Tag Archives: ghost story

The Little Ghost Boy

Informant: My informant is a very good friend of mine. She and I met in my sophomore year of high school. She is currently an undergraduate at Cal State Dominguez Hills. The following transcript is a retelling of a ghost story that she heard from her mom and that has been passed down by the family due to the erie circumstances and she is now telling it to me. 

Context: My informant states that after hearing this story from her mom. At the age that she heard it she was terribly scared of it. However, now that she has grown up, she’s not that scared, but still has a strong belief in this story. In fact, she has stated that now rather than fear for this little ghost boy she feels empathy for it. She can not imagine how lonely or how much this child must have been through that they are not able to let themselves go. 

Story:  So, this is my mom’s ghost story. It was around the 1980’s. At this time my mom was living at Jalisco, Mexico. She was in her friend’s house and was in the kitchen. She looks over towards the restroom and the bedrooms and from a distance, she sees a small child. He was dressed in a small white suit and no older than 5 years old. She saw him walk from the restroom into one of the bedrooms, then he just disappeared. When my mom’s friend came back to the kitchen my mom asked about it. The friends said, “Oh yeah. This is normal. When I clean, I can always hear a little kid laughing. 

Analysis: Based on the details of the story, I’m awestruck as to how my informant is not scared of this ghost story but rather how she experiences empathy and some sort of pity for this ghost child. By seeing my friend’s reaction toward this story, one is able to see a glimpse of how younger generation are slowly becoming more intrigued and fascinated by these stories. Rather than ghost inflicting fear, Americans have now become succumbed to the idea of suspension vs. if we go back in time America used to be terribly afraid of anything out of the supernatural.

Lady in the Alley

Informant: The informant is a very good friend of mine. She and I met in my sophomore year of high school. She is currently an undergraduate at Cal State Dominguez Hills. 

Context: The following transcript is a retelling of a ghost story that she heard from her aunt. Her aunt experienced this in early 1980s in Puebla, Mexico. My informant states that she believes it because this has not been the first time that her aunt has experiences something like this.

Story: “This story was told by my aunt to me, and it was experienced by her in Jalisco, Mexico when she was very young. It occurred one day when she had stayed late with a friend out of school. By the time they left and were walking home, it was dark. She was walking with her friend, and they saw a woman walk into this dark alley. They were confused as to what this lady was going to do because it was a dead-end ally. Curious to see whether the woman might be lost, they approached the valley carefully, but to their surprise there was no one there!”

Analysis: Although, this encounter might seem like a huge misunderstanding, to my surprise I actually believe this ghost story. Although, Mexico is a beautiful place, it is also full of a lot of violence. Most of the violence is experienced by women. Therefore, when hearing this story, I believe it might be the spirit of a woman who is restless and looking for vengeance or peace. I think this is the reason why I believe in this. In today’s lore there are so many more legends that seem to be similar to what my informant’s aunt experienced all around the world.

To read another version of a woman in alley, which might be suspected to be restless ghost refer to the following: S.E Schlosser, 2007, “Spooky Canada: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, And Other Local Lore”, pp. 117

La Senora de Blanco

Informant: My informant is my Mexican dad, who grew up in Puebla, Mexico. Although he has had many experiences with seeing spirits or potentials ghost, he retells me an interaction that he had with potential with a ghost on a day that he went to work at the same apartment in which we have been living for the past 21 years. 

 Context: This event happened in 2019. The following transcripts come from a conversation between me and my dad (S). He retells the story of a potential ghost that he might have seen one day when he left to work, and how he recalls this interaction to not have been scary, but rather more of a surprise to him. He recalls that in this interaction, it felt almost as if he knew the woman in white, or at least they had interacted in the past. 

Text: 

Me: Oye papá, cuéntame algo interesante. Nunca te has topado con un fantasma o has oído de una historia de fantasmas? 

S: Si, si me he topado con uno. No se si te acuerdas pero te había contado tu y tu mama de esa señora de blanco que me la encontre aca abajo de la escaleras donde vivimos. Eran las 4:30am de la mañana y ves que me voy temprano al trabajo. Pos ese dia era como cualquier otro dia. Me bañe, me cambie, y los dejó dormidos. Iba yo bajando las escaleras y luego vi una señora de blanco. Era con una estatura de casi igual que yo, flaquita y como con vibra buena. Bueno y cuando me la tope, le dije buenos días. Y medio me contestó pero no le podía yo ver la cara para nada, porque estaba tapada como con un reboso. Y ves como los que se ponen aya en pueblito. Después, le abrí la puerta, y se pasó. Nomas que vez que yo camino para el carro. Ella se fue de la tercera, y yo me fui para la seis. Ni un minutos paso y ya no estaba! 

Translations of the text: 

Me: Hey dad, tell me something interesting. Have you ever encountered a ghost or have you heard of a ghost? 

S: Yes, I have come across one. I don’t know if you remember but you and your mom had told you about that lady in white that I found here downstairs where we live. It was 4:30 in the morning and you see that I leave early for work. Well, that day was like any other day. I showered, changed, and left you guys asleep. I was going down the stairs and then I saw a lady in white. She was about the same height as me, thin, and with like-good vibes. Well, and when I ran into her, I said good morning. And she half answered me but I couldn’t see her face at all, because it was covered as if with a shawl of some kind. You know like those in my little town. After, I opened the door for her, and she walked outside. You know how I walk to the car. She left through third street and I left to the other side of our street. Not even a minute passed and she wasn’t there anymore! 

Analysis: I believe this ghost story because there are so many people who have claimed to have seen a woman in white as well. Although it is of course not with the same textures of clothes or in the same place, it all just seems to be really due to the fact that my informant remembers every detail of it. Due to the fact, that my informant states that they weren’t really scared of it, but much more felt some sort of warmth to this spiritual being came to a surprise. If I had been in the shoes of my dad, I would have tried to not even talk to the woman, due to the fact that she was stranger. However, based on his spiritual encounter it proves to see that not everyone is prone to be scared of these experiences.

The Grateful Dead – Band Name Origin

Main Piece:

While with my dad, JK, listening to the Grateful Dead music in the kitchen, he asked:

JK: “Do you know how they got the name Grateful Dead?”

Me: “No?”

JK: “They were sitting at their house at 710 Ashbury, and they were called ‘the Warlocks’ at the time. Jerry turns to the others, ‘We’ve gotta name this band. The Warlocks aren’t a good name.'”

Me: “They were called that?”

JK: “Yeah. Stupid. So they open up this dictionary there and there was an item called ‘Grateful Dead.’ And it’s basically a story that’s present in a ton of cultures. They read it and were like, ‘Hell yeah man.'”

Me: “What’s the story?”

JK: “The common story is that there is a weary traveler that encounters the corpse of someone who never received a proper burial. And they didn’t get one because they had unpaid debts when they died.”

Me: “Does the traveler burry them?”

JK: “The traveler pays their debts and gets them the burial. Then, later in life, their life gets saved by the soul of that person. So the grateful dead are the protective spirits that have been earned through charitable gesture.”

Background:

The informant has gone to many Grateful Dead shows and stays very versed in the lore of the band, still being an avid listener. The story, however, seems to cary more weight for him because of the connection to the band rather than it just being a regular tale. It’s been enhanced for him because of it.

Thoughts:

Yet another example of music and musicians borrowing from folklore then creating a new interpretation of the lore. Examining the lyrics in Grateful Dead songs also shows many aesthetic parallels to this tale as they sing about being friends with the Devil’s friend, hauntings, and death (but all under an upbeat psychedelic rock tone). What’s interesting about this specific adaptation of the tale in borrowing the name of the subject of the story, it has made the tale more known, at least to me. For I would have probably never heard of such tale, if it weren’t for the Grateful Dead being tied to it.

Ghost of La Palma

Context:

B is a Mexican Immigrant from La Palma, Mexico. She goes back to her home state every ear and likes to bring back souvenirs as conversation topics. She enjoys talking about her village in Mexico and how it’s like to her friends.

The context of this piece was in B’s living room as I was telling her about an episode of Supernatural I had watched and the plot like had reminded her of the ghost of La Palma. Her dad was the first one to tell her about the ghost but it’s a common topic of conversation in La Palma

Text:

B: “So basically the story I’ve heard is that um in La Palma, you know there’s a Carretera to get to Sahuayo to La Palma and it’s not that long I’m going to say like 2 miles like I don’t know don’t factcheck me on that but anyway so supposedly there is this lady that appears between 12 and 3 in the morning and that supposedly um she only stops um when there’s like a single man in the car and its only between that time and only for a single man in the car. And so we have been on that Carretera in those times but we’ve never seen anything but people in the pueblo talk about her”

Me: “Do people ever try to see her? Like do they chant or do something specific?”

B: “Yeah so when people who supposedly want to see her go out onto the carretera and turn off their lights and roll all their windows down as a sort of like invite for her to come in with them”

Me: “Why does she haunt that highway?”

B: “Everyone has different stories about how she dies but its always because of a man. From what I’ve heard, she was coming back from Sahuayo with a guy when he tried taking advantage of her and after she said no, he killed her. People say that when she appears before single men, its because she’s still trying to find a way back home”

Analysis:

I really enjoyed talking about this legend of this ghost with B. Ghosts are a common occurrence in the Mexican culture. The events and experiences in the afterlife are said to be influenced by the way those people lived their lives before passing. Most of the time, when someone suffers a dark and grim death, the version of themselves in the afterlife are often depicted as looking for some sort of revenge. That is why I found B’s depiction of the ghost so interesting. B’s description of the ghost’s goal to return home and not seek vengeance was important in characterizing the way people from La Palma view the afterlife and ghosts.