La Llorona Research Paper

La Llorona: A Story for All Cultures Mexico is a country with a beautiful history of growth, conquest, war, and finally independence. Within Mexico there is a rich heritage of oral histories being passed down through generations. These oral histories are sometimes in the form of a stories or legends of great historical characters that may or may not have existed. These characters usually connect to the actual histories of Mexico in some way. The people do this as a way of passing on their histories and traditions in a way that allows children to learn the moral of the legend and live their lives avoiding making similar mistakes. Most of the time these legends tend to be so prominent in the lives of the everyday Mexican, that they expand outside

It is easy to encounter at least one legend that is very similar to the story of La Llorona in almost every civilizations mythology. Crying women and women suffering from loss play a very important role in the historical legends of the world and in personifying the grief that a civilization felt through conquest processes. One example of this is the African folktale of Crying Wind. This folklore originated in Dahomey and Togoland in Africa but was later brought to the Americas through the slave trade. This story is an explanation of the way the wind howls by saying that it is, “a wailing goddess that roams the waterways in search of her murdered children. They were drowned by the ocean, who is also a goddess, and scattered throughout the world. The wind fights desperately with the water trying to retrieve her lost children” (De Aragon, 1980, pg.3). This story is very similar to the telling of La Llorona because it speaks of a woman stuck forever mourning her lost children and wailing for their return. Another story that is much closer to the origin of La Llorona is the ancient Aztec story of Cihuacoatl. This story tells of a “weeping goddess” who, “...would capture infants from their cradles, and after killing them would roam the streets of Tenochtitlan at night with a mournful wail, foreshadowing wars and misery” (De Aragon, 1980, pg.4) To the Aztecs, the story of La Llorona was so powerful that they made her into a goddess. Many civilizations use this story as a means of explaining natural events as well as an omen that foreshadows the terrible things that are to