Tag Archives: legend

The Legend of Stone Money

Background: The informant was born in the Philippines to a Filipino mom and a white dad, and spent his childhood, from age 2 to 13, from 1966-1977. Yap is a small group of islands in Micronesia, of which he grew up on the main island of Yap. I was told of this legend over the phone. 

Informant: So, um.. when I grew up in Yap, the Yapese… they don’t have a written language. And so, when all, well indigenous peoples for lack of a better word, indigenous peoples without a written language have a history of oral tradition and in Yapese they were all referred to legends for the oral traditions. 

A very popular or well-known one is The Legend of Stone Money. So yap, as you may know, the island, is known as the island of stone money, and there are many anthropologists that have gone there and there was even a ted talk about the legend of stone money.

To give some background, stone money on the island of yap has monetary or currency value and the reason it comes up a lot with economists is that it’s a method of exchange but that you don’t actually… you can’t actually carry or give somebody stone money as they’re usually really large pieces. And, um, it’s very difficult to transport and so what it often then becomes is the ownership of the money changes hands, but the location doesn’t, if that makes any sense

Me: Yeah. And what classifies a stone as stone money? Is there a set size?

Informant: They can be huge… as large as 8-10 feet in diameter. They can be huge.

Me: Gotcha. How does one get it in the first place? Are there carvings or something?

Informant: Yeah, yeah. So stone money is actually limestone, of which there isn’t actually much found on Yap itself. Yap is a coral atoll, it’s not really volcanic, so somewhere inside the island there’s limestone as that’s what coral turns into. So the legend is, what the yapese decided many many years ago… they also have a history of sailing as well… but many many years ago the Yapese decided they wanted to go…. To sail to the moon. They wanted to go see the full moon. So, the full moon, as you might imagine, when it comes up on the horizon (you may have seen), imagine being on the beach in PayPay, and all you see perhaps in the distance are a couple islands, but all you see away from the beach is the sea and the horizon. When the moon comes up, it’s super spectacular, especially wen it’s low on the horizon. So imagine the moon coming up and 

The way that stone money came about is the Yapese decided they were going to go the full moon, they were going to sail to the full moon. People in Micronesia, particularly in the island of yap and the outer islands of yap are known to be incredible navigators

Small islands, Micronesia, and their primary mode of transportation is sailing from island to island using canoes. In the legend, Yapese men got together in their sailing canoes and decided to sail to the moon. Well the moon rises in the east, like the sun, and sets in the west, like the sun. They started off on their journey to the moon and as they followed it over the course of the night, because the moon was rising and setting, they were changing course along the way.

Where the moon set to them actually had them sail to the island of Palau. Palau is the closest large island to Yap. Completely different language, completely different culture, but the closest large island. The Yapese end up in Palau and the Palau are known for the “rock islands of Palau.” There are big, huge, walls of limestone that resemble the color of the moon. In order to return home and not be made fun of by the rest of the people, the men decided to quarry out disks that look like the moon. They’re not spheres, but they’re round since they see the moon as two-dimensional, but in order to carry them, because they were so heavy, they put holes in the center of disks so they could put a bamboo pole through the center and have two or more people carry them down. 

The size of the stone money also has some valuation consideration—the bigger the piece of stone money, the more valuable it is. I don’t know exactly how that value is calculated, but in the photos, you will see that there are varying sizes of stone money. 

The story board art tradition is from Palau, and not Yapese, but it depicts the Palauan version of the Yapese story of stone money.

Thoughts: It’s so interesting to me that the oral tradition in Yapese culture is still so prevalent even today. While this legend was something told to the informant when he was a child, he never read any script of this legend, and even when retelling it there are parts that the informant needed to pause to remember, and as he was retelling this legend to me there were moments that triggered other memories related to the original legend. Doing a little bit of research on the stone money legend doesn’t prove to produce much similarities to the legend I was told, and instead paints the origins of stone money as coming from a need for money in a society. The other version of the legend I found detailed an explorer who, similar to the story I was told, found himself off course when exploring, and found himself on Palau as well and carved disks out of the limestone. The details and the premise of the latter legend and the one I was told are still quite different, and it’s interesting to me that there are som any different versions that all share the same result—the origin and use of stone money in Yapese culture. To read the other versions of this legend, you can find them here: 

Barach, Paul. “The Island of Yap and the Idea of Money.” Medium, Mission.org, 25 Aug. 2016, https://medium.com/the-mission/the-island-of-yap-and-the-idea-of-money-9f570421d854.

Adamovich, Kirill. “Stones as Means of Payment: The Story behind Island of Yap Money.” PaySpace Magazine, PaySpaceMagazine, 11 June 2020, https://payspacemagazine.com/economy/stones-as-means-of-payment-the-story-behind-island-of-yap-money/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Yap%20legend,therefore%2C%20they%20became%20valuable%20materials.

The Jersey Devil

Text:

KJ: “The Jersey Devil is like a donkey, kind of, with sharp teeth and bat wings. It also has legs. And it’s supposed to be really big. And I feel like it’s very much a big foot thing, like you’ll see it in the woods. It’s like a devil-dinosaur-goat thing. I feel like a New Jersey Big Foot is a good way to describe the lore surrounding it.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old college student from Montclair, New Jersey. KJ described the legend of the Jersey Devil as being commonly known among people from New Jersey and remembers hearing about it from her peers, but also remembers reading about it in a magazine called ‘Weird NJ.’ Though she doesn’t know of any specific ways that the monster is supposed to attack or hurt those who see it, she remembers her peers in middle school stoking vague fears that “the Jersey Devil is going to get you.” KJ claimed that she and her friends ran from the Jersey Devil after seeing it in a public park when she was in eighth grade and describes it as a “lanky” figure with “smoke coming out of its face.” Though she thinks she probably imagined the figure, her friends similarly remember seeing it and they have not been able to explain it.

Analysis:

The Jersey Devil is a pervasive legend which may trace all the way back to 18th century colonial New Jersey. Brian Regal describes a popular mythic origin story of the monster, which is that a witch called Mother Leeds gave birth to “a ‘child’ with horse-like head, bat-like wings, clawed hands and hooved feet” (Regal 79). He argues that this legend arose from conflict between New Jersey Quakers and Daniel Leeds, the patriarch of a Quaker family who published a book called ‘The Temple of Wisdom for the Little World’ in 1688 which promoted belief in a peculiar cosmology, an amalgamation of “theology and the budding Scientific Revolution” which “included sections on angels, natural magic, astrology, theology, philosophy, and the behavior of devils” (Regal 90). Quakers disapproved of Leeds’ philosophy and public espousal of secular or untraditional faith or magic. Regal argues that the public controversy surrounding Leeds’ work, persona, and unconventional beliefs led to the creation of the Jersey Devil.

            While the origins of this legend have to do with Christianity, I don’t think that the Jersey Devil speaks to contemporary fears about religious deviance and alternative faiths. As with legends like Big Foot, people enjoy the mystery of the creature, hearing stories about sightings and arguing about its existence. Moreover, the legend’s long history and specificity to the state makes it a part of New Jersey culture which people can identify with and bond over. The legend is extremely popular, with the state’s football team being named The New Jersey Devils.

Just as La Llorona can be interpreted as warning children to be safe around bodies of water, it’s possible that the Jersey Devil sends a message about safety. The legends popularity among children and adolescents, during periods when individuals are afforded new independence, could speak to fears of encountering dangers one can encounter alone in the world. One could argue that the figure implicitly promotes that young people be cautious among strangers and in dangerous places such as the woods.

Annotations:

“The Jersey Devil.” Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers Harrap, 1st edition, 2007. Credo Reference, https://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/chambun/the_jersey_devil/0?institutionId=887. Accessed 26 Apr. 2022.

For another description of the Jersey Devil, consult page 79 of this source:

Regal, Brian. “‘The Jersey Devil: A Political Animal.’” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 79–103., https://doi.org/10.14713/njs.v1i1.13. 

Clinton Road Ghost

Text:

KJ: “There’s this road called Clinton Road that’s the longest uninterrupted road in New Jersey, if not in the East Coast, or something. Obviously, it’s uninterrupted, so there’s no stop signs or lights or anything, but there’s also no streetlights either. It’s very windy and through trees and there’s some kind of lake or creek on either side. So, there’s one creek that goes under it, so there’s a bridge over, and basically—I don’t know if it’s completely a made-up story, because whenever you go there, there are crosses and flowers where people got killed getting hit by cars on the street. The story is that a boy got hit by a car and killed on the street, and if you put a penny on the bridge at midnight, his ghost will appear.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old college student from Montclair, New Jersey. She said the legend of the Clinton Road Ghost is popular across the state and that teenagers often carry out the ritual meant to conjure the ghost. KJ described driving to the site with her friends and staying in the car when her friends put a penny on the bridge. While they were pulled over at the side of the road, a man drove by and asked them why they stopped. When they told him everything was fine, he warned them that “there are more things to be afraid of than deer around here,” which she interpreted as him trying to perpetuate the legend and make them afraid.

Analysis:

In ‘Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore,’ Folklorist Ülo Valk wrote that spirits and ghosts’ “sudden appearance occurs when human beings wander from their daily routes into strange and alien territory by visiting an area of potential danger (such as a body of water) or by being somewhere at the wrong time (such as a graveyard at night” (Valk 33). The legend of the Clinton Road ghost embodies both of these qualities, since it is specific to the most treacherous road in New Jersey, where many deaths have taken place, and it appears at midnight, deep into the night, when it’s dark and when many accidents take place.

This legend’s popularity among teenagers makes sense considering the cultural significance of getting one’s driver’s license at 16 and gaining independence through the ability to drive. Valk wrote that ghosts “may appear in order to reinforce social norms, proper behavior, and traditional customs” (Valk 33). I think this legend is meant to warn teenagers about the dangers of reckless or drunk driving, just as folklorists theorize that legends like La Llorona convey messages about safety around bodies of water. One could argue that the legend promotes responsible driving by illustrating and stoking fears about how injustices of the past—the young boy’s death from being hit by a car—haunt people in the present.

Annotations:

Valk, Ülo. “Ghostly Possession and Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore.” Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, vol. 43, no. 1, 2006, pp. 31–52., https://doi.org/10.2979/jfr.2006.43.1.31. 

The Banshee and the scream of the fox.

E is a 35-year-old Irish female originally from Cork, Ireland. E currently runs a bed and breakfast with her husband outside out Cork, Ireland.

E performed this folklore over breakfast in the dining room of her bed and breakfast. I asked E if she had any Irish folklore she would be willing to share with me.

E: I remember stories of the Banshee years ago. You know, it was one thing I reckon I was scared of as a kid because if you hear these really loud screams, my mother would say it was the Banshee, like it could be the Banshee, and if you hear the Banshee someone who belonged to you is going to die. Scary stuff, um, it was just an old Irish thing years ago and if you saw the Banshee which is a big white lady, kinda like a ghost, and if you saw that, yeah, they taught that you were going to die, so basically if you saw it that’s the end of you kind of thing. Um, but, I remember as kids, do you know-do you know the way foxes have really loud kind of a bark that a fox would? You can confuse with the Banshee. People who think that “oh my God I heard a noise up the hill!” but it would be a fox because there’s lots of foxes around here, and.. it’s a really high pitched scream. Like it would, it would sound like someone’s nearly being murdered like, its just that type of a scream. But if you didn’t know it was a fox, you might think it was the Banshee.

Reflection: Out of all my efforts to collect folklore in Ireland, the story of the Banshee was the story I heard 90% of my time. As E was the last person I had a chance to interview during my brief visit to Ireland, I was initially disappointed that the story of the Banshee was one of the only bits of folklore she could think of. However, after looking back on her performance of the legend with a clear mind, I realized her telling gave valuable local insight into her community. Based on the E’s association of foxes’ eerily people-like scream to the screams of the Banshee, the legend is imbued with greater credibility through linkage to the real world, that wouldn’t otherwise exist in places where foxes aren’t common. Even though the Banshee legend is generally well-known, the individual variation that E lent to her performance of the legend ensures that including the folklore in my collection is not worth considering a failure.

The ”Crying Lady.”

A is a 59-year-old Hispanic American female originally from La Junta, a small town in Southeastern Colorado. A currently works as a background detective in Phoenix Arizona.

A informed me of this folklore over a dinner discussion. I asked A if she had any folklore, specifically legends or ghost stories she would be willing to share with me.

A: So this is the story I heard as a little girl of La Llorona, the “Crying Lady.” She lost her babies somehow, and wandered through the waterways, rivers, creeks, anything where there was a bridge overhead.. So as a kid we were always told “don’t cross the bridges at night” because La Llorona would be out there trying to steal children because she doesn’t have babies of her own.. So, even as a teenager, I would not walk over a bridge at night, I would walk extra, blocks to get away from the waterways just because it was too creepy to try to walk over it.

Reflection: The rendition of the La Llorona legend that A was told as child is consistent with the American Hispanic South-West understanding of La Llorona as a scare-tactic for children to discourage them from misbehaving or wandering away from home. I believe A’s story demonstrates how impressionable children are in relation to folklore, as La Llorona was still having a direct effect on A’s life well after childhood. Stories also tend to be more impactful when told by family members, as there is often an underlying sense of trust between blood ties that will lend immediate credibility to a story whether it is true or not.

 “For another version, see Schlosser, S. E., and Paul G. Hoffman. 2017, Spooky Southwest: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore., Page #85