Tag Archives: ghost

Ghost Hauntings in India

Nationality: Indian
Age: 51
Occupation: Mother
Residence: Los Gatos, CA
Performance Date: 4/19/18

BACKGROUND:

An individual in Los Gatos, California recounts her familial folk belief in ghosts while living in India. According to her, when a family member passes, the whole extended family sleeps in one room for about a week after the passing due to the fear of the ghost of the departed returning to haunt individual family members. She tells a family legend of her grandfather’s experience with ghosts. According to him, when his mother passed the family all slept in the same room as per their beliefs. While sleeping, with a gust of wind, the door opened and the ghost of his mother appeared before her widowed husband. When the father saw her, other family members awoke, screamed, and the ghost fled from the house.

INTERVIEW:

My interview with my source, A, went as follows:

ME: Could you tell me about what the beliefs are towards ghosts in India?

A: So when someone passes away they’re always afraid that the ghost is going to return. So they would all sleep in the same room for the first, you know, week after the death.

ME: Was there ever an instance in which a ghost returned?

A: When my grandfather was 8 years old… his mother died. So they’re all sleeping in the same room and they said one of the doors opened, there was a gust of wind, and she came in. She came in to see my grandfather. And my grandfather saw her, and she… like other family members woke up and saw her, they screamed, and she ran away.

ME: Did she ever come back?

A: I don’t know, I just know she visited them that one time.

MY THOUGHTS:

I find it interesting that this belief and fear of returning spirits is fended off not via a religious figure, but through the bond and support of family. While the recounted legend is quite compelling, I’m more interested in the bonding experience this belief provides for the family. The passing of a loved one is an extremely traumatic experience. The idea that the only way to prevent a spirit from returning is through the family banding together is a good way to help cope with the depression of losing a family member.

Night Marchers

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Honolulu, Hawaii
Performance Date: April 12, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Cantonese, Vietnamese

“You shouldn’t whistle at night because you’ll get hunted down by the night marchers. I’ve never really gotten a description of what the night marchers are, but if you get hunted down by them, it’s also bad luck, and then, also, if you hear drums it’s night marchers, so go in the other direction. My sister, she’s in marching band, and one time she was whistling, and her friend just yelled at her across the field like, ‘Don’t whistle! You’re going to get hunted down by the night marchers!’ I asked her, ‘What are the night marchers?’ She just (she shrugs and shakes her head) and ‘Just don’t whistle at night.’”

Background Information and Context:

As the informant said above, she learned about this superstition from her sister, who had shared the experience of being warned about this superstition. They encountered this superstition in Hawaii, where they live.

Collector’s Notes:

It is interesting how the informant and her sister were warned not to whistle at night without ever truly understanding the background for the superstition. It makes me wonder if the person warning her sister even knew what the night marchers are, or if she was merely echoing a warning given to her by someone else. Many superstitions exist and are followed ‘just to be safe’ even though the reasons why it causes bad luck are unknown. Moreover, I was surprised that my informant never thought to look up the night marchers on the internet, because a simple Google search showed me that her bad-luck-causing night marchers were actually Hawaiian warriors whose appearance meant death.

For more information about the Night Marchers, see “Friday Frights: The Legend of Hawai‘i’s Night Marchers” in Honolulu Magazine

Ghost

Nationality: U.S.A
Age: 22
Performance Date: 04/02/2018
Primary Language: English

The following story is collected from my friend. He is from the U.S.A. This interview is done face-to-face. “A” refers to me, the collector. And “B” refers to the participant.

 

A: “Did you experience anything that can be considered supernatural?”

 

B: “There was one time, I was standing in front of pizza place close to my school. When I looked across the street, I saw a kid. He look like he was 4 years old or around that age. He was riding a bicycle. Bike’s colors were red, yellow and blue. The thing that caught my attention was that, he was unsupervised. He was in a long strip of sideway with no way of exit or enter. He had no way of disappearing from my sight, but he did. Weirdest part is, there were no one with the kid. And my city is very safe, so it was very surprising to see a kid, who is unattended.”

A: “Which city?”

 

B:”San Bernardino”

A: “When did this happen?”

B: “In high school. 2013”

 

A:”Did anyone reacted to kid disappearing?”

B: “When I asked my friend, he said that he did not notice. He was probably not paying attention.”

A: “Do you think he was a ghost?”

B: “I can not say he was not. Until I meet a person, who can tell the same story, I will stick to this answer.”

The Ghost of Point Vicente

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: March 2, 2018
Primary Language: English

What is being performed?
BS: I’ll tell you something about PV
AA: What’s PV?
BS: Palos Verdes, my hometown. At point vicente there’s a story that goes that there’s a woman
who was the wife of a sailor and that she died super tragically so her ghost haunts the
lighthouse.
AA: Whose wife was she?
BS: She was the wife of the Vanderlipp, a famous sailer.
Why do they know or like this piece? where/who did they learn it from? What does it mean to
them?

AA: Why do you know this piece?
BS: I heard it at the point vicente cultural center. It’s told to kids.
AA: What does it mean to you?
BS: To me it’s super spooky. Ghosts are real, ya know?
Context of the performance- where do you perform it? History?
This story is told to people touring Point Vicente in Palos Verdes, California. It is also told
amongst the Palos Verdes community between school children and community members.

Annotation
Mallon, Elaine. “A PALOS VERDES GHOST TALE: THE LEGEND OF THE HISTORIC
LIGHTHOUSE’S ‘LADY IN WHITE’.” ActiveRain, 26 July 2011,
activerain.com/blogsview/952590/a-palos-verdes-ghost-tale- the-legend-of-the-historic-lighthou
se-s- lady-in-white-.
4
This citation is a published article in the Peninsula Palos Verdes News about the ghost at the
lighthouse. It explains that “In the darkness of night, this ‘woman’ forever haunts the historic
lighthouse. Time after time, the eerie ghost has been seen pensively pacing the upper tower
walkways in the dead of night. Walking… walking… waiting… waiting… pacing in private
vigilance until the rise of the sun. Then – like the moon gives way to the sunrise — she vanishes
with the fog until the dark of night returns again.”

Reflection
To me this is very interesting since I am from San Pedro, a neighboring town of Palos Verdes. I
have never heard of this or been to Point Vicente but think this is a cool part of the Palos Verdes
culture. There is not much of a distinction between Palos Verdes and San Pedro but this is
something I see as potentially defining of the two cities.

The Ghost Blue Dog

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 642 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90098
Performance Date: March 25th, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Japanese

ER:

It’s a crazy story *strumming his electric guitar playfully* It was when I was a boy *strummed a couple more chords* I was a little 7 years old… it was me and my friend Avery. Ah no, so basically what happened was, it was my dad he had this big barbeque and there’s a lot of my… family friends. Hey, do you want to record this one? With the guitar?

Me:

Yea *chuckles* go ahead.

ER:

Alright okay cool. Um so basically what happened was um, we had this huge barbeque and um… it was a big celebration and we had like this creepy basement in my old house. And it was, it’s, it was not finished and like you can see the concrete bridge through the wall it was like…… from the 1920s. So what happened was me and my friend Avery we’re both scared but we decided to like to go down and explore together. So I remember we get, we grabbed one of those flood flashlight those big ones, and we like tracked down there and we’re going through – we are halfway through the basement, and when like – I don’t know, we saw like a blue dog like laying down and it looked up at us. And like we looked at each other for a second, we looked back and like we both, like we confirmed with each other in our eyes that we saw the same thing. We looked back, and I don’t remember if it disappears or not, but like we both freaked the heck out and we just – we booked it. We ran out of the basement. And like, yea, I don’t know, it was pretty freaky and like we don’t know how to explain it until later um my mom told me when I told her about the story, she said that actually when they first, when we first moved into the house um………. Uh they were cleaning the basement out and they find a lot of, like, dog skulls in the basement, and it turns out um, the owner that lived there, I don’t know, not…not before us maybe, I don’t remember, but um, one of the previous owner actually abused dogs and like… like I guess tortured them or something, so it really freaked me out. That’s my story, thank you.

ER’s Interpretation:

It seems like ER believed that the ghost does exist. The fact that both he and his friend both freaked out by the dog moved shows that even children are being exposed to the idea of ghosts early in their lives. If one does not understand the concept of ghost, one would only be confused as of why a dog is in the basement rather than acknowledging it as a ghost. Although we don’t know if it was only his imagination or if it’s real, he is one-hundred percent sure that it happened. He even supported his sighting with some history of the house. He also believes that animal possesses souls since the dog ghost is the main part of the story. He thinks that the reason the dog ghost is there is to wait for the owner to come back and seek its vengeance.

Analysis:

Based on ER’s words, we can see how he described the place a lot before telling what actually happened. It seems like the setting plays an important role in the story. From the “creepy basement” and that the house looks like “from the 1920s”, we can assume that the past haunts the house. In America, the haunting of a specific place because of the past is very widespread, especially in the Southern Gothic literature, where mansions are usually haunted by former slaves. In this ER’s story, we can see a hint of Southern Gothic literature theme being incorporated into the story, as the house is being haunted by what happened in the past.

The ghost of the dog also implies that American family believes that animals have souls. Although most of the families tend to acknowledge that animals have souls, as told by stories of dead pet coming back to visit the owner, this story is a little bit different. Since ER had no prior knowledge of the dog, based on contemporary American ghost believe, he would not see the dog ghost and that wouldn’t exist.

In the last part of ER’s story, he seems to be uncertain about what actually happened in the past, as he said that he doesn’t really remember which owner abused the dogs, but he knows for sure that one of the owners used to abuse dogs. This uncertainty of what happened in the past can leave a sense of horror or rather, a sense of freakiness to the current inhabitant of the house. ER didn’t describe how his mom reacted when he told her the story, but based on his tone, it seems like his mom is very much calm, and had known about this all along. It also seems like his mom is trying to hide the dark history of the house away from ER so that he could live a normal life and not knowing he is living in some weird place. This shows that his parents believe the sighting of ghost may lead to ER not be able to live in the house and feel normal and that the ghost is harmful only when it is discovered.

The story also takes place in a basement. In this case, the basement again serves as a liminal space. It is between the underground and the ground. The house is built on the ground, but the basement is placed under the ground. It is a place where it is attached to a place that is above the ground, but it is placed under the ground, serving as a liminal space.