Tag Archives: legends

La Siguanaba

Nationality: Salvadoran
Age: 50
Occupation: Service Coordinator
Residence: North Hills, California
Performance Date: 04/20/17
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

She was a woman that went out every night to wash by the river. Everyone would hear her washing. But no one would go outside. They would see a woman that had long hair that would drag on the floor. She seduced the men. The story is often told to children to scare them into not misbehaving.

My tia Estella did not listen to my grandmother and went out at night. She was using the bathroom outside and she saw a tall women standing there. The woman had long black hair. And she was washing. My tia thought it was one of the neighbors washing. She approached the lady and when the lady turned to her she was a skeleton. My tia became mute and ran away from the women.

My informant is a service coordinator. She likes to help people. She also migrated from El Salvador to the United States. Most of her stories are from her mother or personal experiences.

I talked to my informant over coffee in our house.

The interesting part of this piece is the similarities between this and the Llorona of Mexico. It is also interesting because my own aunt experienced it. This story is a classic tale Salvadoran parents use to keep them from misbehaving.

 

Sleep Paralysis Ghost

Nationality: Bangladeshis
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bangladesh / Boston, Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 13, 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant is Nabila. She is eighteen years old and is a freshman at Northeastern University. She grew up in Bangladesh.

Context of the Performance: We sat on the living room floor of a mutual friend’s house in Yonkers, New York over our spring breaks form college.

Original Script:

Informant: So basically, do you know about sleep paralysis?

Interviewer: Yes.

Informant: Basically, it’s a condition which doesn’t allow you to move or talk when you’re waking up or first falling asleep. In Asian culture, when that happens, people believe that it is a form of nightmare or that it is a ghost sitting on you. When you have sleep paralysis, since you can’t move, and you might be screaming out loud but can’t actually make any noise, people think that he’s sitting on you. Because he can’t speak, since he’s a ghost, you can’t speak either. I actually don’t believe it though. My mom told me this when I was about thirteen, but now I know that it’s actually sleep paralysis.

Interviewer: Why is this piece of folklore important to you?

Informant: It’s important to me in the sense that when it happened to me, it really scared me. I had a bunk bed, and it happened to me the first time I slept on the top bunk. So, I never slept on the top bunk again because I thought that the nightmare would happen again.

Personal Thoughts: I find this piece interesting because I have known about sleep paralysis for years now and have never heard of this type of fear of it. In fact, I, along with many of my friends, have tried to achieve sleep paralysis because you need to do so in order to lucid dream. Lucid dreaming is something so many people try to do, so it is compelling to me that Nabila and her family are so afraid of sleep paralysis.

The Little People

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Social Worker
Residence: Tulsa, OK
Performance Date: March 16th, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant for this piece is my aunt, who worked for the Cherokee Government for several years and is still heavily involved in the organization. She grew up in Tulsa, OK, but has also lived extensively in Tahlequah, OK.

In this piece, my aunt talks to me about the legend of the Little People in Cherokee folklore.

AJ: There was another story I’ll tell you. It’s about the Little People. Have you heard of them?

Me: I don’t think so, no.

AJ: Again, your Mimi, and therefore your mom and I, weren’t told many stories about Cherokee folklore growing up. Some people felt that it was in competition with religion and Christianity, so they didn’t tell their kids.

Me: Right.

AJ: Well, the Little People are this race of spirits who live in caves. They’re about the height of your knees, and are supposedly very pretty and handsome. Their hair is so long it almost touches the ground. They’re helpful, kind, and great workers. They love music and spend their times singing and dancing. They’re kind of like you: they’re very nice and sweet, but don’t like to be disturbed.

Me: That is like me.

AJ: [laughs] My mom told me that sometimes you will hear the Little People drumming but that it is not safe to follow the sound because they don’t want to be disturbed at home. If you bother them, they’ll throw a spell on you so that they become confused and get lost. They like to do things for people, but they don’t like to be watched. Supposedly, you could hear them whispering outside of their house, but that you weren’t allowed to go outside. In the morning, you would wake up and find that corn had been gathered and set outside of your home.

Me: That’s nice.

AJ: I know. I wish I had the Little People clean my house at night.

Me: It would be a good service, huh?

AJ: One last thing about the Little People is that if you find something in the woods you have to say “Little People, I would like to take this” and then you’d say whatever it is you found.

Me: Why do you have to say that?

AJ: Because it may belong to one of them. If you don’t ask permission, the Little People will throw stones at you.

Me: I guess that makes sense.

AJ: So next time you’re out in the woods of California, make sure and say hi to the Little People.

Me: I will.

I personally really like this, and I know my aunt likes it to because she enjoys the idea of these people in a way looking out for the Cherokee people. I like it because it reminds me a lot of myself: I like helping people, but I don’t want any recognition or people to observe me trying to help someone. I would much rather not get any praise. My aunt is very similar to me in that fashion, so in a way we feel a connection to the Little People. I think a lot of the traditions with the Little People, such as asking for their permission to take something in the woods, is a practice that makes life a little more interesting. I don’t think my Aunt believes in the Little People, but she still likes to do the act. In a way, I think it connects her with our ancestors, and in another way, I think it’s just a little thing to do that keeps life interesting.

Saint Wenceslaus

Nationality: Czech
Age: 77
Occupation: Retired Anthropologist
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: 4/13/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Czech

Informant: “Saint Wenceslaus was a big saint in the Czech Republic, there is this well known carol about him, though I can’t remember exactly how it goes. He was a bit like Saint Nicholas or Santa like we have in the U.S., except that he took care of people as opposed to giving gifts. The legend goes that Good King Wenceslaus was out walking in the snow and he found a poor person and gave him money, and how that what you’re supposed to do at Christmas is give money to help poor people. A bunch of legends built up around him, like the carol talks about how on this dark and stormy night, we was walking with his helper, and he told his helper to walk in his footsteps in the snow behind him, which was supposed to have a Christ-like connotation to it. An supposedly the whole kingdom under his reign was a wonderful golden age because they had this wonderful king who was a saint. A lot of Catholic churches in the Czech republic and also in places in the United States with a lot of Czech people would be called Saint Wenceslaus’s, or just Saint Wen’s. There is actually a big statue of him in the main square in Prague that is supposed to have the original king’s actual helmet on it!”

The informant is a 77 year old retired anthropologist living in Portland Oregon. Her grandparents immigrated to the United States from the Kingdom of Bohemia (in the modern day Czech Republic) in the 1890’s to escape the economic turmoil within the country in that time period. She was born and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and studied anthropology at Stanford University, during which time she became interested in learning more about the traditions of her heritage. She has on several occasions traveled to the Czech republic to visit relatives there.

Collector Analysis: This is an interesting legend, and provides an interesting counterpoint to the classic “Winter gift giving story”. Whereas most Christmas traditions involve giving gifts you your family and loved ones, the story of Saint Wenceslaus advocates giving to those people you don’t know who are in need, specifically the poor. Saint Wenceslaus is the Catholic patron saint of Bohemia, which is currently a region within the Czech Republic. This particular legend also shows the strong connection there was between the old European royalty and the Christian faith.

Succubus and Incubus

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“My uncle, he’s, uh, he’s a truck driver, so he’s constantly on the road and stuff. And, uh, this one time, he is driving with his buddy and they stay at a motel and, you know, it’s probably, like, three o’clock in the morning and he’s just, like, dead asleep. He hears someone, like, shuffling in the room and he’s thinking, like, oh, it’s, like, fucking Greg, like, his guy who’s riding with him. ‘Oh, it’s probably Greg.’ Like, ‘What the fuck is he doing up?’ Like, ‘We need to sleep.’ Um, so he just goes back to sleep and maybe, like, a few minutes later he feels like someone is perching up on his bed, like, someone is knees deep onto his bed. And he starts feeling, like, hands, like, he physically, he physically feels someone, like, about to, like, go on him. And in his mind, like, ‘Greg, like, what the fuck are you doing, dude?’ And he wakes up, or he opens his eyes, and he sees this naked woman on top of him. And at first, like, ‘Dude, oh, this is a fucking a—this is a dream, you know. It’s a fucking dream’ And once he starts to realize, he realizes, like, no I’m awake, lik,e holy shit, no wait– this is actually happening. He sees this woman, like, beautiful, like the way he describes her, he saw, like, her silhouette and he could just feel her hair on his face and it was wet, like, if she just got out of the shower, but one thing that he couldn’t shake off, was the fact that he just smelled, he smelled sulfur. He smelled, like, that… he smelled sulfur. He’s like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ And he’s just, he’s just lying there with this woman on top of him and she’s just, like, there, like, smiling, she’s like, ‘Oh, hi.’ And he’s just trying to register, like, what’s happening, like, ‘What the fuck? Who are…? Like, who the fuck are you?’ And she’s trying to seduce him, like, he felt like she was trying to seduce him, like she wanted to, she wanted to fuck him. You know. And it wasn’t until he kinda started putting two and two together that he was like, ‘Wait, this is not right. Like how the fuck did you get in here? Like you need to get the fu—like get off me! Get the fuck off me!’ But she was like, the way he described her, like, she was so persistent. There was something about her that was just, like, off. Like she was just so hungry for him. You know, to have him. And, like, he just, he got up, he shoved her off and he turned on the light to see, to see who she was, and she just fucking vanished. And he, once he saw that she, like, disappeared he got all his shit and he just ran out. Everything. And then after thinking about it and, like, doing some research, he, for him, he thought it was a, a succubus, you know. He genuinely thought it was a fucking succubus. And, um, it was just like in like in a rural part of America, like, in this motel, like, out in the middle of nowhere, you know. And he was just, he has no idea what the fuck that was. But from the way he described it, it was probably a fucking succubus. This thing that you know, takes men’s souls after having sex with them. You know, uh….

And you know what’s funny, uh, the same kind of story happened to, uh, my friend Valentina. Uh, this was when she was back in high school, she was living at her dad’s house and, um, she was home alone and she felt, you know, pressure being laid on her and she opens her eyes and she sees this guy. And at first she thought it was her boyfriend, Peter. And she looked at him like, ‘Wait, what are you doing here?’ lLke, ‘Peter, what the fuck are you doing here?’ And he’s like, ‘Hey.’ Like, ‘No.’ Like, ‘Don’t worry, like, just go with it, just go with it,’ you know? And she’s like, ‘Wait—like holy shit, you’re not Peter.’ And at first she thought it was just a fucking rapist, like, ‘Oh my God!’ She starts, she’s screaming, like, she pushes him off. And the way she described the way he moved, like, once she pushed him off, like, he jumped, like, into the air, like, this fucking thing, you know? Like ‘hisssssss’ you know? It jumped off and he went under her sister’s bed. Because there’s two beds, so he jumped off and crawled like… crawled under her sister’s bed. And she turned on the light and under her sister’s bed, there’s boxes. You can’t physically go under the bed. And she hasn’t, she doesn’t, she has no idea what the fuck that was.”

 

These are stories that my informant heard from his uncle and from a friend. My informant is very open to the idea of supernatural occurrences and, although he is aware that the storytellers were likely exaggerating, he believes there is probably some truth to the tales they shared with him.

The incubus and succubus are popular characters in folklore and can be traced back several hundred years. Possibly originating as an excuse for adultery, succubi and incubi appear primarily at night and often tempt men & women to betray their spouse. They are possibly related to the vampire.

 

For more about the succubus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/succubus

And the incubus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus