Tag Archives: mexican ghost stories

Erlina and Irene: Epic

Background: Informant is a Mexican-American college student. He believes strongly in his superstitions and magical energies. This story takes place in Las Grutas Tolantongo in Mexico. It’s a village right outside of an area with hot springs. This happened when the informants grandmother was 7, so in the 1960s. 

Informant: My grandma, she had her best friend – so say you’re like my best friend, okay? And we make a promise because, you know, best friends, they wanna stay together forever, so, like she said “if I die, you come with me, like I’ll take you with me. And like, if you die, you take me with you so that we could be in heaven together, okay?” So then, her best friend Erlinda said, “if I die, I’m going to take you by your feet! I’m gonna take you by your feet to heaven with me, like your going to die with me.” And my grandma Irene was like, “No, no don’t pull me by feet!” 

So this was happening in this village. It’s called Las Grutas Tolantongo. It’s a little village, it’s like hot tubs, like little hot springs, but outside of it is this village. And they would always play under a tree with their neighbors. So, since Irene and Erlinda were neighbors, they could always see into each other’s houses, and like when the time came that Erlinda wasn’t coming out anymore to come play with her, Irene would always see Erlinda laying out on the bed.
So, witches exist. Like, in Mexico… you might not believe in witches but like, they’re definitely a thing in Mexico. So, I guess the village– they had a lot of envy towards Erlinda’s mom. Cause’ Erlinda had her little business, she had to send her workers out early in the morning. So, it was revealed to Erlina’s mom, her name was Doña tele– it was revealed after they found out that Erlina got sick that someone had tried to put a curse on her! But, it was intended for whoever woke up first and left the house, and since Doña tele always woke up at 3 in the morning to send her workers out, it was intended for her. So, Erlinda had to use the bathroom late at night, and because they had communal bathrooms outside of the house, Erlinda got sick instead of Doña tele, who the curse was intended for. Like, when she crossed the doorway, they put dirt in front of her doorway like in the Conjuring. So, whoever crossed over it, like whatever bad energy would go to them.

So, fast forward a few months later in July which is the end of the school year in Mexico, Erlinda died! Like, she died! But Irene realized when she went to her funeral that she made a promise that if she died she was going to take me! And I promised that she was going to take me! And she was like “Noooo! I’m so scared, like no no no no!” And the scary part is, they didn’t have morticians so the viewing– like her mouth was open, her eyes were cloudy, like have you seen a dead person? 

So, Irene, like after she saw Erlinda dead she kept having nightmares of Erlinda. Like, one time my grandma told me that she saw Erlinda in a dream. Like, you know how sometimes dreams feel real so you wake up in the dream? So, she woke up and saw Erlinda playing in her room through the window and she was like “*gasps* Erlinda, you’re not dead?” And Erlinda is facing away from her ignoring her. And then, Erlinda turns around and the face that she had in the casket was the same face she had when she turned around. And Irene freaked out because Erlinda said “If I catch you, you’re coming with me.” So, Erlinda would chase Irene throughout the whole village and Irene would float like a skywalker. And Irene would always wake up sweating like crazy, afraid she’d go into cardiac arrest every night. The dreams happened from May 12 to August 18th, like she just couldn’t handle it anymore.

I forgot to mention this part, but her brother Chava would always come from Mexico City because that’s where he worked. So when Erlinda died, he came to pay his respects. But when the time came for him to go back to Mexico City, Irene was like “take me with you! Because maybe if I go, I won’t be able to dream of her anymore.” So, she went and she never dreamed of her again. But, like, the scary part was when my grandma was telling me this story we were in the lounge of my dorm and the lights went off. And I know they’re motion sensors but I was moving around! So, I was like, “Erlinda? Is she here?” Like, that’s scary!

Reflection: I absolutely loved hearing this story from my roommate. They were so animated as they told me the story and it was entertaining to hear it from them. I especially liked the way they told the story, as they were really unfiltered and imperfect in how they told it, which was fun to watch. This story was so entertaining, and it was so cool to learn about their culture through an anecdote like this one. The part where they say that magic exists in Mexico was so cool, as they acknowledge that in American culture we don’t believe in magic, but how in Mexican culture it is accepted.

Taviano’s curse

Background: Informant is a Mexican-American college student. He believes strongly in his superstitions and magical energies. This story takes place in Las Grutas Tolantongo in Mexico. It’s a village right outside of an area with hot springs. This happened when the informants grandmother was 7, so in the 1960s. 

Informant: There was this guy, his name was Taviano. They would come to give this woman bats to counteract a curse. So, Taviano would always come at night because that’s when they caught the bats, and my great-grandmother Josefina would always let Taviano sleep in their house, but Taviano would always sleep in the kitchen. And after a while they got suspicious like, “why would he always want to sleep in the kitchen?” And, turns out that when my grandmother went to a medium to kind of find out because– instead of going to the doctor’s– they don’t like the doctors, cause the doctors always try to– the scientific part. Like, over there it’s more spiritual, like they believe in more the spiritual world. So, they always go to mediums and those kind of things, yeah like mediums. So when the medium revealed to my grandmother why her daughter was sick, he mentioned that a guy who was your neighbor got her sick. So, Josefina guessed it was her neighbor because he was the only guy, but since he wasn’t there she didn’t know. So Taviano, even though they like don’t have pronouns, Taviano was still a guy, so suspicions went to Taviano. So then like, sleeping in the kitchen, what is he doing in the kitchen? So, um there was like uh, flame. There was one night where she had a flame in the kitchen, right. And, like, you know when dust kind of hits metal. Like dust particles are kind of hitting metal, the sound it makes, so she heard that in the middle of the night and she was like, “wait what’s going on”. And then she got up and she saw Taviano sitting in front of the oven with all this like, Carbon stuff and burning things and he had dead bones with him, and she was like “I got you!” And grabbed him by the ear asking “who told you to do this? Why are you doing this?” And they never found out why he was doing this but they found out that it was him who was doing the curse. 

Reflection: This story was so interesting because the informant talked me through the entire process of the creation of the curse. I loved seeing how they lighted up as they told the story, and how emotional they were. The part where the informant talks about mistrust of doctors told me a lot about their culture and community. Their community relies on folk medicine and ritualistic practices done by mediums rather than Western medicine, and it was evident in their account. I learned so much more about cultural differences and how they affect people’s problem-solving throughout the world.

La Mano Peluda

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

MR: So La Mano Peluda translates to “hairy hand.” It’s basically an old legend that my parents used to scare me with when I did something that I wasn’t supposed to do, like not taking out the trash or doing chores. So I would literally crawl into a ball at night and make sure that my legs weren’t hanging out of the covers because I genuinely thought that this terrifying hand would come out from under my bed and drag me by my ankles out of my room to who knows where.

HR: Hahahaha. So how old were you when you heard this story?

MR: It went back to when I was probably like 5 or 6. Because I was in school already, and if I didn’t do my homework my mom would be like, “If you don’t do your homework La Mano Peluda is gonna come and get you!”

HR: And do you know where this legend came from?

MR: Well my mom got the tradition from her family in Mexico, but after you asked me about it I did a little googling. Apparently, it was a man’s hand that had survived from the Spanish Inquisition. He wanted to seek revenge on the people who had pillaged his home or something like that. But when I was little, I didn’t really care about the origin and just got freaked out when I thought about an old hand hiding under my bed.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She used to be intimidated by the legend of La Mano Peluda as a young child but grew to see it as a funny way that her parents made her do her chores. 

Context: 

The legend of La Mano Peluda was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. She had told me about the legend before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. 

Thoughts:

The story of La Mano Peluda is a classic legend that is prominent across a wide range of Latin-American cultures. I would equate it to classic American campfire stories where the goal is to scare and entertain the audience. I have heard multiple recollections of this folk tale and they all seem to stem from having a fear of something hiding under one’s bed. For particularly young children, the legend of La Mano Peluda is used as a sort of scare tactic to get them to do their chores, while in older adolecents it is seen as an entertaining folk tale. What is interesting is that there is a pattern of “hairy hand” stories across the globe.

For another “hairy hand” story, see:

Mary Curtis Special to The Star. “Dartmoor Nights and Scary Tales Stir Imagination: SA2 Edition.” Toronto Star, Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, 1990.

El Cucuy

–Informant Info–
Nationality: United States of America
Age: 30
Occupation: Lead Associate of Operations, Chase Bank
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Date of Performance/Collection: 4/19/2021
Primary Language: English
Other Language(s): Spanish

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (MR).

HS: So tell me about El Cucuy.

MR: El Cucuy was a lot like other legends that my friends and parents used to scare me when I was little. A lot like La Mano Peluda, my parents would say things like, “El Cucuy is going to come and get you!” When I was really little, probably 5 or 6, I would be scared to get clothes out of my closet at night because that’s where I was told El Cucuy was waiting to get me and eat me. I honestly don’t even know anything about El Cucuy, he was kind of just like a boogeyman type thing that I use now to scare kids into behaving.

MR: *Googles El Cucuy on her phone for the first time*

MR: Oh wow. This story is crazy weird. Hahahaha. Apparently, a father was cursed after forgetting that he left his kids locked in the closet while their barn burned down, so all his kids were killed. After years of looking for his kids in other families’ closets, he grew an appetite for them? That makes no sense but it’s nice to finally know where the story of El Cucuy came from after all these years.

Background:

My informant is my co-worker from my job. She is essentially my supervisor and she enjoys helping me to practice my Spanish and telling me a lot about her culture and heritage. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household by two parents who both immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She comes from a devout Catholic family and has taught me a lot of traditions that I didn’t know pertain to Catholicism, seeing as to the fact that I myself was raised in a Catholic family. She also knows a lot of Mexican urban legends and ghost stories from her childhood.

Context:

This story was brought up while having a general discussion with my co-worker about her culture and traditions. We had just finished talking about La Mano Peluda and other legends such as El Chupacabra. She had told me about these traditions before but I asked her to go more in-depth for the sake of the collection project. We were sitting next to each other on the teller line at work and we would chat in-between customers. In a lot of the audio recordings, you can hear us having a conversation and then stopping abruptly because a customer walks in.

Thoughts:

Something that I found interesting, and I don’t know if this applies on a broader scale, is that there was a significant difference in my coworker’s response to talking about El Cucuy as opposed to other legends. In the case of La Mano Peluda, she recited many childhood experiences where she was genuinely afraid of it, along with talking about her scare-filled experiences of searching for El Chupacabra. She was not as passionate or enthusiastic about El Cucuy, perhaps because the legend wasn’t as effective at scaring her as a child or because it wasn’t used by her parents as much. Regardless, El Cucuy is a typical urban legend. My coworker’s comment on how El Cucuy is similar to the boogeyman made me realize that, like many other legends, it is part of a global pattern of stories made up to scare children into behaving.

To see how El Cucuy links with these other boogeyman stories, read:

Hayes, Joe., and Honorio. Robledo. El Cucuy! : a Bogeyman Cuento . 1st ed., Cinco Puntos Press, 2001.

The Vejita

Background: I was FaceTiming a couple friends from high school, and I mentioned my ghost story collection project. One of them said that their roommate at Baylor had a good story. I then Facetimed her and her roommate and asked her roommate to tell me her ghost story.

Statement: “So when I was younger I apparently used to talk to a spirit in my grandma’s house. My grandma would catch me talking to a little Mary statue. Then later I found out that the statue has a vejita in it, which means old lady in Spanish. She goes around the house and just tries to take care of everything. If we leave the door unlocked, she’ll lock it and stuff like that. The vejita really likes clean around the house and do dishes and make sure that everything is like nice and tidy. I used to try and like see her, cause my grandma used to claim that she does it all at night when we’re sleeping, so she doesn’t disturb us during the day. To catch her, I used to sleep over in the living room so I could catch her walk in the hallways. I allegedly claimed that I saw her walking to the bathroom and clean it when I was like seven. But I definitely saw it. But then like three years ago, my family was moving my grandma out of that house and into an apartment, and my parents made me and my siblings help like pack everything up. I was alone in the house packing shit up cause my brothers were both busy and I packed up the statue in some box, but later we couldn’t find it. Like we searched every fucking box twice. But like when we were unpacking everything in the apartment, I shit you not the statue was literally in the first box we opened. Everybody saying I didn’t see her when I was seven can go to hell cause that literally proves she’s real.”

Context: My informant is from Midland, Texas. She is Christian and of Mexican descent. She is currently a freshman at Baylor University. She used to spend a lot of time at her grandmother’s house while her parents were busy at work.


Analysis: The theme of ghosts in Christianity is obviously an integral element to this story. The vejita appears to be a “friendly ghost”, going along with the fact that the spirit stems from the statue of Mother Mary. I believe this ghost is meant to serve as a symbol of Mother Mary’s caring and maternal nature. My informant and her siblings viewed this spirit as one who helps with chores around the house, one who helps wherever help is needed. She also mentioned that the spirit only tends to the house at night when everyone is sleeping. That fact could serve two purposes. It could help to explain why no one has seen the ghost (except my informant), or it could help to describe the character of Mother Mary, as one who considers the feelings of others and does not seek recognition for her good deeds. Her grandmother could have possibly fabricated the existence of the vejita in order to create physical proof of the benevolence of Mother Mary. Thus, as her grandchildren became older, they will always remember the helpful vejita that lived in their grandmother’s Mother Mary statue. I believe that my informant did in fact see the ghost due to the tone of her voice and the correlation between Chrisitanity and ghosts.