Monthly Archives: May 2025

La Llorona

Text:

“Lla Lorona is a weeping ghost who can be found next to bodies of water, like lakes or rivers. She’s constantly crying because she can’t find her children who drowned years ago. If a child walks by the body of water she’s in, she’ll mistake them for her dead children and drag them into the body of water with her.”

Context:

The informant heard this story from their parents, as well as family members from Mexico, when they were a young child.

Analysis:

At its core, La Llorona seems to serves as both a moral warning and a cultural reflection: it reinforces traditional roles by portraying the ultimate punishment for failing in one’s duties as a mother, which is a theme that is shared between many cultures. However, this legend also symbolizes deeper historical and emotional wounds. One possible interpretation is that she represents the collective trauma of colonization—her cries echoing the pain of indigenous peoples who lost their families, land, and identity, serving as a metaphor for cultural loss. She is implied to be a woman of Latin heritage in a time of colonialism, where white men held all the power, and her tragic fate is directly tied to the racist system she existed in. Therefore, she represents the “bane” of an elite, white male demographic in a society where their power and influence finds its foundations in the oppression of those deemed “other”.

Ungnyeo

Text:

A long time ago, a bear and a tiger wished to become human. They prayed fervently, and the god Hwanung decided to fulfill their wish. He gave them each many cloves of garlic and mugwort, and told them to eat these everyday while staying out of the sun for 100 days, then they will turn human. At first, the tiger and bear obediently ate the garlic and mugwort daily, and stayed in a dark cave, but soon the tiger became frustrated and gave up, leaving the cave. However, the bear persisted, and after a 100 days, she turned into a woman named Ungnyeo. She then prayed to Hwanung to become a mother, and her wish was granted–she gave birth to a son named Tangun, who became the first king of the first Korean kingdom, Gojoseon.

Context:

The informant heard this story from their parents, but because it is a creation myth and widely known, they’ve heard it multiple times from multiple people over the years.

Analysis:

This creation story follows the trend among many cultures of giving their rulers a sense of divinity, whether they’re a descendant of the gods, or chosen by. one, or actually a deity. This myth highlights key Confucian and cultural virtues such as patience, endurance, humility, and devotion. The bear’s perseverance is celebrated, positioning these qualities as foundational to Korean identity and societal ideals. There is a huge spiritual meaning behind this myth: the divine connection between the heavens(the god) and the earth(the bear) results in a ruler that symbolizes harmony and is the literal union of the divine and the earthly. It also subtly elevates maternal strength and the feminine role in nation-building, as the bear-woman becomes the literal mother of the Korean people.

The Legend of La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 24
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Legend:

“The most popular legend in Mexico is “The Legend of La Llorona.” That of a lower class woman who fell in love with a wealthy man, who was already married. This woman had two children with him, and hoping he would leave his wife, she lost control one day. Filled with despair, she decided to drown her children in a river, and, since then, her soul wanders in sorrow through the streets every dawn, mourning the murder of her children. La Llorona walks each night with disturbing cries of regret, saying “Ay mis hijos!” which means “Oh, my children!” Dressed in a white gown that covers her entire body, down to her bare feet. There are those who say they have seen her: according to them, the ghost also has long hair, and her face resembles a skull. Many have also claimed that this woman also attacks midwives, doctors, and nurses who help pregnant women end the lives of their unborn babies.”

Context:

My informant told me that many Mexican legends are passed down from generation to generation, taught in class, or even shared from neighbor to neighbor on the street. She had heard this legend on the playground when she was 6-7 years old. She said that children would share this legend with each other as a way to frighten other children.

Analysis:

In class, we read an article and talked about the legend of La Llorona. In the article “The Politics of Taking: La Llorona in the Cultural Mainstream,” Domino Renee Perez writes that La Llorona “wails at night as she wanders dark roads searching for her children or any other potential victims” (154). We had talked about La Llorona mainly targeting children, so this variation of the legend is interesting because it instead is about the spirit of La Llorona going after people who terminate their pregnancies/their unborn children. One can argue, that instead of La Llorona attacking children, she is going after people who are making the same choice she did to end (by ending their unborn babies’ lives) that doomed her to haunt the streets. This view/belief depends on one’s own view of terminating a pregnancy, but it is interesting to think about the different interpretations of the La Llorona legend. I find this variation between different versions of the legend of La Llorona fascinating.

The Red Balloon Ghost Story

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

My informant told me a story about her deceased Nana sending her red balloons for her birthday. Her Nana, whom she was very close to, passed away ten days after her 12th birthday. The next year, when her 13th birthday was approaching, she, my informant, felt a lot of grief, because the approach of her birthday meant that the anniversary of her Nana’s death was approaching as well. She prayed to God and her Nana to feel some comfort from her grief. The next day, when she came home from school, there were a bunch of red balloons in the tree in front of her house. My informant told me, “Red was my favorite color, and they were birthday balloons; one or two said “Happy Birthday.” She only took one of the plain red balloons: “because I did not want to be greedy.” That night, she prayed that the balloon would float for seven or ten days (she could not remember the exact amount of time) and the balloon stayed afloat for the amount of time she had prayed for.

Context:

My informant shared with me that she grew up with strong Christian roots. She was Catholic and attended the Catholic Church for several years when she was young before her family switched to a Protestant Church. She told me that she had developed the habit of praying to God to give her a sign as proof of His existence or to help her make big decisions when she was going through rough times. The balloons appeared when she prayed to her deceased grandmother My informant has shared this story with her mother and her mother shared other memorates with her about supernatural events regarding her Nana.

Analysis:

My informant presented this story to me as a ghost story, however, I would argue that there are sign superstition elements to it: praying to her grandmother and then finding the red balloons in front of her house. There is a supernatural element to her story, though, too: the balloons being her favorite color and the one balloon lasting the length of time she wanted it too. One can argue that the spirit of her Nana brought her these balloons for her birthday, therefore making it somewhat of a ghost story. In class, we talked about ghosts/spirits are mostly vengeful and to haunt the living, but I wonder if it is a possibility that there are some spirits that present themselves, specifically to their loved ones, to bring support and to show the living that they are not alone (in a positive way).

Ijapa the Tortoise Legend/Tale

Nationality: Nigerian
Age: 21
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Legend:

“Ijapa is a tortoise in the village and every year, the birds have a festival in the sky to celebrate some type of feast. And this festival is super coveted, like there’s lots of food and everything, and [it’s] in the trees and high up. Ijapa, who’s a tortoise, obviously can’t get to the trees, so he starts picking feathers from every bird and makes a set of wings for himself, and he flies up to this festival disguised as a bird with all these feathers that he’s gathered and goes to this banquet. At the banquet, he’s eating all their food, and somehow, someone discovers he’s not a bird and so they go around telling everyone he’s not a bird and he’s infiltrated the banquet. As each of them leave, they take one feather [from Ijapa’s set of wings] and fly away. So, because Ijapa is so big-backed [informant’s words], hungry, and greedy, he’s staying late and doesn’t realize [the birds] are taking his feathers. By the time the last guest has gone, he realizes that he no longer has his set of wings. So, he shouts down from the tree to [get] someone to tell his wife, who, I can’t remember what creature it is, but it’s another animal, that hears him shouting from the tree. He [Ijapa] tells the animal to tell his wife to come and arrange, like a bed of soft things, so that when he jumps from the tree height, he lands on the soft things. But this animal, who also does not like Ijapa because Ijapa is greedy, arranges stones instead, and mimics the voice of his [Ijapa’s] wife, saying, “Jump down! I’ve arranged the bed of soft things” and Ijapa jumps down and cracks his shell.

That’s why tortoises’ shells are cracked.”

Context:

My informant told me that Ijapa (“tortoise” in Yoruba) is a character that shows up in a lot of Yoruba stories/tales that parents share with their children. Many of the Ijapa stories are didactic and usually have some sort of moral lesson: why you shouldn’t lie, why you shouldn’t be arrogant, etc. He compared this story to the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, explaining that there are different variations of these stories in different regions. This is the version he remembers hearing from his parents.

Analysis:

This story is very interesting because not only is it a legend about why tortoises’ shells are cracked, but it is also a tale that has a moral lesson for children. Is it likely that a tortoise was able to gather loose feathers to create wings and fly up into the trees? I think that it is highly unlikely; but the fact that the phrase “That’s why tortoises’ shells are cracked” is included after the story transforms this tale into a seemingly legendary story. This story could be true, because tortoises’ shells can be cracked. Had it been described as a story of why someone should never lie or be greedy, then this would not be considered a legend. In my opinion, this story does not necessarily clearly fit in to one category of a legend or a tale. There is the part about why the tortoises’ shell is cracked, which shifts the story into the legend category, but then there is the moral lesson of why someone should not lie or be greedy, as well as the tortoise flying into the tree, which is more commonly found in tales.