The Weeping Woman of La Llorona Creek

Texas-Mexico borderlands, 1800s, a legend older than fences, tied to a river that still whispers her name.

The river remembers her cry.

On the border where Texas and Mexico come together, when treaties were not made to draw boundaries, families lived by meandering creeks shaded by mesquite and cottonwood. The Rio Grande was not a border, it was lifeblood and the villages along it were warm, full of laughter, faith and firelight tales.

And one of those tales dimmed the dreams of all the children: La Llorona.

The Story Told in Whispers

The details vary a little in each border town, but her outline will always be the same. She was once a young woman, a beautiful and proud one, most frequently – María. They say that she fell in love with a Spanish soldier; some say it was a rich ranchero. He wooed her, married her and had her two children.

But as his gaze strayed, the heart of Maria became furious. On a moonless night, when she was desperate or furious, she drowned her children in the river. When she had allowed them to sink under the black water she knew what she had done. Her screams split the night.

By daylight Maria was dead, some say by her own hand, others that she was discovered dead on the river-bank, with her dress wet and her face contorted in agony.

The First Sightings

The first written records of La Llorona sightings along the Rio Grande can be dated to the 1840s, the time of the Mexican-American War. There was a creek on which soldiers were camping, and they stated that they heard a woman crying through the mist. One said he had seen a white figure on white flying over the water. When they sought she had no foot-tracks, no trace of her – only a single wet foot-track on which no one had passed.

Newspapers began to occasionally refer to the Wailing Woman, particularly when there was a drowning. Farmers said that they heard her screams before flash floods.

The Town of La Llorona Creek

An expanse of river near Laredo, Texas, is still referred to locally as the La Llorona Creek. A boy had disappeared there in the 1870s. His mother said that she had seen a woman in white kneeling on the edge of the water last night. Her son was discovered down the river by morning. The report made by the sheriff termed it as an accident. The town called it a warning.

Parents started telling the children that they should not play near the river after the sun sets because La Llorona is searching her babies. Should she confuse you with them, she will carry you away.

Folklore Meets Fear

The legend of La Llorona was serious as opposed to ghost stories that are supposed to be thrilling. She turned into a guardian spirit in other narrations, a punisher in others. She was so close to the boundary between safety and danger that she could cry over her own children or cry over yours.

The folk healers (Mexican curanderas) occasionally used the story to safeguard children, where prayers were taught to cross the river. To this day, border communities intertwine Catholic religion with ancient customs, and place candles on the edge of the water to keep off evil spirits.

Modern Echoes

The legend of La Llorona has survived revolutions, wars and fences. People say that locals can still see her at night walking along the riverbanks, with her long black hair dripping, her dress torn and wet. Others have spotted her afar, and waved to get attention. As they come near, she disappears in haze.

Truckers in border highways narrate how they picked a weeping woman in white. She gets into their cab, and all she does is to sob. As they look back, no one is there.

Unresolved

La Llorona is it a ghost of one woman, or of sorrow? Scholars date her legend to centuries even to Aztec myths of a goddess who cried over her lost children. But in border towns nobody believes her.

Since, when the river is low, and the moonlight turns it to silver, the wind blows a sound – not quite a scream, not quite a song. And they of the La Llorona Creek say it is her, ever seeking, ever wailing.