Beliefs and Narratives in Shillong, India

Abstract

In this paper, I deal with Argentinean and Indian versions of one folk narrative matrix. This matrix, regarding "The lady ghost", refers to the supernatural appearance of a vanishing young woman, whose untimely death happened the same day of her wedding. In a previous research, I have already analyzed this matrix in oral and written versions, as well as in literary and even mediated recreations. In this new presentation, I focus my attention in narrative versions of different contexts circulating in Internet. I analyze the rhetoric resources used by the narrators and discussed by the receivers, whose comments in virtual forums deal with the believeality of the narratives. This analysis shows how new channels of discourse contribute to spread folk narrative matrices in different contexts.