Author Archives: attias@usc.edu

La Llorona, Mexico

This story was collected from a friend, who was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico and is 20 years old. She told me her version about La Llorona, a widespread legend in the American Southwest, South America, and Central America. A lot of versions of the story exist in different regions, and this is the one her nanny used to tell her when she was growing up. Most versions have themes of maternal love, marriage, and death and suicide.

 

According to my friend’s version, La Llorona is about a woman whose husband left her, which made her lose her mind and kill her three children. When she came into her senses and realized what she had done, she couldn’t live with it so she committed suicide. She couldn’t go to heaven for having killed herself, so she stayed on Earth. She is supposed to go around looking for her children and taking all of the children she can find thinking they are hers.

 

My friend says it didn’t have much of an impact on her since she didn’t really believe in ghosts or anything of the sort, but it did make her scared to leave her house at night when she first heard it since she was so young. She also believes that was its intended purpose; something a parent would say to their child to scare them into behaving more safely, since Mexico has some dangerous areas.

 

I think it’s very interesting that her version has some religious undertones in its incorporation of heaven, since the one that I heard growing up didn’t, which speaks to how religious Mexico is as a country. Also, some other versions portray the woman as “bad,” condemning her behavior saying she intentionally killed her children as a form of revenge yet this version seems to portray her as more of a victim of a terrible situation. This is surprising to me, for Mexico is a sexist country in a lot of ways.

 

For more versions of this legend, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona

La India Dormida, Panama

This legend was collected from a friend, who was born and raised in Panama City, Panama and is 20 years old. It is about the story of La India Dormida, which translates to English as “the sleeping Native woman.”

 

She told me about a story from Valle de Antón, or Anton’s Valley, which is a rural area about two hours away from the city. The place is known as a place of “eternal spring,” where people go to meditate and escape from the city. It is believed that an Urracan casique’s (Indigenous leader) daughter, often called Flor del Aire (Air’s Flower), fell in love with one of the Spanish conquistadors. Yaravi, the strongest warrior in the tribe, was in love with the woman, so he threw himself off a mountain as the woman watched. Stunned, the woman decided to forget about the Spanish conquistador and started wondering around the mountain in grief, until she fell asleep. It is said that nature decided to perpetuate her silhouette, and now that mountain has the shape of the sleeping woman.

 

I had also heard about this story before but didn’t know much of the background, and I actually drove by this mountain and thought that the shape was somewhat similar to a sleeping woman. I’ve heard that today, people regularly even go to that mountain for hikes. I’ve noticed that forbidden love is a constant theme in South and Central American legends, often punishing the woman involved.

La Tulivieja, Panama

This legend was collected from a friend, who was born and raised in Panama City, Panama and is 20 years old. It is the story about La Tulivieja, a ghost who turns itself into a monster and wonders through abandoned places all around Panama, especially in rural areas.

 

According to my friend, the story is about a spirit who seduced the most beautiful woman in the region. She became pregnant from that forbidden love, and she drowned her baby in a river soon after it was born to hide her sin. However, she couldn’t escape God’s punishment, and she became a horrible monster with a face full of holes from which long hairs came out, bat wings, chicken legs, and a tule hat (which is made from plantain). She eats carbon and ashes, which is why people believe her footprints are found near bonfires. When there is a full moon, she regains her original form and can be seen bathing in the river, but she turns into a monster again as soon as there is a loud noise around. She is condemned to look for her baby for eternity, and her breasts are always filled with milk, ready to feed the baby she will never find.

 

My friend first heard it from her childhood friends and she says it made her very scared. As she was growing up, she heard it many more times in many places. She says it is one of the most popular legends in Panama and everyone she knows has heard it before, she even thinks it is the only actual Panamanian legend she has ever heard.

 

I am from Panama as well, and everyone I know has also heard of this legend, which is not surprising since Panama has a very small population of three million people. I had never heard this legend in such detail, which was also interesting, and I do think it’s one of Panamas most culturally relevant stories that I think has been adapted from Mexico’s La Llorona.

Mayan creation story, Mexico

This myth was collected from a friend, who was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico and is 21 years old. She told me about the creation myth of the Mayan civilization, which she learned about in school.

 

According to her recollection of the myth, the gods created the earth and the sky first, and then animals and living creatures, as well as birds and other flying animals. The gods wanted to be worshipped, but the animals couldn’t talk, so their first effort failed. Thus, they tried to make humans. They tried to make the body out of mud, but it would crumble. In their next attempt they incorporated wood, and they were successful. They reproduced, but they had nothing in their hearts and minds to worship the gods with. The gods were still unsatisfied, so they made a big flood that destroyed humanity. In their final effort, they mixed corn with water and it worked.

 

My friend is Jewish, and she sees a lot of links of this myth to her own religion’s creation myth, such as the world being created from nothing, and a great flood. She also credits this story for the view of maize, or corn, as sacred in many parts of her country. According to her, it can be found not only within the food but in literature, religious sculptures, art in general, and even in some holidays.

 

I think it’s really interesting how Mexico as a country embraces certain aspect of pre-Christian religion and finds ways to incorporate them into their everyday life. Being Jewish myself, I could also see the clear links between the two stories and the blending of different cultures into one story is very interesting.

 

For a more detailed description of this myth, see https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/what-is-big-history/origin-stories/a/origin-story-mayan

Isla de las Muñecas, Mexico

This legend was collected from a friend, who was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico and is 21 years old. It is about la Isla de las Muñecas (island of the dolls), an island just outside from where she grew up.

 

The story she had heard was about a reclusive man who lived in the banks of a canal in the island who saw the corpse of a little girl and her doll floating there. He said that he could hear the girl’s screams, so he hung the doll in some nearby branches so that the spirit of the girl would be appeased. Soon, he started to collect dolls and hanging them in trees until the entire island was covered in them. Since his death, it has become a tourist attraction and people even continue to hang dolls there. Some people believe that if you walk there at night, you can hear the little girl’s screams.

 

My friend was so fascinated with the story that she went to the island herself so she could see it in person. She says she didn’t hear any screams but that she could definitely feel a very weird energy while she was there; she says she couldn’t eat right for weeks after her visit to the island.

 

I think it’s really interesting how strong the belief in ghosts is in Mexican culture. It is very evident in their movies and literature, and even in holidays such as el día de los muertos, or the day of the dead. It is also a result of the strong religious background of the country itself that leads back to the Spanish conquest.