Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting in the Hudson Valley
Judith Richardson
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0674018524
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The cultural landscape of the Hudson River Valley is crowded with ghosts--the ghosts of Native Americans and Dutch colonists, of Revolutionary War soldiers and spies, of presidents, slaves, priests, and laborers. Possessions asks why this region just outside New York City became the locus for so many ghostly tales, and shows how these hauntings came to operate as a peculiar type of social memory whereby things lost, forgotten, or marginalized returned to claim possession of imaginations and territories. Reading Washington Irving's stories along with a diverse array of narratives from local folklore and regional writings, Judith Richardson explores the causes and consequences of Hudson Valley hauntings to reveal how ghosts both evolve from specific historical contexts and are conjured to serve the present needs of those they haunt. These tales of haunting, Richardson argues, are no mere echoes of the past but function in an ongoing, contentious politics of place. Through its tight geographical focus, Possessions illuminates problems of belonging and possessing that haunt the nation as a whole.
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here because I’m desperate to find out what’s happening. I was told I should talk to you—” She wrung her hands as she babbled, her body slightly bent, stooped forward as if her chest ached. I touched her hand and felt a chill of distress twine up my fingers like the tendrils of a climbing vine. I didn’t jerk away, though that was my first impulse. “It’s all right,” I started, patting her hand very lightly and then closing mine over it to stop her churning motion. “Let’s sit down and you can tell
ghosts down that way, you should know who they are. Some people get upset when they aren’t treated with respect.” She gave me a significant look I couldn’t miss even through the Grey, raising her eyebrows. I put down my fork and turned toward her so I could see her better—that is to say without her being half silver mist and tangled light. “Phoebe, I’m sorry. I know I said it before, but I mean it now and I meant it then. I seem to attract bad things and I shouldn’t have put you in the middle of
stopped me. I got to my feet and whirled, heading back into the short hallway between the two bars to get to the washroom. Inside a narrow stall, I yanked off my jacket and pulled off my shirt, expecting my clothes to be ruined, but the blood was an illusion. The words burning onto my arms were not. “Tribute does not feed the servant. Leave us be, until your time.” I’d never been warned off with tricks of this sort before. Most ghosts who wanted me gone were more direct, though the phrase “until
have of awakening. One of the patients seems to have broken in long enough to express that fear and the idea that he’s weakening to the point of some kind of nonbodily death. I think time is running out for all of them. They aren’t in their own bodies, but they’re dying.” Carlos glanced at Cameron, who was frowning in concern. Then he turned his gaze to me and said, “I’m unfamiliar with your case, but the principle is correct. When a living soul is unnaturally separated from its proper vessel,
left for the black gleam of the ghostly artifacts. There were several more than I’d originally seen, and I picked them all up. The bartender squinted suspiciously at me, but didn’t object when I took the brooch and the grommet as well as several buttons and the old-fashioned house key. Neither of the wedding rings had any ghostly haze to it, for which I was grateful—I doubted I could explain taking one of those when I hadn’t mentioned it to begin with. I did wonder where the thimble had come
