History of Rocking Chair, Great Corn Island
South-southwest of Great Corn Island, the largest of the two islands in Nicaragua's Southern Caribbean, is Rocking Chair, a rock formation located at Bluff Point, a site that is popularly known in the local Creole culture for its myths and legends related to ghosts.
Bluff is an English word, which as a noun in the language of navigators means cliff, rock or hill. Point, on the other hand, refers to a cape.
According to oral history, Bluff Point was one of the escape or hiding places for enslaved black people seeking to escape forced labor. Because Bluff, as the locals also call it, was (and still is) a place where no one lives and which is also very isolated, this favored those who did not want to be found.
It is believed that during the slavery times some people died in this area, and according to the legend told by some locals, pirates brought their treasures and hid them in this zone, leaving behind a human sacrifice to protect their treasure chest. Other people claim that from Bluff Point it was possible to see Jacky Lantern, a mythological and ghostly character in the history of Corn Island and many Caribbean islands.
For these reasons, some say that Bluff Point is haunted, and some even believe that if you visit this place at night you will hear voices, or if you make a lot of noise at any time of the day the sea will become rough, so, “you have to be respectful and quiet when you visit Bluff Point, so that you don't make the spirits angry”, locals will commonly recommend.
Rocking Chair attracted a lot of people, especially from Quinn Hill, Long Bay and South End, who roamed more in the area of the Bluff. They began to compare the rock formation to a chair because of its peculiar shape and the fact that you could sit on top of it, possibly giving birth to the name that every Corn Island native knows today.
According to Pastor Allan Taylor, in an interview in January 2023, “Rocking Chair was an escape for many young people… some would hike to the Bluff, then have a picnic at Bluff Beach, which is near Rocking Chair. Others would hike from Long Bay, going over the rocks at Bluff Point and then out to Southwest Bay, where they would swim there in the sea and have a picnic.”
Pastor Taylor, as well as teacher Lorna Quinn and hisotriologist Derlyn Meza agree that Bluff Point, like Rocking Chair, was a place that the people of South End and Quinn Hill commonly used to visit, but, at the same time, because of the legends or beliefs linked to the area, some parents advised their children not to visit the area, “although not everyone believed in what was said about the hauntings, but rather because of the danger of falling off the rocks," emphasized historian Meza.
The formation with which Rocking Chair was originally known has changed a lot, several say that over time, the stone has been deteriorated by multiple natural factors, such as hurricanes, for example, leaving the shape that today everyone who has visited knows.
Pastor Taylor and his wife recall that when they were young, there were twin palm trees next to Rocking Chair. When shown a photograph of what the stone looks like today, they agreed that neither the palm trees are there, much less the stone is in the shape they remember, “it has been gradually broken,” they said.
Today, little is left of Rocking Chair, but what is left are memorable moments of different generations of Corn Islanders who challenged the legends and visited the area.
It is important to mention that, according to the people interviewed, the site is not known as "the devil's chair", much less was it visited by the mosquito king to associate it with that name.
Bluff Point in general was considered a haunted place, Rocking Chair was only a resting place for the many who walked this area of Corn Island. Beliefs related to paranormal events, interviewees agree, have disappeared due to the evangelization of the islands.
