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So Supernatural
REVISITING: La Llorona
00:34:57
La Llorona—a haunting figure from Latin folklore—is said to be a ghostly spirit who wanders rivers and waterways, searching for her lost children. With her mournful cries and chilling presence, La Llorona serves as a cautionary tale of maternal love, loss, and the consequences of betrayal. But some believe “The Weeping Woman” is very real and very threatening…
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Some cases fade from headlines, some never
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made it there to begin with. I'm Ashley Flowers and on my podcast the Deck, I tell you the stories
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of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice.
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Because these stories deserve to be heard
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and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers.
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Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to the Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. By now, we've covered a lot of spooky topics on this show. Things that keep us up at night, that have defied physics and what we understand as logic, that have completely changed the way we see the universe. Every single one of these stories has left a deep impact on us. Not just because they deserve to be told, but because but to be believed. Because for many people these stories are their reality, their truth. However, there's one that stands out amongst the rest. One that manages to creep into our nightmares and our conversations whenever we talk about the supernatural. Maybe because it's one we can relate to on a deeper level. The story of La Llorona I think
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we all know by now, but La Llorona is one of my absolute favorite episodes we have ever recorded. Not only did we have extended family who grew up knowing about the legend, but I actually realized I had spent time in Xochimilco in Mexico back way back in the year 2000. Like right when 1999 was turning into 2020and it was Y2K. Yvette and mom were so afraid for me to go, but we were. I live to tell the Tale. And Sol Chimilco is actually where the legend of La Llorona truly began. I didn't connect the dots until after our La Llorona episode came out. When I looked at old photos and I talked more to our ohana, especially Jessica, and she confirmed all of my memories during that time in my life.
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It was.
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It was absolutely mind boggling to me that I had actually been there when I was very young.
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I know I remember that really well. But for me, I discovered a similar legend exists in the Philippines. And she's called the White Lady. And this really surprised me because I thought she only appeared in Latin folklore. And I have a feeling we will be doing an episode on the legend of the White lady in the future. So stay tuned, y', all, which is
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why Yvette and I want to play this episode back for you to share with you. A classic that's not only woven into Mexican and Latin culture and folklore, but has haunted families for generations. And it continues to this day. So turn down the lights, climb under a blanket, and get comfortable, because the story of La Llorona is not for the faint of heart. I'm Racha Pecorero.
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I'm Yvette Gentile.
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And today we're going to let La Llorona's cries echo through the dark one more time. Welcome back to so Supernatural. As a kid, the world can feel so magical and so scary at the same time. Like it's full of all these mystical, legendary creatures that will reward you if you're good or punish you if you're bad. You know, behave, or Santa Claus won't bring you any Christmas presents. Eat your vegetables or the boogeyman will come for you in the night.
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Or for me, it was the Candyman. I remember my friends would try to get me to stand in front of a mirror and say his name five times. And I was like, nope, no freaking way. I am not doing that. But for misbehaving children growing up in Latin America, there's one legend that stands out from all the rest. Almost every family knows about her, and everyone agrees she's terrifying no matter how old you are. And her name is La Llorona, which
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in English literally translates to the weeping woman. She's said to dress in either all white or all black. And she wears a rebozo, which is a scarf like garment, almost like a shawl. That's very popular in Mexican culture.
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But if you get a good look at the weeping woman from behind, you might notice something under her dress and scarf. Something jagged and Bumpy, sticking out of her back. Legend has it those are the bones of La Llorona's victims fused into her spine.
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And that she wanders around shouting in Spanish speaking, saying things like, mi hijos, mi hijos. Donde estan mi hijos? Or my sons, my sons. Where are my sons? It's so creepy and eerie, but it makes sense when we dive into legends about who she is and where she comes from. And yes, that's legends, plural.
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Because while there are a lot of different accounts about how the weeping woman got her start, there are some common themes in each origin story. One story about La Llorona almost reads like a fairy tale, except for when you get to the ending, of course. We don't know when it takes place or where, aside from the fact that it was in Mexico a very long, long time ago. In this story, La Llorona began her life as a woman named Maria. She was a married mother of two, and she was said to be the most beautiful woman in her entire village. Men would flock to her, so she was used to getting that constant attention from them. She enjoyed it so much that she kept dating different guys, even after she was married. One day, while her husband was away, she sent her two sons outside to play while she met up with a secret lover. Maria was completely distracted with her partner, and it was during that time her boys ran off to a nearby river. No one was watching when they fell into the water, and tragically, both boys drowned.
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Once her lover left, Maria opened the door to call her boys home for dinner. When neither one came running back, she began to panic. Maria started searching everywhere for them. Her yard, the neighbor's house, literally all over her town. But there was no sign of them. And all Maria knew for sure was that something terrible must have happened.
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She was so panicked, so devastated, that she burst into tears and began screaming, my sons. My sons. Where are my sons? And she never stopped crying or searching. To this day, it's said that she still roams the earth, mourning her loss. And as legend has it, if she sees any children who remind her of her deceased sons, she actually kidnaps them.
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Even more terrifying, if a child's smile or eyes or dimples resemble her son's features, it's said that she'll cut off just that body part, leaving her victim permanently disfigured.
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As disturbing as that account is, it's just one version of La Llorona's origin story. In other variations, she's a lot more complicit in her children's deaths. See There are a lot of narratives where Maria is faithful to her husband. She never cheats on him, not even once. But he's not a good partner to her. And depending on the source, he's either extremely abusive or he has multiple affairs, or he neglects her. So at one point, Maria decides she's had enough. She wants to hurt her husband the same way he's hurt her. And she believes the best way to do that is by taking away the thing that he loves the most, his children. But she doesn't think it's enough to pack up and disappear with him in the middle of the night. She wants to do something more permanent. So instead, in a fit of fury, she murders her kids. A lot of accounts say that she drowned them, and other versions say that she actually fed them to the pigs. But eventually, Maria snaps back to her senses. She realizes that she's done something so unforgivable that she can't live with the guilt. So she decides her only choices to die by suicide.
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After she passes, Maria is said to go to heaven, or at least she makes it to the pearly gates just outside of Paradise. But she can't get through them. The stain on her soul is too dark. It's something that she can never get past. And since she can't move on to the afterlife, Maria comes back to earth instead. A vengeful spirit who to this day can never rest. She's cursed to keep killing for all of eternity.
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As far as that version goes, Maria doesn't limit herself to attacking and killing children. She also targets men, because, of course, they remind her of her cruel husband.
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A cruel husband who also appears in another version of the story. In this one, it's said that La Llorona's original name is Luisa, and she's a poor but very beautiful young woman living in the 1600s. Luisa falls for a rich man who gives her everything she could ever want. A beautiful house, fancy clothes, good food to eat. There's just one problem. The man won't marry her because she's a peasant.
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Well, even though they're not officially husband and wife, Luisa and the rich man make a good life for themselves. They end up having three children together. They seem really happy and really in
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love, but the man's loyalties are divided. He wants to be with Luisa and keep her happy, of course, but he also has parents who are pressuring him to marry someone within their class. So eventually he chooses the latter. He abandons Luisa and their children. They all have to move out of his fancy house and Figure out how they're going to support themselves.
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And just like in the last story, Luisa decides to get back at her former lover by killing their children. While they're sleeping in their beds, she stabs them with a dagger, one by one. But as soon as her children have passed, grief and regret wash completely over Luisa. Horrified by what she's done, she runs out into the streets, screaming and crying, and people see her white dress is covered in blood, and right away they know something horrible has happened. It doesn't take long for the villagers to find the children's bodies and realize Luisa is a murderer. And not long after, she was executed for her crimes.
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But Luisa's spirit sticks around, haunting the city forevermore. People see her wandering the streets, but only when they're deserted or late at night. And if anyone lets her get too close or talks with her, they turn up dead.
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So there are varying accounts and some inconsistencies as to how La Llorona got her start. And maybe this is because the Aztec people who were indigenous to Mexico, were telling stories about La Llorona even before Europeans arrived on their shores. In those stories, a crying woman wandered through the town, yelling that her children were in danger. But anyone who heard these cries knew to get the heck out of dodge, because according to them, La Llorona only appeared before disasters.
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Though once Spanish settlers arrived, the stories about the weeping woman evolved, and they incorporated more European influences, and different communities within Latin America ended up with different versions.
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But there are also some details that stay the same in each retelling. The woman is always a mother with more than one child, and they die because of her sins, either because she neglects them to have an affair, or because she kills them herself. Afterward, her guilt turns into an immortal, inhuman creature, one that's out for blood.
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Rumor has it you can tell if La Llorona is close, because any nearby dogs will start to howl, and I'm not talking any howl. They go off. And of course, if you see a woman dressed in all white with a rebosa over her face, do not talk
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to her if you want extra protection from her. It's said that burning eucalyptus or sage right at sun sunset is said to help get rid of the ghost and negative spirits, including La Llorona. And I absolutely believe in this as well, because we were raised with a mother who believed in sage and spiritual shamans coming in to help cleanse the house or the person. You know, all of the things.
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But if you're listening and you're thinking, to hell with all of these tips that you don't need them. Well, you might want to think again, because there's evidence to suggest La Llorona isn't just a figment from some ghost story. She could actually be real.
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There are plenty of eyewitnesses who've claimed to have an encounter with La Llorona,
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including one man who looked her in the eyes and paid the price with his life. So we're going to take you back in time to November 9th of 1906, when a Washington D.C. based newspaper publishes an article. It's about an incident in a Mexican town, though the article doesn't say exactly where or when. Still, the story goes that one night a police officer is making his rounds when he sees a woman dressed all in white. Her rebozo is covering her face so the officer can't tell what she looks like, but he still stops to flirt with her anyway.
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And why? Nobody knows. But it must have gone well, because soon he's begging the woman to take her rebozo off so he can look her in the eyes. And eventually the woman gives in. She removes her shawl and right away the police officer regrets ever saying anything. Because this woman does not have a normal human face. She has a bare skull with no flesh.
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While the officer stares at her in horror, the skull faced woman exhales this icy cold breath right in his face. The police officer is so stunned by the whole encounter, he literally just faints right, right there on the spot. And when he wakes up, there's no sign of the woman. But the officer knows that he wasn't dreaming because he's still jittery, sick to his stomach even, and shaken to his core.
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Eventually, he goes back to his supervisors and he tells them exactly what happened. And while you might imagine them laughing the whole thing off, that's actually not the case. The officials take his account very seriously.
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But here's what's really spooky. The officer supposedly never recovers from that fainting spell. It seems like the encounter actually had a lasting, deadly effect on him. Because not long after sharing his story, the police officer dies.
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Now, that newspaper article doesn't say how he died, but it does refer to the lady he encountered as La Llorona. However, I will say that this story was passed around a few times before it made it to that paper. So it's very possible some details got added or exaggerated in the game of telephone. Meaning, take it with a grain of
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salt, that's not the only La Llorona sighting to make it into the papers. That Same year, we're talking 1906. Another write up appears in Washington DC's Evening Star. Again, it doesn't say exactly when or where this happened, but apparently a woman was seen wandering around another Mexican town, possibly Mexico City. She had white clothing and a white rebozo, and she was always crying and screaming, looking for her children. Somewhere along the way, someone saw this woman and wanted to help. So they pulled her aside to ask what was wrong. But rather than answer, the woman in white simply lifted her reposo and once again, she didn't have a face underneath, she only had a skull. Then she breathed on them. It was so icy cold that the person in front of her ended up freezing to death. This time right on the spot. And this was only the first of many times this happened in that area, with the woman in white taking multiple victims. Until finally the local papers in Mexico printed what were essentially warnings telling people to stay away from this mysterious and deadly woman.
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And just a few years later, In August of 1914, another article ran, this time in San Bernardino, California's the Evening Index. Their news story came from the Mexican American residents of West Chino, which is about an hour outside of Los Angeles. And according to that article, there had been rumors going around for years about people seeing La Llorona in the area. She was said to wander West Chino's streets at night, wailing. But the best account might just come from the evening of Sunday, August 30, 1914. That night, a man named Amagan Moreno was out on the town visiting some friends. His wife was at home by herself when suddenly she began feeling ill. She wanted her husband to come home and be by her side. But since these are the days before most people had telephones, she had no way of reaching him. The good news was Amagan's parents and siblings live right around the corner. Somehow they found out his wife wasn't feeling well. So they sent Amagon's brother Cleophas into town to find him and bring him home. But before Cleophas can hit the streets, his dad pulls him aside and he tells him something really weird. He has a gut feeling that something bad is going to happen that night, so he urges Cleophas to be careful. Cleophas takes the warning seriously and he grabs a gun for protection before walking out the door. A few hours go by and Cleophas spends the night searching for his brother all over town. He's stopping at friends, houses, restaurant, bars, basically anywhere he can think of. But when midnight hits and there's still no sign of his brother. Cleophas is ready to go home. He's on the outskirts of town by this point, on a dark, deserted road that's lined with corn fields. So there's no reason for Cleophas to expect anyone to be here at this time of night. But then he hears footsteps behind him. He turns around and that's when he sees a woman following him. Unlike a lot of other reports, this time she's dressed head to toe in black and she still has a reboso over her head. It covers her entire face except for her eyes, which are glowing in the moonlight. But Cleophas knows right away exactly who this woman is. It's La Llorona. His first thought is he still has time to run away, so he turns his back on her. But that's when she lets out a blood curdling shriek. It terrifies Cleophas so much that he screams right back at her. But this only seems to annoy the weeping woman because she charges at Cleophas. And in self defense, he fires his gun. He's too panicked to wait and see, see if he hit her or not. So instead Cleophas breaks into a sprint. But out of the corner of his eye he can tell that La Llorona is uninjured because she's also running. Instead of chasing him, she makes a break for the cornfields and disappears into the stalks without a freaking sound.
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Which, by the way, if you've ever been around corn, is damn near impossible for there to be no sound. That stuff crackles and crunches if you so much as brush up against it. So it feels like this woman, her spirit, whatever it may be, is bending the rules of reality to get away.
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That's exactly what I'm saying. Now, once Cleophas makes it home, he presumably tells his family all about what he saw. And later he even files an official police report. No idea what happened to Amagon or his wife, by the way, but at this point it doesn't seem like the biggest concern. Because word gets around about Cleophas's night, and before you know it, his friends and his neighbors, they are also speaking up, saying they've had encounters with the weeping Woman in the past few weeks as well.
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And a lot of the accounts are the same people just walking around late at night. Some were alone, while others were in pairs. The point is, none of these people thought anyone else was out on the streets until they noticed a woman in black creeping up behind them in at least one case, she was close enough to touch a man on the elbow before he spotted her. In each account, as soon as the witnesses spotted La Llorona, she screamed bloody murder at them. And the witnesses did what any reasonable person would do in that situation. They got the hell out of there.
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It gets to the point where some of the people of West Chino are too afraid to even leave their houses at night. And many people believe the spirit of La Llorona really is haunting the neighborhood. And that's sort of where the coverage seems to end. There's no follow up articles, no more news updates, nothing. Nada.
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Until over 50 years later, when more recent sightings would come to light, including one well documented corroborated incident which ended in a brutal murder. Stories of La Llorona date back centuries, and whether or not her existence is real, well, that's been debated for almost as long. But One story from 1986 turned the LA Llorona legend on its head.
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It started with a Latin Texas woman named Juana Ligia. And at the time, she was reportedly in a physically abusive marriage with her husband, who she had seven children with. The situation was dire, but each time Juana would pack her bags and move out, she'd start getting calls from her family members, and they'd always said the same thing, that she had to find a way to make her marriage work, that she owed it to her husband to give him another chance. And like so many other women in this position, she went back to him. Which let me just pause right there and say that is the worst and most troublesome advice ever. So if you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, just remember there is always a way out. Always look for your helpers.
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We will link out to some resources in English and in Spanish in our show notes for this episode. But just know, no matter who you are, where you are, or what you're dealing with, help is always available. Now, in Juana's case, things only got worse over time, to the point where she couldn't eat and she couldn't even sleep. And then Juana started seeing things, including a woman in white who was constantly crying. And Juana said the woman had told her exactly how to escape her situation. Juana later said she believed this to be La Llorona and that her spirit had told her the best way to get away from her husband was to become the weeping woman herself.
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So one day in April, Juana and all seven of her kids boarded a bus towards downtown Houston. They got off at a stop close to a river called the Buffalo Bayou. And one by one, Juana throws each of her children into the water, recreating La Llorona's crime. In Juana's mind, this was the only way to protect her children. She believed if she didn't kill them quickly and mercifully, now, they'd suffer and die more slowly at the hands of their horrible and disgusting abusive father. Then, after taking the lives of her children, Juana planned to take her own life as well.
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Tragically, two of her kids did drown, five year old Juana and six year old Hudas. But one of the older children managed to escape and run for help. Some locals arrived and pulled the surviving kids out of the water. Ultimately, Juana was arrested before she could hurt anyone else, including herself, and she was sentenced to 10 years of probation.
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The light sentence was probably due to the fact that Juana pleaded no contest, and that means she wasn't admitting to guilt. But she also wasn't fighting the charges.
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And the judge may have sympathized with Juana's circumstances. To this day, Juana insists she saw La Llorona before the murders. But it is worth clarifying. She doesn't believe a ghost literally appeared and made her murder her children. Instead. Juana lived with bipolar disorder. From the sound of it, her visions of the Weeping Woman were just symptoms of that condition.
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But the reason why we're including this account is to show exactly how ingrained this legend is in Latin culture and how deeply it's implanted into some people's psyches. Because it's not just Juana who had stories like this.
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In fact, in 1965, professional researchers tried to determine just why the legend of the Weeping Woman resonated so much with certain people, particularly with women. This included researchers like Bess, Lomax Hawes.
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Bess was a folklorist who studied mythology and legends. And somewhere along the way, she heard about a school in Los Angeles called the Las Palmas School for Girls. It was technically part of a juvenile correctional facility. So if any girls under the age of 18 got sentenced to prison, they'd go to Las Palmas during the day for classes. That way they could still earn a high school diploma and at least have a chance at a bright future. Now, an employee at the school had gotten close with some of the girls, and over time, she noticed a pattern. A lot of them talked about the legend of La Llorona.
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They didn't just talk about it. They were actually literally obsessed with it.
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That's right. It was almost as if for the girls at Las Palmas, the weeping woman wasn't just a fairy tale or a boogeyman. She felt very real, something to be seriously feared.
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One girl claimed she saw La Llorona with her own eyes. Another said the weeping woman was known to peer in through the windows of the juvenile detention center like she was spying on the girls. Overall, it seems like the girls all felt that La Llorona was out to hurt kids like them, ones who broke the rules and ended up in juvenile detention facilities.
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And these girls were terrified because they thought they were about to become La Llorona's next victims.
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And Bess wondered, why were these stories so meaningful to them? What was it about La Llorona more than any other legend that resonated with the troubled girls at Las Palmas?
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I mean, think about it. We're talking about a bunch of young women who've had very unstable lives. They're stuck behind bars at a young age in a world that feels so scary, so unfamiliar and uncertain. And they also can't quite open up to each other about how they feel because they're too worried about being judged or being bullied or. Or looking weak in front of their peers. Basically, they were under so much pressure to act tough. So what do they do? They channel a lot of those fears and uncertainties into La Llorona, or at least sightings and stories about her. It's sort of an emotional response. They use her as a way to indirectly bond with their own traumas because everyone can agree that a legendary deadly ghost is worth fearing. And ultimately, that's what folklorist Bess Hawes concludes, that La Llorona was an outlet for the girls anxieties about the world and Rasha. Obviously, we did a deep dive on the lore surrounding La Llorona for this episode. And one of the things that I know we both found so surprising is just how ingrained this legend is in the lives of so many people that we know.
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Yes, and the first person that we asked was one of our oldest family friends in the world, Jessica, who is Mexican. When we asked her if she'd ever heard of La Llorona, her response was, what Mexican hasn't? And of course, we laughed about it. But she ended up telling us how many times she used the story of La Llorona to scare. Scare her children and her grandchildren into going to sleep. It only worked on a few of them, but it's so ingrained in so many of our friends lives.
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And yes, when I spoke to our friend Veronica, who is Also Mexican. She mentioned how her mother had told her this story, but she didn't use it to scare her because it was. It was just such a sad story. So it was more of a cautionary tale.
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In their home, legends like La Llorona sort of help us maintain control over the uncontrollable. Like, if we know what the threat is, we can sort of treat it in a way, whether that's burning eucalyptus or sage like our mom would, or just staying off the streets at night. Legends like these feel avoidable, but avoiding our biggest fears isn't always possible in day to day life. It also might be why there are so many variations of La Llorona's origin story. In 2021, an intern for the Folklife American center named Camila Costa wrote a thesis on La Llorona that makes complete sense to me. She claims La Llorona represents something different to everyone, depending on who you are and what you're going through. So if you're a child, La Llorona represents the threat of misbehaving. But as you get older, that legend sort of adapts and evolves. When you reach your teenage years, like the girls at Las Palmas, La Llorona starts to symbolize what it's like to be an outcast in society. Someone who made a mistake and has to learn to live with the consequences. For parents like Juana Lehia, La Llorona might be seen as a mother who had the weight of the world on her shoulders and she just sought to escape reality. So essentially, these legends represent some of our deepest, darkest fears. And they can manifest into actual sightings of La Llorona. Ones that feel pretty darn real in the moment. Maybe because they allow us to feel some control over a world that we know is chaotic, unpredictable, and filled with mysteries we will never fully understand.
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This is so supernatural. An audio Chuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram @sosupernatural pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com join Rash and me next Friday for an all new episode. I think Chuck would approve.
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Hi, I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast unlike any other. Why? Because every case I cover comes from the heart of my home, New England. From the rocky Maine coast to. To the historic streets of Boston, to the quiet corners of Vermont and beyond. I investigate stories filled with untold twists, enduring questions, and voices that deserve to be heard. So if you're ready to explore the darker side of New England, join me every week for Dark Down East. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts,