Legends and traditions have always played an important part in the history and culture of Mexico. Often they are a mix of history and imagination, a kind of imaginative vision of real events whose origins have been lost and can sometimes seem even more real than reality itself. They are kept alive by oral tradition, which explains why many times several versions are floating around. Most Mexican legends are several centuries old; some dating back to pre-Columbian times while others were born in the colonial period.

The classic legend of La Llorona is a very popular one which for more than three centuries was instilled in the memory of the citizens of Mexico City. It has its roots in Aztec mythology and dates back to the time of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. The legend tells us that the goddess Cihuacoatl appeared in the city of Tenochtitlan at night as a woman dressed in white, accompanied by deadly omens which foretold the conquest of Mexico. One night, her voice was heard, weeping loudly: Oh, my poor children, their destruction has arrived, for we must soon depart! Other times the voice would cry in desperation: My children, where shall I take you? Where could I hide you? This was interpreted as an omen for the fall of the Aztec Empire.
Soon after the arrival of the Spaniards to the American continent, the Aztec Empire of Tenochtitlan was conquered. As you will most certainly remember from one of my previous articles, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes was aided immensely by Doa Marina, better known as La Malinche. Now, some say that La Llorona is La Malinche, mistress of Cortes, endlessly lamenting her betrayal of her own Indian people to the Spaniards.

You will also remember that Cortes and La Malinche had a son, but after the Conquest, Cortes went back to his wife in Spain. The legend tells us that they had twins... One day a beautiful Spanish lady convinces Cortes to return to Spain with his two sons. When La Malinche finds out about his plans to leave her and taking the children with him, she escapes with the babies. Soon Cortes and his men set out to find them. They are able to surround her at the lake that Mexico City now rests on, but when they try to capture her, she pulls out a dagger, stabs her babies in the heart and drops their lifeless bodies into the water... Up to the time of her death she was seen and heard near the lake weeping and wailing for her children, which was why she was given the name la Llorona. As time went by, the legend grew. In Mexico City, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the inhabitants claimed that they could hear the cries of a woman afflicted with terrible grief. Some even claimed that they could actually see her at midnight on nights during a full moon, wandering the streets wearing a white dress with a thick veil covering her face. Her agonizing cries would terrorize everyone who sees or hears her. It was told that each night she would stroll different areas of the city, but would always end up at La Plaza Mayor, known today as the capitals zocalo. There, each night, she would let out her last, most desperate and horrific moan before vanishing into the lake.

The legend continues and extends to other parts of the country showing itself in many different forms... In the middle of the eighteenth century a man arrives at the Convent of the Padres Carmelitas near Celaya, Guanajuato. Horrified with fear and thought to be out of his mind, he repeats over and over again: "The woman is coming"! That same night a mysterious crying woman begins her appearances in the town of Celaya. The man's crazed state is later thought to be the result of a supernatural encounter with this woman, believed to be La Llorona.

Another example occurred in the 1960s. On the night of October 12, in a small village in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, a woman ran out of a bar where she worked and desperately started banging on doors begging for help. A few men ran out of the bar pursuing her as she fled through the streets. Despite her advanced pregnancy and her cries, no one assisted her. Instead, the men took her back to the bar, tied her up, and subsequently murdered her. From that day on, it is said that on every night of October 12, in the same neighbourhood where the bar is located, a woman is heard banging on doors, desperately crying for help.

Even now, if you walk alone in the dead of night, you might happen to see, or at least hear La Lloronas sobbing and screaming. And beware, she has been searching for so long, and she is so desperate... If she happens to find you there by the side of a canal, she might just mistake you for one of her children and drag you into the watery black depths, and you will be hers forever...