La Llorona - Janelle - Second Hour

[Figure 1]
Her skin so fair, her hair long and flowing, she looks for her soul mate. She finds him at last but the marriage is not what she hoped for. In crazed rage she puts her kids and herself in their watery graves. Day and night her screams are heard up and down the river. Her corps wonders hopelessly looking for her children. The legend of La Llorona is told in many different ways and in many different cultures. I am determining the credible and non credible versions of the story, and deciding if I believe in the weeping woman.

The most known tale of La Llorona, or the weeping woman, is told in the Mexican society. A poor peasant woman named Maria was very beautiful. Everyday she looked for a husband. One day a handsome man noticed Maria’s beauty, but did not want to marry her because she had two children. Maria became very angry and in rage she took her children down to the river and drowned both of them. When she snapped out of her trance she had realized the horrible thing she had done. She sobbed for many hours then threw herself into the lake and drowned herself. Legend says she moans “Mis ninos!” (my children) crying and looking for her children. Any child that plays by the water alone, she will claim for themselves.

Different Latino cultures have different ways of telling La Llorona’s story. One version of the story says that the man killed the children instead of the woman. The couple was in love but the man did not want children, so when the wife became pregnant he took the baby to the river and drowned it. After all of her pregnancies he took the new born to the river and drowned them. One day the woman, still weak from labor, followed the man to the river and tried to save her child. She dove in the water after her child but did not know how to swim and drowned along with the baby. Every night she cried out for her dead babies, and man became crazy hearing her cries. He dove in the water to try and kill her but he didn’t know how to swim either and drowned. La Llorona still cries at night looking for her all her children.

The well known version of the La Llorona legend is the most accurate. This version is similar to almost every other Latino version of the tale. My family has told me this story many times and I have never once heard it been told that a man killed the children. I also only found one source that states the man drowned the children, all the sources say it was Maria, La Llorona. It is hard to determine what is fact from fiction and I can only walk away from my research believing that the killing were done by Maria.

Resources

• http://www.legendsofamerica.com/HC-WeepingWoman1.html La Llorona 4/2/09 (retrieved date)
• http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/nm3.html La Llorona version 2 4/3/09 (retrieved date)
• http://www.theoutlaws.com/ghosts3.htm La Llorona 4/3/09 (retrieved date)
• http://www.theoutlaws.com/ghosts3.htm La Llorona 4/7/09 (retrieved date)
• Fig. 1 http://www.paranormalknowledge.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/lallorona.jpg (picture) 4/7/09