La Llorona
La Llorona
La Llorona
A five-century-old lamentation
by Angelica Galicia
Read it in Spanish
They say that a crazy weeping woman appears
in a street near the high school/
That she dances the twist and rock n roll;
that she dances rock n roll and the twist,
and if you look at her youll go completely mad
Los Gliders, 1961
For over 500 years and even in the age of space travel and global warming, in many parts of Mexico you can still hear
the echo of a lamentation. A woman wanders in the middle of the night, through vacant lots, in alleyways with walls of
volcanic rock or of quarry stone; weeping over the death of her children.
Dressed in white, with her loose hair; this woman still makes children as well as old-timers tremble with terror, from the
lowlands of the Bajo region and even to the southeast of Mexico. Shes La Llorona- (The Weeping Woman).
This is the ancient legend that every Mexican child hears either from the mouth of his grandfather or passed on by some
school friend that wants to play a joke on him. Theres even a rock n roll song that reflects the way that we still get
together with this mythical woman.
But the Weeping Woman is much more than a ghost or an apparition. Its got nothing to do with horrible women with
bloody eyes or sharp, pointed teeth. Its not just a paranormal entity or nor some insane woman who inspired a tale. La
Llorona is a woman both faceless and ageless, a compendium of many symbols and pre-Hispanic deities. Shes both a
condemned woman and at the same time, a goddess bearing an ominous message.
In the book; Vision of the Conquered, by ngel Mara Garibay, the author collects the forebodings that the Mexicas
the pre-Hispanic Mexican empirereceived from their gods before the arrival of the Spaniards. One of these omens
makes reference to a woman; La Cihuacoatl or serpent-woman, that wandered about the the broad streets of the Great
Tenochtitlan wailing and lamenting: My dearly beloved children; your departure is near; were about to become
estranged! Oh, my children! Where shall I take you?
Curiously, the echo of La Cihuacoatl was disseminated with the conquest of the Spaniards and every region was fused
together by the image of various feminine deities:
Auicanime, the needy one; the thirsty one, the goddess of hunger of the Michoacan Tarascans; Xtabai, the goddess of
suicide according to the Mayans of the Yucatan Peninsula; Xonaxi Queculla; the red-fleshed lady, the deity of death,
of the underworld and of lust among the Zapotec people of Oaxaca
[1]
.
And, of course, the colonial version also ensued, that of a young and lovely woman who, having been rejected by the
man she loved, drowned her children and then committed suicide. Upon arriving at the gates of Heaven, God asked her
about her children and she answered, I know not, my Lord, so she was sent back to find them.
And thats how the poor woman spent the centuries comprising the Colony, the Independence years and the Revolution;
searching for her children down the railroad tracks, up in the branches of the trees, under bridges and among the ruins of
the haciendas The Mexican writer, Carmen Toscano, described how she terrified the inhabitants of New Spain in La
Llorona (1959):
- They say that she wails her most mournful scream upon arriving at the Main Plaza, that she kneels down thereand,
turning to the elders of the Indians, kisses the ground and cries out in anguish; completely full of affliction.
- They say that she loved intensely
- That she was abandoned
- That she committed a horrible crime
- That she shed the blood of her own children
- Nevertheless, she must have suffered a lot, the poor womanwhy cant she rest after so much time?
Today, Mexico City, where her legend was born, has a different pace and its sounds are overwhelming, even in the wee
hours of the night. Children arent so gullible and grandparents dont tell as many tales as before. This Mexico has really
changed in five centuries. But in nearby places, where the night still inspires fear, there are still those who get home with
racing hearts and a pale countenance, those who tell their folk with a whisper, The thing is; I heard La Llorona.
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