Tag Archives: guardian spirit

Dog Guardian or God Watching over the House in the Form of a Dog While Family is on Vacation

Nationality: Caucasian American
Age: 15
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Azusa, CA
Performance Date: 5/2/21
Primary Language: English

Because this interview exchange took place with my sister, I was able to ask in-depth questions about the events and beliefs she discussed in her stories. I remember the day she describes in her interview. We had just gotten home from vacation and a little dusty white dog met us at our car. We don’t own a dog and thought the animal was a stray. I didn’t think much of that event, but this experience had a large impact on my sister, who believes this dog watched over our home while we were away on vacation.

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My sister said that God works through people and animals, and that during a conversation with our neighbor, she learned that the animal has been seen wandering around our house in the time we were gone. Our parents feared that the house would get robbed while we were away. They prayed that God would keep the house safe and that no one in the community would notice we had left.

My sister described how our parents would hush us any time we mentioned that we were going on vacation. We couldn’t talk about it outdoors, and while packing, we always kept the car closed to avoid showing passers-by a trunk full of suitcases.

One time when my sister and mother were not on vacation but rather at school and at work, the house did get robbed. They arrived home to find the door swung open and an alarm blaring. My sister said that this was a very bad experience, and that at first she couldn’t believe that the house had been robbed. She thought someone had come home early or that someone had left the door unlocked.

My sister said that she was not sure whether the dog was God or a messenger, but she did say that she believed it watched over the house while we were gone, and that she hadn’t seen it since.

My sister also mentioned that she is training for Confirmation, a sacrament of initiation in the Catholic faith that allows high schoolers to reaffirm their belief in church principles. She said that she had not met any other animals or people that she believed had watched over her. She also said that this might be because she considers herself capable and that she wants to take care of herself.

She also said that she did not come to this conclusion right away. It was only years after this event that she came to believe the dog had offered protection. She was pleased to know that God had watched out for the house when the family was away.

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I do not share my sister’s belief in Catholicism but I do believe in signs. I remember this event and know that the dog made us nervous at the time. It was strange that the dog went right up to our car, and I do believe I saw the animal around the neighborhood after that day. This is an example of religious folklore. There are cannon Bible stories where God talks through a donkey to get his message across, such as the story of Balaam, the donkey, and the Angel ( Numbers 22:21-39 of Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition Bible)

You can find a version of this story here:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+22%3A21-39&version=RSVCE

This story also relates to conversations about whether animals have souls.

This conversation took place over the phone, and the recording is very bad quality. It is important to note that our house is visited by members of a feral cat colony and other wild animals like squirrels and raccoons. These animals were not mentioned in the interview. The house is also located less than 100 yards from a homeless encampment of about 20 people.

I find it interesting that this is the story that my sister wanted to tell me most. She knows quite a lot about folklore from playing Dungeons and Dragons (see, “How Not To Play Dungeons and Dragons” in the USC folklore archive”) but this is the first story she shared when I asked her to think of a story for this archive.

The Ghost of Her Grandmother at Death

Nationality: USA
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: October 26, 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Transcription:

Collector: Hello JS, so I know that you have mentioned before that there are ghost stories and interactions in your family. I would really appreciate it if maybe you could share some of your experiences.

Informant: Okay so when I was little my family had like a lot of encounters with ghosts and spirits; it’s happened for me a lot. I will share a story that happened with my mom and myself. I think it’s like the craziest experience. So when I was little I was looking out our window just like looking outside like anyone would do, I was maybe 10 and I saw this person walking down the street and we lived in a pretty small neighborhood so everybody pretty much knew everyone.  I saw this person walking down the street and I’d never seen them before, so I called to my mom who was in the kitchen and said, “Mom, who’s the pretty girl walking down the street?” My mom was doing something and could not see out the window, so I yelled to her explaining what she looks like. I said “she’s in this red dress with flowers on it, she had long brown hair and she’s really pretty.” At that moment my mom walked over and looked out the window and was like “Oh my God that’s exactly what my mom, your grandma, wore when she died”.  I supposedly had seen my grandma that I’ve never met before in the clothes that she died in.  I find this really creepy and my mom tells that story all the time that it looked like real life and we thought it’s a real life person that we could touch, but no one else in our family had had any other encounters with our grandmother.

Collector: Do you think are any reasons in particular why your Grandmother showed herself to you and your mother?

Informant: Well I think that my mom and my Grandma are really similar and my mom talks about my Grandma as like she is her Guardian Angel. My mom attributes small occurrences to her mom.  Little super random stuff like if something like drops in our house or sometimes like come up in her dream. My mom can connect those things, but my mom also sees auras around people.  The auras are the colors that you associate with people and it allows my mom the extraordinary power to know how someone is feeling or if something’s wrong.

Collector: Does she think this ability comes from her grandma? 

Informant: No, I think she thinks that she has like this connection with her, but I don’t think she got it from her.

Collector: Have there been other times where you have experienced other sorts of supernatural events?

Yeah, my sister and I often have the same dream and wake up seeing figures of old people standing in the corner. This makes me sound actually insane, but more often than not, my sister sees the person and I could like feel the spirit. I think it’s crazy and not a coincidence that both encounter similar things at the same time. Okay, that sums up most of it.

Collector: Would you be willing to share any more of your experiences?

Informant: Ummm, for the most part I have told you the interesting parts.

Collector: Well, thank you so much more sharing and I really appreciate you taking the time to tell your story.

Context and Relation:

JS grew up in a small town outside of Chicago. She later moved to Seattle for high school. There are pieces of her story that are from her time in Seattle, but the first encounter about seeing her grandmother took place in a small suburb outside of Chicago. She remembers this story because of the abnormality of the situation. It was extremely strange for JS to see an accurate image of someone that she had never met before. JS is a caucasian teenage girl who is attending an American university.

Personal Reflection:

Personally, I have never had an experience quite like JS’s with seeing a dead grandparent or parent or experiencing a spirit. I found it interesting in JS’s story that her Grandmother was wearing the clothes that she died in and that the grandmother took the body of a younger girl, similar to her age. I don’t know exactly what this detail means, but it is definitely worth mentioning. I agree with JS that these events are scary, but I find it really interesting how nobody else in her family has connected with her Grandmother except JS and her mother. Personally, it would make sense to me if other family members came in contact with the Grandmother ghost being from the same family, especially if her sister has had visions of figures from dreams. In conclusion, JS had an amazing encounter with a ghost of her grandmother that she will never forget. 

Na Tuk Kong

Nationality: Malaysian
Age: 52
Occupation: Finance Manager
Residence: 60 TR 9/2, Tropicana Golf & Country Resort, Selangor, Malaysia
Performance Date: October 24, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Malay, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese

Context:

My informant, YM, is a 52 year-old woman of ethnic Chinese background who grew up in a small town in Malaysia called Taiping in the 70s. This story was told as a re-telling of an experience her father had during a nightly excursion. Throughout the story, there will be references made in other languages, so a glossary will be provided for better understanding. The interview was done over the dinner table, as I asked my informant if they recalled any ghostly experiences.

Transcription:

Informant: Oh yeah, I remember last time gong gong saw before. You know, last time gong gong was a part of Rukun Tetangga right. So last time they will always gather around at night to patrol, and it’s always late at night. So they went on one of their patrols, they do that every night. At like 4am, he saw this one man, he was dressed in all white, just walking in the middle of the road in front of them. You remember the corner road there?

Me: Is it, like, the intersection?

Informant: Ah yes, so there’s this one man, very tall and thin, dressed in white, just walking in the middle there. Who would walk alone at that time right, in the middle of the night some more? So the group tried to follow him when he turned the corner. You would think that if he was a real person then they will still see him walking ahead of them right? But when they turned the corner, the man disappeared. He wasn’t there anymore. How can?

Me: So it was a ghost?

Informant: I think it was Na Tuk Kong. I don’t know whether that’s a ghost lah.

Me: What’s Na Tuk Kong?

Informant: It’s some kind of god or spirit that is supposed to protect your land. Do you know those santoi that you see at those buildings? Around the corner there. That one is for Na Tuk Kong so that he will protect the land or the building. I don’t think he’s a Chinese god, I think we only have it in Malaysia. He’s supposed to be a Muslim man I think. Na Tuk is supposed to be datuk, that’s where it came from.

gong gong: grandfather (Mandarin)

Rukun Tetangga: a neighborhood initiative where men of the household would patrol the neighborhood during the nights

Na Tuk Kong: Malaysian local guardian spirit

santoi: altar

datuk: people of a high social standing; elder, usually a male (Malay)

Thoughts:

I think this is a classic story of a sighting of this particular spirit. There are also notions of the spirit to be considered: He is dressed in all white; in Chinese traditions, white is usually associated with death. He is seen at an intersection; an intersection is a liminal space. He is seen at 4am; a number that in Chinese culture is synonymous with death. It also contributes to the idea of a localized spirit. He is a guardian for the area, so he is only seen in that area. The spirit itself also shows that for this community of people, the peace and safety of their land is important, to an extent that a spirit is worshipped to serve that purpose.

Also, it is interesting to see that this lesser deity was a result of a syncretic culture. He is exclusively worshipped by the Malaysian Chinese community, but in folklore, he is a Muslim Malay man. This is a testament to its origins in Malaysia— a country that is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. In a way, it also speaks to the fact that spiritual identity and belief is not necessarily cemented in one religion, and can borrow elements from different religions and cultures.