Dedicated to my dad Joe Madrid on this Father’s Day, June 18, 2023. May his spirit dwell within the trees.
Where’s the punctuation? you ask. I wasn’t feeling it when I wrote this piece. Sometimes we can break the rules of writing to have a bit of fun. Learn your punctuation though. It is important for most your writing and your grades in school.
New today at FabulousFables.com is the story of La Llorona, just as I promised in a previous post.
Latinos know who I’m talking about.
For those not familiar with the story, and those who are familiar, read my account at La Llorona: The Story.
It is a tale of murder most despicable, a story of love, hate, jealousy, murder .
If you have heard of La Llorona and want to know more, La Llorona; The Story is a must-read, but beware supernatural entanglements.
Statue of La Llorona, 2015. Wood carved in the shape of La llorona, typical of Mexican culture, with a white veil on a stone base, located on the island of La Llorona in the canals of Xochimilco, Mexico. Thank you for the use of the photo to DF. KatyaMSL – Own work. Wikimedia Commons
My introduction to zombies was the movie “Night of the Living Dead.”
That is George Romero’s 1968 masterpiece, considered the first modern zombie movie.
As I watched, I realized the undead suck.
Unless you are talking about vampires. I like vampires; they are cool, which is ironic, because they are also undead and they literally suck.
I guess I am a hypocrite, when it comes to zombies.
“Night of the Living Dead” is a black-and-white movie. I watched it at a drive-in.
A drive-in is an outdoor movie theater. You watch the movie from you car, big screen jutting up to the sky,
There aren’t many drive-ins left.
”Night of the Living Dead” — a young zombie (Kyra Schon) and her victim (Karl Hardman).
Don’t think black-and-white movies aren’t cool; that grainy texture lends itself to the story of the undead.
Arguably, George Romero’s movie is better without color.
The Walking Dead
The zombie genre has improved substantially with the television series “The Walking Dead,” which began in 2010.
No. I haven’t watched the series, but it is widely watched, and people, whose opinion I respect, praise the drama.
I must admit to watching another zombie movie.
It was “World War Z,” an action horror flick released in 2013 about a world overrun with zombies.
I admit I found the movie entertaining, but it doesn’t change my opinion of zombies.
Zombies are dirty, rotting, brainless corpses who are cannibals.
They have rotting skin hanging off their bones, blood splattered inside and out and around their mouths where they ate people.
They are ugly.
I assume they stink of death, the worst smell ever.
Good thing we can’t smell them through the big or little screen.
Where do zombies come from?
Legend says a zombie can create more zombies by biting humans.
Modern stories blame the undead on military experiments gone horror show. Or humans can be transformed by an alien attack.
As with many a horror story, zombies are based on fact, in Hattian voodoo, birthed by West African magic.
A sorcerer or witch called a bokor concocts a potion that includes tetrodotoxin, a deadly neurotoxin found in the pufferfish.
Administered in the correct dose, the pufferfish poison causes a coma so deep it mimics death.
There are credible reports of dead Hattians, said to be victims of voodoo, found alive.
My disgust for zombies began with that first movie “Night of the Living Dead.”
A zombie chowed down on some human intestines, and I was revolted.
Really? Intestines? Nasty.
Zombie popularity
Who could unnasty the zombie?
Music superstar Michael Jackson; that’s who.
Jackson deserves credit for an explosion of zombie popularity; never underestimate a great work of art.
His 1982 groundbreaking 13-minute music video “Thriller” featured the undead coming out of their graves to join the superstar in a funky graveyard dance.
To this day, large crowds dress as zombies and dance to “Thriller.”
The Guiness World Record for People Dancing “Thriller” was set in Mexico City in 2009, by more than 11,000 temporary zombies shown below.
I must admit, I don’t have a problem with Michael Jackson’s zombies; such is the power of music and art.
You can see “Thriller” below. It is worth a watch.
Did I just talk myself out of the premise of my blog, that zombies suck?
Not really.
Most zombies suck.
‘The Guiness World Record for People Dancing “Thriller” was set in Mexico City in 2009, by more than 11,000 temporary zombies.
Thank you to Wikipedia for the photo of the little zombie girl and for providing clarifying information for this blog. Read all about zombies at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie.
La Llorona, (pronounced “la yoh doh nah”), the Crying Woman, the Weeping Woman, is a supernatural entity who hunts the waters, the rivers, the ditches, the canals, and sometimes even the dry washes of the foothills.
What does she hunt?
The better question is who does she hunt?
La Lorona hunts her children, and if you happen to encounter her as she hunts, your destruction is assured.
First you hear her unearthly keen.
Is she calling for her children?
Then comes terror.
Then you see her, a horrid hag in a white wedding dress whose anger ends in death, your death.
This miserable wandering spirit’s punishment for her unprecedented crime is that she may not leave the earth plane until she finds the children she drowned.
Yes. She drowned her own children.
Legend says La Llorona, said to have been named Maria, was a beautiful woman whose one wish in life was to marry a rich and handsome man with whom she could live in comfort and start a family.
There are as many versions of the story as there are groups who tell it, with the tale spanning the Southwestern United States to Mexico, and some say as far as Venenzuela.
I first heard the story in New Mexico.
Central
Central, N. M., now called Santa Clara, is a tiny village near Silver City where I lived while in the fourth grade.
More than one adolescent told me basically the traditional La Llorona story but with a twist.
Near my home was a ramshackle deserted house that was known to be La Llorona’s lair.
It was a small house, a shack really, maybe one room.
The battered and rotted walls emanated a sinister vibe, especially at dusk, when the house appeared blacker than black, if that is possible.
The neighborhood kids told me that if I watched at night, I might catch a glimpse of La Llorona.
They dared me to enter the house.
I would not survive the visit, they assured me, and my death would be horrible.
Nobody in my family believed in La Llorona, yet, that house haunted me.
I wouldn’t walk down that street at night.
It doesn’t matter whose version you believe, the core of the La Llorona story is the same.
It’s the details that change.
Carlsbad
For example, my hometown, Carlsbad, N.M., in Southeastern New Mexico, has several variants of the horror story.
Through Carlsbad flows the deep green Pecos River making its way to the ocean.
The area is prime hunting grounds for a vengeful spirit who haunts waterways, and the terrain provides fodder for tales of La Llorona sightings and encounters.
Among about 10 teenage boys who camped a night near the river were La Llorona believers so nervous the scream of a wounded rabbit sent them scrambling for the safety of the vehicles.
Their fear extended to the farm fields ringed in irrigation ditches and to the foothills where dry riverbeds could become raging flash floods with no warning.
As years pass, fewer people believe the story of La Llorona, or have heard it, especially the city folks who have lost touch with the supernatural.
Aztec Beginnings
Yet the story has survived since the 1570s, dating back to the Aztecs, Mexico’s pyramid culture of fierce poet warriors, unmatched artisans, mathematicians, astronomers and human sacrifice.
The Aztec La Llorona story features Cihuacoatl , who walked the streets weeping and calling out for her children.
The excellent photo above by Raúl Arturo Fernández Vega is how I picture the Aztec La Llorona, who one story claims stole a small boy from his cradle and ate him.
While her appearance has changed over the ages, from Aztec finery to the white wedding dress, how does such a story survive?
Magic
Perhaps it is magic that trapped La Llorona in the spirit world, and at least once a generation, her haunting cycle begins again.
Maybe La Llorona lives forever.
Someday, ages from now, a shaman of some distant culture will relate to frightened children a story of a menacing crying woman heard in the night.
The La Llorona story has been successfully used for many years to frighten children against straying too far and into behaving.
Do your chores or La Llorona will get you, parents throughout the years have told their children.
Maybe the power of that threat is the magic that explains the story’s longevity.
Photo above: Each year in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, people celebrate La Llorona with performances. Photo by Raúl Arturo Fernández Vega. Shared to Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons License.
