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lall0orona

LA LLORONA

LA LLORONA

La Llorona (Latin American Spanish: la llorona the Crying Woman, the Wailer is a vengeful ghost in Mexican folklore who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was unfaithful to her. Whoever hears her crying either suffers misfortune or death and their life becomes unsuccessful in every field.


Origins


Known for being Maltinzin in her original nomenclature, today, the lore of La Llorona is well known in Mexico and the southwestern United States.


The earliest documentation of La Llorona is traced back to 1550 in Mexico City [citation needed]. But there are theories about her story being connected to specific Aztec mythological creation stories. "The Hungry Woman" includes a wailing woman constantly crying for food, which has been compared to La Llorona's signature nocturnal wailing for her children. The motherly nature of La Llorona's tragedy has been compared to Chihuacoatl, an Aztec goddess deity of motherhood. Her seeking of children to keep for herself is significantly compared to Coatlicue, known as "Our Lady Mother" or Tonantsi (who's also comparable to the Virgen de Guadalupe, another significant mother figure in Mexican culture), also a monster that devours filth or sin.


The legend of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Mexico, Central America and northern South America. La Llorona is sometimes conflated with La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as Hernán Cortés' interpreter and also bore his son. La Malinche is considered both the mother of the modern Mexican people and a symbol of national treachery for her role in aiding the Spanish.

Stories of weeping female phantoms are common in the folklore of both Iberian and Amerindian cultures. Scholars have pointed out similarities between La Llorona and the Cihuacōātl of Aztec mythology, as well as Eve and Lilith of Hebrew mythology. Author Ben Radford's investigation into the legend of La Llorona, published in Mysterious New Mexico, found common elements of the story in the German folktale "Die Weisse Frau" dating from 1486. La Llorona also bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek tale of the demigoddess Lamia, in which Hera, Zeus' wife, learned of his affair with Lamia and killed all the children Lamia had with Zeus. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia kills other women's children.

The Florentine Codex is an important text that originated in late Mexico in 1519  a quote from which is, "The sixth omen was that many times a woman would be heard going along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, "Oh my children, we are about to go forever." Sometimes she said, "Oh my children, where am I to take you?

While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic, the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th-century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio.  The poem makes no reference to infanticide, rather La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Rosalia who was murdered by her husban.


Regional versions

The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named María marries a rich ranchero / conquistador  to whom she bears two children. One day, María sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt,   she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife, forced to be in purgatory and roam this earth until she finds her children.  In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father cannot take them away to be raised by his new wife.   Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include a white, wet dress, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.  


Mexico

The legend of La Llorona is deeply rooted in Mexican popular culture. Her story is told to children to encourage them not to wander off in the dark and near bodies of water such as rivers and lakes alone. Her spirit is often evoked in artwork,   such as that of Alejandro Colunga.    La Cihuacoatle, Leyenda de la Llorona is a yearly waterfront theatrical performance of the legend of La Llorona set in the canals of the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City,   which was established in 1993 to coincide with the Day of the Dead.


Guatemala

According to the local legend, in Guatemala City lived a woman who had an affair with a lover. She became pregnant and gave birth to a child named Juan de la Cruz who she drowned so her husband would not know. The woman was condemned in the afterlife to search for her murdered son in every place where there is a pool of water. She does that by crying out for him—hence her moniker of the Wailing Woman (La Llorona). It is a popular scary legend that in one iteration or another has been told to generations of children. The terrifying cry of "Oh, my children!!" (¡Ay mis hijos!) is well known due to the story. Additionally, one peculiar detail is that when a person hears the cry from afar means that the ghost is nearby, but if the cry is heard nearby, it means the ghost is afar. Someone unlucky enough to face the specter is "won over" to the afterlife, never to be seen again.[citation needed]. The legend is deeply rooted in Antigua Guatemala, the former capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala (current Central America and southern state of Chiapas, Mexico)


United States

In the Southwestern United States, the story of La Llorona is told to scare children into good behavior,   sometimes specifically to deter children from playing near dangerous water.  Also told to them is that her cries are heard as she walks around the street or near bodies of water to scare children from wandering around, resembling the stories of El Cucuy. In Chumash mythology indigenous to Southern California, La Llorona is linked to the nunašɨš, a mythological creature with a cry similar to that of a newborn baby.   It is a very popular story.


Venezuela

The tale of La Llorona is set in the Venezuelan Llanos during the colonial period. La Llorona is said to be the spirit of a woman that died of sorrow after her children were killed, either by herself or by her family.   Families traditionally place wooden crosses above their doors to ward off such spirits.  
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