Tag Archives: ghost

The White Lady

Nationality: Filippino
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 642 W. 34th Street BSR, Los Angeles, CA, 90098

RC:

So according to my dad, it happened when he was driving back to the farm late one night. He was driving down this windy road on Beli… Belita Drive in the Philippines. He was by himself and it was pretty dark that evening. There’s no stars or moon out so everything behind him was pitched black. His headlight was on but weak and it didn’t seem to reach too far. As he was driving, he caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a white dress, with long bl… black hair walking on the opposite side of the road. Her face was beat up and blood- *laughed* start over?

Me:

*Laughed* Just keep going.

RC:

So her face was all beat up and bloody and bruised. He figured it was just (jumbled up words) – it was just his mind playing tricks on him because it was so late, so he kept on going without really giving a second thought. Then a few minutes passed and he can hear the sound of the seatbelt click in his backseat. When he looked back he saw one of the seatbelts had been done up but no one was sitting there. When he looks forward again he saw a pair of eyes staring right at – right at him as he looked into the rearview mirror. It looked like she was sitting in the seat. But when he looked back again, there’s no one there and just a done-up seatbelt. So he locked his eyes forward and refuses to turn back and he drove faster and faster. Every now and then he glances back at the rearview mirror to still see her staring right at him in her long pale dress with her black hair and her face. He told me that he could felt her getting closer and closer. He then muttered a prayer under his breath. Right when he thought she was gonna grab – about to grab a hold of him, he drove across the bridge and he heard the seatbelt unbuckled. He decided to take a look at the rearview mirror again and the woman was staring – the woman who was staring at him was gone. From the point on, he decided not to drive on that road ever again at night even if he could help it.

Me:

So do you believe in the White Lady or is it just a made up story with a lesson in it?

RC:

No yea! So the White Lady is real, that’s why so – it’s really popular in like Filipino culture cause like literally like almost anyone * one-second pause*, like anyone in the family had had someone had a spotting of the White Lady. It’s like it’s so prominent that like everyone has their own White Lady story in their family. Um, so my cousin went to – went and visited the Philippine once, and he’s, he’s from here so he was not really like used to like Filipino culture and all that in the Philippines, so I think he was on a jiffy ride back from somewhere late at night and he swore (emphasized) to God like he was riding on the motorcycle, uh no, motorcycle tricycle and he turned around and he swore that he saw the White Lady there and he could like feel her staring at him. So she’s real, like, people actually see her.

RC’s Interpretation:

Based on what RC had said, it seems like she believed that the White Lady do really exist in this world, as she quoted that the White Lady is a very prominent figure in Philippine, and it is a tradition of Philippine. According to RC, the White Lady is one single entity but she is not limited to oly haunting one place. This is support by the fact that she doesn’t specify where her cousin sees the White Lady but her dad encountered her at a specific street. Although the White Lady can appear at anywhere, RC says the White Lady can only be seen in Philippine, as supported by her quotation of her cousin encountering the White Lady only when he was visiting Philippine. She also stated the fact that people can feel her coming closer and closer to grab them, so it seems like the White Lady hold a strong presence that anyone can feel her presence everywhere. In a different conversation, I asked her about why the White Lady haunts people. She said that she doesn’t really know, but she brought up the fact that the White Lady was raped and brutally killed by foreign soldiers. Then I asked her about what countries those soldiers were from, and she said that there are a lot of different version of stories about what countries those soldiers were from, but they are all foreign. She thinks that the White Lady stays there to wait for the foreign soldier and seek her vengeance.

Analysis:

RC started out her story describing the setting as “late night”. We can then assume that the White Lady only appears at night, like how ghosts usually act a lot of other different cultures across the world. The White Lady seems to have a tendency of staring at people and slowly approaching her victim. This creates suspense, but also seems to serve another purpose. RC stated that the White Lady haunts people because of being brutally raped and killed by a foreign soldier. The White Lady is the representation of the indigenous people of the Philippine while the foreign soldier represents other countries with an enormous amount of power at that time. The fact that the White Lady being raped is the representation of foreign countries invading the Philippines. The foreign soldier, when raping the White Lady, only seeks out for the pleasure of the time while not caring about her feelings at all. When he decided that he no longer needed the White Lady for pleasure, he killed the White Lady. This can be seen as the fact that foreign countries invade the Philippines only for the resources and not care about the indigenous people. If the Philippines have not resources left to provide for foreign country, then the country in power will then leave Philippine in the state of devastation. Therefore, the White Lady, although not evident, serves as a constant reminder to the Philippine people of how they were treated in the past by foreign countries. The suspense of her staring at people and slowly approaching people then also serve the purpose of reminding people of the horror their ancestors faced.

Another interesting point also comes up during the conversation. RC said that her cousin is not used to the Filipino culture, but he still encounters the White Lady. It seems like the encounters of the White Lady does not depends on the culture or prior knowledge of the White Lady, but rather the place. The fact that even people have no Filipino culture background can still encounter such traditional belief. The story is being told by RC, who has a Filipino background, so her belief that the White Lady initially seems a little bias to me. However, her cousin, who had never visited Philippine, encounter the White Lady supports that the White Lady might be an actual phenomenon. I am not sure if her cousin had ever heard of the story of the White Lady since according to RC it is a very prominent story within the Filipino culture.

The story of White Lady also seems to show that family members have a strong tie with one another. As RC had said, each family have a different form of stories. Various form of stories can be the result of each family adapt to a different version to help with their beliefs and the lesson that they are trying to teach. These various forms of stories also represent the identity of each family, and that each family has a slight variation of tradition. The story of the White Lady represents the identity of being Filipino; however, the variation of those stories represents the individual identity of each family, and it shows the importance of family bonds within the Filipino culture.

Ghost in Blues Hall

Nationality: American/Italian/Irish
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: Ghost Legend

My aunt on my mother’s side lives in a small town in Mississippi that’s called bay St. Louis. And she and her husband after Catrina moved out of the house because of bad juju and stuff: they were the only house to survive on the street so they wanted to leave. They didn’t leave the town but they moved to a blues hall up the road, and this specific blues hall is special because during the prohibition all of the town mostly black population gathered in the blues hall had live music dancing and alcohol, and notoriously when you are doing thing that are illegal, bad things are going to happen. Because of their illegal escapades, there were deaths in the hall. My aunt and uncle knew this when they moved in, but they renovated half of it to be a home, and then left the other half and created a business throwing events. About a year or so after living in the blues hall, my aunt calls my mom and says “you wont believe this the craziest thing just happened” she explained to my mom that she heard illegible voices, mumbles, incoherent, coming from somewhere in her house. She walks into the party room and watches her 12 foot table get dragged across the room. But there was no one else in the room. Now she claims that she hears voices an’ that things will get misplaced, and she is very adamant about this. She thinks this is supernatural. Nothing harmful has happened.

 

Background Information:

  • Why does informant know this piece?

It was told to her by her maternal aunt.

  • Where did they learn this piece?

Learned this 5 years ago at a gathering.

  • What does it mean to them?

It’s a story that made her believe in ghosts.

 

Context:

In main piece above

 

Personal Thoughts:

Inexplicable events are often assumed to be the work of ghosts. Even if an event is not witnessed by the person themselves, if they hear it from a trusted relative, they are likely to believe it and therefore believe in the supernatural entity described in the story.

The Lighthouse

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 03/27/2018
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: Lighthouse Point Vicente  

The following was a story told to me by a friend of mine, BS, in my Anthropology lab, and I am DM. The story was about a haunted lighthouse in Palo Verde.

BS: As a kid, I grew up looking at this lighthouse every night. I always saw a women, but I never knew the story of why she was up there. When I began to work at a like local culture center, I finally heard the story about that women. A long time ago, there was a boat called the SS Destroyer, which was an army ship, and they were in a boat wreck. One of the crew member’s wife jumped off the lighthouse after she heard the news of her husband. Now, every night she will go out on to the lighthouse and moan for her dead husband.

Background/Context:

The participant is nineteen years old in his first year of college at the University of Southern California. He is American. In my Anthropology lab, we were sharing folklore with one another for our final project and BS decided to share with us a ghost story he had from his hometown.

DM:Why do you know this ghost story/ Why do you like telling this ghost story?

BS: I know this story because they told me stories as a kid. I also learned more about the story when I began to work in the cultural center.  I like talking about it with other people who saw her and know about the history.

DM: Where/who did they learn it from?

BS: I saw it as a kid, then people told stories about it, then  at the cultural center I saw the story again. I finally looked it up online when I wanted to know more.

DM: Why is this ghost story important to you?

BS: This is important to me because it was my first ghost encounter or experience. This is also important to me because I will never forget how scary it was seeing her every night or sometimes during the day.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

There was another version of this story which involved the richest family in Palo Verde, the Vanderlipp’s. They say that the lady that is moaning in the night is Mrs. Vanderlipp because they owned that lighthouse. It is more of a claiming her territory type of thing. In class, we talked about how ghosts can cause a real estate problem because the ghosts feel entitled to the land. The land is actually supposed to be passed down to their family, but when it gets sold to other people, the spirits on the property get angry. 

One can also find this story at:

Walton, Stephanie. “A Lighthouse Legend.” Daily Breeze, Daily Breeze, 6 Sept. 2017, www.dailybreeze.com/2008/04/18/a-lighthouse-legend/. This article talks about the same thing as my interviewee said only with more descriptions and more of the facts. The article has more information about what exactly happened to the lady on the lighthouse.

 

 

Padre Sin Cabeza

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 52
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/19/2018
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece: Padre Sin Cabeza  

The following was an interview of a Participant/interviewee about ghost stories of her hometown. She is marked as MS. I am marked as DM.

MS: Algo que paso ahi donde yo nací. En la iglesia que está en el pueblo que yo nací se muere un sacerdote. La iglesia era una iglesia antigua donde siempre se celebran las fiestas de la virgen de guadalupe. Entonces cada cierto tiempo pasaba que el padre que se murió dicen que le cortaron la cabeza. El alma de ese padre bajaba en la iglesia desde aparte de atrás de la iglesia hasta el frente de la iglesia. En las noches si oía cuando el padre salía y arrastraba las cadenas y el padre murmuraba y lloraba por el patio de toda la iglesia. Mucha gente en el pueblo sabían que era el padre porque mucha gente lo llego a mirar. Hoy, todavía se puede oír las cadenas del padre.   

Translate:

MS: In the church that is in the village that I was born in, a priest died. The church was an ancient church where the festivities of the Virgin of Guadalupe are always celebrated. Then every once in a while they heard the father who died, people said they cut off his head. That Father’s soul was coming down into the church from  the back of the church to the front of the church. In the evenings one could hear when the father went out and dragged the chains and the Father murmured and his cries in the courtyard of the whole church. A lot of people in town knew it was the father because a lot of people saw him. Today, you can still hear the father’s chains.

Background/Context:

The participant is 52 years old. She grew up in Michoacan, Mexico. Maria, who is marked as MS, is my grandma. In her hometown, there is a lot of superstition beliefs that spread throughout the whole town. In this specific story, almost everyone in town heard the chains and cries of the decapitated priest.They heard the priest mostly at night around 12. Below is a conversation I had with MS for more background/context of the remedy, which was originally in Spanish.  

DM:Why do you know this ghost story?

MS: I know this story because I am the one who lived through it. Me and my sister heard stories about the church and we went to see for ourselves what it was like.

DM: Why do you like telling this ghost story?

MS:  I like telling this story because it is something I want people to know what I have been through.

DM: Where/who did they learn it from?

MS: There was stories already in my town of the priest, but I never heard him it until that time walking with my sister.

DM: Why is this ghost story important to you?

MS: Whenever there is a family gather I will be able to tell what I lived through and what my town believed. I want my kids and grandkids to tell it to keep this story alive because I feel like it’s apart of my hometown.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

This story shows how universal this story was in MS’s hometown. If she was able to hear about it from others, then experience it herself it means that this is true. MS explains to me how her and her sister heard a lot about the priest’s cry before they heard it.

 

Devil Dog

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 52
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/19/2018
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece: Devil Dog

The following was an interview of a Participant/interviewee about ghost stories of her hometown. She is marked as MS. I am marked as DM.

MS: Esta tarde voy a comentar una historia que me paso a mi y mis tres hermanos aproximado cuando yo tenía seis o siete años. Veníamos de la case de unas de mis tías. En ese tiempo había televisión nada más en diferentes casas. No todo el pueblo teníamos televisión y veníamos de ver un programa de la televisión en casa de mi tia. Para regresar a mi casa teníamos que atravesar un río. Veníamos como a las doce de la noche caminando por la orilla del río y cuando veníamos llegando donde estaba une puente donde cruzaba la gente de un lado a otro. Unos de mis hermanos nos dijo voy a sacar mi plátano para comer me lo ahorita. Entonces cuando vinimos nosotros caminando de repente se empezo a oir come un bramido come de un perro o un animal grande y mi hermano quien traía el plátano dijo espérense no caminan y los empezamos a detener nos miramos que salió un perro grande de unos arbustos grandes y empezaba como caminar con una cadenas alrededor del perro y ese perro se atravesó por el río y empezó a tratar come de agarramos y nos ladraba fuertemente. Pero lo que me más superando ver que el perro no se atravesó dentro de la agua si no por encima de la agua y cuando mi hermano quiso correr juntos con nosotros no podíamos dar el paso donde el perro no atorro y cuando mi hermano quiso agarrar y aventarle el plátano para que nosotros podíamos pasar el plátano se partió en tres pedazos con la misa cáscara y mi hermana empezó a rezar a dios que nos quitara eso para pasar. De repente se empezó a meter como un montón de canteras con un montón de ramas secas y ahí se metió el perro y se iba desapareciendo poco a poco. Cuando se desapareció el perro, podíamos empezar a caminar otra vez.

Translate:

MS: This afternoon I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me and my three siblings when I was six or seven years old. We came from the case of one of my aunts. At that time there was only a television in certain houses. Not all the people had television and we came to see a TV show at my aunt’s house. To get back to my house we had to cross through a river. We came as at twelve o’clock in the night walking along the river bank and when we came arriving where it was bridge that people could cross from one side to the other. One of my brothers told me I’m going to get my banana to eat now. Then suddenly we began to hear a roar of a dog or a big animal and my brother who brought the banana said wait do not walk. We looked at the big dog come out of a large shrubs and with a chain around the dog and that dog walked on top of the river. But what more surpassing me to see that the dog did not go through the water if not above the water and when my brother wanted to run together we could not take the step where the dog was. Atorro and when my brother wanted to grab and throw the banana to We could pass the banana broke into three pieces with the shell mass and my sister began praying to God to take that away to pass. Suddenly they got He started putting like a pile of quarries with a bunch of dried twigs and there he got the dog and he was slowly fading away. When the dog disappeared, we could start walking again.

Background/Context:

The participant is 52 years old. She grew up in Michoacan, Mexico. Maria, who is marked as MS, is my grandma. In her hometown, there is a lot of superstition beliefs that spread throughout the whole town. In this specific story, almost everyone in town saw this dog they claimed to be the devil. They tried to avoid the river because that is where the dog appears most of the time. Below is a conversation I had with MS for more background/context of the remedy, which was originally in Spanish.  

DM:Why do you know this ghost story?

MS: I know this story because I am the one who lived through it.

DM: Why do you like telling this ghost story?

MS:  I like telling this story because it is something I want people to know what I have been through.

DM: Where/who did they learn it from?

MS: There was stories already in my town of the dog, but I never saw it until now. I heard about the dog from others but I also learned it through a real life experience.

DM: Why is this ghost story important to you?

MS: This shows that family always need to be united always in every situation especially with family and that God will always hear you out.

Analysis/ My Thoughts:

This story shows how this “devil dog” was able to show up in everyone’s life at one point. MS explains to me how her and her siblings heard a lot about the dog before it appeared to them. They were scared of walking or fighting at night because of everything they heard. Finally, the dog appeared to them. When my grandma told me this story, I was scared of the dogs that I had in that moment.