Urban Legend: Louisiana Vampires

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Featured Haunted Places Horror Mystery and Lore

Vampires have been one of the most beloved and obsessed-over monsters in popular culture ever since F.W. Murnau’s highly influential silent horror film, Nosferatu (1922). The dark-dwelling bloodsuckers appear frequently to this day, from mainstream titles such as Resident Evil: Village and Twilight to lesser-known works like Stakeland and What We Do In The Shadows. In fact, vampires have existed long before these in many aspects of human culture, fantasized about in folklore and depicted in a myriad of mystical and horrifying tales throughout history. Widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries, some surmise that the vampire was born from paranoia of widespread illness, though certain figures have been particularly convincing in the existence of these nocturnal immortals.

New Orleans 19th Century

Cut to 19th Century New Orleans, one of the most prominent places in regards to hauntings, vampire sightings, and cult speculation. Tuberculosis, consumption, and syphilis are running rampant. In a city so accustomed to suffering, fear quickly becomes paranoia, which in turn rapidly morphs into superstition and comprehensive folklore. Among these, and strangely enough confirmed by the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, is the account of real vampires living in New Orleans.

Louisiana Vampires

The city was the inspiration for many of Anne Rice’s gothic novels, most notably 1976’s Interview With The Vampire, whose story was also based there. Many locals would take the tale further, claiming that multiple real vampires reside in their city. Some would reference the brothers John and Wayne Carter, who in the 1930s were arrested following a string of peculiar murders. The brothers, it was found, drained the blood of over a dozen victims using some unknown method, and were only caught out when a blood-soaked woman managed to escape their New Orleans apartment. When the brother’s corpses disappeared entirely from their family’s funeral vault, suspicion and surmise only grew as to their true nature, and their true species. Reports of sightings of the brothers occur to this very day.

While New Orleans is by no means the first place to encounter the Louisiana vampire legend, (some instances go as far back as ancient Greek Mythology!), it is definitely holds prominence as the home of the most infamous documented vampire existence in the world. To explore this we must dive back to 1700s France where a man, if he can so be called, by the name of Comte St. Germain came into the public eye. While this was the first solid evidence of his existence, figures from around the globe such as French historian and philosopher Voltaire, King Louis XV, and Italian writer and adventurer Casanova all professed to have met the timeless individual. He was said to have been an alchemist, one who knew all and never died, who grew diamonds and created beautiful jewels from stones. The alchemist attending the execution of Marie Antoinette was apparently trained by Comte St. Germain, and claimed to have sighted him at the deadly proceedings, long after he was known to have died.

Skip ahead two hundred years to when a French immigrant known as Jacques St. Germain interloped to the US, settling into a place on Royal Street, New Orleans. Coincidence, no? Any right-minded historian would no doubt agree. However, stranger still was the man’s wit, charm and charisma, his seemingly ageless appearance and the painstaking detail in the tales he told of hundreds of years past. He threw parties that would roll Gatsby’s eyes, all while never consuming a single bite of the food he offered his guests. A few tales surround Jacques St. Germain in this period, including guests claiming he tried to bite their necks, bottles of red wine in his house that later were found to be human blood, and the fact that he didn’t own a single utensil. By the time baffled police made these discoveries in his home, Jacques St. Germain was gone, never to return.


These days, according to a survey by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, there are over five thousand people in the US today who identify as a vampire. Over fifty of these live in New Orleans alone, past superstitions making the place a veritable hotspot for dwellers of the dark, immortal or not.

References

https://uk.hotels.com/go/usa/creepy-new-orleans
https://pelicanstateofmind.com/louisiana-love/jacques-st-germain-louisiana-vampire/

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Urban Legend: The Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery

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Featured Haunted Places Horror Mystery and Lore

Cemetery Angels

Loss has a way of striking us where it hurts most—our experiences shape who we are, as well as how we interact with and see the world around us. As a result of varied cultural and religious preferences, there is a symbolic connection between angels and death. It is popular, especially within religious traditions, to erect angel statues alongside the traditional headstone. Angels represent the symbolic connection between heaven and earth, but their additional meaning of strength, peace, faith, protection, and beauty can be comforting to those who are grieving the loss of loved ones. Angel costumes and art are associated with Christmas and other popular holiday celebrations. However, a certain black angel in an Oakland cemetery has become renowned for darker supernatural reasons.

Angelic Symbolism

The many different poses that these angels assume also contribute meaning to their presence over their respective graves. Angels represented in prayer signify the deceased’s devotion to god, an angel pointing upward can act as a symbolic guide for the soul to find its way to heaven. A weeping angel shows immense grief over the death of a loved one and an angel with their head bowed can symbolize the mourning of a sudden or unexpected death. Although angels are most commonly made from granite, they are often created from bronze as well—a granite angel would have less of a reaction to environmental factors, whereas bronze statues can come with unexpected consequences.

The Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City

In 1839, before the Iowa Territory became a state, its capital was located in Burlington; Governor Robert Lucas decided that the capital ought to be closer to the center of the territory and so the legislature created Iowa City. When the capital of the territory was finally moved there, two years later, the tiny hamlet had blossomed into a small city, at which point they recognized a problem arising—they had no place to put the dead. By 1843, the legislature deeded the Oakland Cemetery to the people of Iowa City.

The Truth Behind the Legend

Terezie (anglicized as Teresa) Karásek was born in Strmilov, Bohemia, in Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic) on October 14, 1836. In 1865, at the age of thirty, she married František Doležal, a doctor from Moravia. After two years of marriage, Teresa birthed their first son, Otto who died when he was two weeks old. After the loss of her first child, Teresa became a midwife; she obtained her certificate in Vienna and moved back to Strmilov where she became a prolific midwife, delivering nearly one hundred children.

Immigrating to the United States

Closer to her forties, Teresa had her second son, Eduard (anglicized as Edward)—by the time he was four years old, Teresa left her husband and moved to the United States in 1877 with her son. It’s unknown why she left her husband, although it was fairly commonplace at the time for immigrants from Bohemia and Slovakia to find themselves living in Iowa, working on the railroad, and taking jobs at farmsteads.

In many tellings of her history, Teresa is said to have been a physician that turned to midwifery once she arrived in America, whereas others maintain she was a midwife her entire career. Either way, Teresa’s son Edward had planned to follow her example and enter the medical field as a doctor and in his late teens, he worked at a drugstore. Unfortunately, Edward contracted meningitis around the age of 17 or 18 and passed away in 1891, at which time he was buried in the Oakland Cemetery. Over his grave, she erected a monument of a tree stump with an ax sticking out of it in his honor—it is generally assumed that this was intended as a metaphor for his life being cut short.

Loss of A Second Son

Soon after Edward’s death, Teresa is said to have moved around a lot, having lived in Chicago, and even marrying her second husband, Joseph Picha, in Minnesota. When that marriage didn’t work, her travels landed her in Eugene, Oregon which is where she met and married her third husband, a German rancher by the name of Nicholas Feldevert. The two were married on March 20, 1897, by Justice of the Peace A.E. Wheeler in the parlor of Wald House in Eugene, Oregon. Nicholas had also been married twice before and had experienced the death of his only daughter whom he had seen die as a child.

Back to the Family Plot

Her husband, Nicholas, died in 1911; it was around this time that she moved back to Iowa City and brought her husband’s ashes along to put to rest next to her son. In memorial to her late husband, she commissioned Mario Korbel, a Chicago-based Czech sculptor to create what has come to be known as the locally famous monument the Black Angel.

The Black Angel in Oakland Cemetery is not to be confused with the Black Angel in Council Bluffs, Iowa—which is considered to be a great work of art sculpted by Daniel Chester French, the same artist who created the seated Abraham Lincoln inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the Minutemen in Concord, Massachusetts.

While there is a disagreement on the timeline of the commission and when it was delivered, it is believed that the statue was commissioned between 1911 and 1913 and that it was delivered to Oakland Cemetery between 1912 and 1915. Without historical documentation to lend as evidence of its commission, completion, and delivery it’s difficult to say, with authority, the exact dates.

Teresa’s Philanthropy

 When Nicholas died he left behind no heirs and by default left his estate estimated at $30,000 (more than $800,000 by today’s inflation rates) to his widow, Teresa. Teresa sold the ranch and began to send money back to Strmilov as a patron for students and public welfare—scholarships and community projects benefited from her generosity in this respect. As her years dwindled, she made a point to spend her husband’s wealth since she also had no immediate heirs to leave her money to. Projects in Bohemia, including a grade school in Strmilov, benefited from her generosity.

The Angel’s Appearance

At one point, the statue that watched over the Feldevert family plot in earnest was a glorious golden-bronze monument that represented the love and grief of Teresa at her many losses in her lifetime. The 8.5-foot sculpture took Korbel months to create and being cast out of bronze, it wasn’t exactly a cheap commission. The story that we’re told is that the statue was not immediately installed, as Teresa was said to have been unhappy with the final result. This is another source of conflicting accounts—as some versions of the story insist that it was immediately installed upon arriving via train; others believe that the statue sat in a barn for six years while Teresa pursued a lawsuit. When she inevitably lost the suit, it’s assumed that she paid the artist the $5,000 he was owed, then eventually installed the angel atop a four-foot pedestal where her husband’s ashes were interred and moved the monument of her son to stand alongside the angel.

At the End of a Long Life

Teresa died of cancer on November 18, 1924, at which time her ashes were placed beside her husband’s and although the monument displays her birthdate, she did not leave any money behind to inscribe the monument with the date of her death. As such, her remaining estate was appraised at $1,393.21 and since she had no immediate heirs, she willed $500 to a monument for fallen soldiers in Strmilov, $500 in books for the town’s public library, and whatever was leftover to be used for scholarships for two or three boys in town that were deemed worthy of the aid.

The Reputation of the Black Angel

The Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery has been a destination for those looking for paranormal thrills for literal decades; with all of the creepy legends surrounding it, how could those who have a thirst for the paranormal stay away? It’s likely that the stories about the monument are based less on fact than on fiction, with the tendencies of writers to embellish for the sake of a good story. As seen by the story of Teresa and her family’s life there was no immediate reason for the Angel to be haunted or cursed—loss happens, but there was no infidelity to speak of, no one committed suicide, nor was anyone murdered. So, why has the monument become part of such a famous urban legend?

The wild myths and legends that surround this monument were spawned primarily from the unsettling appearance that the monument took on after Teresa’s death. While the truth remains that the statue was forged in bronze and has oxidized over the years due to environmental factors—but that’s kind of a buzz kill isn’t it? The truth is, the creepiness of the blackened bronze isn’t lessened when people are eager to believe in the paranormal. To those who don’t do a deep dive into the true story behind the Black Angel, it’s clear to see how its reputation could make even seasoned investigators quake in their boots.

The Myths that Fuel the Superstition

Teresa Feldevert was, in life, a mysterious woman which led to many believing that she was in fact a witch—whether she ended up cursing, possessing, or simply haunting the statue is a source of some debate. Had she called some nameless evil to inhabit the Angel? Or was it simply her evil nature that caused the Angel to turn black as a reminder of the sins of her family? Was there really a severe storm that raged the night following Teresa’s burial, where a bolt of lightning struck the Angel and turned it black?

The myths become even more outlandish from there, based solely on rumors that make no sense after looking into the legend. Some believe that a man erected the monument upon his wife’s grave, but that his wife had been unfaithful throughout the marriage which caused the Angel to turn black due to her infidelity. Others maintain that a preacher buried his son beneath the Angel but it turned black because the preacher had actually murdered his son.

It’s believed by some that the Angel darkens every Halloween in recognition of the people that have been killed by the evil curse upon the statue. It doesn’t help that first-hand accounts from visitors report ghostly voices and strange anomalous lights floating around the statue. So what should you do (or not do) to avoid becoming the next victim of the Black Angel of Oakland Cemetery? We’ve compiled a list of simple rules to survive your encounter with the Black Angel.

  1. Never touch or kiss the Angel—to do so means instant death (unless you’re a virgin).
  2. Never kiss a girl near the Angel in the moonlight, or else the girl will die within six months.
  3. Never touch the Angel at midnight on Halloween, to do so means you’ll die within seven years.
  4. If you’re pregnant, never walk beneath the statue’s wings, otherwise, you’ll risk a miscarriage.
  5. If you happen to be a coed of the University of Iowa, then tradition states you must be kissed in front of the Black Angel.
  6. If a virgin is kissed in front of the Angel then the Angel will return to its original Bronze color and the curse will finally be lifted.

The Statue Vandalized

Throughout the history of the Black Angel, it has been noted that the black covering has never worn off to reveal the original bronze. The monument has, however, changed colors over the years when vandals have tried to paint it. One particular incident was recorded as having happened on a cold day in January of 1965 when the angel was painted a silvery gray—due to the weather, it remained that color until it was warm enough to reduce the risks of damage from the repairs. It’s also known to have had several fingers removed with hammers and hacksaws on a separate occasion, a bold move considering the alleged story that defacing the Angel will bring death.

Sources:

https://www.goiowaawesome.com/iowa-city/2018/03/2670/tales-from-iowa-city-the-black-angel-of-death

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/16409

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/black-angel-of-oakland-cemetery

https://paranormal.lovetoknow.com/ghosts-hauntings/black-angel-oakland-cemetery

https://www.thegazette.com/life/time-machine-teresa-dolezal-feldeverts-black-angel

https://www.thegazette.com/life/time-machine-teresa-dolezal-feldeverts-black-angel/#?secret=txk88YPIGy

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Urban Legend: The Ghosts of Slaughterhouse Canyon

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Featured Horror Mystery and Lore

Urban Legend: The Ghosts of Slaughterhouse Canyon of Arizona
In 1882 the town of Kingman, Arizona was officially established; throughout its history it had served as both a military camp and a reservation for Native Americans. It eventually experienced growth when a section of railroad was routed through the area.

The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush started in Arizona around 1858 and just like elsewhere in the western United States, it was a rough experience for those who expected to strike it rich. Once prospectors realized their chance of finding gold in Arizona was rare, they instead sought out the more common copper and silver ores. At one point, the worth of gold sank below that of copper and silver, due to its lack of prevalence in the region.

The established families that were uprooted and relocated in the west in search of wealth and success ended up being the ones who sacrificed the most. After lengthy and often excruciatingly difficult searches, many ended up starving to death.

The Ghostly Legend of Slaughterhouse Canyon

Like any urban legend that has arisen from times of extreme hardship, this story reeks of trauma spurned by sickness, starvation, heartbreak, and madness. This particular ghost story is one that swiftly turned from being a simple tragedy to macabre madness, which is why this canyon was put on the map of paranormal destinations.

Luana’s Canyon

When the first white settlers found the area, the area was named Luana’s Canyon, after the matriarch of the impoverished family who lived in a small wooden shack near the dry wash in the heart of the canyon.

Dreams of Wealth

As one might expect, living in a small shack in the desert was no easy task. One miner, notably a dreamer, wanted to be able provide a better life for his wife Luana and their children. This miner would regularly venture off into the mountains to work in the gold mines and to search for food for his family. Their lack of a regular income made it difficult to keep food on the table, so the only food the family had available to them was what the miner was able to bring back from his regular expeditions.

The miner would set of to the Northwestern Mountains on his trusty mule, but different accounts of this story can’t agree on whether the miner left home every two weeks, or if he would be gone for two weeks at a time. What is known is that this was a pretty typical experience during the Gold Rush era. Regardless of how often he was away from home, his family’s only source of food, money, and supplies was what the miner was able to bring back with him. Luana and the children could consistently expect the miner to return with what they needed for their comfort and survival.

One fateful day, the miner kissed his wife, Luana, and children goodbye and was on his way—unfortunately, that would be the last time the family would see their father. Days turned to weeks and soon Luana began to worry that something had happened to her husband. As the supplies dwindled, her concerns that her husband had fallen ill, had an accident, or worse, had been killed by wild animals, or even the victim of robbery. The miner had seemingly become another tragic victim of the unforgiving Gold Rush.

Descent Into Madness

Luana’s reliance upon her husband’s consistency meant that she had not rationed any of the supplies that her husband had brought back on his last trip, so when food and supplies ran scarce the family began to starve. Living alone in the canyon meant that the family had no other possible means of support and soon the children wither and wept in pain. Despite being pale and weak with starvation, their screams and cries echoed throughout the canyon and even traveled on the nighttime breeze. The starving sobs of her children constantly begging Luana for food began to tear her down mentally.

Each day that went by pushed Luana closer toward the brink of insanity until one day, she just could no longer stand to see her children suffer and she snapped. Unable to cope with the reality of watching her children starve to death, Luana’s psychosis drove her to do the unthinkable. One night during a thunderstorm, tormented by her children’s screams and own agonizing hunger, she put on her wedding dress and slaughtered her own children to end their suffering.

Her mind lost, she chopped their dead bodies up into several pieces, splattering the walls of the small shack with blood, which earned it the name of the Slaughterhouse. After finishing her horrible deed, she carried the pieces of her children and tossed their remains into the river. At the river she collapsed into a heap, her wedding dress soaked in the blood of the children she had slain. Luana was overcome with sadness and guilt; she remained on the river bank, wailing and screaming over what she had done until she succumbed to starvation herself, the next morning.

Slaughterhouse Canyon

Slaughterhouse Canyon

Today, Slaughterhouse Canyon can be accessed by the public, it’s only a twelve minute drive from Kingman, AZ. It is said, that on quiet nights when the moon is full and the air is thick, that those brave enough to venture into the desert canyon after midnight are likely to have experiences. The dark oppressive nights allow the anguished screams of the mother and the bloody cries of her slaughtered children can still be heard throughout the canyon.

Similar Legends

The legend of Slaughterhouse Canyon bears striking similarities to other urban legends and ghost stories, such as the woman in white and the tragic Mexican legend of La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman. While it’s true that the stories are similar, make no mistake, they are separate legends.

What seems to be a common thread in all renditions of these stories is that the woman murders her children, but it’s the reason behind their vicious murder that varies from story to story. In La Llorona the most frequent rendition is that the mother kills her children after she finds that her husband has been unfaithful. However, every account of the Legend of the ghosts of Slaughterhouse Canyon alleges that the husband was not only a caring and loving partner, but a devoted father as well.

Personal Accounts & Experiences

Locals will tell you that it was popular when they were of high school age to load up a car with their peers and park down in the canyon by the remains of the old slaughterhouse shack. They would roll their windows down and sit in silence as they waited for Luana—inevitably, they would hear strange sounds that would prompt them to vacate the premises.

Another account recalls their experiences of hearing the stories of Slaughterhouse Canyon and their regular trips to the area with their brother. Their motives were simple curiosity and the desire to be teenagers away from prying eyes. They would have bonfires and act their age without consequence, until one night, after midnight they began to hear the wailing cries surrounding them. A quick search of the area revealed nothing, but frightened them enough to leave the canyon entirely.

Others still, primarily ghost hunters in search of the ghosts of Slaughterhouse Canyon, report that while driving down the road that leads into the canyon they would witness a mysterious woman wearing a black dress and dark veil while walking down the side of the road. Upon turning back to find her again she had mysteriously disappeared.

Sources

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Urban Legend: The Jersey Devil

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Featured Haunted Places Horror Mystery and Lore

The Jersey Devil is a creature of legend and innumerable descriptions amongst Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia folklore. A flying, hoofed biped that has been described part kangaroo or part horse, with the wings of some huge malformed bat and the forked tail of Beelzebub himself. Like an equestrian chimera inhabiting South Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the Jersey Devil is said to move very fast, some say in great leaps like a hare, and known to emit a scream like grinding machinery. Not only elusive in appearance, the Jersey Devil also has a rich history of occultism, witchcraft and – oddly enough – politics to explore.

By the early 1900s, South Jersey was abuzz with reports of the Devil. Every man and his dog claimed to have seen or even caught the mysterious mishmash of animals. Commonly described as a combination of kangaroo, bat, and pony, several museums professed to have caught it, each offering their own false promises and disappointing hoaxes. Some said the thing was white, others said brown; some said it leapt, others said it flew. By this point the Jersey Devil was becoming one of the more widespread yet confusing urban legends in Pennsylvania.

Daniel Leeds House 1600's

Originally it was known as the Leeds Devil, a name traced back to a young quaker from the late 1600s, named Daniel Leeds, who emigrated to the US. Overestimating his political prowess, Leeds became involved in government and began writing an almanac. Overestimated still were his expectations on how his peers and neighbors would react to what they described as “Pagan” ideas on astrology and magic, or how they would respond to his allegiance to the royal governor of the colony, or the British in general. Local Quakers were quick to brand him as evil for his strange outlook and even wrote pamphlets labelling him “Satan’s Harbinger”.

In 1859 a reporter’s account of stories they had heard in the Barrens was published in the Atlantic. The tales told of Mother Leeds and her practice of witchcraft, devil worshipping, and appearances from the Devil himself. So the tale goes, in 1735 Mother Leeds found herself to be pregnant, the child she bore being her thirteenth. Mother Leeds, dwelling deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, said “Let this one be the devil,” and according to the most popular lore that child was born with horns, hooves, wings, and a tail. The devil flew from the dwelling immediately and into the surrounding darkness.

The legend was helped along by a few noteworthy figures, one of which being Joseph Bonapart, older brother of Napoleon, who in 1812 claimed to have spotted the beast while hunting near his Bordentown estate. From this point it seems every animal attack and odd footprint was blamed on the Devil. One key event cementing the Devil’s legend happened in 1909. In the month of January that year around a thousand reported sightings came in from around South Jersey. Navy Commander Stephen Decatur reportedly saw the creature while testing cannonballs at Hanover Mills Works and, despite blowing a hole through the thing with one of those shells, was not able to kill it.

The Jersey Devil legend has had its peaks and valleys in terms of popularity (one peak being when it was the center of an X-Files episode), though alleged sightings have not stopped to this day. All things considered, the sound of the Devil’s screech as it flies through the Pine Barrens is an experience I would like to miss out on.

https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2016/10/13_places_the_jersey_devil_has_been_spotted_in_the.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jersey_Devil_(The_X-Files)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/jersey-devil-new-jersey-myth-photo-origin-story

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Urban Legend: The Night Marchers of Hawaii

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Featured Horror Mystery and Lore

Hierarchy and Beliefs of Ancient Hawaii

In ancient Hawaiian society there was a highly stratified hierarchy, where the mo’i, or king, was the highest authority in all areas. Just below the mo’i were the ali’i, who held the highest chiefly rank. It’s important to understand that this hierarchy was absolute, and the only way to achieve an elevated status within the society was to be born into it. The rest of the social ladder also consisted of positions that people were born into. The common people, or maka’ainana, were the laborers and workers, then the lowest rung was designated for the outcasts, or the kauwa.

The indigenous religion of Hawaii is steeped in traditions that descend from the Tahitians and other Pacific Islanders. The approach to spirituality is polytheistic and animistic, which means they not only believe in multiple gods, but that non-human beings, such as other animals, the surf, and even the sky have spirits. Altogether there are over 500 ghosts, spirits, and minor deities—then of course there are the gods that make up the main pantheon. Lastly, each family is believed to have at least one guardian spirit, or ‘aumakua, who shields them from harm.

The Legend of the Night Marchers

Hawaiian Night Marchers illlustration

Within the mythos of Hawaii, the Night Marchers, or huaka’i pō, are murderous shades, demons, and revenants that haunt the islands. These undead spirits are the fighters, heroes, and warriors of ancient Hawaii who are well-known throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also known that these dangerous spirits, in life, were the traveling guards of the highest-ranking chiefs (or ali’i) who were said to be so sacred that no mortal man or woman was allowed to look at them. In Hawaiian society, the ali’i believed that they were imbued with power, or mana—a sort of spiritual energy of power and strength—that they needed to safeguard. The decisions they made directly impacted the amount of mana they possessed and one way to lose this mana was to let their shadow touch someone of a lower status. So, if these ali’i came across a commoner and their shadow touched them, they would have to kill the offending party to recover the mana they had lost.

This was problematic because the ali’i needed to be able to move from one sacred site to the next to perform their chiefly duties. Thus the procession would be announced through the fierce beating of drums and conch shell calls. Since it wasn’t the job of the Night Marchers to terrorize people, but instead to protect the most sacred, high-ranking chiefs, these processions were held at night. They even went so far as to hold these processions at the nights preceding the new moon in order to lessen the likelihood of their shadow casting upon someone of a lower status.

Unnatural Encounters

You may be wondering what an ancient Hawaiian procession has to do with a casual trip to the islands. Well, the sightings and encounters with the Night Marchers are still happening to this day! They appear first as a line of torches off in the distance, typically marching down the mountainside. As the torches get closer, you’ll hear the drumming and a conch shell resounding in the air. Those who have survived their encounters talk about how they see warriors gilded from head to toe in their traditional regalia.

While it might seem as simple as hiding inside, that has been reported to not necessarily deter them—as it is said that structures that have one door facing the mountains and another door facing the ocean act as vortexes, or pathways for the spirits. Regardless, it is advised never to interrupt their procession, lest you meet their deadly glance.
So, beware the Night Marchers. If you see them, it might already be too late!

How to Survive the Night Marchers

Any commoner who knew the rules knew to hide indoors when they heard the sound of the conch shell being blown, or the intense beats of the drums which announced the procession—and they would do this for their own protection. Our recommendation is that you heed the warning of those who came before you—if you hear the beats of the drums or the bellow of the conch shell, you’ll want to be as far from the Night Marchers as possible. Otherwise, you may find yourself in grave danger.

If you are seen by the Night Marchers, the best thing you can do is remain quiet, with your eyes averted to show them the respect they deserve. If you’re lucky enough to have an ancestor in the procession, then you will likely be spared, for your ancestor will claim you as one of theirs and you will not be harmed. The rest of us will have to suffice with embracing our own humility, stripping down naked, and soiling ourselves. It may sound like a joke, but they would take it as a sign that you are either incredibly pathetic (then take pity upon you), or that you’re mentally disturbed and don’t know any better.

If you somehow find yourself in a situation where the Night Marchers have seen you despite all previous warnings, follow our advice, and good luck!

Sources

https://olukai.com/blogs/news/legends-hawaiis-night-marchers
https://laghosttour.com/the-nightmarchers-of-hawaii/
https://www.pbshawaii.org/the-legend-of-the-night-marchers
http://www.hawaiihistory.org/
https://atlantisadventures.com/hawaiian-legends-the-night-marchers/
https://www.honolulumagazine.com/friday-night-frights-the-legend-of-hawaiis-night-marchers/

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