{
  "country_code": "CV",
  "id": "cape-verde-password-moving-house",
  "title": "Cabo Verde's magic password: when a house or tree obeys",
  "category": "espace-temps",
  "date": "1918-01-01",
  "date_label": "Year of Parsons's comparative article, not a physical anomaly",
  "location": "Cabo Verde; tales collected from islanders in New England",
  "lat": 16,
  "lng": -24,
  "location_note": "Broad country marker for the tales' island association; collection took place in diaspora and no extraordinary event site is authenticated.",
  "summary": "A password moves a tree or reveals hidden space in Cape Verdean tales. The mystery concerns the motif's journey between oral storytelling and printed literature.",
  "documented_claim": "Parsons explicitly questions whether a Cape Verdean version arrived through oral storytelling or literature.",
  "unproven_claim": "The moving tree, responsive rock or hidden house establishes an actual spatial anomaly.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Elsie Clews Parsons — The Provenience of Certain Negro Folk-Tales, II: The Pass-word (1918)",
      "url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-Lore/Volume_29/The_Provenience_of_Certain_Negro_Folk-Tales",
      "language": "English",
      "kind": "Transcription of a primary historical collection and comparative article",
      "note": "Historical title retained for identification. Collection settings and literary-origin uncertainty are explicit.",
      "id": "S1",
      "accessed_on": "2026-09-30"
    },
    {
      "title": "JSTOR — Parsons, Ten Folk-Tales from the Cape Verde Islands (1917)",
      "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/534343",
      "language": "English",
      "kind": "Bibliographic record of a related primary collection",
      "note": "Journal of American Folklore 30(116), 230–238; metadata consulted, not full text. Same collector, not independent anomaly evidence.",
      "id": "S2",
      "accessed_on": "2026-09-30"
    }
  ],
  "country": "Cabo Verde",
  "author": "Eklipsis",
  "content_languages": [
    "en"
  ],
  "path": "/investigations/cape-verde-password-moving-house",
  "source_url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-Lore/Volume_29/The_Provenience_of_Certain_Negro_Folk-Tales",
  "location_precision": "region",
  "location_source_url": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=16&mlon=-24#map=8/16/-24",
  "reviewed_on": "2026-09-30",
  "edition": 1,
  "truth_type": "unknown",
  "verdict": "The password motif and the collector's transmission uncertainty are documented. A unique origin or physical anomaly is not established.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "The mystery and the documented account",
      "text": "Elsie Clews Parsons's 1918 comparative article recounts Cape Verdean password tales, including a wolf carried skyward by a fig tree after forgetting its formula and access to a hidden store of wealth through speaking to rock. She discusses related versions and admits uncertainty about transmission from Portugal as oral tradition or literature. Her testimony also locates island-born tellers in Newport and New Bedford, where one later supplied a printed text. The story's geography and the collector's interview geography must therefore be kept separate.",
      "refs": [
        "S1",
        "S2"
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "The question worth investigating",
      "text": "Did these motifs circulate through printed stories, oral exchange or both? How did movement between islands and diaspora change the impossible spaces and passwords?",
      "refs": []
    },
    {
      "title": "Evidence, provenance and uncertainty",
      "text": "The historical article is consulted through a transcription of the original publication. Its period terminology and broad racial grouping are not adopted as present-day categories. Magical movement is a narrative event, not a measured space-time anomaly.",
      "refs": [
        "S1",
        "S2"
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "Inspector’s assessment",
      "text": "The password motif and the collector's transmission uncertainty are documented. A unique origin or physical anomaly is not established.",
      "refs": []
    },
    {
      "title": "Next research and discriminating evidence",
      "text": "Compare original page scans, transcriptions and named collection contexts. Trace printed texts and attributed oral versions chronologically. Preserve uncertainty where a similar plot cannot establish the direction of borrowing.",
      "refs": []
    }
  ],
  "timeline": [
    {
      "date": "1917",
      "text": "The bibliography records Parsons's Ten Folk-Tales from the Cape Verde Islands.",
      "refs": [
        "S2"
      ]
    },
    {
      "date": "Before the 1918 article",
      "text": "Parsons describes islander tellers in Newport and New Bedford.",
      "refs": [
        "S1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "date": "1918",
      "text": "Her comparative article examines password motifs and uncertain transmission.",
      "refs": [
        "S1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "date": "30 September 2026",
      "text": "Eklipsis compiles this English documentary investigation from the named sources. No field visit or new eyewitness interview is claimed.",
      "refs": []
    }
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "text": "Parsons explicitly questions whether a Cape Verdean version arrived through oral storytelling or literature.",
      "status": "Documented in the named record",
      "refs": [
        "S1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "text": "The moving tree, responsive rock or hidden house establishes an actual spatial anomaly.",
      "status": "Not established by the selected evidence",
      "refs": [
        "S1",
        "S2"
      ]
    },
    {
      "text": "The password motif and the collector's transmission uncertainty are documented. A unique origin or physical anomaly is not established.",
      "status": "Editorial assessment; stated limits apply",
      "refs": []
    }
  ],
  "hypotheses": [
    {
      "title": "Printed and oral tales moving through an Atlantic network",
      "status": "Collector's proposed transmission avenue",
      "support": "One teller supplied a printed text from Lisbon.",
      "limits": "This does not explain every variant's origin.",
      "test": "Compare dated publications with attributed tellings."
    },
    {
      "title": "An adaptable oral motif with independently varied settings",
      "status": "Alternative transmission hypothesis",
      "support": "The article compares different objects and spaces responding to formulas.",
      "limits": "Similarity alone cannot prove independent invention.",
      "test": "Compare unusual shared details and documented contact routes."
    }
  ],
  "tasks": [
    {
      "title": "Trace the earliest accessible record",
      "body": "For Cabo Verde's magic password: when a house or tree obeys, record author or storyteller, collection date, language, translation, page and exact scope. Distinguish evidence of a story being told from evidence of its events. Note which full documents remain unavailable."
    },
    {
      "title": "Investigate the central question",
      "body": "Compare original page scans, transcriptions and named collection contexts. Trace printed texts and attributed oral versions chronologically. Preserve uncertainty where a similar plot cannot establish the direction of borrowing."
    },
    {
      "title": "Compare explanations without merging evidence",
      "body": "Compare dated publications with attributed tellings. Compare unusual shared details and documented contact routes. Preserve contradictions and unsuccessful searches; proposed work remains unperformed."
    }
  ]
}