Reading Notes: Week 9, Part A (Three Ghost Stories)

This single story had three different ghost stories in it: one about a ghost that approached a forked road, one that was tattooed and one that was caught in a war. The one story I want to focus on for the storytelling is the story about the tattooed ghost.

This was a story about how ghosts who want to go down a certain road needed to have a certain tattoo on their bodies in their living life to pass onto them in the afterlife. The tattoo would either need to be on the forehead or on their wrists. There would be an old woman who would sit on the road and check for the tattoos when ghosts would walk by. If the ghosts have the tattoo marks, she allows them to pass and go to Many Lodges. If the tattoo marks were not there, then the woman pushes the ghosts from a cloud and they fall back down to the world again. When this happens, the ghost wonders the world, never being quiet and people are afraid of him. If the ghost wants to visit someone that is sick, they are driven away from sacred cedar or the cedar is set outside of the lodge. When a person hears a ghost whistling (because they are never quiet), they go outside the lodge and make a loud noise. If a ghost meets a man who is alone, he will catch him and pull his eyes and mouth until they are crooked. This did happen to a man who only dreamed of meeting a ghost. 

As soon as I read the story of the tattooed ghost, I knew I wanted to use the story for my storytelling. I've recently been watching this show on Netflix called "The Magicians" that has a main character whose magical power is of being a world traveler. The traveler at one point gets tattoos to keep himself from being able to travel in his sleep and unintentionally ending up somewhere dangerous. For the story, I would love to do a mesh between the show and this ghost story.

Photo of a wrist with a "fear" tattoo

(Taken by Rahadiansyah on Unsplash)

"Three Ghost Stories," Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson