User:Kwailes17/La Llorona

Mythology[edit]
The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named Maria marries a rich ranchero / conquistador with whom she bears two children. One day, Maria sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt, she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife forced to be purgatory and roam the earth until she finds her children. In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father can not take them away to be raised by a women he is arranged to marry in spain. Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include white dresses, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.

Origins[edit]
The legend of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Hispanic America, including Mexico, Central and South America. La Llorona is sometimes conflated with La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as Hernán Cortés' interpreter and also bore his son. La Malinche is considered both the mother of the modern Mexican people and a symbol of national treachery for her role in aiding the Spanish.

Stories of weeping female phantoms are common in the folklore of both Iberian and Amerindian cultures. Scholars have pointed out similarities between La Llorona and the Cihuacōātl of Aztec mythology, as well as Eve and Lilith of Hebrew mythology. Author Ben Radford's investigation into the legend of La Llorona, published in Mysterious New Mexico, found common elements of the story in a German folktale dating from 1486. La Llorona also bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek tale of the demigoddess Lamia, in which Hera, Zeus' wife, learned of his affair with Lamia and killed all the children Lamia had with Zeus. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia kills other women's children.

The Florentine Codex is an important text that originated in late Mexico in 1519 quoted, “The sixth omen was that many times a woman would be heard going along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, “Oh my children, we are about to go forever.” Sometimes she said, “Oh my children, where am I to take you?”

While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic, the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio. The poem makes no reference to infanticide, rather La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Rosalia who was murdered by her husband.

Mythology
La Llorona is the subject of cultural folklore most commonly known in Mexico and the Southwestern region of the United States, though similar tales are seen throughout Latin America. The earliest accounts of a La Llorona sighting dates back to Mexico City in 1550, during the region’s colonial era. Some academics theorize that the symbolism of La Llorona predates Hispanic America, originating with the imagery of certain Aztec goddesses, such as Cihuacōātl, who is associated with motherhood. The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named Maria marries a rich ranchero with whom she bears two children. One day, Maria sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt, she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife without her children. In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father can not take them away to be raised by his wife. Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include white dresses, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.

The mother archetype of La Llorona has been tied to patriarchal expectations of women in Mexican and Mexican-American culture by several authors, historians, and social critics. Social critics often consider Mexican (and Mexican-American) culture to enforce patriarchal standards unto women, such as being defined by their roles as mothers. La Llorona’s falling into the trope of an “evil” or “failed” mother, having either committed infanticide or having failed to save them from drowning, can be considered a reflection of this.

Lore Evolution
Early colonial texts provide evidence that the lore is pre-Hispanic, originating in the central highlands, however La Llorona is most commonly associated with the colonial era and the dynamic between Spanish conquistadors and indigenous women. The most common lore about La Llorona includes her initially being an Indigenous woman who murdered her own children, which she bore from a wealthy Spaniard, after he abandoned her. The villainous qualities of La Llorona, including infanticide and the murdering of one’s own blood is assumed to be connected to the narrative surrounding Dona Marina, also known as La Malinche, or Maltinzin in her original nomenclature. Today, the lore of La Llorona is well known in Mexico and the Southwestern United States.

Ancient Mexican Origins
The earliest documentation of La Llorona is traced back to 1550 in Mexico City, though there are theories that her story can be connected to specific mythologies of the Aztecs, including some creation stories. The Aztec creation myth of “The Hungry Woman” includes a wailing woman constantly crying for food, which has been compared to La Llorona’s signature nocturnal wailing for her children. The motherly nature of La Llorona’s tragedy has also been compared to Chihuacoatl, an Aztec goddess who was considered a deity of motherhood. Her seeking of children to keep for herself is also significantly compared to that of Coatlicue, known as “Our Lady Mother” or Tonantsi (who is also comparable to the Virgen de Guadalupe, another significant mother figure in Mexican-culture), who is also a monster that devours filth or sin.