La Llorona is a legend that began around the 1550s.
It has been told to children by older ones for hundreds of years. Her real name is Maria. There are some who believe it to be true, but whether they believe or nor not it still remains in memories of many people. There are different stories about the La Llorona; here is someone that believes it’s true. La Llororna as told by Stephanie Cassias is said to be a southwestern folktale. The legend is said to be about as young Native American women named Maria. One day a man came riding into town she lived and ended up marrying the women. Cassias say, “ She had two children or maybe three”.
Maria’s husband one day left her and got all crazy. She was so angry she got her children and put them in a bag, took them to the river and drowned them to let all anger out. But after a few moments later she realized what she did and cried that she wanted her children. Then people from the city came and saw her dead. They buried at the same spot where she died and drowned her children. Then when she died they still here her yells say where my children are. So in my opinion I think that the Llorona is real. Long ago, when Venezuela was still a part of Spain, a poor “ mestiza” named Maria, De La Trinidad lived in a shanty near Lake Maraca Ibo.
The only means she had to support herself and her toddler son was by washing clothes at the edge of the lake. Every day she would arise before dawn, lift her son to her back, and wrap her shawl around them both, and then she would place the heavy basket of clean clothes on her head and set out to exchange them for more dirty clothes to wash. The meager pay she received was barely enough to keep the two of them alive. Often, to eke out their wretched diet of rice and bits of fish, she would set her son alongside the path to beg food from passerby. Eventually, the crying began. Many people began to report odd and strange happenings.
A shadowy figure glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Some even swore they heard a child cry, but then, they were the mothers who had left a hungry child at home while they gossiped. Even ghostly phenomena become commonplace after awhile. The good people grew accustomed to them and rather routinely ignored them, even while acknowledging them. That is until the day that Maria Teresa saw something more concrete than a wisp of smoke. She was sitting under her kitchen arbor, shelling corn, when a movement down the trail caught her eye. She stared at the still shadowy figure of a woman walking towards her.
Maria Teresa felt a cold hand clamp over her heart, this was not one of her neighbors, but a stranger. Despite the tendrils of dread that curled within her, Maria Teresa felt curiously drawn to that figure that ever so slowly came onwards. Now she could see that the woman clasped a bundle to her chest, and she could faintly hear the sounds of sobs. Another’s heart always beats in syncope with another mother’s heart. Maria Teresa put her tray of shelled corn aside and turned to the fire, stirring the coals under the pot of black coffee, and reaching for a cup.
The nameless woman, still sobbing and with tears coursing down her dusty cheeks, stood just outside the shade of the arbor. Maria Teresa extended her hand, offering her a cup of coffee and asking if she were hungry. No answer came from the woman except for a slight bowing of the head. As she prepared a bit of fried fish and cold corn cake, Maria Teresa tried to see past the wrappings of the bundle in the woman’s arms.
Not even a stirring of the covers. She pulled a stool close to hers and indicated that the woman should sit. A loud sigh seemed to waft through the air. The woman sat, still tightly holding her burden. With one hand she took the bit of food and ravenously crammed it into her mouth (Rodriguez 3 and 4). Then the coffee gulping it even though it must surely burned her.
Her tears still flowed, following the paths etched by countless other bitter burning tears. Maria Teresa, normally a gossipy cheerful woman, could find no words adequate enough in the face of such great sorrow. She could only sit there, her own tears welling up. It seemed like an eternity that they stayed there, these two women. But it was only the time it takes a desperately hungry person to consume the morsels offered them. Another loud sigh and a low wail, and the woman stood (Phillip 118). She turned to go, but as if in response to Maria Teresa’s silent questions, she turned back and slowly pulled the soiled wrappings apart.
Holding her bundle towards Maria Teresa, the woman pulled the final piece of cloth away, and there within lay her son. Her son! Maria Teresa’s mind reeled and she grew weak. For that creature within was indeed a child, but a child aged by an eternity of hell. Its small head was covered in long matted gray hair, and it’s silent, dead face was partially obscured by an even longer gray beard that became lost within the wrappings of its shroud. A long screaming, keening cry echoed through the silent afternoon, and the woman seemed to dissolve in the heat and dust. Only the echoes of her laments lingered to torment the souls of the good folk of the village (Rodriguez 4). The revenants of La Llorona and her child were never seen again in that village, except as brief shadows. Her laments were still heard from time to time, echoing in the moonlight or shrilling as loudly as the cicadas in the hot afternoons.
The people heard her, but no longer feared her. They could only sigh, as they lit a candle and whispered a prayer or two for her eternally damned soul. I think this is interesting and it’s very true that she is true.