The following is a short Nuu-Chah-Nulth legend from the 1895 German book ‘Indian Myths and Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America’ by Franz Boas ~ Dietrich Bertz translation. What fascinated me the most about the Girl and the Ghosts tale was the similarities to many of the Celtic spirit-abduction stories:
Once upon a time there was an ill-tempered girl. When she was given food, she complained that it wasn’t good enough, and no one was able to satisfy her. One evening someone gave food to her parents and her, but she cried and wanted to have something better. When her parents had finished their meal and wanted to go to bed, she was still crying and didn’t want to go to bed. Her mother said, “Come to bed, my child! I cannot give you what you ask for.” Since she sat there obstinately, her parents finally went to bed by themselves and went to sleep.
After a while the woman woke up. She called her daughter, but received no answer, so she got up and looked for the girl, yet was unable to find her. Then she woke up her husband and asked him whether he had seen their daughter. He also did not know what had become of her, and all their searching was in vain.
Suddenly they heard the girl’s voice calling deep under the ground. “Oh, give me good food, only a very small piece!” Thereupon the father called the whole tribe together and they considered what to do to get the girl back.
They decided to dig after her. They dug ten deep holes, but were unable to reach her, so they gave up. When they had assembled for a council again, one of the men said, “The ghosts (of the dead) must have got her. You know, when a village is abandoned, the ghosts always come back and look at the houses. Let’s all move away! Two men shall hide, and when the ghosts come with the girl, they shall take her away with them.”
The people resolved to follow his advice. They loaded their canoes and set out. Two men hid on the roof-beam of a house. When it got dark the ghosts appeared. They lit a fire and sang and danced. The girl sat among them and the ghosts sang magic incantations in order to change her too, into a ghost, but these didn’t bring the desired effect. Before the men could rush at the girl, they were scented by the ghosts, who vanished into the ground with the girl.
So the two men went down to the river and washed themselves for four days. Then they returned to the house and hid again on the roof-beam. When it got dark, the ghosts came again to sing and to dance. This time they didn’t scent the men, who rushed upon the girl and seized her before the ghosts were able to pull her down into the depths with them.
This is the tale of the girl and the ghosts. If you are interested in more Vancouver Island ghost stories, check out my new book The Haunting of Vancouver Island.
Illustration by J. Semeyn from A. Carmichael’s Indian Legends of Vancouver Island, 1922
(Take Back Our Children mural detail. James UuKwaqum Swan)
James, do the Nuu-chah-nulth people believe in wandering spirits, or are there First Nations ghosts?
Whether I believe in it or not, there are ghosts. In our culture ghosts are stuck. They are souls or spirits. One of the things that I was taught, is that there’s another realm where our spirits go into. Some people believe, like the Catholic for example, that there is a heaven (holds his hand up high) and a hell (holds his hand down low) on the other side. These people are stuck between heaven and hell.
Our souls go into another room, another realm, and are always met by three people; three other people that are a part of our family. Anyone who has died or has went slowly has seen someone like their father or even my father coming to greet them and show them the way. They were there waiting for them to show them the way.
Sometimes, people don’t see good things. My grandfather talks about it. He says there is a hell and there is a heaven, although I don’t know the name for it, but it’s something that my grandfather talks about.
All of the things we see, in our culture, in our heritage, he says that they happen for a reason. He also says that all of the things that you dream about can happen if you really truly believe. That’s one of the things. I went down to the United States, for example, to go see a friend of mine’s son who was in the hospital. I turned to one of our songs and I prayed for him and he got up. The doctor said he wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to be in the hospital for the rest of his life. He got up and left the hospital. It might be psychological but if you believe in it…
In society you talk about being stubborn. When I go out hunting or I go out fishing and I get cold in my mind I will say, “I am going to be warm when I get home and have a nice warm bath,” and I am not cold. In the army, the first time that I had to run 13 km (8 miles) I knew I would finish it even though I had never run it before. I puked, but I did it. I am stubborn.
So when you talk about ghosts one of the things I always tell myself is that I will believe it when I see it. Whenever I hear of ghosts, or Sasquatch or anything I think that I will believe it when I see it. But when you hear the stories of what people have experienced, of seeing my father, who was seen by one of my other relatives, I am sometimes disappointed. I think why doesn’t he come see me the way he does in my dreams? That is one of the places, I believe, there is a place for our spirits. In our minds and in our dreams.
When you talk about dreams; things you’ve done before but you haven’t – like Deja Vu – or something you’ve dreamt about. You are wondering, for example, “I have been here before, I’ve done this before, I have asked this before and it is the first time that you have ever done it for real. I believe that someone has given me that thought. Whether it’s a soul, a lost soul, an ancestor, a father, a grandmother, they have gone on and have given that thought. I am not saying out-of-body but that they are visitors that were in those places that give us those thoughts, that Déjà vu.
So I really want to see a ghost. I really want to see it to believe it. When I listen to the stories of my father and my mother and everyone else talking about ghosts and spirits, these stories you can’t dismiss them. You can’t dismiss the elders because then you are calling them a liar and saying that they are full of shit because in my language that is what you are saying. They are not. They raised you, they taught you, they gave you everything they could and told you stories of their life and maybe their story of a ghost.
There is actually one, she was actually dressed like a witch in Ahousaht. There are two different stories about this witch dressed in black. We call her a witch because she was dressed in black. She had a black hat on. There is no face. We know it’s a girl even though it has no face on it. My grandfather saw it.
Ahousaht at Low Tide. 2012
The first time I ever heard about this thing was when my grandfather saw it. There was a house fire at my mom and dad’s house and it burnt to the ground. My grandfather had been burnt inside and he went to my sister’s house. He had half his face burnt in the fire. The house burnt down when I was about sixteen years of age. What happened was that my grandfather was out on the deck – at my sisters – and he was looking down the hill. He said that he saw somebody then running away from that black hag, and my grandfather saw it yelling at them.
Another person experienced the same thing around the same time. They got so terrified that they jumped into the nearest house. They smashed a window and jumped in a bunk in the nearest house. That was probably about 30 years ago… quite a while ago.
My aunt talked about a thing too. She was reaching up into the attic once to grab an item she was going to sell, and a hand grabbed her wrist. She was fighting to get her hand out of there. It scared the bejesus out of her and she never did it again.
I also have a story of Jenny’s (sp?) Beach. There was an old lady that lived there and she lived there all by herself. They used to say that she used to talk to somebody and that somebody would carry wood and water for her. People witnessed the water and the wood come in there by itself so that she was taken care of. That was a long time ago my grandfather would talk about it.
Have you ever heard of stories about possession? Can a person become possessed by spirits in your culture?
Like I said before, my grandfather said we had a name for hell so my answer would be yes. I don’t think our people ever had possession before, though. Our culture was really strong before Europeans came.
One thing, people were not allowed to watch us during our cleansing whether we were in the ocean or up a mountain we never told anyone where our cleansing spot was. We never told them when we were going to go out and when we were going to come back. It was something that we did on our own; going up the mountain, finding our own pond or pool or going into the ocean in the morning in our own spot.
God’s Country. Near Ahousaht. 2012
We used to pray this way to get things right. Someone would pray to use the medicines to make him stronger, or to make him more powerful, or to conquer a whale, to kill a whale or a fur seal, or to do something that he wanted like being a warrior. These were the types of things he had to do to prepare himself. He had to fast for four days in order to do the stuff that he had to do when it comes to cleansing himself. In some cases you would see visions which would tell you something like what to do with your life, or how to do something, or give you songs in some cases or dances. All through fasting.
If somebody was watching you, one of the things we had to do was actually kill that person. This is because all of their bad stuff will be absorbed into us. You were talking about being possessed, possession. That is one of the things that I understand. Our culture tells us we should not have been there, that we should know better than to watch or to observe what that other person was doing to get things right.
Do people still fast?
I fast. It’s really hard not to eat for four days especially when we consider what we eat today. Back then it could have been easier because every day you had to go out for food but we usually had nothing. Back then we could smoke our fish but there was no refrigeration or anything.
I think if we don’t believe something our elders taught us now we are really missing something. It is important that we do not get off so easy. Otherwise you can become weak minded, because we are missing something in our life. Our teaching is Hishuk ish tsawalk, “everything is one.” It doesn’t just mean the resources we have it means the stuff we have inside of us too.
If we don’t deal with things like grief the right way it will leave a hole inside us and make us vulnerable. By dealing with things the right way, by having yatsu-yatsu and having the dance we deal with things the right way.
In the Nuu-chah-nulth culture are there such things as curses or people who can give you the evil eye?
They talk about black magic. Nobody likes to talk about them – I don’t know why – they are scared of them. One of the things we are told is that even a hair… My grandfather said to me, “You put your own hair away! You don’t trust anyone else! Every time you cut your hair you put the hair in the garbage and you tie it! You put your own hair away and you don’t trust anyone else!”
They will put a curse on you or hex you or whatever you want to call it. That’s the kind of thing my grandfather said to me in real life. I heard him saying this and I heard other people talk about it.
Like when you put your name on a container, like one on my boat that has James Swan on it. If somebody took something like that and they did something with it… well it had my name on it and it belonged to me and was mine. One of the things we are always taught is not to put your name on stuff you own. If somebody wants it bad enough they can take it.
That must have been difficult in the army?
(Laughs) Yeah! I have my name on everything!
Do you think anyone still believes in these things or practices them anymore?
Yeah, they do because they say that even some people in Ahousaht practice black magic or witchcraft or whatever you want to call it. Some people in our culture do.
All we are told is to pray if something bad happens. Pray for the people that you think are doing bad things. You never pray or wish them the same bad luck. You never do that because it will come back to you three times. So, if they do it to us you will see things happening to them really bad, and that is how you know it is them.
They pay a price for sending something off.
Artist and Chief James Uukwaqum Swan with Guy Louis Sr. at Tribal Canoe Journeys. 2012
More stories from Artist and Chief James UuKwaqum Swan next week regarding funerary rites, religion, and the mightiest of the mighty: the Thunderbird…
The Eight Stages of a Poltergeist Haunting was proposed by Rupert Mathews in his book Poltergeists. Filled with illustrations and unique information, this is by far my favourite book about poltergeists.
Mathews covers many aspects of what we would now consider classic poltergeist hauntings. What I like most, is that Mathews doesn’t automatically subscribe to common poltergeist theories (regarding psychokinesis and the paranormal). He is thorough in covering many possible explanations including fraud and misidentification. Mathews covers historic and modern cases, investigations and scientific experiments, as well as famous early mediums and fraudsters.
Astutely, Mathews says there are generally eight stages to an “idealized poltergeist visitation,” or haunting, where fraud has not been detected:
Stage One: Beginnings
The activity usually begins with faintly registered sounds. This is usually a scratching noise, which might be disregarded as rodents or related to water pipes, etc. These noises are usually only heard at night.
Stage Two: Noises
The sounds will become harder to ignore. At this point, the noises might resemble knuckles knocking on wood or another objects such as glass. Sometimes, very loud cracking or unexplained banging noises are heard but this is less common. Objects might vibrate. At this stage, the activity might also be heard during daylight hours.
Stage Three: Moving Objects
Mathews says that sometimes Stage Three begins at the same time as Stage Two. Objects might be moved inexplicably. Stone throwing, or lithobolia, is very common. Objects might disappear and reappear. This activity usually focuses on a certain item or type of object such as a specific ornament or keys. It’s rare to actually see the item moved. The object might be hot to the touch immediately after.
Stage Four: Apports and Disapports
When an object appears from out of nowhere it’s called an apport. When an object disappears “into oblivion” it is called a disapport. These types of activities are extremely rare but have been reported.
Stage Five: Communication
In some cases communication is established through a code of knocks. This may be two knocks indicating a “yes” and one knock indicating a “no” or some other established pattern. Sometimes speech occurs. In almost all of these cases, there seems to be a gradual process which starts with whistles, slurps, growls and so on. At first, mutterings or distant voices can be heard. Next, the voice is said to sound robotic. Finally, witnesses have claimed regular speech is achieved. At this point, the poltergeist will be able to speak as a normal person might as they begin to make statements. Claims by the poltergeist about their lifetime identity are often grande. They may say they were a murderer, a victim, a suicide, or even a famous person. When these statements are checked out they will usually be found to be false. According to Mathews, it is rare for a poltergeist to have knowledge of events outside of what is widely known within the community it appears in. Mathews does not mention this, but it’s interesting to me that many claimed spirit-contacts through Ouija boards share these same characteristics of deceit[i].
Stage Six: Climax
The poltergeist activity will suddenly increase to a point it had never reached before. This may last several hours or several days. If the poltergeist can talk it may state that it’s going to leave soon. Unlike previous claims, however, this will generally turn out to be true.
Stage Seven: Decline
According to Mathews, “the decline is almost always much shorter than the build-up.” The poltergeist will lose its abilities in reverse and gradually become weaker.
Stage Eight: Endings
The activity may slowly skip to an end. Sometimes, this poltergeist activity will reach a dramatic conclusion. In many cases, exorcisms or blessings may prematurely kill the activity. Sometimes, the focus person leaving the premise may cause the activity to cease.
Other Features
The “idealized” poltergeist haunting will usually have a focus person. According to Mathews, this focus person is most often a teenage female but may be any age or gender. Some investigators believe poltergeist activity always centres around one person but this is not always the case. Mathews adds that, “it is often said that focus people are usually in a stressful situation of some kind.” He gives examples of divorce and attempted rape.
Also noteworthy, poltergeists sometimes manifest physically. The apparition might be smoky or misty (this makes me think of Jinn). Sometimes, it will take on a human form. The apparition might also appear even more inexplicable such as in an animal or part animal form. Wet spots might also manifest, which are said to smell like urine. Sometimes the wetness can be viewed as it occurs and seems to come out of nowhere.
Witnesses have claimed to be harmed by poltergeist entities, as well. Scratches and bite marks are said to appear on the person’s skin without explanation. In some cases, pets will die. Fires can start in the home inexplicably. In the Bell Witch case, the poltergeist claimed to have killed Jack Bell. In another – which is not in Mathews’ book – a woman named Doris Bither claimed to have been raped by a poltergeist. Witnesses later supported her claim. The Bithers’ poltergeist account and investigation was made into the 1981 movie The Entity starring Barbara Hershey (before the fictional Poltergeist movie). For an interview with Doris Bither’s surviving son please go to: ghost theory
It’s important to note that the poltergeist distinction is not as clear as many imagine. Especially mainstream parapsychologists or paranormal investigators. The characteristics of poltergeist hauntings often share many similarities with conventional hauntings. Translated from German, the word poltergeist basically means “noisy ghost.” Identified as a poltergeist, it has come to represent a specific idealized type of haunting. Many individuals separate poltergeists from traditional ghosts, for example, because they believe spirits of dead people cause other types of hauntings and there are psychic explanations for poltergeist activity. One early theory was that poltergeist activity was caused by uncontrolled female teenage sexual energy, an unfounded problematic belief that persists to this day.
[i] For more reports that suggest spirits are often deceptive, consider reading Hungry Ghosts by Joe Fisher, which is fascinating. Since publication, Fisher died falling off a cliff. Many believe he was pushed.
