I first heard about La Llorona (
pronounced "LAH yoh ROH nah") back when I was teaching junior high school English in Corona, California. Every Halloween we would read some Edgar Allan Poe, hear a few ghost stories, and share our own stories. The Mexican-American kids would tell of La Llorona, Spanish for The Weeping Woman, looking for her children along the railroad tracks. In the stories I heard, La Llorona would snatch any kid she found, crying, "Oh, my children, oh, my children!" The moans and wailing were audible to many people living in the Railroad barrio in Corona. You didn't mess around with La Llorona.
Here in New Mexico, La Llorona pretty much says the same thing, but in a more natural setting.
Local legend says La Llorona walks along a creek between Mora and Guadalupita. This must be our own Coyote Creek which runs through the Nickel and Dime.
In the 1930's a man named Patricio Lujan saw a thin woman first walking, and then floating in the air near the creek.
Then she vanished. There were no footprints.
According to many of the locals, the Mora Valley is La Llorona's home and children are still warned to behave so they are not taken away by The Weeping Woman.
Why this warning? Maybe it's to keep kids from wandering near dangerous places like rivers and railroad tracks.
Or maybe the wailing and moaning of La Llorona reminds them of the danger that lurks just outside the door.
