Tag Archives: Mexican legend

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ Joaquin Murrieta Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “My parents said they were just finishing up a picnic at Alumn Rock park on the East side of San Jose and were getting ready to head home when a man who looked like he had been dug up (his clothes was old and tattered and resembled clothes from the cowboy days. He came up to their car window and just stood there not saying a word but staring in a daze. They believe it was the ghost of Juan Murrieta who lived during the late 1900’s. He was famous for robbing people in that area of the park. My dad started the car and got the hell out of there! My parents were very scared and they were familiar with the legend of Juan Murrieta and never stopped talking about the incident!”

“Ps: The cowboy did have an old style revolver as well!”

Interpretation:

I’d like to note that people often confuse Juan and Joaquin Murrieta, and that my grandpa was almost certainly referring to the latter. I did some research after being told this story, as I hadn’t heard of either figure until now. Juan was a pioneer, whereas Joaquin is a Mexican figure commonly known as the Robin Hood of the West. More specifically, stories about Murrieta rose in California during the Gold Rush. I find it interesting that my great-grandparents claim to have seen Joaquin Murrieta, because they associated something strange with something they already knew about (ghosts), and their knowledge of it is heavily influenced by culture. Even though my family was Mexican-Texan, they had heard enough about this specifically Mexican-Californian legend in the little time that they lived there that they assumed the figure was him. What’s more, this story hints at a combination of folkloric beliefs, as my great-grandparents claim to have seen a kind of undead version of Joaquin Murrieta, who is more of a legend than a popular ghost. There are debates over whether he existed, but stories of seeing him are rarer. But my great-grandparents seem to have believed in ghosts in general, so this memorate only furthered their personal view of the world.

The Witch’s Grave

Text: “As a kid, my parents and elders would tell us not to misbehave or they would take us to the cemetery in the town of Old Mesilla. The town was colonized by the Spanish in the late 1500s, and the indigenous peoples of the land faced heavy persecution from the settlers. There was a woman who was native to the land, and as a form of revenge, she sought to poison one of the men who was settling in her home. The man soon caught on to the woman’s plot, and he accused her of witchcraft and poisoned her himself. The woman died soon after, and the colonizers buried her in an unmarked grave that was covered with an extremely heavy rock. That rock began to crack, and it is believed the woman is trying to escape her grave and seek vengeance against the men who stole her home and killed her. To this day, locals have repaired the tomb with many layers of concrete, but the concrete continues to crack and become more brittle. There is a story from a couple years ago of a teenage girl being dared to lay on top of the large grave, and when she did, she began having a seizure. It is believed that the woman’s spirit possessed the girl, filling her with the same rage the woman had.”

Context: My informant – a 29-year-old man from Las Cruces, New Mexico – told me this story, drawing on the legend he and his siblings and cousins would hear from their parents and elders as children. He explained to me that if he was misbehaving among his family, someone would reprimand him by telling him to act right or else he would be taken to “the witch’s grave.” He had heard the legend as a child from his mother, and it was common knowledge that the area was the burial site of a bruja (witch), so it wasn’t to be neared. My informant explained to me that the last part of the story is the part that scared him and other children the most – the story of a young girl laying on top of the grave and being possessed. If anyone were to get too close to the grave, they would be filled with the spirit of the woman who seeks revenge on anyone who settles on her land, a spirit that is malicious and bound to cause harm to anyone in her path. Playing on the children’s fear of their bodies being inhabited by a witch’s spirit, parents would warn their children to behave or else they would be taken to the grave to be possessed. 

Analysis: When my informant was telling me of this legend, I began to draw parallels between this story and the wider-known legend of La Llorona due to the history of colonization. In “The Politics of Taking: La Llorona in the Cultural Mainstream” by Domino Renee Perez, the author examines the legend of La Llorona, honing in on a specific interpretation of the legend where La Llorona is an indigenous Mexican woman that ends up bearing the children of a Spanish colonizer. After her children are born, he abandons her and her children, and the ensuing grief and rage that comes over her motivates her to kill her children and wander for eternity. Perez stresses that the traditional legend views La Llorona as a figure of resistance to imperialism, and she serves as a reminder of the violence and pain that were inflicted on the indigenous peoples who fell victim to colonization. Yet, in the majority of Western media, La Llorona is portrayed as a mere woman who solely seeks to exact vengeance upon unfaithful men.

After my informant told me of the legend regarding the witch’s grave, I wanted to see if that history of imperialism provides some insight into understanding the witch’s motives in other tellings of the story. While there wasn’t much published on the legend, I came across a blog post that described the same witch’s grave in Mesilla, yet instead of describing her actions as resistance against colonization, it states that she was merely trying to poison a man who instead poisoned her, resulting in her death. I am unsure of who the author of that blog post is, but I found it very interesting to hear the legend from my informant as he provided historical context that doesn’t enshroud the woman with petty vengeance, but instead details her fighting back against the men who stole her home. My informant is an indigenous Mexican, and I believe that the version of the legend that he heard was told to him by members of his culture that share in feeling the collective pain caused by colonization. His version of the legend grants greater insight into the history of his people, and while it may differ from other interpretations, it showcases the unique forms legends can take in order to tell a story that others may not know.

References:

“A Witch’s Grave.” The Scarlet Order, 8 Feb. 2016, https://dlsummers.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/a-witchs-grave/. 

Perez, Domino Renee. “The Politics of Taking: La Llorona in the Cultural Mainstream.” The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 45, No. 1, 153-172. Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 2012. 

Legend – La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student

Text: 

“This is the legend of La Llorona, who is a woman that roams the towns in Mexico searching for her dead children. This story [is set in] old-time Mexico. There lived a family: a husband, a wife, and their two children. The family was happy; the dad worked and the mom stayed home to watch over the children. Somewhere along the way though, there started to be financial difficulties, so when the husband encounters a young and beautiful woman from the next town over and he starts having an affair with her. Unbeknown to his surprise, the mother finds out and rage fills her and ends up clouding her mind. She wants a way to get back at him, but she can’t think of anything. She wants to kill him but she wants to hurt him deeply and that’s when she notices her children. She’s like my children, that’s the one way that will hurt him. She guides them to a river on the pretense that they’re going to go play by the river. While they’re playing in the river, the mother slowly goes into the river and starts telling her children to come with her. The children don’t know that it’s too deep for them and that the current of the river would end up taking the children and drowning them. The children follow their mom since they love her, and they start to realize that they can’t touch the floor. They’re screaming out for their mom like ‘Mom help me.’ She goes over and starts drowning them both. Now that she has drowned them, she starts to realize what she’s done. She realizes she ended up killing both her children and she went crazy, but she still seeks revenge. She goes over to her husband and ends up murdering him. From that moment on, the agony of losing her children has taken over her. It is said that near the rivers in Mexico, there will be a woman who you’ll hear screaming and crying for her children.” 

Context: 

This story was told by one of my roommates. She heard this story from multiple members of her family. She said that this story is passed down from generation to generation. It is a very well-known legend in Mexico, and she said that not a single Latino would not know who La Llorona is.

Analysis: 

This legend is similar to the concept of the boogie man. It’s kind of a way for parents to scare their children into doing something. In America, I think the boogie man is more well-known than La Llorona, but the idea behind the legend is the same. Parents will often say something along the lines of “go to sleep or the boogie man will get you.”  This is similar to La Llorona; parents in Mexico would use this legend as a way to make sure their children would come home before sundown. In a way, this was also a way for parents to keep their children safe from wandering the streets at night. 

Maria Fue Con El Diablo

PP is an 18 year old college student. She is a freshman communications major who’s parents are from Mexico. PP has visited her hometown Tlzazalca in Mexico many times and heard about this legend from her parents.

Context: The informant and I are roommates and I know she has strong ties to her Mexican culture and I asked if she had any folk legends to share as we drank tea on the couch.

Transcript:

PP: In my town, where we live, it’s mostly surrounded by water and rivers. There’s a natural spring where we go for water. But on the other side of town, there’s a huge lake. Supposedly, there was this woman, named Maria I think. She had a few children, maybe 2 or 3, with her husband. He was abusive and treated her horribly. But she stayed with him until this new man came into town. He was attractive, super sweet, a Godly man, and everything you could dream of in a man. She saw him and thought, “Oh my gosh, I like him” and he liked her too. But the thing is he found out that she was in the process of getting a divorce and had already had children. He didn’t like the idea of her having children already because he did not want to raise children that were not his. And so, he told her, “If you want to be with me, you can’t have your children”. She was obsessed with him and would do anything for him because he was perfect, like he was carved from a movie. She still didn’t know where he came from and no one knew who he was. She was surprised by his reaction so she went to church and prayed about it but she somehow fell out with the church and she felt like there was nothing else she could do. One night she was by the river across town and she set up to do satanic rituals to find a way to get rid of her children. As she was doing these rituals, she was speaking to the devil. A few days later she takes her children to the river and drowns them. Then the man finds her there and he says, “You did that all for me?” and he takes her to hell because he was the devil the entire time.

Collector: Wow. Have you been to that lake?

PP: Yeah it’s really scary. It’s horrible and the last time I went to Mexico, we were at a party and it was around 11pm. Right where we live is near a spring of water and we heard something like moaning and decided to ignore it. But who knows what it could have been.

Thoughts/Analysis: There are many variations of stories and legends where a mother sacrifices her children. This one is quite scary though because the devil slowly influenced her. This story and those alike in which they are related to the devil tell folklorists that these folk groups are strongly connected in their faith because the main fear-factor in this legend is not necessarily that Maria drowned her children; it is that the perfect man was actually the devil.

For a variation of this legend, see:

Ryanprod, and Ryanprod. “My Father’s Version of La Llorona.” USC Digital Folklore Archives, November 4, 2021. http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/my-fathers-version-of-la-llorona/.

Los Ninos Heroes de Chapultepec

Nationality: American/Mexican
Age: 20
Occupation: Student

Background: The informant was told this legend by his grandfather. 

Transcript: 

DO: Ok so from what I recall they were basically the child heroes who were stationed at Chapultepec castle to defend it from invaders, and they successfully repelled the invaders at the cost of their lives, and are honored on the back of some Mexican currency. and I heard it from my grandpa when I was young and it was one of the first like times the concept of martyrdom was introduced to me indirectly. They were all slain but the last one wrapped themselves in the Mexican flag to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. I don’t think they actually won but they defended the castle to the very end. Like we know who the winner of the Mexican-American war was. but yeah it’s like a whole not-legend-cuz-it’s-fairly-real type legend. Honor their sacrifice for defending their country until the very end type deal. Slightly fuzzy but yeah that’s what I remember.

My thoughts:

Many times, stories about real people would be commemorated and become a part of the larger culture and serve as a source of unity. This is such a legend created from very real events. As I have spent my own childhood hearing stories about Chinese heroes and people who defended and served the country, I sometimes can’t help but feel conflicted by stories of martyrdom and fighting for one’s nation. Though the stories I grew up with mostly served as a way to indoctrinate children into the ideals supported by the Chinese government, I feel that this is very different. Mostly in the sense that the stories I heard came from schools and government supervised media, while this one came from the Informant’s family members. Overall, it is a praiseworthy story that would solidify one’s identity and values especially given the context of the Mexican-American war.