Ostensive Healing: Pilgrimage to the San Antonio Ghost Tracks

Linda Dégh's concept of ostension—the process through which people enact legend—has been generally applied to criminal activities, yet there is substantial evidence that ostension can also transcend horror and inspire a sense of wonder in those who bring legends to life. One legend-teller's account of a group "pilgrimage" to a legend site in San Antonio, Texas, reveals the complexity and depth of her community's relationship with the supernatural. The haunted railroad crossing, often simply a "gravity hill" phenomenon when experienced or narrated by non-Hispanics, becomes for one narrator and many members of her Mexican-American community a site where beliefs concerning the dead, the innocence of children, and the necessity of reverent behavior intertwine as legend-trippers both imitate and interact with the ghostly victims of a railroad-crossing wreck.