Tag Archives: spirits

Séances

Nationality: American
Age: 60
Occupation: President of a dental practice
Residence: Chicago, Illinois
Performance Date: April 26, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant, LK, has attended several séances. He used to attend them with his Mexican American grandmother.  My informant explained that going to séances, reading Tarot cards, and seeing mediums was not atypical in his family.  I took interest in the séances LK attended.  He told me about one in particular.

LK attended a séance at a woman’s home.  All the attendees were required to bring a bottle of rum and a cigar.  The woman that hosted was an older Puerto Rican or Mexican woman.  At the séance, the woman would call upon a spirit and the spirit would then enter her.  “He was a little black guy and he liked to smoke the cigar and drink the rum.  She would go into a trance and it’d be like you were talking to him.  So you’d be asking him questions and he would know the answers because he is of the other world.”  I asked how the man would know the answers.  “You would just believe them if you believed in the spiritual world.”  And would they always be right? “No, they would sometimes be wrong.”  Are there bad spirits? “Yes.  You have to be careful because you don’t want to ever get a bad spirit.  You have to do it with someone who knows how to do it.  Because they have their spirits that they constantly use.  It’s not like playing the Ouija board.  They have spirits they are in contact with.”

I asked LK how he got into this.  He told me that it was a part of his mother, grandmother, and great grandmother’s culture.   His great grandmother would teach him things.  She knew how to work certain spells and certain magic.  At least that is what he grandmother told him about his great grandmother…

LK would attend séances and the like because of curiosity.  He wanted to talk to people that had died and see what the future holds.

For another rendition of a séance you can refer to Woody Allen’s movie Magic in the Moonlight.

Voodles

Nationality: American
Age: 28
Occupation: Office Manager
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: April 1, 2015
Primary Language: English

My informant, JP, is creating voodoo dolls for children.  Literally sewing dolls.  She calls them Voodles, a combination of voodoo and dolls.  When she told me she was making voodoo dolls for children I was surprised.  I explained that I thought voodoo dolls were scary–a part of what my dad calls dark magic.  But my informant explained that voodoo is totally misconstructed by modern day society.  She understands them to be these protective spirits with positive attributes, not negative ones.

She plans to create a number of Voodles.  For example, there will be a doctor Voodle for a sick child.  “Another Voodle has a pocket and if you put a penny in its pocket and make a wish, the Voodle is supposed to help it come true. And each Voodle will come with a legend or story.”

JP’s desire to make a Voodles for children suggests she has a strong belief in voodoo dolls.  It also reveals that she believes so many people believe in voodoo that there is a commercial market for voodoo dolls geared toward children.

Haunted House

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Charlotte, NC
Performance Date: March 20, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 21 year old girl and one of my good friends.  She mentioned once living across the street from a haunted house, so when interviewing her, I asked her to give me details about this house.  The house in the story is located in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Informant: Back in the 20s or the 30s, everyone says that the house across the street- from my newer house in the past 10 years- was owned by a dentist and his wife and three kids [all below the age of ten]. It is said that he got really stressed at work one day and that he was bipolar and he came back home and locked his wife and kids in the garage and then burnt the house down. Like put gas all around the house and burnt it down. And they said that he went to jail and everything. No one really knows if it is true or not because it was back in the 20s but that is the haunted scary story around my neighborhood. People live in it now. And I think people just think that it is evil. It is one of those hosues that everyone points out when you drive by it. Since it is owned by people, you can’t go inside.

Me: How long have you known that story?

Informant: Known that story since I was in middle school.

Me: Who told it to you?

Informant: My old neighbor told it to me… their dad. He was like 40 at the time, and it was my old neighbor though, so that was like 15 miles away from the house. So it is not just in my area that people know about it.  It is all of Charlotte that knows that it is the scary house. It just happens to be across the street from me now.

Me: Why do you think people think it is haunted?

Informant: People think it is haunted because they think that the kids and the wife are haunting the house now because they were burned inside there. (lots of giggling)

Me: Do you belive it?

Informant: I believe that a guy did do that because so many people say that he did. I don’t know if I believe that it is haunted. I believe in ghosts. But mostly nice ghosts. I do not believe they are there to hurt people. I just think it scares people. Jeez you should ask [informant featured here] about ghosts.

Me: Okay, I will

Informant: No… I do believe in ghosts. I think they are just lingering spirits. Just remnants of souls are around, and I do not think they mean any harm. So I would not say it is haunted, but I do believe that there is probably spirits if that did happen.

My analysis: I think it is interesting how the informant chooses to believe only in nice ghosts, not in mean or scary ones.  She also mentioned believing that ghosts are lingering spirits and souls of the deceased. This too is interesting because there is no scientific evidence or hard data of any sort to prove that humans even have souls. The concept of souls, in and of itself, is a folkloric belief.  The informant’s belief in kind ghosts aligns perfectly with her personality.  Her beliefs are clearly molded by the way she was raised and her naturally bubbly, happy demeanor.

Cihuateotl

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: student/nanny
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 28 April 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant (L) is a 22 year old film student at California State University Los Angeles. She grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma before coming to Los Angeles for college after high school. Her family is Mexican and Catholic. At the suggestion of our mutual friend who had heard the story before, she told me the legend of the Cihuateotl. She mentioned prior to telling me that the story was not told often within her family because of how sad it is. She was told the story by her grandmother when L’s fourth cousin died in childbirth, when L was around seven years old. Though L does not tell the story often within her family, L does tell the story when other urban legends are being discussed among her friends in Los Angeles, which is where I heard some of the story prior to beginning to collect folklore for this database.  The story involves the following legendary figures:

In “native ancient Mexico,” the cihuateotl are the spirits of the women who died in childbirth. Their sadness is the reason the sun goes down at night. Once a month, the spirits haunt the streets to hold the children they were never able to hold. After sunset, they try to abduct children. Because ‘good’ children should be inside and safe by the time the sun goes down, the children they were trying to abduct are the bad, misbehaving children. This is also used to scare children into behaving, as the cihuateotl would not give the children back.

This mix of ancient myth and urban legend is an interesting intersection between old and new. Though the spirits make sense in both modern and ancient contexts, the haunting of streets does not make as much sense in ancient Mexico, which probably did not have the sort of streets and highways L referred to in her retelling.

The story also presents some interesting contrasts. The fact that the cihuateotl only abduct bad children seem to say something about how either those children  do not deserve a real mother or the mothers who allow their children to be  bad don’t deserve to have children when there are mothers who died trying to have them. While these ideas are in the background, the practical use of scaring children into behaving probably plays more of a role in why the story is told than the more subtle themes.

Japanese Customs of Good Luck, Bad Fortune, and Protection

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 5, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

I collected this from a friend who happened to be studying this for another part of a Japanese cultural festival. He learned them from his parents, who had learned it from their parents as well. To him, they originally sounded very foolish and nonsensical. However, after looking into the context of what they were based on, he said that he understood why the people acted that way. To him, words have a lot of power, especially in the Japanese language. By not being careful with what you say, then it could have truly harmful effects on other people. It is very traditional and a part of his culture, so he was glad to share it. It was collected prior to the cultural festival, but it was at nighttime. The lights were on in the room we were in, but they were dim and the air was stale because the windows were closed.

You are not supposed to clip your toenails at night. By doing so, you will be cursed by spirits so that you will not be with your parents when they die. A variant of this is that you are not supposed to clip your fingernails at night. It will have the same effect of cursing you so that you will not be able to be with your parents in the event that they die. This is because it sounds like “yo o tsumeru,” and that sounds awfully like “to cut short a life.”

You are not supposed to do anything related to the number 4, which sounds like the word for “death.” One application of this is that you are supposed to avoid sleeping in a room that has 4 somewhere in the room number. Another is that when giving gifts, you don’t want it to have 4 parts to it, or else it will bring bad luck.

You are not supposed to sleep facing north. Dead bodies are placed so that their head orients to the north. By sleeping in the same way, it invites you to die because you are now in a similar position to the dead bodies. Malicious spirits might attempt to take advantage of that.

When a funeral car passes by, you must hide your thumb. In Japan, the thumb is called the “Oya yubi,” which means “parent finger.” By not hiding your thumb, it means that your parents will be taken away by a funeral car very soon.

You are not supposed to step on the cloth border of tatami mats, because that will bring misfortune to you.

You do not stick chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice. That is symbolically done when you are offering food to the spirits of your ancestors. In particular, this tends to happen more at funerals. However, by doing that elsewhere, it is disrespectful and you are inviting ghosts into your home, which may have a catastrophic effect on your life.

You are not supposed to give potted plants to ill people at the hospital. That will curse them, because it means that they will be rooted to the hospital, extending their illness. As a result, they can be given cut flowers, but not potted plants.

After attending a funeral, you must be sprinkled with salt so as to purify the spirit of the dead that may have followed you home.

Mirrors must be covered in a home, and must not be placed in front of a window. At night, it is possible that a ghostly woman will come out of the mirror to steal your soul or to eat away at your life. By placing mirrors in front of a window, the good energy that is coming in from the sun will be reflected back out, leaving you with no good energy at all.

You are not supposed to be able to see stairs that go up to the second floor when you look through the front door. It means that good luck will fall down the stairs and will continue to stumble right out the door, leaving you behind with absolutely no good luck

By going to a shrine, it is possible to acquire charms that are blessed in specific ways, such as “getting into a good university” or “always having good friends.” They are blessed by the priests, and usually have a lasting power of 1 year before they must be renewed again.

A branch of a peach tree is known to have purification effects. Keeping one with you is said to help ward away evil spirits so that they cannot get close enough to you to harm you.

There is a game called shiritori which requires two people. The last syllable of the word the first person says has to become the first syllable of the word the second person says. The cycle continues as each person takes the previous last syllable and makes that their first. That is supposed to actually be a charm to keep away evil spirits in the night if you are walking with a friend and there is no one else there.

Sea salt is actually a very strong purifying item. Throwing it at evil spirits will make them flee from you or be exorcised.

Some of these traditions are shared with the other Asian countries, so they felt very familiar and understandable to me. They are also part of my own culture as well, which is why they have significance to me. I understand that people act this way, and I understand why. These superstitions do sound silly at times, but they also have good intent. They are warnings to ensure that a positive future can be acquired. Either that or they are ways of gaining good fortune and keeping away evil spirits.