Tag Archives: ghost

La Mano Peluda

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations
Residence: Laguna Niguel
Performance Date: April 19th, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

MR: So La Mano Peluda translates to “hairy hand.” It’s basically an old legend that my parents used to scare me with when I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, like not taking out the trash or doing chores. So I would literally crawl into a ball at night and make sure that my legs weren’t hanging out of the covers because I genuinely thought that this terrifying hand would come out from under my bed and drag me by my ankles out of my room to who knows where.

HR: Hahahaha. So how old were you when you heard this story?

MR: It went back to when I was probably like 5 or 6. Because I was in school already, and if I didn’t do my homework my mom would be like, “If you don’t do your homework La Mano Peluda is gonna come and get you!”

HR: And do you know where this legend came from?

MR: Well my mom got the tradition from her family in Mexico, but after you asked me about it I did a little googling. Apparently, it was a man’s hand that had survived from the Spanish Inquisition. He wanted to seek revenge on the people who had pillaged his home or something like that. But when I was little, I didn’t really care about the origin and just got freaked out when I thought about an old hand hiding under my bed.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She used to be intimidated by the legend of La Mano Peluda as a young child but grew to see it as a funny way that her parents made her do her chores. 

Context: 

The legend of La Mano Peluda was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. She had told me about the legend before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. 

Thoughts:

The story of La Mano Peluda is a classic legend that is prominent across a wide range of Latin-American cultures. I would equate it to classic American campfire stories where the goal is to scare and entertain the audience. I have heard multiple recollections of this folk tale and they all seem to stem from having a fear of something hiding under one’s bed. For particularly young children, the legend of La Mano Peluda is used as a sort of scare tactic to get them to do their chores, while in older adolecents it is seen as an entertaining folk tale. What is interesting is that there is a pattern of “hairy hand” stories across the globe.

For another “hairy hand” story, see:

Mary Curtis Special to The Star. “Dartmoor Nights and Scary Tales Stir Imagination: SA2 Edition.” Toronto Star, Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, 1990.

Spy House

Nationality: American
Residence: NJ
Primary Language: English

Text/Interview:

MW: “When I was in the Girl Scouts, we went on a field trip to this place called the Spy House. The lady who worked there said that it used to be a tavern during the Revolutionary War and the British would come and stay in the house. The Americans would be under the floorboards and behind the walls and they would spy on the Red Coats. Then, they would sneak out through a secret tunnel under the bay and give information to the other Patriots. The lady who worked there also said that the ghosts of Revolutionary War veterans lived in the house.”

Context:

MW lives in New Jersey and has been to the Spy House several times since that initial trip. Although she has never seen any of the ghosts, she claims to have seen the tunnel which goes under the bay and the hiding places behind the walls. MW says that, unfortunately, the Spy House has been closed for the past few years for general upkeep; however, she claims that the ghosts did not get the message and still haunt the house to this day.

Personal Interpretation:

I think that the Spy House has a very cool story. As a fellow resident of NJ, I have heard claims that the house never harbored British, nor is it haunted. However, I have also heard that the ghosts terrorize anyone who crosses the threshold. I think that the duality between these two stories is what makes the Spy House so unique. Some people claim it is real. Others shout hoax. However, you will never know until you visit it for yourself.

Annotation:

If you want to read more on the Spy House, check out this Weird NJ Article:

Weird NJ Author. “Is the Spy House ‘The Most Haunted House in America’?” Weird NJ, November 3, 2014. https://weirdnj.com/stories/garden-state-ghosts/spy-house/. 

Afterlife- A Personal Folk Story

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Realtor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/21

Main Story:

“I’ve told you this story before and it really means a lot to me, I was super close with my grandfather so it makes it seem like he’s up there watching us when I think about this story. So I was at his house in Palm Desert in the room I usually stay in that has a view of the mountains in the distance. That mountain range would be impossible to hike on, no trails whatsoever and no one has ever hiked it, and none of us had ever seen anyone hike it. But that one morning I was looking out the window and saw a figure in the distance climbing up the mountain. I thought it was weird but didn’t think too much of it. Then maybe five minutes later we get a call that my grandfather had passed away. I truly think it was him making his final journey and hiking the mountains that he loved waking up to every day.”

Context:

My father had told me this story many years ago, and I had always kind of remembered it, but I asked him to retell it to me for the purpose of this project. My father loved his grandfather so much, they were best friends so when he died it was very hard on him and this story helped him get through it and believe that no one ever is fully gone but can live on through other people.

Analysis:

This story is so interesting to me because we really do have no idea if there is or isn’t an afterlife and how one makes the journey after death on earth. Like my father told me I believe him that it helped with the healing process and that it helped instill a belief in him and passed down to me and my siblings that people who die can live on through you. This is an oral story that can easily be passed down to my children in hopes of instilling a bit of faith in knowing that one doesn’t die for good.

The Blue Light

Leave a reply
Nationality: American
Age: 80
Occupation: Retired, Former Museum Curator
Residence: Kelseyville, California
Performance Date: April 26, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background:

My informant for this piece grew up in rural, northern Wisconsin. I know from personal experience that living in an isolated area such as this one can cause serious boredom, especially during adolescence. Because of this, people who grow up away from the city often make their own fun, creating games and exploring the landscape. Occasionally, in the dark of night, strange things tend to occur.

Context:

As a teenager, looking for “the Blue Light” was both an exciting pastime and rite of passage in my informant’s hometown; everyone knew about it. On late nights, those individuals who thought themselves daring enough would go out in an attempt to experience the lore themselves. Luckily–although I may never get to experience it myself–I was able to live this tradition vicariously while he told me about it during an over-the-phone interview for the USC folklore archives.

Main Piece:

“When we were in high school… It was called the blue light. And there was a bridge on a country road, and you would go park on the bridge at night and people would go there all the time. And if you look out off the bridge sometimes people would see a blue light moving through the woods, and I saw it once, and my friends did too. The rumor was that there was an old farmer who hung himself off the bridge and his ghost haunted those woods.”

Analysis:

A few years ago, I remember hearing about some kind of phenomenon similar to the Blue Light that was supposedly proven false. Instead, these strange colors that people were seeing in the woods at night were reasoned to be the release of natural gas from a swamp, which would have a luminescent glow for a few seconds before dissipating. While this seems a more likely explanation, it hasn’t stopped the legend hunters who, apparently, continue to go out in search of the Blue Light even to this day. Though I would like to believe in the story and to pursue the Blue Light for myself, this continued interest in the phenomenon as the embodiment of a ghost is probably due to the human tendency of belief perseverance. In other words, teens in that region may have been given the information to know that the Blue light is probably just swamp gas, but they continue to believe in the story because it’s what they’ve always known.

For a Similar Narrative, See:

Carlisle, John. “Mysterious Light Draws Thrill Seekers to a U.P. Forest.” Detroit Free Press, 9 July 2018, eu.freep.com/story/news/columnists/john-carlisle/2016/09/04/mysterious-paulding-light-upper-peninsula-michigan/89275134.

Main Piece: Mad Bess

Nationality: American
Age: 11
Occupation: Student
Residence: CO
Performance Date: 04/12/2021
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant’s elementary school is said to be haunted by the ghost of a former tenant of land, Mas Bess. The school’s campus is very old and used to house many of the town’s silver mines in the late 19th century. The buildings have been remodeled, but never torn down. The school’s headmaster tells the students that if they are destructive towards the land or the buildings, Mad Bess will not be happy and will curse us all. 

Context: I asked the informant if she had ever seen a ghost before and she told me that she has yet to see her with her own eyes, but knows that Mad Bess is always looming around school. She promised me she was not afraid of Mad Bess, but some of her classmates are. She told me that she would never litter on the campus or disrespect the playground or the classrooms because she is certain Mad Bess would cause a miniature earthquake at her school. 

I also asked the informant if the teachers speak about Mad Bess frequently and she responded very matter-of-factly “Of course they do. Mad Bess is part of our community. The school would be incomplete without her. She has been on campus longer than any of the rest of us and deserved to have her home taken care of.” 

Thoughts: I attended the same school as the informant about a decade ago. While I was at the school, we had a different headmaster, but the legend of Mad Bess was the same. She was spoken about in two contexts. One, she was a legend of entertainment that served as a community point of connection. Two, she gave the teachers a threatening ghost story that they could strategically use to make the children behave. They could scare us into being respectful because the consequences of not doing so were grave. This is a folk legend that has been circulating and bringing together people on the campus since its founding. Ghost stories have so many purposes!