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Tag: Folklore

  • This Intangible Thing Called Storytelling

    This Intangible Thing Called Storytelling

    Mariam Jallow on the folklore, fear, and storytelling.

    PEN Transmissions is English PEN’s magazine for international and translated voices. PEN’s members are the backbone of our work, helping us to support international literature, campaign for writers at risk, and advocate for the freedom to write and read. If you are able, please consider becoming an English PEN member and joining our community of over 1,000 readers and writers. Join now.

    This piece is part of a year-long series, supported by the Norman Trust, showcasing Gen Z writers and writing. Read our editorial on the series here.

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    There is something quite powerful about this intangible thing called storytelling. Wherever we go, our stories go with us. And the things we hold dear – our culture, identity, and history – are never quite lost.

    Jumbies, rolling calves, demons, malevolent spirits, ordinary ghosts; there are many stories that have both terrified and inspired me. But none more so than the folklore I grew up with. And fear is an incredibly powerful storytelling tool. The warnings hiding in prose and proverbs shared between generations by word-of-mouth were the first works of horror I became acquainted with while growing up in the Virgin Islands.

    Around 7 or 8, I developed this odd fear of plant seeds. Greater than the nervous anticipation of chanting ‘bloody Mary’ in the mirror three times with my childhood friends, I still sharply recall the dread that filled me when someone in my class would jokingly plant so-called ‘jumbie beads’ in the pockets of my uniform. The story as I remember it went: if one of these small half-red half-black beads made its way into your home, once midnight arrived, a jumbie would come out of the seed and harm you. I would come to learn that the seeds, also known as rosary peas, were quite toxic, and could be fatal when ingested. Especially for children.

    In that tale is a warning, one that even children can understand. We feared the spirits that would come from the seeds more than the poison living within it, but the result was all the same. I asked a friend what her experiences were with jumbie beads and she told me she knew people who made them into jewellery to ward off the evil eye. The red-black pattern was less something to fear and more something to revere.

    I think this experience is where my interest in folk stories began. This particular lore varies across different Caribbean countries and cultures. Every time it’s told – no matter how differently – a little bit of our shared history and beliefs is told as well.

    Mami Wata, or Mama Glo, was another recurring character. I remember telling my parents, who are originally from The Gambia, about research I was doing for a project on Caribbean folklore and the legends of Mami Wata – a mermaid-like being who could bring wealth or misfortune, who was a protector of the waters, who had many mythical characterisations. There was glee on my father’s face when he listened to me relay this story, miles and years away from where he’d first heard it as a child in West Africa. Like him, Mami Wata had travelled. And how exciting it was for me to find that our diaspora was linked not just through the trauma and consequences of chattel slavery but also through the stories our ancestors kept alive in the face of such cruelty. Since moving from Tortola to the UK, I’ve become even more invested in the stories we shared in our younger days.

    I am not very good at writing happy stories. That became quite a problem for my secondary school English teacher. She’d had enough of marking my macabre short stories and challenged me to give my characters a different ending. Today, I sometimes still hear her voice in the back of my head as I’m re-writing these old wives’ tales in my own way.

    A common trope in folkloric tales is the scorned woman wronged in a past-life and reborn as a vengeful entity. There was a piece I wrote some time ago about Cowfoot Woman, more commonly known as La Diablesse. The original story as I’d known it detailed a woman with long hair in a braid wearing a wide-brimmed hat slanted across her face, revealing only her demure smile. She would walk with a limp and wear a traditional skirt with a wide hoop. Her attractive disguise concealed a sinister demeanour. Behind her long flowing skirt was a hoofed left leg, only revealed to her male victims when she led them astray, never to be seen again.

    Many of these stories have hidden meanings. Perhaps this one is warning potentially unfaithful men from meeting a dire end. Perhaps La Diablesse is a femme fatale created to vilify feminine wiles and temptation. But the meaning is up to the telling, and the telling changes in every instance. I changed it such that the Cowfoot Woman, who I so feared as a child, became something of a protector, a lover of women and only a danger to others. Still as beautiful, still as deadly. Through traditional storytelling I found my voice in writing. I could write my horror to represent a shared identity, shared culture, shared customs. More importantly, my old English teacher would no longer need to fear coming across another pointlessly tragic tale.

    A month later at Tomas’ funeral, the closing of his casket like a clacking hoof on a dirt road, she cried. As the wind carried the wails of his mother’s grief, the biting sorrow echoed Nita’s own, she realised.
    On that night, before she was scared, she was confused, and before she was confused, she was enamoured. La Diablesse’s smile left her as Tomas left his kin – hollow, lonely, and feeling.

    Mariam Jallow is a Gambian and Virgin Islander Biochemistry graduate and avid writer. Her experiences in journalism, poetry, storytelling and communications have coexisted with her love for science and research since she began sharing her writing as a child. Currently residing in the U.K., Mariam’s writing ranges from news-style articles to works of fiction incorporating elements from horror and folklore. 

    Her previous experiences include working to promote equality and diversity among students and staff in university settings, particularly within STEM, and communicating science for public education, empowerment and entertainment. Mariam’s contributions as the Science Editor of UEA’s student newspaper led to winning the Best Science Publication at the 2022 SPA National Awards. Currently, she continues to split her time between science communications, research, and publishing stories. 

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  • Why storytelling matters

    There is a story that my great-grandmother used to tell about her early childhood. She lived on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls, where her parents ran a hotel. One of her responsibilities as a young child was to buy bread for her family. The bakery her mother favoured was on the southern bank of the falls, in the United States, and to get there my great-grandmother needed to ride her tricycle across the bridge that spanned the two countries, high above the Niagara Gorge.

    One morning after visiting the bakery, a loaf of bread tucked under her arm, she was setting out for home when a tall construction worker blocked her way. ‘You can’t cross the bridge now,’ he said, telling her it was too dangerous as several slats had blown away, leaving gaping holes in their wake. ‘But I have to get home,’ she said. ‘I live on the other side.’

    The man acquiesced, lifting her with one arm and carrying her tricycle in the other. He gave her one instruction: ‘Don’t look down.’ But my great-grandmother couldn’t help herself. As the man stepped over a gaping hole in the bridge she opened her eyes and looked down into the black waters below. In shock, she dropped the loaf of bread. It twirled as it fell and barely made a splash when it broke the surface, 160 feet beneath her.

    I never met my great-grandmother. I know this story because she told it to my father when he was young and he, in turn, told it to me. It was one of my favourites from his roster of Niagara Falls tales. I loved it because it was about a little girl, it was a little bit scary, and it ended well – the bread was lost but my great-grandmother made it across the bridge. Most of all, I loved how the story was connected to me.

    As a folklorist, I believe that storytelling is as important to our health as eating well and getting enough sleep. I’m not alone. In a study on resilience, researchers at Emory University and the University of North Carolina discovered that children who knew family tales, in particular stories from before they were born (like my great-grandmother’s story of losing the bread) developed better coping mechanisms. Knowing stories which included both good and bad elements made for an even stronger base.

    In my line of work I study the stories people tell to explain their worlds. Since becoming a mother, I’ve been looking to stories to explain my own world, too.

    My first child was born with a genetic condition called albinism, which is a lack of pigment in the hair, skin and eyes and results in a visual acuity near the legally blind mark. It’s recessive, meaning that both parents need to be carriers in order for the condition to manifest, and it’s rare – the rate of occurrence is one in 20,000.

    In the beginning, I had no family stories that could explain this quirk in my DNA, so I turned to folklore. I was studying for my PhD when my daughter was born, and when I returned to work in my windowless office at my university’s library I was often drawn out of my dissertation and into the book stacks, seeking out stories and beliefs about albinism and human differences worldwide.

    Some tales were beautiful, where people with albinism were revered and given special positions within societies. Other stories were terrible and they tormented me. Early in my daughter’s life I typed the word ‘albinism’ into a search engine and discovered a series of unthinkable headlines out of Tanzania where people with albinism are not only persecuted and ostracised but also hunted, mutilated and murdered. I learned about quack witch doctors who make potions from the body parts of people with albinism, sell them to businessmen and women, politicians, and other wealthy citizens who believe it is a magic elixir that will bring them luck in love, life and business.

    If Tanzanian journalist Vicky Ntetema hadn’t risked her life to report on these crimes in 2008, the rest of the world might never have known about this terrible practice. Now, people are working to change this story. Yet another reason why we need to share narratives – both good and bad.

    After looking at tales of albinism across the world I decided to search my family history for clues in my genetic makeup. I turned to my father, who’d regaled me with stories from his native Niagara Falls as a child. His family narratives were strong and multi-generational, and this is how a series of tips led me to my great-great-aunt who had five daughters – four of whom had albinism. The oldest girl became a chiropractor, one of only two women practising in Canada at the time. I tracked down her daughter, who is now in her nineties, and she shared stories about her mother (as well as photographs), painting a portrait of a strong, interesting and respected member of her society.

    Hearing about my long-ago ancestors with albinism provided the tangible connection I’d been looking for between my past and my present. It sparked that same sense of belonging I’d felt as a child when listening to the story about my great-grandmother. I hope that my daughter feels the same way when I tell her about the family members who shared her genetic difference, and how her birth inspired the journey that led me to them.