La Llorona

In Latin American folklore, La Llorona ( American Spanish: [la ʝoˈɾona]; "The Weeping Woman" or "The Wailer") is a ghost who roams waterfront areas mourning her children whom she drowned.

Mythology
The legend has a wide variety of details and versions. In a typical version of the legend, a beautiful woman named Xochitl marries a rich ranchero / conquistador with whom she bears two children. One day, Xochitl sees her husband with another woman and in a fit of blind rage, she drowns their children in a river, which she immediately regrets. Unable to save them and consumed by guilt, she drowns herself as well but is unable to enter the afterlife, forced to be in purgatory and roam the earth until she finds her children. In another version of the story, her children are illegitimate, and she drowns them so that their father cannot take them away to be raised by his wife. Recurring themes in variations on the La Llorona myth include white dresses, nocturnal wailing, and an association with water.

The mother archetype of La Llorona has been tied to patriarchal expectations of women in Mexican and Mexican-American culture by several authors, historians, and social critics. Social critics often consider Mexican (and Mexican-American) culture to enforce patriarchal standards unto women, such as being defined by their roles as mothers. La Llorona’s falling into the trope of an “evil” or “failed” mother, having either committed infanticide or having failed to save them from drowning, can be considered a reflection of this.

Lore evolution
Early colonial texts provide evidence that the lore is pre-Hispanic, originating in the central highlands, however La Llorona is most commonly associated with the colonial era and the dynamic between Spanish conquistadors and indigenous women. The most common lore about La Llorona includes her initially being an Indigenous woman who murdered her own children, which she bore from a wealthy Spaniard, after he abandoned her. The villainous qualities of La Llorona, including infanticide and the murdering of one’s own blood is assumed to be connected to the narrative surrounding Dona Marina, also known as La Malinche, or Maltinzin in her original nomenclature. Today, the lore of La Llorona is well known in Mexico and the Southwestern United States.

Origins
The legend of La Llorona is traditionally told throughout Hispanic America, including Mexico, Central and South America. La Llorona is sometimes conflated with La Malinche, the Nahua woman who served as Hernán Cortés' interpreter and also bore his son. La Malinche is considered both the mother of the modern Mexican people and a symbol of national treachery for her role in aiding the Spanish.

Stories of weeping female phantoms are common in the folklore of both Iberian and Amerindian cultures. Scholars have pointed out similarities between La Llorona and the Cihuacōātl of Aztec mythology, as well as Eve and Lilith of Hebrew mythology. Author Ben Radford's investigation into the legend of La Llorona, published in Mysterious New Mexico, found common elements of the story in a German folktale dating from 1486. La Llorona also bears a resemblance to the ancient Greek tale of the demigoddess Lamia, in which Hera, Zeus' wife, learned of his affair with Lamia and killed all the children Lamia had with Zeus. Out of jealousy over the loss of her own children, Lamia kills other women's children.

The Florentine Codex is an important text that originated in late Mexico in 1519 quoted, “The sixth omen was that many times a woman would be heard going along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, “Oh my children, we are about to go forever.” Sometimes she said, “Oh my children, where am I to take you?”

While the roots of the La Llorona legend appear to be pre-Hispanic, the earliest published reference to the legend is a 19th century sonnet by Mexican poet Manuel Carpio. The poem makes no reference to infanticide, rather La Llorona is identified as the ghost of a woman named Rosalia who was murdered by her husband.

In Mexico
The legend of La Llorona is deeply rooted in Mexican popular culture, her story told to children to encourage them not to wander off after dark, and her spirit often evoked in artwork, such as that of Alejandro Colunga. "La Cihuacoatle, Leyenda de la Llorona" is a yearly waterfront theatrical performance of the legend of La Llorona set in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, established in 1993 to coincide with the Day of the Dead.

Ancient Mexican Origins
The earliest documentation of La Llorona is traced back to 1550 in Mexico City, though there are theories that her story can be connected to specific mythologies of the Aztecs, including some creation stories. The Aztec creation myth of “The Hungry Woman” includes a wailing woman constantly crying for food, which has been compared to La Llorona’s signature nocturnal wailing for her children. The motherly nature of La Llorona’s tragedy has also been compared to Chihuacoatl, an Aztec goddess who was considered a deity of motherhood. Her seeking of children to keep for herself is also significantly compared to that of Coatlicue, known as “Our Lady Mother” or Tonantsi (who is also comparable to the Virgen de Guadalupe, another significant mother figure in Mexican-culture), who is also a monster that devours filth or sin.

In the United States
In the Southwestern United States, the story of La Llorona is told to scare children into good behavior,sometimes specifically to deter children from playing near dangerous water. Also told to them is that her cries are heard as she walks around the street or near bodies of water to scare children from wandering around, resembling the stories of El Cucuy. In Chumash mythology indigenous to Southern California, La Llorona is linked to the nunašɨš, a mythological creature with a cry similar to that of a newborn baby.

In Venezuela
In Venezuelan folklore, the tale of La Llorona is set in the Venezuelan Llanos during the colonial period. La Llorona is said to be the spirit of a woman that died of sorrow after her children were killed either by her or her family. Families traditionally placed wooden crosses above their doors to ward off such spirits.

Film
Actress representing La Llorona in The Mexican Dream, 2003

The story of La Llorona first appeared on film in 1935's La Llorona, filmed in Mexico. René Cardona's 1960 movie La Llorona was also shot in Mexico, as was the 1963 horror film, The Curse of the Crying Womandirected by Rafael Baledón.

The 2008 Mexican horror film Kilometer 31 is inspired by the legend of La Llorona. Additionally the early 2000s saw a spate of low-budget movies based on La Llorona, including:
 * The River: The Legend of La Llorona
 * Revenge of La Llorona
 * The Curse of La Llorona

La Llorona is the primary antagonist in the 2007 movie J-ok'el. In the 2011 Mexican animated film La Leyenda de la Llorona, she is portrayed as a more sympathetic character, whose children die in an accident rather than at their mother's hands.

In July 2019, James Wan, Gary Dauberman and Emilie Gladstone produced a film titled The Curse of La Llorona for Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was directed by Michael Chaves and stars Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velasquez and Marisol Ramirez as La Llorona.

Also in 2019, Jayro Bustamante directed the Guatemalan film La Llorona, starring María Mercedes Coroy, which screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.

Theater
Mexican playwright Josefina López wrote "Unconquered Spirits", which uses the myth of La Llorona as a plot device. The play premiered at California State University, Northridge's Little Theatre in 1995.

Literature
Nancy Farmer's 2002 science fiction novel, The House of the Scorpion includes references to La Llorona.

The legend of La Llorona is discussed in Jaquira Díaz's 2019 memoir, Ordinary Girls:

Music
"La Llorona" is a Mexican folk song popularized by Andres Henestrosa in 1941. It has since been covered by various musicians, including Chavela Vargas, Joan Baez, and Lila Downs.

North American singer-songwriter Lhasa de Sela's debut album La Llorona (1997) explored the dark mysteries of Latin folklore. She combined a variety of musical genres including klezmer, gypsy jazz and Mexican folk music, all in the Spanish language. The album was certified Platinum in Canada, and it earned her a Canadian Juno Award for Best Global Artist in 1998.

Television
La Llorona is an antagonist in the TV series Supernatural, portrayed by Sarah Shahi in the pilot episode and by Shanae Tomasevich in "Moriah" and season 15.

La Llorona is an antagonist in a 2012 second season episode of the TV series Grimm.

La Llorona appears in the Victor and Valentino episode "The Lonely Haunts 3: La Llorona" voiced by Vanessa Marshall. Contrary to the usual depictions, this version of La Llorona is good and simply lonely and claims to have had twenty kids who had all grown up and left her; implying that she suffers from Empty nest syndrome.