Tag Archives: spanish

La Llarona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 23, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

INFORMANT: “So, La Llarona, sometimes in English it’s referred to as “the Woman in White,” and basically it’s a story about a woman who, um, was in love with a man but he didn’t love her back so it was unrequited love, so she drowned her two children in the river in order to be with the man that she loved, but he didn’t want to be with her. So after being refused by him, she then drowned herself in a river in Mexico City. And so, basically with the whole heaven and hell aspect of life, she’s kind of stuck in the in-between, and she kind of wanders around at night in Mexico City, so today a lot of parents use this story as a way to keep their kids from wandering out at night. Or else La Llarona will come and kidnap them. Basically she is said to appear at night around rivers in Mexico, and that’s it. I heard about it in Spanish class and then I went home and asked my mom about it, and she was like ‘oh, yeah.'”

COLLECTOR (myself): “How did your mom learn the story?”

INFORMANT: “I think growing up. It’s a traditional Mexican story that a lot of Mexican parents will tell their kids growing up.”

—

This legend appears to be a Mexican story within the widespread genre of ‘legends parents tell their children to keep them in line.’ This breed of legend seems to exist in almost every culture – I suppose childrens’ fear of the supernatural is culturally ubiquitous, because they’re more compelled to obey their parents if there’s a supernatural risk involved.

This story was also an interesting case because my friend Taylor is Mexican-American but not very in touch with Mexican culture. She told me that she felt her mother purposely tried to separate her from her Mexican heritage, so she was never told this story as a child, even though her grandmother told it to her mother. In fact, Taylor didn’t hear about the legend until she read about it in Spanish class. On a related note, Taylor did not know Spanish until she took classes in school, another point that makes her feel alienated from her heritage.

ANNOTATION: Several films have been made about the legend of La Llarona, including the Mexican movie La Llarona (1960) and Her Cry: La Llarona Investigation (2013).

“El Mano Peluda”

Nationality: Columbian/American
Age: 18-22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 19th, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Information about the Informant

My informant is an undergraduate student majoring in Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is half-Columbian and was raised in the Jehovah’s Witnesses Christian denomination.

Transcript

“It’s called, um, ‘El Mano Peluda [sic?],’ and that’s supposed to mean ‘The Hairy Hand.’ And, um, I think that was so I wouldn’t get up at night, or, like, move around or make too much noise. But basically, um, when you’re sleeping, this hairy hand would come in through the windows or through the vents or something.”

Collector: “Just a hand?”

“It’s just a hairy hand. That’s it. Um, and I actually Googled it. Apparently, it’s some guy had his hand cut off during the Inquisition and he revenged–he said he would get revenge on the people who were the culture that killed him. So, um, the hand would come out of its grave and it would grab children or it would grab their legs from either under the bed or it would crawl up their blanket. It was just really scary. Um, and yeah, occasionally my mom would  use it as kind of like a, um, you know when you rile up little kids, you say something like ‘The hand’s coming, the hand’s coming,’ and she’d grab my leg and I’d go like, ‘Oh my god!'”

Analysis

This, unlike the other stories this informant told me, does not seem to be a case where the parent scares the child in order to get them to behave, but is more of a ghost story with purpose of entertaining/scaring rather than coercing. This story does give the figure in it a backstory, according to my informant’s research, which also supports its position as more of a ghost story than a story to get children to behave with. The strange part of this is the commonality of the concept of a “hairy hand,” with disembodied hand stories all over the world constantly needing the hand to also be hairy. This is possibly a remnant of the historical theory that criminals were closer to our purported ape ancestors and thus displayed features that are more akin to those of primates, including excessive body hair.

For another “hairy hand” story, see:

Gilbert, Jane . “Letterboxing on Dartmoor: An Addictive Pastime… for the Brave!”. Time Travel-Britain. Web. 01 May. 2014. <http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/country/dartmoor.shtml>.

Guatemalan Proverbs

Nationality: Guatemalan
Age: 60s
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Southern CA
Performance Date: 2/03/14
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Context: The informant is a grandmother in her 60s, originally from Guatemala, but now lives with her family in Southern California and works as a home-health nurse. When asked some of her favorite proverbios (proverbs), she gave me the following examples and attempted to translate them for her American audience (me). I also looked up the proverbs online for further clarification and explanation. The results are below.

  • Porque te quiero, te aporreo: Literal translation is “Because I love you, I hit you.” Seems to be a cultural explanation or excuse for spanking or other corporal punishment, similar to the old saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” In online discussions, teh general consensus seems to be that it is (or used to be) a parent’s job to correct bad behavior and promote good behavior by any means necessary, so that beating was an accepted way to discipline your child and ensure they became good, moral adults.
  • Salir de Guatemala y entrar en guatepeor: This was the most interesting proverb to me, because it is both a proverb and a pun. The meaning is something like, leaving one bad situation and entering an even worse one–like “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” But the pun part comes from the name Guatemala, where mala means ‘bad’, and guatepeor, where peor means ‘worse’. So the proverb is literally saying, going from bad to worse, but it does so through by locating the concept in a Spanish-speaking country that, presumably, most of the Spanish-speaking world would know of and therefore have some preconceived notion of.
  • El perro que ladra no muerde: The dog that barks does not bite. Seems to be similar to the American/English saying that some(one/thing)’s bark is worse than its bite, in that they may put on an intimidating show and seem very formidable, but really they’re harmless or nothing to worry about.

Analysis: I think it is quite interesting that these proverbs are all very similar to ones that I know in English, either the general content/concept of them, or the exact wording of the phrases. This makes me wonder whether these proverbs originated in either English or Spanish and then were translated for that language group; or perhaps they came to both languages around a similar time period and from the same source (is Latin too pretentious a guess?) (one source claims that the “frying pan into the fire” saying and its many European variations is ultimately derived from an ancient Greek saying. however, the Guatemala/guatepeor saying seems to be uniquely for a Spanish-speaking audience, based on its unique play on words, so it is possible that the sayings evolved independently.)

Monkey in Silk Proverb

Nationality: Peruvian
Age: 62
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish

“Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda.”

Trans: A monkey in silk is a monkey no less

This proverb is one frequently mentioned by my mother and in Lima, in general. The interesting thing is that it is used to convey a slightly different (somewhat racist) message than its English equivalent. In the English proverb, the meaning is that a person’s worth is determined by who they are inside, not by what they’re wearing. In their words, appearances can be deceiving. In the Peruvian sense, however, this proverb is used to denigrate the “new money” class, the rapidly growing middle and upper middle class composed of indigenous people. Since these people are frequently self-starters who come from poor backgrounds and have no social graces or taste, they are ridiculed by the European class with sayings like these that denote that in spite of their new wealth and position, these “cholos” are still the same illiterate farmers (and should be treated as such).

En el Cerro

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 78
Occupation: Home maker
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish

 

Material (In Spanish)

Bueno esta es una historia de una pareja que eran muy pobres y vivían en un en un digamos en un cerro solo ahí tenían su casa un iglito y entonces el señor dijo esa ves sabes esposa mía me voy me voy a ir a los estados unidos a trabajar y tú te estás aquí pues si se fue, se fue el señor. Entonces ella vivía sola con su niño y ya con sus llaves se enseraba en la noche y ya pues un día entonces su su señor no le fue tan-le fue bien y le mando su dinerito y lo fue a sacar al correo y entonces alguien la vio que andaba sacando dinero del correo y como estaba sola en la aldea en el cerro donde vivía, en la noche fue alguien y quiso escarbar, tumbar la casa era de adobe y la quiso tumbar para entrar a serle daño a ella y quitarle su dinero…y entonces ella….ella pensó como le hago entonces se acordó que tenía una hacha con que cortaba leña pa su lumbre y dice me voy prevenir cuando cuando este señor entre o la persona que sea entre quiera entrar va entrar de cabeza y yo le voy a dar un hachazo entonces le escarbo le escarbo y estuvo lista y entonces ya cuando cuando quiso ya entrar el señor ella agarro el hacha y le dio el hachazo  entonces ella ahí lo dejo entonces ella se fue a la cuidad a reportar a la a la autoridades que le dijo hice hice mate a este cristiano en defensa propia ahí estaba en mi case de mi casa y vengo y entonces a la señora no la detuvieron ni nada lo que si la sacaron de ahí de ese lugar y la llevaron a y le llevaron y le compraron una casa y la sacaron de ahí porque ahí estaba en peligro… y al señor se le lo llevaron pues si a sepultar pero a ella no le echaron causa porque ella estaba en defensa propia en su casa y así termino la historia.        

Translation

Well this is a story about a couple that were very poor and they lived in well let’s say in the woods where they only had their house and then the husband told his wife one time I am going to the United States to work and you will stay here and so he left, the husband left. Then she lived on her own with her son and with her keys that she locked herself inside the house at night; and then one day it went well for her husband and sent her some money so she went to the post office to pick it up and then someone saw her taking out the money and because she was alone in the woods where she lived someone went at night and wanted to dig their way into the brick house and wanted to take down the house so they could harm her and take her money…and then she…she thought what do I do, until she remembered that she had an axe that was used to cut wood for her fire and then she thought how am I going to protect myself when the, when the guy or whoever it is gets in, that person would want to enter head first and then  I will cut his head off so he dug and dug and she was ready and then when when he wanted to enter she grabbed her axe and cut his head off then she left him there and went to the city to report to the authorities that she had killed a Christian man in self-defense and that he was at her house, they did not withhold her instead they took her out of there and bought her a new house because she was in danger….and to the man they took him to bury him but she was not at fault because she was acting out of self-defense and that is where the story ends.

Context

This story/legend is usually told by the elders to the young adults.

Informant Analysis

The informant was told this story when she was 17 years old by several older people. According to my informant this tale was told to people as they were growing up as a way to tell them of the rights they had. She views this as a caution tale for what might happen and what should be done if an occurrence like this does happen.

My informant grew up in Mexico and lived in the ranch for a while with her husband and her kids. She immigrated to the United States with her husband in the year 1973. She is now a widow who lives with one daughter and son and his family. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She is a natural performer.

Analysis from Collector

I think this is an interesting legend because I have never heard one like this, that deals with the rights people have. My informant told me that I am the first person she has told the story to since she heard it. I assume this is because in the 1950s in Mexico, many people were not aware of the legal rights they had especially in the rural areas in which information was a lot harder to come by. They would tell this story as a means to communicate the legal rights they had. Being in the United States and in this time and age most, if not all, people know about their rights so I believe she did not bother to tell others this legend because they already know about their legal rights. It is fascinating to think that information was spread through stories and legends told by the people. It is also interesting to see that even if the legend has been retold many times, the main principle of the story is still fully understood.