Tag Archives: Monster

El Cucuy/Chupacabra

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 19
Primary Language: English

The informant, K, is 19 years old. She was born in Long Beach, California but was raised in Los Angeles. Her dad is from Guadalajara, Mexico (Southern Mexico) but moved to the United States when he was 2. Her mom was born in Obregon, Sonora (Northern Mexico) but grew in Mexicali (a US-Mexico border town), and she moved to the United States when she was 18. She is majoring in Applied Mathematics with a Computer Science Minor. She considers herself Mexican-American (or Chicana).

K-“For me growing up the Chupacabra (goat sucker) and the cucuy (bogeyman) were the same. Thing I know for other cultures I’ve heard that they were different. I forgot how they were different but for me growing up they were the same thing. Basically our parents used to tell us ‘oh if you don’t go to sleep on time, or you don’t listen, or disrespect me the cucuy/chupacabra is going to get you. It was mostly if you didn’t go to sleep because it was told the chupacabra ate the children who stayed past their bedtime.”

What age were you when you heard this?

K-“I think they started telling me when I was about 5”

According to the story, where did they used to live?

K-“Anywhere. That’s why it was used by the parents, because they could come from anywhere. But mainly I heard that they can come from like a cave in the mountain but even if we lived nowhere near a mountain they would still come and get us”

Analysis- Normally in the Hispanic culture, the chupacabra and the cucuy would be different. Only the cucuy would be the one that would take the children if they did not behave or at random moments when it came out from under the bed. The chupacabra was not really a worry to children but instead to cattle. This version of the story, however, was adapted to scare children even more by creating this new monster than consists of two already scary creatures. The fact that the monster can still come and get the children, even if they do not live near anywhere near where the monster lived, shows that the story was specifically aimed at children.el cucuy

La Tulivieja – A Panamanian Demon/Monster

Nationality: Panamanian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: U.S.A.
Performance Date: 9/26/2016
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“The story is, there was this girl who was very beautiful. And she had a secret relationship with a guy in her town from which a she got pregnant and a little boy was born. Then she drowned the boy in the river to make up for her premarital relationship sin. After that, God punished her by making her the ugliest monster possible. Like, making her face like a colador (pasta strainer) where hair came out of the holes. And like her hands turned into claws, and her feet turned backwards. And she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life looking for her son in her river. The legend is that she still hounds the river looking for her son and she will take her beautiful form while sitting by it. Any noise will bring out the ugly monster, though.”

            According to the informant, this legend is so well known that is ofen reffered to in a common phrase that is used. Typically, when someone who is going out with/dating a woman suddendly discovers that she is not as charming as she once appeared, it is common to say “salio la tulivieja”, which translates to “the tulivieja emerged”. Because phrase and the meaning behind it are so popular, many young men are warned to make sure that the women they are interested in are not secretly tuliviejas.

The informant, Jonathan Castro, is a 21-year-old student from Panama. Because until recently, he had spent his entrie life in Panama, he believes that he is well informed in Panamanian folklore. Jonathan claims that because the phrase that was derived from this story is so popular, most Panamanians are familiar with the story behind it, since knowledge of the tale is necessary for the phrase to be understood and used properly. Thus, if someone does not understand the phrase, they usually end up asking someone else to explain it to them, eventually causing the story to be told. This is how Jonathan himself learned the tale. Although it can really only be used by members of the male gender, Jonathan still finds the phrase entertaining and fun to use because it is such a silly way to tell a friend that he should stay away from the girl that he is interested in seeing.

Clearly, the tale itself is prominent within it is prominent within Panamanian culture. What makes it remarkable, however, is that it has changed into something more than just a story. It has now become an expression that is often to convey a generally understood idea. The fact that this was able to occur says something interesting about folklore in general. It reveals that folkloric pieces can still maintain their original essences, even when conveyed in a different form. Thus, because the original tale is still eventually being told, there should be no fear that the story is being lost.

Aswang

Nationality: American/Filipino
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/27/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

The informant is a fellow student and a good friend. While going out for smoothies, she shared her Filipino culture with me.

Informant: “This is like evil. So basically what it is, it’s like… It’s kind of like a shape-shifter. Like it takes on a human form during the day, and at night it takes on a monstrous form of either a bat, a bird, a rat, or something… Something that’s vicious, you know?”

Me: “Wait, did you say monster during the night? Or just and animal”

Informant: “A monstrous animal-like, animalistic… Yeah, not like a monster, it could be a bat, it could be a rat, uh… a bird… Some vicious creature. And in the day it take son this human form an it’s disguised. And what it does, is at night it feeds on human bodies. Or like, it wakes up humans in the middle of the night and they eat their flesh. And they kind of, they have this thing that they do where they feed human flesh to humans, so that they’re like manipulated.”

Me: “Does that turn them into Aswang as well?”

Informant: “Yeah, yeah. Yes.”

Me: “Ah, ok. So they like sneak into peoples’ houses?”

Informant: “Yeah, they sneak into peoples’, or they wake them up when they’re sleeping. I’m not sure if they actually turn them into Aswang, but they definitely feed on the humans. And they’re kind of like demonic, violent, evil creatures that you should be careful of. I don’t know if there’s any prevention, like… That you have to block your doors is all I know.”

Me: “But who do they target specifically?”

Informant: “Anyone.”

Me: “Anyone? So, like, how do you avoid them? You don’t know?”

Informant: “I don’t know how to avoid. Like, my grandma never told me. They just feed on anyone.”

Me: “Okay, but are they like, uncommon attacks?”

Informant: “I don’t know that part, just that they attack random people.”

Me: “And has she seen one?”

Informant: (shakes head) “I think it’s just a legend.”

Background & Analysis

The informant’s grandma learned about these creatures through oral tradition, and the legend is not particular to any island or culture specifically in the Philippines. The informant also doesn’t believe the Aswang are real, especially because it’s known as a creature that comes in the middle of the night and eats your family. She believes if it were real, there would be some sort or prevention or protection methods against them. For the informant, the lesson of this legend would be to lock your doors at night and not go wandering around at midnight, lest something bad happen. All of the informant’s family members know about this legend and other popular ones as well, since it’s been around for a long time and is so widespread.

What seems to be the trend with legends, is that you can always pull a lesson or a message out of them once you are able to look past the creepy, scary stuff. In this case, the lesson could be something as simple as keeping your doors locked at night, or watching out for those who would try to hurt or take advantage of you.

 

Jersey Devil

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 57
Occupation: Singer-songwriter
Residence: Lafayette, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2015
Primary Language: English

*Note about informant: Laura Zucker is my mother. She grew up in New Jersey.

 

INFORMANT: “So I grew up in Highland Park, New Jersey, and in the southern part of the state of New Jersey, there’s a place called the Pine Barrens, which is a big expanse… uninhabited expanse of pine trees and forest. And there has, for … 200 years been this legend of something called the Jersey Devil that lives down there. And the story is… I mean, it’s kind of like a Bigfoot/Sasquatch thing, but … um, it’s said to be this creature with the head of a horse or a goat and bat wings, and it emits this shrieky… loud, scary, shrieky sound. I don’t know if it eats people or just scares the pee out of them, but it’s, you know, why you don’t want to stay in the Pine Barrens alone by yourself at night.”

COLLECTOR (myself): “Who told you about it?”

INFORMANT: “You know, it was just one of those things that you grew up knowing about. I don’t remember anybody telling me, it was just sort of part of the world that we swam in because we lived in New Jersey.”

—

Before I posted this, I saw that a student from last year’s class had published a post also called “Jersey Devil,” so I gave it a look and wasn’t entirely surprised to find that my mom’s version of the story and the other informant’s version were pretty different. Some elements stayed the same, like the bat wings and goat/sheep/horse head, but the back stories and the informants’ opinions on the underlying message were very different. While the other informant had a detailed back story about a promiscuous woman, my mom’s version has no such back story – the creature simply exists, and that’s the way it’s always been. The other informant saw the Devil as a warning to women not to be promiscuous, while my mom saw the Devil as a warning for children and others not to spend time alone in the Pine Barrens. I thought it was interesting that the other informant had a more detailed back story, because if I remember correctly, that informant was from Delaware, not NJ. You’d think that my mom, as a Jersey local, would have a richer understanding of the legend than an outsider.

The Jersey Devil is a great example of folklore because the origin of the story is absolutely unknown. My mother can’t even recall a person telling her the story – she says it was just part of the general context of her hometown and her growing up, that it was almost known and understood by default because it was so ingrained in the local lore.

The Devil will pull you under the bed by your feet

Nationality: Colombian
Age: 52
Occupation: Spanish Teacher
Residence: Davenport, Florida
Performance Date: 4/29/2015
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Informant (“M”) is a 52 year old woman from Bogota, Colombia. She moved to the United States in 1992, at the age of 30. She has two kids, a boy and a girl, who she raised in the United States. She has four siblings, two brothers and two sisters, she was the second born. She has a 102 year old Grandmother. Collection was over Skype.

 

Transcript:

“M: Cuando nosotros uh… youngers, uh…. younger? Okay and we lied, my mom said to us when you go to sleep tonight… that was scary… the devil is coming and grab you from your feet and taking you with him. Usually we went to sleep and we covered our feet very well, and wore socks, and the next day sometimes we lost one of ours socks. She would say the devil took the socks but didn’t grab us from our feet.

Me: So what this supposed to happen when you were in bed?

Yeah, because we was wearing socks and took our socks instead.

Me: Did he like stay or live under the bed?

M: Yeah! I believe he did, he was under the bed or under old blankets. Later we’d find the socks lost sometimes and believe “oh god the devil was here”. We’d later find the socks sometimes.

Me: So she said that only happened when you lied?

M: It’s only when we lied, ‘’I know you’re lying tonight and the devil will come get you from you feet’’ [imitation of mother].

Me: Was there any way to stop him, like could you confess that you lied or pray to stop the devil?

(Did not address question as I interrupted)

M: That was like 40 something years ago, I believe that was similar in the United States in the 50s. I don’t think it a very funny way to teach to behave.”

 

Analysis:

The monster pulling you under the bed by your feet piece of Folklore appears to exist in the United States, as was noted by “M”, often tied to the boogeyman. There are multiple references to the ‘under the bed monster’ and in American popular studies journals being cited in one article as “…so universal that we no longer stop to think about their origins. “(Shimabukuro, 2014). As identified by “M” at the end of the transcript, it was used as a method to convince her, by her mother, to tell her if she had been lying. This could be used to scare the truth out of a child, or if the child would not tell no matter what, as a way to negatively reinforce such behavior.

“M”s use of socks to protect her from the devil living under the bed appears to be used as a protection charm from the devil, similar to when children hide their heads under the blanket. It was also used as an indicator of the devil’s presence, as the disappearance of the socks may have indicated to “M” that the devil had tried to grab her and grabbed her sock instead.

Work Cited

Shimabukuro, K. (2014). The Bogeyman of Your Nightmares: Freddy Krueger’s Folkloric Roots. STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE.