Campus group investigates local cultural hauntings
Members explore theories of ghost stories
Alaric DeArment | Staff Reporter
Section: News
Originally published: 10/31/05 at 12:00 AM EST
Last update: 2/1/06 at 12:15 PM EST

A tale tells of a burned and disfigured World War II veteran who hung himself on the fourth floor in Elliott Hall.

Some people say the spectral corpse still sways in an unearthly breeze. Another story describes phantom screams of white settlers who met their end on the banks of the White River in 1800s when a group of Delaware American Indians burned them at the stake.

Towns and cities across America abound with stories such as these, and Ball State's Anthropology Club wants to know about them.

Recently, the club started an investigation of local haunting folklore. Club members aim to put together a ghost tour, but their work has scientific merit as well.

The group bases its investigations on the emerging anthropological theory of cultural haunting.

Colleen Boyd, the club's faculty adviser and the Department of Anthropology's director of Native American Studies, said cultural haunting hypothesizes that ghost stories exist to preserve the history of the "little guy" and to keep alive memories of people, places and events that escape the mainstream historical record.

Thus, an American Indian nation might have stories about ghosts of their people who haunt a white family's homestead as a way of reclaiming land that was originally theirs, Boyd said.

Though she said her interest in ghost stories began with popular television shows such as the Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters," Anthropology Club President Jessica Macke stressed the difference between paranormal investigation of the "Ghost Hunters" variety and the club's project.

Anthropologists refer to studies such as this one as ethnographics. Ethnographics research uses methods such as surveys, interviews, observation and reviewing documents to study cultural groups from a scientific perspective.

"It's - sorting through a lot of people, sorting through a lot of accounts and trying to pick out the things that are the same and the things that are different and contrasting and putting things together," Macke said.

Boyd said even though it had an element of fun to it, the project also gave participants an opportunity to practice the methods and theories they had learned about in class and put them to practical use.

"We've always been interested in ghost stories, and we really wanted to find out - their importance in society," Macke said. "So we thought it would be kind of fun to look within Ball State."

Boyd's research on cultural haunting focuses on how it relates to American Indian culture and interactions between American Indian and non-American Indian peoples.

Ghost stories centering on American Indians have an enduring importance in American culture, she said.

"What we call the figure of the 'Indian' ghost has become a very prominent part of American identity," Boyd said. "So that this notion of the Indian burial ground that you see in things like Stephen King novels - that's such a powerful metaphor for people."

Non-American Indians have taken over that metaphor as a way of establishing their link to an American past, she said.

"If [white Americans] can have a relationship with dead Indians, then perhaps - this really truly is their homeland," Boyd said.

This ignores the existence of living American Indian nations and people today, but it underscores the reason why people's fascination with ghosts endures, she said.

"People bring meaning to their lives through storytelling," she said, because stories help people talk about what angers them, stresses them and makes them happy.

The project, which will continue throughout the year, welcomes people who wants to help or submit ghostly legends they have heard.

It does not seek to prove whether ghosts exist or not. Rather, like the Middletown studies of the 1920s, it seeks to study and document American culture.

"I'm really proud to have students spend their free time doing research just out of love for what they're doing," Boyd said. "It's very encouraging."

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