The woman with no face

parlance · Guest

During my teenage years I spent my time divided between going to a boarding school for Indians, my adopted Dakota mom's home, and going back to visit my blood relation mom and family. The same cycle of travel and visitation went on in my college years.

My second year of college I came back to the rez and my adopted Dakota mom was all in a tizzy over the latest news. Some people had gone to the park by the reservoir to have a party, and while they were unloading the food and alcohol they heard someone crying in the tall grass nearby. Two men went to investigate and they found an old woman crouched down in the grass with her hands over her face. She was the person who was crying.

"What's wrong?" the men asked her. "Do you need help? Has someone hurt you? Why are you crying?"

"I am crying because the people (of this reservation) have been so bad the spirits are punishing them. Haven't you noticed how so many people are dying? Haven't you seen how the rain falls every where but here?" the old woman told them.

It had been a dry summer for the reservation, and there had been a lot of deaths, but while what the old woman said kind of spooked the men, they figured she was just senile or something. They decided they better take her to the police and let the authorities find out where she came from. But when they grabbed her wrists and pulled her up, her hands came away from her face, and there was nothing but blank skin. That sight frightened the men so bad they let go. The woman jumped away from them and turned, running off into the grass. And then she dissappeared into thin air. Well, of course that story made the rounds of the moccasin telegraph pretty quick.

My mom just laughed after telling this story. She said they were probably drunk and just seeing things. But I looked at her and said, "No Mom, there really is a spirit like that. They really did see her."

My mom just looked at me in surprise and said "Whaaat? How do you know this?"

So I told her about the stories an Arikara friend at college had shared with me. My Arikara friend's sister had married a Puerto Rican and brought her husband back to her reservation to live there. Things were always happening to that guy. One time he was walking home and he heard singing coming from an outhouse that was still standing, although the house on the property had fallen to ruins. He was puzzled by this singing and went to see what was going on. When he opened the door to the outhouse, there were mice gathered around a tiny drum and they were singing powwow songs. Well, this scared him bad and he ran the rest of the way home.

Another time the Puerto Rican guy was coming home late and the sun was going down. He found an old woman crouched down along the road, crying with her hands over her face. But when he tried to pull her to her feet and take her with him so that he could get her help, he found out she had no face. There was blank skin where her face should be. He ended up running home again, LOL.

My adopted mom was really surprised by this revelation and it made her wonder if the story about the reservoir party was true, but I had no doubts about that.

It's been decades since all that happened, and in my introduction to the internet I found resources to research stories like that. It turns out the Koreans have stories about what they call egg-faced ghosts. Spirits that appear with blank skin where their eyes and noses and mouths should be. They are said to be omens of ill fortune and anyone seeing them should expect bad luck of some kind.

It would seem that some kinds of spirits are common to cultures that are completely unrelated.

Bryce · Guest

Reminds me of a dream i had when i was around ten. I was in the basement, and i was parylyzed all of the sudden, than i saw some planks of wood fly accross the basement, i got of of my paralisys (sp?) somehow, and went upstairs, the milkchute by the back door was open and slamming, and boom, my mom came through the backdoor wearing one of her sweater things, one thing, no face, my mom, with the face was at the kitchen table and they started fighting.

shaybeck · Guest

Crazy story Parlance..Mice playing a drum and singing???? I've never heard of the women without a face before...interesting..

AbranaBonney · Posted: Jul Sat 14, 2007 7:30 pm Post subject:

This same story has also been relayed to me by the Elders of the People that live in my area, who are my Relations.
I have Never come across this type of thing before, but it is interesting.
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AbranaBonney

Kitt13 · Posted: Oct Mon 29, 2007 3:06 pm Post subject:

I have heard of this before too, but it wasn't on an Indian Reservation, it's along a road. A good friend of mine and her husband were driving down this road and they saw a woman walking down the road. She was wearing a tank top and shorts, which was strange since it was in the middle of the winter. For those who don't know, Jersey winters tend to get pretty cold. They said she was walking along the tree line and when they passed her, they looked back and she had no face. They said there was nothing where her face should have been. Just a void. When we went on our second ghost hunt, that was the first place I wanted to go.

Kitt13