the “longevity noodles”, noodles that promote a long life. 

Remembering your roots

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 53
Occupation: Freelance Transalter
Residence: Taiwan
Performance Date: 4/22/17
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Ther informant talks about her family saying that has been passed down from generation to generation of the family-owned lumber mill would tell to their children using very philosophical views to teach.

Informant: In 3rd grade, my grandfather came to stay with me when my parents went to Japan for 2 weeks. I heard my grandfather singing, when I went to compliment his singing, he scolded me saying that it was poetry. And he said my education was a disgrace, and he decided to teach me Tang poetry. He was incredibly well educated and opened his own school. They taught a lot of famous philosophers and martial arts. He began instructing me how to pronounce this poetry, but it was incredibly difficult for a little girl like me to learn.

he told me a story from Zuangzi 莊子, everyone should know their own ancestors and such. Just like the trees that our lumber mill production. We would cut the trees and put it into a river and pick them up downstream. However, when you put the tree in the river, you had to put the tree in the right way, the tip of tree trunk pointing upstream. This is so that it would go down smoothly if you don’t do it properly, then the tree will be confused. Even the trees know where their roots are, so all human beings need to know their roots/ancestry. As a tutor in traditional Chinese, everything with him was didactic, loaded with right vs. wrong, good and better, righteousness and all those Confucius values. This is a story that has been told by our family for the past I think 6 or 7 generations.

Just like trees, us humans need to know our roots and continue the legacy.

 

This was interesting, learning a little about my one’s ancestry and family teachings that have been passed down for many generations and knowing that using very philosophical views from a very famous philosopher in ancient China to be applied to a family that used to produce lumber in the past 2 centuries is somewhat amazing for me. I feel like the message that was mentioned really is important to not forget one’s ancestry and roots.

Moon Festival

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 54
Occupation: Consultant
Residence: Taiwan
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

The informant is my father who has always grown up in Taiwan but came to America for grad school. Understanding both cultures, he has a very wide understanding of the traditions in our household and its practices.

Informant:

中秋節 (Zhong Qiu Jie) – It is a celebration of when the moon is the biggest during the year. We celebrate it by eating 月餅 (Yue Bing) which is moon cakes. We also have a tradition to go outside and have barbecues with friends and family while enjoying the beautiful moon. In our family, we do not go do barbecues outside because it is too much of a hassle, so we usually just go to a barbecue restaurant to eat. After that, we always go home and eat fruits, one particular fruit we eat is pomelo. When you were a child we used to eat the fruit and use the shell of the fruit as a hat for you to play around with. As a kid, we even used the fruit shell as slippers to save money. It also has a great smell so we always leave it outside as a fragrance.

I have sometimes been in Taiwan during this time, I for one personally love this holiday because I get to eat delicious barbecue. I definitely do not remember doing such a tradition of putting fruit on top of my head, but it does sound like something I would do as a kid.