La Llorona as a Social Symbol

Author(s): Michael Kearney

Source: Western Folklore, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 1969), pp. 199-206
Published by: Western States Folklore Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1499265
Accessed: 19-05-2015 03:30 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1499265?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Western States Folklore Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Western Folklore.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
La Llorona
as a Social Symbol
MICHAEL KEARNEY

ONE OF THE MOST WIDESPREAD Mexican folktalethemesis about

La Llorona,The Weeping Woman, a nocturnal being who is heard
crying for her lost children. The antiquity of the story cannot be
determined,but it is evidentfromearlyColonial textsthat the theme is
pre-Hispanic in the central highlands. It apparently existed in two
forms:La Llorona cryingfor her childrenand La Llorona as a seducer
of men. The most common contemporaryversion is a fusion of these
two prototypes;Horcasitas and Butterworthhave reconstructedit as
follows:
La Llorona was an Indian woman who had severalillegitimate children.
When her loverrejectedher she wentout of her mind and drownedher
childrenin a river.Afterherdeathshewascompelledto searchforthemevery
night.Nowadaysshe appearsas a beautifulwoman.She has long hair and is
dressedin white.Menare attractedto her,followher,and she leads themaway
to dangerousplaces.Oftentheyare founddead.x

With a few minor variations this type is a good composite of La

Llorona tales I have collected in the Zapotec-mestizotown of Ixtepeji,
in the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca, Mexico. The additional ethnographic
data included in thispaper also comes fromIxtepeji.
Whether the La Llorona legend existed in pre-Hispanic Oaxaca or
was borrowed from other regions after the conquest is uncertain.

Material for this paper was collected while doing field work in Oaxaca, Mexico, from
December, 1965, to June, 1967. I am gratefulto Sylvia M. Broadbent, George M. Foster,
FrederickO. Gearing, Laura Nader, MartinOrans, and Paul C. Rosenblattfor construc-
tivecomments.
1 F. Horcasitas and D. Butterworth,"La Llorona," Tlalocan: Revistade Fuentespara el
Conocimientode las CulturasIndigenasde Mexico,IV (1963), 204-224. For additional princi-
pal sources on La Llorona, cf. Bess Lomax Hawes, "La Llorona in Juvenile Hall," WF,
XXVII (1968), 157.

[199]

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
200 WESTERN FOLKLORE

However, a variantof La Llorona occurs in Ixtepeji bearing the name

Matlaziwa. Matlaziwa is a spirit-beingwho is similar enough to La
Llorona so that informantstend to equate them. In Ixtepeji, La Llo-
rona and Matlaziwa are significantbeings. Everyone knows of them
and many people report having heard, seen, and having had direct
encounters with them. Analysis of La Llorona and Matlaziwa tales
yieldsthe followingpredominantthemes:
Aire
The theme of aire (air) perhaps the mostobvious. Elsewhere I have
is
argued that the concept of aire, which is important in Span-
ish-Americanfolkbeliefsabout disease etiology,serves to symbolizethe
perceived social and geographic environment,which Ixtepejanos view
as inherentlyhostileand constantlymenacing the individual.2In Ixte-
peji, man walks through the social world, the natural landscape, and
the realm of the supernatural,constantlyon guard against threatening
people and spirits,which are as ubiquitous as air. They are motivated
mainly by muina,an internalizedanger, usually resulting from envy,
which causes people and spiritsto want to harm others. Their main
mode of attackis to deceive theirvictimso thathe willbe offguard and
let his defenses down. In manyinstances,La Llorona and La Matlaziwa
are directlyequated withaire,and in others theyare attributedaire-like
qualities. La Llorona "goes flyingthroughthe air" and "She goes about
like the air." "She lost her soul because of her evil deeds, God does not
receive such people, he leaves them in the freeair." In other words, the
air is filledwithmalevolentsouls which are wandering about in agony
and whichare thereforedangerous. "God does not allow the people to
see her," thatis, she is invisibleas the air.
Deceptionand Treachery
La Llorona is invisible,however,only until she reveals herselfto her
victim,but she does so only to deceive him. She never appears as what
she is, but as a person he should be able to trustsuch as wife, novia
(sweetheart),or a beautifulwoman who entices him with her charms.
In the Matlaziwa stories, the apparition may appear as a friend or
merelysome normal person. Once she has performedher deceit (eng-
aino)and gained the confidenceof her unsuspectingvictim,she works
her treacheryby doing him bodily injury.The places and methods she
chooses are, as we shall see, also significant.

del
2 Michael Kearney, "Los Conceptos de Aire y Susto: Representaciones Simb61licas
Percibido AmbienteSocial y Geografico,"forthcomingin AmericaIndigena.

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
LA LLORONA 201

Abandonment, Sufering,and Fatalism

Although the term abandonado,whichis common in song and poetry,
is not frequentlyused in the La Llorona accounts, the tales usually
begin withLa Llorona as a motherwho abandons or killsher children.
Since the tales are about her and not the children, her fate resulting
fromthis act is the subject of the rest of the tale. From this point on,
she is a person destined to an eternityof sufferingwhich is a punish-
ment fromGod forher evil deed. In contrastwithEuropean themes of
sin and punishment, there is here no concern with redemption or
atonement. On the contrary,her punishment is absolute and irrevo-
cable; rather than being purified or redeemed, she becomes the em-
bodiment of insidious characteristicswhich in turn move her to harm
others.3

Many informantsemphasize that it is the mother's betrayal, her

treachery,that sets the morbid drama in motion. To appreciate the
meaning of this motif, it is necessary to know something of child
training,especiallythe mother-childrelationship,where it is the child's
motherwho firstbetrayshim; his firstlessons in deceit and deception
(engaiio)are learned at her breast. A common method of controlling
children is to lie to them,either by promisingthem some reward with
no intentionof fulfillingit, or more frequently,by threateningthem
with some frighteningpunishment,again with no intent to actually
carryit out. This latterpracticeusuallytakes the formof threateningto
abandon the child (e.g., put it out of the house at night where wild
animals or La Llorona can get it,or by leaving it along the road, or by
sellingit to a stranger).Also, mothersoften tell children that if theydo
not behave, wild animals willcome in the nightand eat them.
Looked at in thislight,the La Llorona tale becomes mythic.What we
have are the fragmentsof a creation myth.It may be seen as a creation
mythbecause it does two things: first,it relates importantexperiences,
perhaps the most important,in the psychogenesisof the individual,
thatis, betrayalby the mother.Whereas in OedipusRex,Oedipus' fate is
determined by the triadic relationshipof himself,Laius, and Jocasta,

3 These personalitytraitsof La Llorona are a replicationof the Mexican La Chingada

whichPaz describesas a motherfigure."No una Madre de carney hueso, sino una figura
mitica.La Chingada es una de la representacionsMexicanas de la Maternidad, como La
Llorona o la 'sufiridamadre Mexicana' que festejamosel diez de Mayo. La Chingada es la
madre que ha sufrido,metaf6ricaor realmente,la acci6n corrosivae infamanteimplicita
en el verbo que le da nombre" (Octavio Paz, El Laberintode la Soledad,[Mexico, 1959], p.
63).

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
202 WESTERN FOLKLORE

the fate of the Ixtepejano is bound up in the relationship between

himself,the absent father,and La Llorona.4 Second, since in myththe
individual is a microcosmicreplicationof the world view,the legend is
also a statementabout the world,especially the world of interpersonal
relations. In the tale, the child, now appearing as a man, is subject to
the same basic engafioand omnipresentmalevolentforceswhich he was
at the mercy of in the arms of his omnipotent mother. I speak of
"forces"because there is also in the mythan explanation of motivation
in interpersonalrelationsand motivationmust,of necessity,have some
force,some concept of energy or drive that vitalizes it and results in
action. To reveal this image of human motivation,which not only sets
the events of the legend in motion but also is the source of its fateful
and tragicnature,let us go back to the beginning.
As in the above prototypeand in Ixtepeji texts,La Llorona herself
was the firstvictimwho was betrayedand abandoned; for this she cries
"because she can't obtain her own tranquility."It is this original mis-
fortune of hers compounded by her eternal punishment which ex-
plains her malevolence in terms of a basic tenet of Ixtepeji folk psy-
chology: "A person who is deprived of somethingwishes to injure and
deprive others who are more fortunate." In other words, she, La
Llorona, was abandoned by her husband which caused her great sor-
row and muina,causing her in turn to kill her babies. Because of this
double loss of husband and children, she now envies people more
fortunatethan herself. For this reason, in some versions of the tale,
"she causes married couples to fight"and also lose their tranquility.
Again her method of operation is to deceive or trick,by lies or illusion,
her unwary victimwho is especially vulnerable when intoxicatedand
unable to "defend himself."This common verbal usage is expressiveof
concepts of a self-defendingindividual vis-A-vis threateningentitiesin
the world. It correlatesin the tales with nakedness (in many accounts,
La Llorona leaves her victimsnaked), a theme which often appears in
Ixtepejano's dreams in connectionwith"defenselessness."
This interpretationof La Llorona's behavior is in accord with the
folkbeliefsmentionedearlier. In some of the examples, however,there
is an apparent inconsistency.According to the logic of folk beliefs,La

4 Fischer argues that nuclear familysymbolismaffordsthe best means to understand

the most importantmeaning of tales and the emotional responses to them. See L.
Fischer,"The SociopsychologicalAnalysisof Folktales,"CurrentAnthropology,
IV:2 (1962),
.1.
235-273.

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
LA LLORONA 203

Llorona should be attacking other women, especially mothers, who

have men. This she does, but most of her victimsare men, especially
parranderos,or men who are carousing about town at night, which
carries the connotation that they are carryingon with women-other
women- and thattheyare neglectingtheirwivesand children.
Obviously,attackingother women's men is a way of attackingthose
women, but a new motivationalforce,venganza(revenge), appears. The
muinathat the wife has fromthe husband's betrayaland abandonment
generalizes to all members of his species; all men whom, by their
actions, she identifieswith her husband become subject to the con-
trolled, directed release of her suppressed wrath. To furtherunder-
stand the underlyinglogic for La Llorona's choice of parranderosas
victims the reader should understand the quality of Ixtepejian
male-femalerelations.The predatorymale, or macho(from the wom-
an's point of view) here appears in the legend almost as an archetype.
But now, again, fromthe woman's point of view the time has come for
his just reward which she is fated to mete out to him.5 I use the term
"fated" intentionally,because it is a recurrentcharacteristicattributed
to La Llorona and the key to understanding the motivationof the
personnages involved. Let us firstconsider these personages in their
simpleststructuralrelationship,whichis male to female.Thus reduced,
we can recount the events of the legend in the followingsequence: (1)
Man abandons woman; (2) Mother drowns male child; (3) God punish-
es mother; (4) Woman harms man (who is abandoning females).
When we arriveat the fourthstep in the sequence, we are in effectat
the beginningagain. In itsinternallogic the legend is circularsuch that
event (1) is the cause of event (2), which causes event (3), whichcauses
event (4); the conditions in which (4) occurs, i.e. males abandoning
women, is equivalent to what happens in (1). In other words, the
"system"is self-perpetuating;as an implicitfolk model of the antago-
nisticaspects of male-femalerelations,it depicts a systemin which the
actions of the actors are predetermined by the nature of the system

5Women are for the most part the passive objects of overt male aggression and
sexuality.At least in folklore,however, women retaliate against and control husbands,
especially unfaithfulones, by poisoning their food with a preparation called toloache,
which reduces men to a semi-stupifiedstate described as childlike. Some women are
purported to actuallyuse it on theirhusbands, and manywomen know the recipe for this
potion which is associated with the quasi-matriarchalTehuanas of Tehuantepec in
southernOaxaca. Since men are dependent on women for food preparation,this is one
area where wivesexertcontrolover husbands.

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
204 WESTERN FOLKLORE

itself.The folkmodel says there is no alternative;a person who is hurt

will have muinaand desire for revenge which compels him or her to
hurt the one who hurt first.What I speak of as being "compelled"
translatesin the folksystemas being destinado, that is, being fated. This
is why the concept of fate is the key to understanding the Ixtepejian
model of the human motivationexpressed in the legend. Besides fate-
ful, I also characterizedthe legend as tragic,and I meant tragic in the
mythicalsense, also. For, as shown above, the ultimatetragedyderives
fromthe belief that human motivationis at the bottomenergized and
set in motionby muina.
Perhaps at this point the reader has doubts about the circularityof
the four-stagesequence of the legend and is asking, why should the
male in event (1) abandon and so injure his woman as a result of (4),
since he is not the same male as the one she attacks in (4); what
explains thisaction of his which startsthe tragedy?To answer this,we
must not impose our own brand of logic onto the legend, but look for
meaning in termsof itsown logic of symbols.To do this,let us consider
the male characters in the legend, since it is the equivalence of the
males of (1) and (4) that seems to be the problem. That (1) and (4) are
equivalent is revealed by firstcomparing male (4) with the child of
event (2), the male child the motherdrowns. (In the field notes of La
Llorona accounts, "children" and "babies" are recorded variously as
hijos,nifios,or nenes,all of which in Spanish may refer to males ex-
clusively,or to males and females. In no instanceis there a specifically
feminine usage.) The male in (4) and the male child in (2)
have several features in common. First,La Llorona throws the baby
into a well or a river,and similarlyshe usually shoves the man into a
canyon or river. Secondly, the man is sometimes said to be naked,
which may be taken as a symbolof being defenselessand childlike.Also
the man is usually drunk, which again lowers his ability to defend
himselfby reducing him to a childlikestate. Seen in thisway,the males
of (2) and (4) are the victimsof the dominant female,while in (1) and
(3) the woman is the victimof dominantmales. We may diagram thisas
follows,witharrowsindicatingthe directionof the negativeactions:

(dom. = dominant,def. = defenseless,M = male, F = female)

(1) dom. M - def. F
(2) def. M -- dom. F
(3) dom. M - def. F
(4) def. M -- dom. F

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
LA LLORONA 205

The underlyingsymmetry is revealed in thisreduced structuralform

which solves the problem of the equivalence of males (1) and (4). No
such problem existed for the female since the tales explicitlymaintain
her identityas the same individual. But, it is not she as an individual
which is significant,but rather she as a concatenation of roles: wife,
mother,victimof fate, and deceiving seductress. In like manner each
of the male elements, which in each stage of the sequence are com-
plementaryto the female, may be taken as aspects of the basic male
personalitywhich,as withroles, are situationallydependent. Thus the
circular relationof the aggressiveact, muina,and aggressiveact closes,
for the victimof La Llorona is really,withinthe logic of the system,the
same dominant male who, because of his own muina and desire for
revenge,betrayedhis wifein the beginning.Thus we can representthe
tale in one finalreduced formas follows.

Aggression Muina

I have described this sequence in a mythictime where linear time is

nonexistent,and where past, present, and future are equivalent. But
insofar as the actual narrativeof the tale must be told in progressive
time,it is interestingthat it begins withbetrayalby the male. Is thisan
indicationthatit is more a man's world than a woman's?
What the above analysis demonstratesis that this seeminglysimple
folktale is an elegant and economical representationof the underlying,
covert concept of family and interpersonal relations, especially
male-femalerelations.The tale expresses not only the quality of rela-
tionships,but also projectsa concept of motivationwhich is at the same
timea statementof human nature.6
If the reader has followed the above argumentsdealing with muina,
envy, and the release of aggression,he is perhaps not yet completely
satisfiedthat the previously mentioned apparent inconsistencyis re-
solved. That is, why are La Llorona's victimsalmost exclusivelymen?
According to folk belief she should attack married women with chil-
dren. Could this apparent inconsistencybe explained by the La Llo-
rona tales fulfillinganother functionin addition to symbolizinginter-

6 This functionof the tale is in accord with the "culture and

personality"approach to
folklore,which regards it as offeringthe anthropologistinsight into basic personality.
"Presumably,folktalesalso serve a cognitive function for members of the society in
educating them about the nature of the local model personalityin which all partici-
pate..." (Fischer,p. 258).

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
206 WESTERN FOLKLORE

personal relations? I suggest that it does. So far we have considered

only two possible symbolicfunctionsof the tale, namely the cognitive
(existential)and the evaluative- that is, statementsabout "what is" and
"whatwould like to be," respectively.A thirdtype,a directivefunction,
or statementsabout "what should or ought to be," seems to be latentin
the content of La Llorona tales.7 Thus, while cognitive elements are
evident, La Llorona is not acting entirelyconsistentwith folk ideas of
muinaand human nature when she attacks primarilymen. But, if La
Llorona tales are expressingdirectivepropositions,thatis moral propo-
sitions,then her behavior is consistent.Consider whom she threatens
or attacks:eithermen who are out and about at night,the assumption
being thatanyone who is out at nightis up to no good, or men who are
not only out at night,but who are drinkingand thereforebehaving in
the undesirablewaysassociated withdrinking.
To attemptidentifyingthe main symbolicfunctionof La Llorona,
that is, whether she is most expressive of cognitive, evaluative, or
directivepropositions,is futileand irrelevant.Along this line Fischer
says, "Collectors need not apologize for these apparent contradictions
in their texts, since it is those social roles and actions about which
people feel most confused which are most likelyto become symbolized
in mythsand tales."8What is importantto realize is thatthis seemingly
simple tale in fact expresses multiple covert values and perceptions
withgreatersymboliceconomy.9

University Riverside
ofCalifornia,

7 See Florence R. Kluckhohn and Fred L. Strodtbeck,Variationsin Value-Orientations,

(Evanston, 1961), pp. 4-5.
8 Fischer,p. 247.
9 In
regard to the typesof analysispresented here Mering has said, "Existentialvalues
as revealed in mythologyarise out of insightsinto actions taken in their significancefor
life; and theyestablishthemselvesin the culture when the insightscan be widelyshared.
Boas locates the origin of these 'mythimages' in the ordinaryplay of imaginationon the
life of the people" (Otto Von Mering,A GrammarofHuman Values [Pittsburgh,1961], p.
75).

This content downloaded from 139.182.75.138 on Tue, 19 May 2015 03:30:07 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions