Tag Archives: legend

The Legend of the Purple People

Location: Lafayette, CA

Context: The informant ( initials ET) and I talking about hometown legends and the concept of growing up in small, suburban towns. That’s when she brought up a well-known ‘cult’ or group called the Purple People in Lafayette.

Text:

ET: There’s a cult in my town. Well, I don’t know if their cult or if they’re still around, but they’re called the Purple People.

Me: How do you know about them

ET: Well, I think it’s mostly my parent’s generations that talk about them— my parents not as much because they’re not from Lafayette— but my friends parents definitely.

Me: Have people ever seen them or like what do you know about them?

ET: Well there’s supposed to be a purple house they live in but I’m not sure where it is or if it still exists, but I know there’s a specific field in town people go to try to see them.

Me: Okay so was this a dare type of thing or what?

ET: Yeah exactly, people would be dared to go run up to the ‘Purple People’ house and try to maybe interact with them.

Me: Why was running to see them a dare, or what made it kind of higher stakes?

ET: Ok so I think they were said to be sex cult and participated in group sex frequently, or at least that’s what my friends parents would say! But I’m not sure if that’s made up or not.

Me: Oh wow, so there was definitely a stigma then? Or what was the rhetoric around them?

ET: Yeah they kind of kept to themselves and people just thought they were weird I think. But like the other thing is that as a kid, I feel like half the people believed in them and the other half didn’t. It was like a big debate.

Analysis:

This narrative is a classic example of a suburban legend, where a small truth regarding a likely communal living group was transformed by local gossip into a neighborhood myth and word of mouth legend. The ‘taboo’ subject of sex and communal living likely fostered the spread of gossip and was ignited by anxieties of the people at the time. However, later on for the subject’s generation, the Purple People functioned as a rite of passage where kids could get dared to go ‘find the house’ or have an encounter with the Purple People.

La Cegua

Age: 54

Text:

Informant: La Cegua would appear to drunk men or mujeriegos (womanizers). When these men would walk alone at night where no one else is around after heavy drinking and being with other women and were on their way home, La Cegua would appear to them in the form of a beautiful woman. It would get really close to them. When the men would go to kiss her, instead of being beautiful, it was like the skull of a horse and her face was rotting. Some men would go crazy out of fear and sometimes even die of the pure shock of how ugly it was.

Context:

The informant learned about the legend of La Cegua while living in Nicaragua. La Cegua is a very beautiful looking woman that can be found in the mountains or woods. Typically, womanizing men who are out late at night, drunk, and cheating on their wives find her. At first, she appears to be beautiful but once she turns around, she has the head of a horse, terrifying men.

Analysis:

This Nicaraguan legend was functional, as it was likely taught to kids and teens to scare them from getting drunk, going out alone at night in the woods and mountains, and cheating on their spouses. They wouldn’t want to come across this woman with a horse face.

El Padre Sin Cabeza (The Headless Priest)

Age: 54

Text:

Informant: “Years ago, around 1150, they killed a bishop in Leon, Nicaragua. They stabbed and decapitated him. It’s said that a lot of people have seen a tall spirit with a cassock that priests use and doesn’t have a head. They see it walking near churches and cemeteries when people are walking by at night and no one else is around.”

Context:

The informant was taught this legend as a teen by their grandma while living in Nicaragua. It follows the story of a bishop who was stabbed and decapitated and goes around haunting churches and cemeteries.

Analysis:

El Padre Sin Cabeza is a legend as it’s a story set in the past that can’t be verified. There’s no proof that a priest was murdered in 1150 and now haunts churches and cemeteries. Yet, many people believe it to be true and older generations will swear that they have seen him. In Andrew Peck’s article, “Tall, Dark, and Loathsome…” he writes that “legends are less about individual texts and more about communication—they are discourses on belief.” This legend follows that mindset as people don’t seek evidence of it being true, but rather find community within sharing the belief.

El Cadejo

Age: 74

Text:

Informant: “When people walk alone in the mountains, farms, where no on else is around on the roads, or if you come home late after being out, if you saw a white dog, it was there to protect you. But, if you saw a black dog, the black dog would look for drunk people on the street and attack them. People who saw black dogs that looked like a spirit, they would run to someone’s house. If it was white, they felt it would protect them.”

Context:

This Nicaraguan legend was told to the informant as a child and teen by their mom and grandma, who lived in Nicaragua. The informant was born and raised in Nicaragua until they moved to the U.S. at 16 years old. People who lived in the mountains or farms and saw a white dog were told that it served as a protection. However, if they saw a black dog and they were drunk, they’d get attacked.

Analysis:

I’ve found that a lot of Nicaraguan legends have an underlying lesson that is meant to be shared to young ones. This particular legend served a functionalist approach because it was likely meant to discourage people from getting drunk. It could also have been told to prevent people from being out alone in the middle of the night. Adding the element of potentially seeing a white dog could give teens a little bit of hope that they were safe on their walk.

La Carreta Nagua (The Witch Wagon)

Age: 54

Text:

Informant: “My grandma would tell the story of ‘La Carreta Nagua.’ It was a wagon that was pulled by bulls and they were so skinny that they were skeletons, practically dead. The conductor was also a skeleton and they called her “La Muerte.” This wagon supposedly passed by in the middle of the night/early morning. If you were on the street, you were told to go somewhere where you could hear her coming. It made a lot of noise. You could hear the wagon’s wheels and chains. The old ladies would always tell you to not go outside in the middle of the night, especially when you’re alone and there’s no one else on the road because sometimes, the skeleton would give you a bone. That bone meant that someone in your house would get really sick and die. They told you not to go outside so you wouldn’t see them. My grandma says that when she lived in her parent’s house, everyone in her family slept in a room near the living room. The windows were doors but instead of being double doors, they were divided into four. In the middle of the doors, there was a gap. Because of that gap, her and her sisters saw the wagon pass by once in the middle of the night and it was really loud. Everyone outside ran to hide. The wagons would disappear at every corner because corners are in the shape of a cross. Since the skeletons are demonic and Catholics think crosses are holy, the story goes that the wagon can’t go on corners, they’ll disappear and reappear on a different street.”

Context:

The informant’s grandma lived in Nicaragua and told the story about La Carreta Nagua, which is a wagon pulled by bulls and controlled by a skeleton. Children and teens are warned not to go out and night because if they hear the wagon and receive a bone from this skeleton, it means someone in their family will die. The informant revealed that their grandma has told them that she saw the wagon one night when she was an adult.

Analysis:

This Nicaraguan legend seems to take a functionalist approach by scaring teens and children from going out alone at night. Adults didn’t want their kids to be out in the middle of the night unsupervised and likely created this story to make sure they followed their curfew. The setting is a real place – it includes streets that the children and teens live near, which makes it feel more real. While it is a Nicaraguan legend, the informant says that their grandma always told it as a true story and even once they became an adult, their grandma never said that the story was false.