Llorona
La Llorona (IPA: [la ʝoˈɾona], Spanish for "The Weeping One") is a figure of Latin American folklore and more precisely describes the spirit of a woman who weeps for her children whom she drowned in a river.
Their appearance is usually considered a harbinger of death, and it is said that they can be found in the vicinity of rivers. The story of the Llorona exists in many versions and is to some extent widespread throughout Latin America, particularly in Mexico .
The legend
There are many different versions of this story; Here a comparatively common variant is mentioned: Maria (La Llorona) was a beautiful woman and she wanted to marry the most handsome of all men. What she wished for happened, and after she got married, she bore three children. First a son, then a daughter, and finally another son. When Maria's husband had to work out of town, he left but made the right to continue to visit his family. After about a month, however, the husband only came to see his children and paid no attention to his wife. One day he came with another woman and told his children that he was going to marry another woman. This made Maria so angry that she took her children to the river and drowned them. When she realized what she had done wrong, she started crying and committed suicide. The next morning the villagers found the dead Maria and buried her. The following night, a woman was heard crying for her children and the villagers discovered that it was Mary's ghost, and she was called "La Llorona".
United States
In the United States , the legend of the Llorona was spread by the Mexican people in the southern part of the country, which was formerly Mexican territory. For this reason, it is mostly only familiar to the Mexican population and largely corresponds to the Mexican version. The Llorona in south Texas was a pretty young woman who had aroused the interest of a man with wealthy parents. Because of their poor origins, they married in secret. They had children together, but one day it was revealed to the young man that his father had arranged a wedding for his son with a woman from the same social class. So the son went to his wife and told her about the planned wedding and that he would never see her again. Blinded by her broken heart and anger at her husband, she went to the river with her children and drowned them. When the man found out, he and some people from the village went to look for his wife, but found her only dead because she had killed herself after the child murder. She ascended to heaven and was tried by God there. He asked her, “Where are your children?” To which she replied, “I don't know.” God repeated the question three times and got the same answer each time. God then condemned them back to earth to look for their children.
It is said that it is advisable to avoid the Llorona because she drowned people and tried to pass them off as her children in order to go to heaven.
Mexico
Another variant of the story is common in Mexico . She lived in Tequila , Jalisco , and went to a fortune teller to get her future predicted. There she was revealed that she and her children were about to die. That same night, when everyone was asleep, the river burst its banks in a storm and carried the Llorona house with it. All of her children were killed. The Llorona went looking for her children along the river, but died without ever seeing them again.
In southern Mexico, especially in Guerrero , it is said that the Llorona was a prostitute. She aborted her illegitimate children and threw them into the nearby Tecpan River . After doing this for years, she died one day and, according to legend, she was told by God that she would not go to heaven until she had brought him all of her dead children. Then God commanded his angels to put a white dress on her and sent her to search for her children. Now she roams weeping around the rivers all over the world to look for her dead children.
Guatemala
The widespread version in Guatemala is similar to the Mexican one, but one difference is that the llorona's lamentation is said to have an uncanny quality. This makes her complaining quieter when she is in the immediate vicinity and louder when she is further away. This is similar to the sounds of the tik-tiks used in Filipino folklore.
There are also variants in which it is said that Llorona was a Creole . She was the wife of a wealthy Spaniard. On an excursion, however, she fell in love with a poor man of impure sex and became pregnant by him. In order to hide this incident, she drowned the child for which she was damned.
It is said that the Llorona can only appear in the immediate vicinity of water, i.e. rivers, wells, streams or water holes. Mostly she is spotted by men who are insane or at least severely traumatized after an encounter with her.
Honduras
The story of the Llorona can also be found in Honduras . Although this is also a woman crying for her drowned children, there are some differences in the story.
An alternate Honduran version is the story of a beautiful married woman who was abandoned by her husband. Because of this, she moved around the banks of the rivers and seduced men passing by. If they got too close to her, she would turn into an ugly old woman and drive men insane. A well-known saying of her goes: “Toma mi teta, que soy tu nana” (touch my breasts, I am your mother).
In Honduras she is known as "La Sucia" (The Dirty Woman). It is also known as "Ciguanabana", a mixture of "Cihuatl" (woman) and "Nahuatl" (spirit / soul).
El Salvador
The stories of the Llorona in El Salvador are very similar to those from Mexico, with the difference that it is about a Pipil who was in love with a noblewoman. He loved her too, but not her children, and refused to marry her until she got rid of the children. Driven by lust, she took her children to the river and drowned them. After realizing what she had done, she fled in a panic, but tripped and hit her head on a stone. Hours passed before she regained consciousness and it grew dark. As she made her way back to the village, she got lost and died in the forest. It is said that she haunts rivers and complains, “Donde estan mis hijos?” (Where are my children?). Other legends say that she enters houses and seeks out crying children in order to steal their souls, which are then supposed to replace the souls of their dead children.
Panama
In Panama , the story of the Llorona is one of the most widespread folklore in the country. Here, however, the story is referred to as “La Tulivieja”.
According to this version, the Tulivieja was a beautiful young woman who was married to an important businessman. The couple only had one young child. The husband forbade his wife to go to parties and ordered her to stay at home to take care of her son. One day there was a big festival in a neighboring village, and since the husband was at work, she decided to go to the festival. She took her child with her, but left him under a nearby tree near the river. Considering the place to be safe, she left her child there alone and went to the festival to dance. That night the village was ravaged by a terrible storm and when the woman returned to her child, she could no longer find it under the tree. She started crying and looked for her child along the river. God was very angry at the woman's irresponsibility, which is why He turned her into an ugly woman with holes on her face, chicken legs, and long hair that covered her entire body. Legend has it that it appears in towns and villages near rivers, with sightings being most common especially in western Panama and in rural areas.
Chile
The legend of the Llorona is also of cultural importance in Chile , as it is assigned a role similar to that of the stories “La Calchona”, “La Viuda” and “La Condena”. It is common all over Chile. In addition to some variants, which differ only slightly from the Mexican legend, there are also various versions in Chile that differ greatly from the other variants and can only be found here in this form.
In Chile, the Llorona also appears as the ghost of a woman who is looking for her son, but she is brought into close connection with death. In most Chilean versions, the Llorona is referred to as "La Pucullén" and it is said that she weeps for her son who died at a young age. She wears a white dress and can only be seen by people who are close to death, by people with supernatural abilities (such as the Machis or the Kalkus) or by animals with sharpened senses (such as dogs, which are in their The present to whine). She is considered to be the guide of souls and leads the dead into the afterlife by showing them the way with her footprints. With her many tears she cries a crystal clear puddle, which is supposed to show the place where the dead person is to be buried. It is said that - after the coffin is buried in the right place - the grave must be completely covered with earth by the relatives, otherwise a relative of the deceased himself will shortly die.
Other versions say that the Llorona trembles the hearts of those who hear her complaints and that she hypnotizes hikers who travel before dawn and spends the rest of the night with them to comfort themselves over the death of their son . Less often one also finds the conviction that - if you rub your eyes with the tears of a dog - you can see the Llorona, but you have to have a pure heart, otherwise she will appear in a horrible form.
Effects of the legend on society
Since the legend of the Llorona can be found in many different versions, what they say is often more or less different. In general, however, it can be said that the legend of the Llorona takes on the function of a warning tale on several levels. So she teaches the children that bad behavior and floating around in the dark lead to the Llorona haunted them. She teaches young women that one should not be dazzled by wealth, social status, material goods or false declarations of love.
Connections to cultures or historical figures
The story of Llorona is reflected in Greek mythology in a similar form in the myth of Medea , who also murdered her children after Jason had left her. In contrast to Llorona, however, Medea showed no remorse for her act. It is likely that local Aztec folklore was influenced by the legend of the Llorona, which manifests itself in the fact that the goddess Cihuacóatl wept for her dead children shortly before the Mexican invasion led by Hernán Cortés , as a sign of the fall of the Aztec Empire Was seen. Sometimes the Llorona is also associated with the Malinche , a local who served Cortés as a translator and is therefore sometimes accused of betraying Mexico to the Spanish invaders. In a popular story, she becomes Cortés' mistress and gives birth to a child, but is later abandoned by Cortés and commits infanticide because of her injured Aztec pride. However, there is no historical evidence of this. The story draws a connection between the Spanish invasion of Mexico and the resulting extinction of indigenous culture and the loss of the Llorona.