Tag Archives: Mexico

Las Lechuzas

Age: 20

Folk Narrative: Legend

Text: Las Lechuzas (The White Owls)

“In my grandma’s pueblito in Guerrero, she was told that the lechuzas, or the white owls, would swoop up disobedient or unbaptized children who were out at night. The lechuzas would appear with the face of an old woman and were believed to be a witch who sold her soul to the Devil. They always appear outside the home looking in, on the rooftop, or in a tree. It is believed that if you harm or kill a lechuza, it can transform her back into a woman. It is also believed that if you pray for her, she will return to her human form. It is also believed that if it lands on your roof, it means somebody in your family will die”. 

Context: When asked, my informant told me she first heard this narrative from her grandmother, who grew up in a small town in Guerrero, Mexico. She told me this is a prevalent narrative in her grandmother’s village, and all the community knows how to look out for the white owls. My informant’s grandmother still believes in this legend and gets visibly scared when she sees a lechuza outside at night or close to landing on her roof. She believes that there is a rule of three where if the lechuza lands on her roof, three of her family members will die. Because of this belief, she does whatever she can to stop them from landing. My informant mentioned that when she visited her grandmother, she was not allowed outside at night, just as her grandmother had not been allowed outside when she was younger. It is something that the whole town is aware of, and there have been stories of rebellious children who went out at night and never came back. The entire community is superstitious, and because it’s what they’re used to and weren’t told otherwise, they keep believing it. When asked how she interprets this, my informant mentioned that it is a way to keep children inside during nighttime so they stay out of trouble. The place that she grew up in was known for gang violence, kidnapping, and organ harvesting, so if they scare children into staying inside, they protect them from the potential dangers outside. 

Analysis: Looking at this narrative, we can see a typical legend structure. It is set in the real world (Mexico), and its truth value depends on those telling the story and those who choose to be wary or stay inside when they see a white owl. Additionally, legends tend to reflect the concerns of the people, which in this case was the criminality that the town was facing at that time. To protect their children’s health and innocence, they rely on these legends to keep them inside the house. This legend also ties into religious beliefs in the Devil, and it gets translated into a supernatural being– an introduction to Catholic cosmology with ideas of good versus evil, punishment, and redemption by being able to turn humans again. The story’s strength lies in its collective belief and behavioral impact: the grandmother, the informant, and the wider community recognize the lechuza as a dangerous entity. This community-wide buy-in transforms the tale into a functioning legend—it is not merely a scary story. Still, one that guides behavior, reinforces norms, and protects the vulnerable. Here, the supernatural story masks very real and present dangers: gang violence, kidnapping, and organ trafficking. By embedding these concerns within a mystical framework, the legend transforms fear into a tangible creature—something children can understand and avoid. In this way, the legend functions as a form of social control and protection, allowing older generations to encode safety messages into the oral tradition. Also, the multiple interpretations of the legend, such as the rule of three or praying to turn her human, make it continuously evolving and adapting to the person telling it. 

Devil’s Foot 

Age: 20

Folk Narrative: Legend 

Text: Devil’s foot 

“My mom told me that her grandpa would go to the clubs very late at night and early in the morning, which would worry his mother-in-law because he would be drunk and careless. On one particular night, he came back home very late and drunk, and when he was about to pass out, he saw a woman in the corner of his room dancing alone. He figured he couldn’t leave her dancing alone, so he got up to dance with her. After a while, he saw that one of her legs was a hoof and appeared to be the Devil’s foot. After this, he ran to his mother and told her he was sorry and would never go clubbing again and became sober after that”. 

Context: My informant first heard this story from her mother, who told it to her various times. The story runs in the family, and everyone believes it true. She also mentioned that on her father’s side of the family, there is a similar story with her uncle, who also saw the Devil after drinking. When I asked my informant how she interprets this story, she said she sees it as a warning or a way to tell kids not to become avid drinkers or act out. She grew up in a Catholic Mexican family with a strong traditional belief system. She thinks this story is a way that her older family members instill fear from a young age, so it will encourage obedience and prevent the kids from worrying their parents, as these other male family members worried their mothers. My informant mentioned that she believes if a person is out there causing worry and harm to their own family, then it is only a matter of time until they see little death or the Devil in front of them. 

Analysis: This folk narrative holds specific characteristics of a legend, such as being believed to be true in this world and having happened to someone in the family. The appearance of a woman with a Devil’s hoof is supernatural, but still presented as an actual warning event rather than a symbolic myth.  Legends often convey the values or anxieties of a culture. In this case, the story warns against excessive drinking, nightlife, disobedience to family values, and reckless behavior, using the Devil as a cautionary figure. He acts as a supernatural enforcer of morality, punishing those who stray too far from accepted behavior. The moral outcome of the story—the man sobering up and repenting—demonstrates how the legend operates as a behavioral warning, particularly for younger generations. This legend may be part of a tradition in Latinx and Catholic communities where the Devil often appears as a figure of temptation and punishment, reflecting religious influences on folk beliefs. The horror of seeing a Devil-woman after a night of recklessness becomes a powerful deterrent, using fear to teach moral lessons and protect family unity. This legend is familial or local and reflects the family values of that particular group. Perhaps these qualities are not a cause for concern for other families and cultures. The repetition of similar stories across both the mother’s and father’s sides of the family shows how this legend functions communally, passed down as a cautionary tale to enforce norms of obedience, sobriety, and familial responsibility. In this case, their upbringing and beliefs influence what they choose to warn against through their legends.

Aunt’s Ghost Story about Sleeping Boy

Details

  • collected on 03/23/2024
  • Genre: Memorate
  • Language: English
  • Nationality: Mexican-American
  • Relationship to Informant: Friend
  1. Text 
    1. Summary: 
      1. The Informant’s aunt grew up in rural Mexico with a big family. One night, she woke up because she felt someone in her bed. When she opened her eyes, she saw a little boy sleeping next to her and assumed it was her little brother. In the morning, she noticed her little brother sleeping in his own room and wearing different clothing. When she asked her brother why he slept in her bed, he told her that he hadn’t done that. 
    2. Direct transcription of folklore:
      1. “So, my aunt Liz (pretty sure this was Liz) was 15 and they were living in this old house in the middle of the country. One morning – actually the middle of the night – she woke up because she felt someone in her bed. So she woke up and turned around, and it was a little boy. At first, she was like ‘what the h***’ because my dad’s family has three boys and two girls. So, at first she was like, ‘Oh, George, what are you doing here?’ Then she really looked at him, and she was like ‘oh my God, that’s not George.’ I can’t remember if she like went back to sleep …. no, no, no … Okay, so what happened was she saw the boy and she was like ‘oh, it’s George’ because the little boy had his back turned to her. So then she fell asleep and woke up. Then she went and saw that George was sleeping in his own bed. He was also wearing something completely different than the boy she saw that night. So she was like ‘what happened last night? Why did you come sleep in my bed?’ and he was like ‘I didn’t, I was here the whole night.’”
  2. Context 
    1. Informant is a USC student in her early 20s who was born and raised in the Sacramento Valley. This ghost story was told to her by her aunt, and it has become an oral tradition in her family. 
  3. Analysis 
    1. The ghost in this story is a little boy who sleeps in a young girl’s bed. Since the boy is very peaceful and doesn’t intend to scare her, it can be seen as an innocent soul looking for a family connection. This suggests cultural values of family and community acceptance. It also suggests the perspective that ghosts can be non-harmful, which indicates an open mind to the spiritual world. 

La Llorona

  1. Details
    1. Collected on 03/23/2024 
    2. Genre: Legend
    3. Language: English 
    4. Nationality: Mexican
    5. Relationship to Informant: Friend’s Father 
  2. Text
    1. Summary
      1. The informant’s mother told him a version of the La Llorona legend where there was a woman who lived her life in torment after her children fell into the river and died. 
    2. Direct transcription of folklore:
      1. “You are going into my memory banks here, but my mother used to tell us about this woman who was very afflicted because her children had drowned in the river. And you could hear her wailing ‘ah mis hijos’ – oh, my children. So, it was almost a tale my mom would tell us so not to do dangerous things because she would be forever depressed. It wasn’t so much that this was an evil person that did something bad because I think La Llorona – the original one – drowned her children. In the version my mom would tell us, the children fell into the river and drowned. So, she would wail forever for her children.”
  3. Context 
      1. The informant is the father of my friend. He grew up in a small town in Mexico. This story was told to the informant by his mother when he was a child. 
  4. Analysis 
      1. This oikotype of the La Llorona legend portrays the woman as a grieving mother who lost her children. This legend was told by a mother to her children to prevent them from risking their lives by doing dangerous things. This legend tells the children that if they aren’t careful, they can cause their mother to mourn for the rest of her life. 

Cousin’s Ghost Story in Cemetery

  1. Details
    1. Collected on 03/23/2024 
    2. Genre: Memorate 
    3. Language: English 
    4. Nationality: Mexican-American
    5. Relationship to Informant: Friend’s Younger Sister 
  2. Text
    1. Summary
      1. The informant’s cousin told her this ghost story about when he and a group of his friends decided to use a Ouija board in a cemetery in Mexico. One boy asked the Ouija board when he was going to die, and the Ouija board responded “soon.” A little while after, he begins to cry uncontrollably, and he starts walking away from the group. The informant’s cousin runs after him, but when he grab’s his friend he sees that he has no face. The friend snaps out of it, but has no memory of crying or walking away. They return to the group, and the other boys ask who they were talking to because they saw a third figure standing with the group. The cousin and his friend have no idea what they are talking about because they thought it was just the two of them. They decide to leave, but the boy who asked when he would die began having awful nightmares. About one month later, that boy commits suicide. 
    2. Direct transcription of folklore:
      1. “So, this was told to us by our cousin on our mother’s side. Essentially, somewhere in Mexico they would go there with a couple friends every now and then to just hang out at the cemetery to spook each other out. One time, they invited girls because they wanted to scare the girls. So, they are there and it’s pretty late at night. They decide to pull out a Ouija board because they want to scare these girls. They had essentially already been hearing some spooky sounds in this cemetery, so the girls were already kind of spooked. They start doing the Ouija board, and it starts moving, and they are like ‘oh my gosh it’s actually moving.’ So, the girls are spooked, and they are like ‘we are actually going to leave…like this isn’t fun for us.’ So they leave, and the guys stay, and they are like ‘haha this is so funny bla bla bla bla bla.’ At some point, one of the friends – we will call him Rob – asks the Ouija board when he is going to die. The only thing the Ouija board says is ‘soon.’ So, everyone is like ‘ah, this is so scary … yada yada yada.’ But whatever, they keep playing because obviously they think it is more of a joke. At some point, the friend who asked that question starts uncontrollably crying. Everyone is like ‘what the h***?’ And Rob gets up, and he starts walking away. So, everyone’s like ‘oh maybe he is going to do something, who knows.’ So, two of the friends get up and they start walking over. The guy is walking pretty quickly, so they have to catch up. So, our cousin is the one that catches up to him and the other friend that was with him kind of like gives up. And he goes to talk to him and be like ‘hey man what’s up?’ and he turns him around and he has no face. And so then he freaks out and gets really spooked. Then Rob turns back around and then like turns again and then his face is back to normal. Rob is just like ‘oh my God, what’s going on’ and our cousin is freaking out that it was just in his head. So he’s like, ‘you just started crying’ and Rob remembers nothing of this. He doesn’t even remember how he got over there. So, they start walking back together kind of freaked out about the whole situation. When they catch up to the friend that started following but then kind of gave up and he was like ‘who was that guy that you guys were talking to?’ and they’re like ‘what guy?’ he’s like ‘there was a guy over there with you guys who was talking to you guys.’ They had no idea what happened, and decided to go home. As it turns out, Rob commits suicide a month later. Apparently, he was also plagued by nightmares that started right after that night in the graveyard.”
    3. Context 
      1. The informant is a young woman in her early 20s who attends UCSB. This story was told to the informant by an older cousin on her mother’s side. It has become a family story, but it is told with a serious tone because it deals with serious topics. 
    4. Analysis 
      1. This story deals with scary subjects such as death and suicide, so it serves as a warning for young people to not mess with the spiritual world. The boy who asked the spirits when he would die ended up taking his own life, which tells the audience not to see death and ghosts as a joking matter because it can have real consequences. The ‘third figure’ that the friends saw is assumed to be the devil, or at least a spirit figure with very harmful intentions. “Spirits may appear in order to reinforce social norms, proper behavior, and traditional customs.” (Valk, 33) In this case, the spirits appear to reinforce proper behavior. Overall, this memorate is used to instruct others not to instigate contact with the devil or the spiritual world. It also tells listeners to take things seriously, because what started out as a joke ended up as a terrible experience with permanent harm.