r

II

AZTEC MOTIFS IN "LA LLORONA"

289

AZTEC MOTIFS IN "LA LLORONA"

by Robert A. Barakat
ULTIMATE ORIGIN of Mexico's most popular legend, "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman), is obscured by extensive accretion of motifs from Aztec and European sources .. Indeed, the legend has become identified with an actual case of infanticide in Mexico, adding to the confusion.J The similarity of native and non-native elements has resulted in much speculation as to the origin of the story, based, generally, on the presence of certain motifs. Two theories have been expounded: one points to a European origin, and the other to a native Mexican origin. Significantly, both theories have outstanding merits. Kirtley's argument that the legend "is largely European in origin" appears to be the most acceptable, since the basic narrative pattern apparently is from the Old World.s However, the fact that Aztec mythology has provided numerous motifs strikingly similar to those in the European cognate in no way enchances Kirtley's theory. In point of fact, the presence of such elements tends to invalidate his thesis to some extent. ~ Such motifs as the wailing, water, knife, and general appearance of the ( weeping woman are directly linked to Aztec mythology as we shall see. The dissemination of the legend, and the amazingly constant inc1E~Qn . ...Qi the above motifs can be attributed to the conquest ~f MexiE.~~l the Spanish and that country's subs~t..o.!!:~!ion __ Qy."!..~~.g.~EJ:~ Catholic Church. In both instances, the means of dissemination were ideal and also account for the wide diversity of the legend. Some versions take on a definite religious character with overtones of the supernatural. In most cases the motifs present ill such versions are European in provenience. There can be little doubt that the foreigners confused their legend with a similar one of the Aztecs and, consequently, passed it on to the natives, who in turn added their own elements. Kirtley's suggestion HE

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that the social and moral values of the Spaniard involved are not those of an Aztec male, but those of a European is valid.f Indeed, he is correct because there are no parallels in Aztec mythology that bear a similar pattern of behavior on the part of the lover. This element, perhaps more than any other cited by him, is essential to his argument. As a direct result of the betrayal of the native woman, ~ ~"n...4 infanticide is committed. Without this betrayal, there would be no ~~~ rW.ff>l "La Llorona" legend as we know it. Doubtless, this motif is European, m'-f1>.-tt. and not Aztec. This, and the European legend, "Die 'Weisse Frau,"! .. which may have contributed the model for the weeping woman, are clearly of European provenience. That Mexican story-tellers refer to the deceitful lover as un gackupin, and not un espaiiot, is also significant. This post-conquest appellation is derogatory in nature and generally casts some doubt on the intentions of the man. Native Mexicans would prefer to make the weeping woman blameless, and at the same time shift the guilt to the foreigner, particularly a Spaniard. The following variant of "La Llorona" serves as an excellent example to illustrate this point, even though the female involved is una criolla (Mexican born Spaniard). The story proves that the social and moral values which Kirtley speaks of do come from the Old World because the female is not really a Mexican; the story-teller emphasizes this. There are many versions of "La Llorona" (The W eeping Woman); the best one that I know is about a gachupin (Spaniard) living in Mexico, and who was in love with a criolla (Spaniard born in Mexico), probably not an Indian, but very beautiful. He had relations with her, but they never married. They lived in a house, a very beautiful house, in a suburb apart from the city. They had several children and lived happily; she was in love with him, and to all appearances, he with her. But the neighbors began to talk about why she always stayed within the house, and why he came to see her only once in a while. One day a neighbor came to say that she had found out that her husband did not live with her, that her husband lived in the center of Mexico City in a beautiful house. She had been to see the house, and had climbed up to the windows of the man's house and had seen that there was a wedding and that he was being married to a beautiful woman dressed as a bride. Then in her desperation, after hearing this, she went to her house, got a knife, and killed her children (S302; S12.2). She
Ibid., 161.

'Soledad Perez, "Mexican Folklore from Austin, Texas," in The Healer of Los Olmos and other Mexican Lore, ed. Wilson Hudson (Publication of the Texas Folklore Society, XXIV, Dallas, Texas, 1951), pp. 73. 2Bacil F. Kirtley, "La Llorona and Related Themes," Western Folklore, XIX
(1963), 168. [ 288 ]

-tus.,

157-158.

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290

ROBERT

A.

BARAKAT

AZTEC MOTIFS

IN

"LA

LLORON A"

291

didn't die but she became insane and walked along the street and saying: "Oh, my children (QSS5)!" As the years passed (And a good deal of time did pass!), said that every night she can be heard in that suburb (E334.~.J; ES47), and later in other areas, crying: "Oh, my children!' .....'. Because of this they say that the weeping woman is one who" appears dressed in white (E425.l.1; E402.1.1.3; E422.4.3), with loose hair and wild eyes, crying like an insane person. appears, therefore, that. the basic pattern of the legend, betraYal. and infanticide, is from the Old World upon which native elements have been grafted. At least the Mexicans were afforded a similar model, i.e., "Die Weisse Frau," from Europe with which they could associate their own legend, or motifs. The spread of the native motifs, along with those from Europe, has made it difficult for scholars to identify and selectively classify the Aztec and non-Aztec elements. The great diversity of the legend has accordingly compounded the difficulty. Janvier, and other students of the legend, have formulated a theory incorporating native elements to point to an essentially Aztec origin.e 0,,e,,-,0; The distinct similarity~etw~. the '!~~~9 the ~zt~<::_J~_9,d~:CA,,9, desses, Cihua~oatl and Coatlic~ez is ~~?takable._Acc:ording to Aztec . mythology, Cihuacoai] dressed III white and always carried a cradle. She walked through the streets of the Aztec capital at night "covered with chalk ... She was in white ... in pure white ... By night she walked weeping and wailing, a dread phantom foreboding war."6 She would leave her cradle in the main square and would disappear into a lake or river. When native women looked into the abandoned cradle they did not find a baby, but an obsidian sacrificial knife." The weeping woman, Significantly, is invariably dressed in white, weeps and wails, just as [ the Aztec goddess does.

It

slay her but failed.8 Symbolically the knife appears to be linked to war, as is the goddess, and therefore to death. A definite parallel! exists between the knife in Aztec legend and the fact that the weeping woman uses a knife to slay her children. Of importance, at this point, is the fact that Cihuacoatl, and an: , other goddessL_G!!.~"~~~nLyc!le, "~~~~""~~Yf:!l$f!"fl:g':l~~!.g}!:!!_ (E2 75), and only men. The former goddess, Cihuacoatl, it was said, "brought men misery."? The latter goddess "terrified men, . .. she killed men in water ... she carried men to the depths.v-v These actions by both goddesses lead one to conjecture that originally the legend might have ( contained this element of revenge. As the legend grew in diversity, the infanticide motif was added. Oftentimes, this act is excluded from the narrative, and the weeping woman simply becomes an innocent victim of a deceitful male (T81.2.1; T93.3). Many versions in this writers collection have the crime committed by the male, and not the woman. She consequently kills herself out of grief for her lost children. The guilt is therefore placed upon the man. The following is a fine illustration of this: La Llorona was a Mexican woman who had an illegitimate child. The father of the child refused to marry her, and she killed herself because of the shame she had to endure. Since then she appears in the lake in which she drowned (E 334.1), crying for her child (ES47).U In numerous other variants of "La Llorona," the crime is com-J mitted out of revenge for having been betrayed. Thus, the act of infanticide is in reality an act against the man, the father of the illegitimate children, and "explains why she became a malevolent earthbound phantom."12 The guilt for such an act is shifted to the man involved, and the woman becomes a blameless, pitiable creature, who, after death, still seeks to avenge her lover's deceit. Significantly, as regards the above, is the water motif in both Aztec mythology and in the legend. This element is, doubtless, of Aztec origin since water played an important role in the Aztec world. For
"Miguel Leon-Portilla, "Mythology of Ancient Mexico," in Mythologies of the Ancient World, ed. Samuel Noah Kramer (New York, 1961), p. 462. 'Anderson and Dibble, op, cii., p. 3. 10 Ibid., p. 6. "Story narrated by Robert Harris, former resident of Ciudad Chihuahua Mexico, in English. '"Kirtley, op. cit., 155.

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Thus, the actions and general appearance of both the weeping woman and the Aztec goddess are much the same. However, in the case of the latter, there is no indication that infanticide was committed, only that the cradle contained a sacrificial knife. Aztec mythology states that when coatlicue was with child, her children attempted to
"Thomas Janvier, Legends oj the City oj Mexico (New York, 1910), p. 162; see Perez, op. cit., 73, for similar argument. "Arthur Anderson and Charles Dibble, Florentine Codex (General History oj the Things oj New Spain) by Fray Bernadino de Sahagun (Santa Fe, 1950), Book I, pp. 3-4. 'Perez, op. cit., p. 73.

~v

292

ROBERT

A.

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AZTEC MOTIFS IN "LA LLORONA"

293

example, the goddess, CihuacoatI, after abandoning her cradle, ~" appears into a body of water,13 She apparently limits her movements': to an area near water, as does the goddess, Chalchiutli ycue, who kills,,> men in a body of water. The yearly sacrifice to this goddess by personS"';' who make their living from water indicates that perhaps she too limited her victims to these individuals.t+ This element, and those mentioned previously, revenge and general appearance, are directly traceable to [ Aztec mythology, as is the knife motif. That the weeping woman either slays her children with a knife, or drowns them, is important since both motifs are apparently of Aztec origin. Cihuacoatl carried a sacrificial knife in her cradle, so perhaps the presence of the knife in the legend is the result of motif accretion from native sources. This is also the case with the drowning motif, since water in Aztec mythology is of vast import, as we have noted previously. Ostensibly, "La Llorona" may be identified with the European model suggested by Kirtley.v" the cognates cited from Aztec mythology" and any other of the numerous individuals who may have been involved in a similar situation as the weeping woman when she was alive. Kirtley's identification of the weeping woman as "Die Weisse Frau" suggests only a vague possibility, even though the story of this woman circulated in Europe previous to the conquest of Mexico. Indeed, she is similar in many respects: (a) her origin is humble; (b) she murders her illegitimate child or children (S12.2); (c) she goes insane and dies violently (Q211.4; Q555; Q558.9); (d) she returns as a malign ghost (E411.1; E425.1.1); (e) those who see her die shortly afterward (E545.2) .16 These points are well taken, but there are so many exceptions to these parallel elements that Kirtley suggests, one wonders if they are in reality exceptions rather than the general rule. As regards the first parallel, some versions refer to the weeping woman as uiAcriolla, who certainly is not of humble origin, and she is not always ruined by a young aristocrat (T72.2),l7 Often, as in the second variant noted in this article, the false lover is from humble origin himself, or the story-teller simply does not refer to the origin
"'Perez, op. cit., 73-74. "Anderson and Dibble, op, cit., pp. 6-7. "Kirtley, op. cii., 157-158.
158-159. 158-159.

of the man involved. This very same version does not refer to the ancestry of the man. Another version states: There once lived a woman named Rita. Her boyfriend refused to marry her after she became pregnant so she went to visit with relatives because of the shame she had to bear. One day she sat down in a corner of the house, near a fireplace, and shot herself with a gun. She now appears, crying, in the streets (E402 .1.1.3) - People said it was this woman because the crying begins at the place where she killed herself and ends near the spot where she is buried (E411.1.1.; E334.4).J.8 Here, too, the man is not identified, nor is there a case of infanticide committed, although in the eyes of the Church there is. This motif is also omitted from many versions of "La Llorona" in my collection. The following is a representative example: had lost all her a night when the she goes out and are they?'1J.9 There was once a beautiful young widow who children in a swamp. The children had died during moon was full. Now, whenever the moon is full, cries for her children: "Oh, my children! Where

Indeed, this woman is still very much alive in the story and there is no mention of the male who betrayed her, if any did. Invariably the weeping woman does go insane (Q555), although' she does not always die a violent death. Story-tellers make veiled references to her after her demise, but oftentimes do not say whether she died violently or not. These motifs apparently are narrated together in most variants, along with the ghost element. Significantly, J the weeping woman does not always return as a malevolent ghost, as Kirtley suggests. Sometimes she returns simply to find the bodies of her children whom she has not killed, but who have died, as is clearly demonstrated in the last version just presented. She is being punished by God for not taking care of her children, and must roam the river banks, or streets, looking for their bodies. Granted that she is portrayed as a malign ghost in numerous variants, but importantly she also is portrayed simply as a woman who must search for her childrens' bodies. That "La Llorona" is an omen of impending death, and those who see her die shortly afterward (E265.3),20 has some basis since a

=rsu; =tua;

"Story related by Francisco :llelendaz, 78, resident of La Union, New "Mexico, former resident of Ciudad Juarez. Chihuahua, Mexico, in Spanish. 1.Story related by Juan Aquirre, 21, resident of EI Paso, Texas, in Spanish. :.Kinley, op, cit., 159.

294
';

ROBERT

A.

BARAKAT

AZTEC MOTIFS

IN "LA LLORONA"

295

kit,?j1.()"ce
,.(XI)

great many versions portray her in this light. However" the ;"A;';~;.t:. who sees her does not always die; he sometimes goes mad a malady from which he is capable of recovering from. according some story-tellers. The weeping woman is also supposed to kill little boys and girls whom she sees out at night to compensate for her: loSt children. Perhaps the weeping woman in this respect, is an exteruioi! ~:. of the "Bogey man" story (E293)" as Leddy suggests.et A Mexican story-teller states that "about 1900 and 1920 she appeared. Many. priests said that CIaHorona' would appear to disobedient children, or wandering boys who attend parties or dances late at night. And with this they motivated fear and prompted the children and boys to return home early."22 She is indeed the bogey-man type in this variant. The identification of the weeping woman is impossible in the light of extensive motif accretion from native and non-native sources. was noted previously, the European legend, "Die Weisse Frau," suggests only a vague possibility. One version of the legend this writer collected in northern Mexico identifies "la llorona" as "Ia Malinche,"23 a native woman from Mexico City, who was betrayed by one, Velasco, a Spaniard (T91.6). She had given birth to three illegitimate children who were branded as slaves. The Spaniard had an affair with another woman (T72.2), and Ia Malinche, in a rage of jealous anger and hate, [ stabbed her children to death (S12.2), and threw their bodies in a well. The story- teller even places the incident in a specific part of the city, near the Cathedral, and dates the event at around 1774-1776. Signif. icantly, the story-teller states that "from then on la Malinche, or better known as 'la llorona' can be seen in all cities in different parts of Mexico, especially where there is a well, a lagoon, or any place where there is water, crying out three times for her children (E547). But always she appears where there is water."24 He further states that she can be seen in the center of the city with long hair, as if she had just taken a bath, and dressed in white (E425.1.1). Clearly these } elements identify the weeping woman as an apparition similar in most respects to one of the Aztec deities discussed previously, Cihuacoatl.

Asl

"Betty

Leddy, "aL Llorona in Southern Arizona," Western

Folklore, VII

(1948), 277.

"Story related by Leonardo Villa, 31, resident of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, in Spanish. "See footnote 22. See footnote 22.

To substantiate this conjecture, this same story-teller related another version of the legend in which the weeping woman appears with loose hair and in a white robe, but only when the tide is high and when many disasters have occurred involving boats, usually along the coastal areas. She can be seen and heard crying for her lost children (E547) in the middle of the water. He continues in another version: " ... persons say that they have seen her bending down over the top of wells in the center of Mexico City; wells are common in many houses and people draw water from them for domestic use. . . ." Is she then the Aztec goddess, Chalchiuhtli ycue, who kills men in water? If she is, and there is a distinct possibility, then the two Aztec goddesses are directly related to the weeping woman. In the case of the woman and these deities, there is a definite connection with water. Their appearance near or in water has a bearing upon the origin of the woman in the legend. Kirtley makes no mention of the importance of water in any of the variants of "Die Weisse Frau" since this motif is absent from them. This is not true of the vast majority of versions Of] "La Llorona" collected in Mexico in which water plays a very significant part. Numerous other motifs which are apparently of European provenience are also present in versions of "La Llorona." These are doubtless the result of motif accretion from non-native sources. One deals with the weeping woman in much the same manner as cited in the first version presented in this paper; however, she is considered a witch. The city authorities, after hearing of her crime; decide to burn her at the stake, and while she is dying, cries out for her children. Now she appears at midnight, the witching hour, weeping and wailing, and if an unfortunate wanderer happens by, then he will be killed (E25.3). The only means that can be used to kill her is to drive a wooden stake into her heart. Another concerns the death of infants; "La Llorona"J was condemned to roam the streets in search of her sons for all eternity as a punishment meted out by God. Her soul cannot rest until she finds her childrens' bodies (0503). Clearly, these have a definite religious flavor, and might well be from Europe. In much the same manner, a young widow of Ciudad Juarez is doomed to search for her children, but only when the moon is full because she killed them during this phase of the moon. Likewise, a young woman from EI Paso, Texas, who drowned her child (S1212) in
"'See footnote 22.

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296

ROBERT

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BARAKAT

the Rio Grande River, must look for the body tintil she finds it, then she will be allowed into Heaven. So she, as with the others, search for what she can never find. These versions do not deal blameless woman, as in some; she has committed a crime and is punish.~ ed accordingly. The influence of the Church is a prime factor,and=,,;;, probably accounts for the presence of the above motifs in the legend, Influences acting upon the oral tradition of Mexico are numerous and diverse, as we have seen in the above discussion of "La Llorona." It is possible to conclude that Aztec mythology contributed many of the motifs because they are the most obvious. This is not to say that motifs of European provenience are not present; they are not as distinct as the native ones. The University oj Texas

MORALITY, COURTSHIP, AND LOVE IN GREEK FOLKLORE'"

Constantina by Safilios-Rothschild

in the traditional Greek culture can be understood only when examined in the context of "honor." Behavior is guided by the consideration of potential consequences for one's honor; anything that may lead to dishonor is pain stakingly avoided. Being honored or dishonored very often proves to be a matter of life and death. This extreme concern and literally "love of honor," expressed in pkilotimo, constitutes a central characteristic
ORALITY AND LOVE

of the Greek national character+ Three proverbs emphasize the importance of honor: "Honor has no price and joy is his who has it," "It is better to lose your eye than your good name,"> and "Better not live at all than live disgraced.?" The first proverb is of interest in its original Greek version as the same word timi means "honor" as well as "price." This synonymity seems to imply that a person's worth varies with and can be measured by the degree of honor he can claim for himself. One keeps his "good name" (i.e. good reputation) by preserving his honor unspoiled. A good name in turn entities one "to walk holding his head high" because his "forehead is clean"-and therefore he "can look people into their eyes" without fear or shame. This good reputation guarantees usually the esteem of family members, friends and neighbors.
*A revised version of a paper read at the American Folklore Meeting in Detroit, December 29, 1963. Acknowledgment is given to Sally Snyder, who encouraged me and helped me to prepare this paper. 'For an excellent discussion of philotimo, honor and ntropi, see Dorothy Lee, "Greece," in Margaret Mead, Cultural Patterns and Technical Change (New York, 1955),60-63; also Ernestine Friedl, Vasilika, a Village in Modern Greece (New York, 1962), 86-87 and 90-9l. 'Both proverbs come from my unpublished collection of Greek proverbs, sayings, and linguistic expressions. Throughout the entire paper, word, words, or sentences quoted, but not footnoted, have come from the same unpublished collection. This collection is based upon my familarity with the Greek language and culture, as a Greek reared and educated in Greece, and upon data derived from analysing novels and movies. 'A World Treasury of Proverbs, collected by Henry Davidoff (New York, 1946), 99. [ 297 1

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amopg the waters, and the tenuous veils of her gown seem th(jklouds. 'Fourth Woman She crosses roads dappled in moonlight, and her filters among the tree branches in the woods, it reverberates against the weaves among the mountains. Fifth Woman At nightfall, her long, shrill lament makes the U,UUleSt person shudder.... I have seen the rosary fall from the hands frightened women as they hear her mournful wail. Second Woman It's not a human cry, but it resounds in our consciouse ness, it invades the inner coils of our hearing. First Woman It seems that she carries with her, inside of herself, voices of many women. Second Woman Far away, beyond time. Fourth Woman To hear her is a bad omen. First Woman They say that her most doleful cry is uttered when she to Ia Plaza Mayor. ... That she kneels down there .... Turning towards ancient temples of the Indians, she kisses the ground and wails and fills everything with sorrow. Second Woman They say that she loved passionately. Fourth Woman That she was abandoned ... Third Woman That she committed a horrible crime. Fifth Woman That she spilled the blood of her loved ones. First Woman One thing we know; she must have suffered poor woman. Why can't she find any rest?

VICTORIA

MORENO

Born in Texas in 1957, Victoria Moreno is a faith healer. She comments, "I am a visionary. r live between the centuries-mosc frequently in the fifteenth. In former lives I was a seamstress, a curandera [medicine woman}, a murderer, a cavern dancer, a maid, and a sculptor. I have fourteen children. My writing is full of chese people. They cry our from within me. I am all of them and they are me. Each one adds the strength of cheir experiences. My poecry seeks to dance-my legs are paralyzed. I would like my writing co create, co sing, and especially, co dance."

LA LLORONA, 483 YEARS OLD,

CRYING AND

LADY AGING

OF

THE

CREEKBEDS,

~lr';JJ, .. L,=,'
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)jB

(-when we were children, we were told how La Llorona had lost her children, how one could hear her cry at night, searching for their dead lives, wailing, flying hair, and wild eyes. Different versions and different reasons, each to tell us a moral, to warn us, Once, we found out what her phone number was and used co dial and listen to her cry, passing around the phone from one to the next. Years later, we learned that the mych predated the arrival of che Spaniards. The crying lady, a malincbe, had bemoaned che face of her own children, a fate she had been accomplice to. We knew she would be forever with us, forever in our memories, crying for her dead children and for her children yet unborn that were to die. But creek beds got scarce in che barrio, and so, La Llorona had to get a phone installed so we could reach her, so we could hear her, so she could let us know the truth.)

La Llorona they took away her children the welfare office came and stole away her children because she had no right, they said, to be a single parent, non-model American family they took away her children (all unborn)

because He was married and she was on the pilI and He didn't care to fool with divorces and didn't care to have any bastard children and asked her not to have his.
h

FABIOLA

CABEZA

de

BACA

they took away her children it was way-out-of-style to long for large families and staying home with one's babies and breast-feeding truth and love and all that rot, especially if you were a professional and should know better, and one was only allowed to have two anyway, and only if one let the day-care raise them. they took away her children "how are you PROTECTING yourself?" they always asked, as if one could be attacked by pregnancy at any minute and torn to shreds like the most horrible distortion they took away her children because there was no time to build them a world, no time in the battlefront, soldiers always needed and she had to struggle just to stay alive they took away her children 'and made decrees about all children-to-be ,(too soon) and slipped anti-fertility chemicals into the water, to insure a society that was clean and scheduled and sterile, like the clinics designed to(well, don't worry about preserving health, just make sure to FIGHT DISEASE!) they took away her children And the Aztec Lady crying down the creekbeds ran into a concrete wall and, puzzled blank, stopped her wailing for her children and just stared, realizing that hope was gone. While J took up the dirge and, screaming down the streets at night, carried on the insane truth, the pain knowing that they took away her children.
~\

Born in 1896, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca now lives in Santa Fe. She has written several pamphlets on food preparation, including Historic Cookery, which is currently published by La Galeria de los Artesanos in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Her memoirs of pioneer life in New Mexico, We Fed Them Cactus, were published in 1954. Of her background, she says, "My Spanish ancestors were here before the pilgrims arrived in the East. The Spanish settlers for centuries kept their culture, traditions, religion, language. I am including these notes so that you may realize that we may not have the problems encountered by persons who may not have had the background which we have kept here through the centuries."

THE

WOMEN

OF

NEW

MEXICO

The women on the 11ano* and Ceja+ played a great part in the history of the land. It was a difficult life for a woman, but she had made her choice when in the marriage ceremony she had promised to obey and to follow her husband. It may not have been her choice, since parents may have decided for her. It was the Spanish custom to make matches for the children. Whether through choice or tradition, the women had to be a hardy lot in order to survive the long trips by wagon or carriage and the separation from their families, if their families were not among those who were settling on the Llano. The women had to be versed in the curative powers of plants and in midwifery, for there were no doctors within a radius of two hundred miles or more. The knowledge of plant medicine is an inheritance from the Moors, and brought to New Mexico by the first Spanish colonizers. From childhood we are taught the names of herbs, weeds, and plants that have curative potency; even today, when we have doctors at our immediate call, we still have great faith in plant medicine. Certainly this knowledge of home remedies was a source of comfort to the women who went out to Llano, yet their faith in God helped more than anything in their survival. Every village had its curandera] or medica, and the ranchers rode many

t Mountaintop. t Medicine woman.

* Rolling

plains country.

miles to bring the medicine woman or the midwife from a distant neighboring ranch. Quite often the wife of the patron * was well versed in plant mecncme. know that my grandmother, Dona Estefana Delgado de Baca, given the name of medica, because it was not considered proper in her. class, was called every day by some family in the village, or by - pleados, t to treat a child or some other person in the family. In the the year she went out to the hills and valleys to gather her supply of herbs. When she went to live in La Liendre, there were terrible outbreaksicl smallpox and she had difficulty convincing the villagers that vaccination a: solution. Not until she had a godchild in every family was she able to trol the dreaded disease. In Spanish tradition a godmother takes the resoonsf bility of a real mother, and in that way grandmother conquered many stitions which the people had. At least she had the power to decide should be done for her godchildren. From El Paso, Texas, she secured vaccines from her cousin Dr. Samamezo; She vaccinated her children, grandchildren, and godchildren against the ease. She vaccinated me when I was three years old, and the vaccination passed many doctors' inspections. As did my grandmother, so all the wives of the patrones held a very portant place in the villages and ranches on the Llano. The patron ruled rancho, but his wife looked after the spiritual and physical welfare of empleados and their families. She was the first one called when there death, illness, misfortune, or good tidings in a family. She was a great force in the community-more so than her husband. She held the strings, and thus she was able to do as she pleased in her charitable prises and to help those who might seek her assistance. There may have been class distinction in the larger towns, but the on the Llano had none; the empleados and their families were as much a of the family of the patron as his own children. It was a very democratic way of life. The women in these isolated areas had to be resourceful in every way. were their own doctors, dressmakers, tailors, and advisers. The settlements were far apart and New Mexico was a poor territory to adapt itself to a new rule. The Llano people had no opportunity for schools before statehood, but there were men and women who held for the children of the patrones in private homes. They taught reading Spanish and sometimes in English. Those who had means sent their children to school in Las Vegas, Santa Fe, or Eastern states. If no teachers were able, the mothers taught their own children to read, and many of the

ranchers had private teachers for their children until they were old enough to go away to boarding schools. Dona Luisa Gallegos de Baca, who herself had been educated in a convent in the Middle West, served as teacher to many of the children on the Llano territory. Without the guidance and comfort of the wives and mothers, life on the Llano would have been unbearable, and a great debt is owed to the brave pioneer women who ventured into the cruel life of the plains, far from contact with the outside world. Most of them have gone to their eternal rest, and God must have saved a very special place for them to recompense them for their contribution to colonization and religion in an almost-savage country.

* Landlord.
t
Employees.

/'

./

MARCELA

CHRISTINE

LUCERO-TRUJI

Born in Colorado, Marcela Christine Lucero-Trujillo currently lives in

sora, where she is an instructor in Chicano Studies at the University nesora. Her poetry has appeared in Time to Greez! (1975), La Razon (1975), and La Lxz, She includes the following poem to explain

as a writer:

My epitaph in poetry should read thusly ... Lit major learned in "isms" symbols and imagery, but if she ain't communicated with the barrio educated, then this one here, ain't she.

THE DILEMMA OF THE CHI C A NA ART 1ST AND

MODERN C R I TIC

Ute literary rebirth of the Chicanos in the 60s coincided with multaneous contemporary historical moments: (1) the passage of the Rights Act of 1964, (2) identification with Cesar Chavez's struggle, (3) the inception of Chicano Studies departments, and (4) initiation of the socio-economic political national Chicano movement. Through unification and national mobilization, the Chicanos began to, aware of their history, previously obliterated in U.S. textbooks. The . to Mexican history, the emphasis on Mexican culture and traditions in to seek self-affirmation and a positive self-identification, was almost in ation of this U.S. Anglo-European system which has held us in second-eras citizenship status since 1846, denying us the rights and privileges us in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and agreed upon by the U.S. ment at the close of the Mexican-American war. As the Chicano movement began its evolution into unification, were faced with the problem of diversity. Not all Chicanos were all were Catholic; not all were Spanish surnamed and not all were speaking. It therefore became necessary to invent or borrow symbols as mon denominators around which all Chicanos could unite. One of these was the symbol of the mestizaje, the tripartite face Indian mother, the Spanish father and their offspring, the mestizo. was the concept of a Chicano nation~Azt1an. Linguistically, there emergence of pachuquismos and regional dialects in

pachuco became an ideal Chicano type as the prototype of rebelling against the gringo-racist society at a time when American patriotism was at an a.ll time high: the Second World War. Like the Latin American, the Chicano also diminished the European psyche by establishing the Chicano Amerindia concept, which emphasized knowledge about the highly developed Aztec and Mayan civilizations as having been equal to, if not superior to, the Greek and Roman civilizations so predominant in all facets of Anglo-American education. In the beginning, in the early 60s, the Chicanos were repeating the same concerns of the Latin American philosophers and writers of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them Jose Marti, Jose Vasconcelos, Leopoldo Zea, Samuel Ramos, Silva J. Herzog, Iturriaga and Octavio Paz, to name only a few. That dilemma of being an American of this continent, but imbued and dominated by European language, culture and customs called for ethnic self-introspection, which led to a recognition of autochthonous American elements. Hence the popularity of Mexican writers and historians, especially Octavio Paz's Labyrinth of Solitude, which carried a compilation of his predecessors concerning Mexicanism, Mexican philosophy, psyche, thought and all the problematics of achieving economic independence. Paz's popularity among Chicanos may have stemmed from the fact that he wrote about a Chicano type in his book: the pachuco, and thus, he brought to the present a social phenomenon that Chicanos were familiar with, through oral tradition, or the experience itself. The questions that Mexicans were asking prior to the 1910 revolution in repudiation of Positivism, the philosophy of Scientism, were repeating themselves in the Chicano movement and the literature. The leitmotif "Yo soy Chicanoya" * predominated in much of the writings; however, as the militancy decreased, the self-affirmation diluted into an anguished question. Was this due to the fact that since the Chicano movement began ten years ago, Chicanos are now realizing that the Mexican identification has not been sufficient to provide us with solutions in order to survive within this capitalist racist oppressive society? This is more acute for the Chicana than for the Chicano, as evidenced by the statistics that Chicanas place lowest on the .financial and educational scale in comparison with any other ethnic group, male or female (Neomi Lorenzo, De C olores, p. 11). The impetus of the woman's movement together with the Chicano movement contributed to the Chicana's latest potential and so she began to focus in on her particular feministic experience through the arts. The Chicanas took the symbols afforded them through the Chicano movement and transformed them according to their feminist perspective. Some Chicanas' poetry is a. tra-

*I

am a Chicano/a,

jectory of self-examination that terminates with a "cuestionamiento" socio-economic and political factors that have taken their toll on vidualism. Some Chicanas' literature has been a vehicle whereby they could L'L"~C, u another temporal scene of our folklore, our legends and modus that particular past which seemed a safer and saner world, the ought to be, albeit a very traditional romantic view. Through the arts there is an attempt at liberation from the pean culture, that system of government that has conquered' and LVWUlLCU. in the same way it had Cuba and now Puerto Rico, the difference Chicanos are peripheral, marginal characters within the Metropolis, the other colonized Latin American countries are controlled by foreign C" tinational corporations within their midst. .: .0/' :'" ( Literature has also provided an outlet for the frustrations of in ) woman within the sexist microcosmic Chicano world of machismo, ) alienation of being a Chicano woman in the larger macrocosmic white \. club that governs the United States.
t. ~. \t

f
(

In a quest for identity and an aBirmation that brown is beautiful, the cana has sought refuge in the image of the indigenous mother. Som~ canas view the Indian mother as Mother Earth; some identify with the reality in religious themes of the Y'~in5~Lg,!:1~daIl!p~, the spiritulil and still others identify directly with thc:l1e.~iC:~,l1 Eve, the historical _r,..:l_!l:!~~c;:he. The latter will be explained in more detail.

.. .1i! M~l!gQtI:!J:h~!l1(!;

The faC:Lth.at somc:!c::hicanas view. Dona. Marina .ina sympathetic man~~~ in contrast to the portrayal of Mexican authors may mean that her redefinition lTIaybe a Chicana phenomenon. According to Octavio Paz's aforementioned book, Mexicans Malinche as the Mexican Eve, the one who betrayed the country, the opened up the country to foreign invaders. This opening up, paving for the Conquest, has sexual allusions of opening up her body to prnrr.,~t. the illegitimate sons of a rape called the Conquest. According to Paz, her treason, her betrayal, that caused the dual Mexican society of chiut)vm; vs. chingados, t with Cortes being the prototype of the "chingon," Malinche being the highest exponent of the "chingadoy'a." Within this siiication of Mexican types, the people who have power are the chi~.!?:uUt but the macho is the "gran chingon." ~ .... the. QtiQg!1:~<l,.,~<:C~~g!!1K_t~,~~~,MaJil1c;:h~ j~,': th~.)vfotlt(!r." mother of flesh and blood but amythical iigure. Th~ Chi.?ZgqticljS the.Mexic<l:l!_E~pres~l1tatigns.Of Maternity, like La Llorona or the

suffering ~_~~cjfa!l_I?!,(:~ther:' ..who. is ,ceIebrate.~ 11" May.}Q~~. The .Chingctlfa is the rpJ2~h.~.:L~hQ. ..h3;~,~uffered_-=ITletaphoricalIy or actually-the corrosive ~ll_g~fil1lljng action implicit il1tht: verb that giyes her her name" (Paz, Labyrinth, p. 75). Thus, Paz says, "hijos de Ia chingada" * is a true battle cry, charged with a peculiar electricity; it is a challenge and an affirmation, a shot fired against an imaginary enemy, and an explosion in the air." The Mexican denies La Malinche, and the anguish shows when he shouts "Viva Mexico, hijos de Ia chingada" (Ibid., p. 75). It is no wonder, then, that the )\1exical1swanted to transcend this mythical !Ilaternal image tofind refuge in a Christian feminine deity, one who s.ouI~ .lc:ptacethe Mexican Eve, and so "La Virgen Morena"-the brownvirgin . La Vi.rge!l,ge_g_l,l~g~lYpe'pecame the pj!trQ.lu~intQf lv{e)Cicowho is often .,~hQ_':l.:!1ed:'the @otlter,Qf(}rphans." She is also called Guadalupe-Tonantzin among some of the Indian population, and this latter concept reflects, the Christian-Aztec mingling of religion and culture. La Virgen de Guadalupe is the Christian virgin, symbolizing, perhaps, the Spanish 16th century concept of honor which considered virginity as the repository of the family honor, a concept deeply rooted in Catholic ideology. '!:0flarltzin, the Aztec goddess of fertility, is viewed as MotherNature, In Chicana Iiter~ture,the technique of pathetic fali~cY merges with the symbol of the good mother, Guadalupe or Tonantzin, presenting a harmonious relationship of the universe in fusion with nature . ... .If .<::hicanasuse the concept of the long-suffering mother? they revert to the ~s!~.I1.tification of La Malinche. Thus, in deciphering the symbols of the historical and spiritual mothers, the word "madre" in Mexican Spanish is at once a prayer or a blasphemy, a word whose antonymical dichotomy is manifested in ambiguities, ambivalence or oscillation in Chicana literature. In her poem "Chicana Evolution," Sylvia Gonzales sees La Malinche as the feminine Messiah who must return to redeem her forsaken daughters, born out of the violence of the Spanish and Aztec religions and cultures. She' moves away from the cosmopolitan ambiance of Greenwich Village in New York to the nativistic world of the Aztecs to encounter Malinche. In the closing stanza of the aforementioned poem, Sylvia is the coll~ctive Chicana, the spiritual sister of the Latin Americans, Mother Nature, mother, daughter, Malinche, the totality of womanhood: "todo sere ... y hasta bastarda sere, antes de dejar de ser mujer." t Chicanos see themselves as muy mejicanos] in the affinity of the w0l!lan and orphanhood concept, illegitimate sons and daughters of La Malinche. This concept, projected within the confines of the U.S. environment, rein:

* Questioning.
t
Rapists versus the raped, or violators versus the violated,

t I will be everything t Very Mexican.

* Sons of the violated

one,

... I will even be illegitimate before forsaking my womanhood, .

./

forces the feeling of orphanhood, of alienation and marginalization U.S. and Mexican societies, in the prismatic view of Indian identity vades much of the Chicana's literature. However, to blame one woman, Dona Marina, for the Conquest, is, opinion, a false historical conscience. One woman could not stand in of European expansion; one woman could not impede the alliance of class interests with the foreign invader's economic interests. God, _ gold, economic, political and religious reasons were one total objective Church and State were not separated at the time of the Conquest. . pendence" is a misnomer in Latin America as one foreign another has influenced and dominated its economic sphere to cycle of dependency and neo-colonial status for its inhabitants. In the case of the Chicanos, the gringo has replaced the Spaniards "gran chingon" by virtue of his having the positions of power. And positions of power oppress through racism, which has made Chicanos and revert to the Indian mother to say, through her, that brown is It is this contemporary society which has classified "brown" as the schematics of relative beauty. Thus, to refute the racism and the types, Chicanas have emphasized the bronze race which, ironically, past, has not appeared in the race classification. Under the present catezorres, only the black, white, red and yellow races are visible. And, that reason, Chicanos have been called the "Invisible" the ' the "Silent Americans."

Sylvia speaks collectively for the Chicana and for all women when she states that "we are all sisters under the flesh." In her poem "On an untitled theme," whose principal theme is machismo, she exacerbates the dilemma ') felt by every intellectual woman who wants to use her head, or who wants ( to be recognized for her intelligence, and not only for her body. She must ( convince her macho colleagues that her goal is not their bed. She would reject the finality of the Chicana's life of bearing sons for wars, of being alienated after the children grew up and left home. The choice of bearing sons for wars or as victims of a technological society whose recourse from pressures are drugs is an anxiety that every contemporary mother faces. The Chicana mother whose only life has been her children may have difficulties in her later years. She may seek refuge in the bottle or transform into a

nagging wife or a "vieja chisrnosa." * The sanctuary of the Chicano home then becomes a replica of the conilictive society. The modern Chicana faces a double conflict. On the one hand, she must overcome Chicano family overprotection, and on the other, she faces contempt from the outside world as she emerges into the professional world, only to find indifference as answers to her questions on reality and life. These are themes that women can relate to in Sylvia's poetry, but amidst these problems, Sylvia affirms her individualism in "Te acuerdas mujer." t This assertion of intellectualism is indirect in the praises and eulogies to Sra. Juana Ines de la Cruz, the renowned genius of Mexican colonial times. Dorinda Moreno, among other poetesses, identifies with this victim of Catholic machismo who was made to give up her academic life and go out into the world, where she contracted the plague and died a premature death at the age of 45, a martyr to feminine intelligentsia. The modern Chicana, in her literature, tries to synthesize the material and spiritual conflict of her essence. Her spirit is ingrained in the roots of Mexican culture and traditions, but her body is trying to survive in a hostile capitalistic environment, and she keenly feels the technological battle of scientisrn vs. humanism. In trying to resolve the two, her literature often shows the contradictions that exist between the two. Sylvia Gonzales expresses this concern in her article in the following: "There are many Mexican cultural values that we can relate to, but are they reliable in our search for an identity within the Anglo American cultural tradition?" The answer, she says, is a link between science and the soul (Gonzales, De Col ores, pp. 15-18). An elaboration of that answer can be found in A. Sanchez-Vasquez's book, Art and Society. "Creative freedom and capitalist production are hostile to the artist. ... Art. representing denied humanity opposes an inhuman so-

THE

PROBLEMATICS

OF

THE

MODERN

CHICANA

Sylvia Gonzales in her poetry is first of all a woman, then a Chicana with a mission. Maternal imagery permeates much of her poetry. She poetry to her future generations, and she ponders their fate as she in and out of herself, from the first to the third person in the poem begins "Yo soy la mujer poeta. * "2Como sera la generaci6n; criada can la inquietud de la mujer poeta She expresses the anxieties of being a woman poet, not a poetisa, but a poeta, who is faced with the sisyphus responsibility of advising and well to the future generation of Chicano readers. Her mission is to because she has many "consejos" t to give. In her personal Ars Poetica (De C olores, p. 15) she gives 'us her ophy in declaring that "the artist must be true to her own soul and her personal experiences, and in so doing, the message will be universal eternal" (Ibid.,p.15).

t How
:t

*I

am the woman poet. will the generation "Advices."

be; fostered

by the restlessness

of the woman

* Shrewish

t Remember

old woman. you are a woman.

ciety, and society opposes the artist insofar as he resists reification, . he tries to express his humanity" (A.S.V., p. 116). The dilemma of the Chicanoz'a artist is trying to create an art for sake, and not for art's sake or for commercialism. He/She is working hostile, scientific milieu whose marginalization is twofold: one, because artist's creation is not scientific, but humanistic, for the enjoyment of manity, with no utilitarian value, and second, because Chicanos' values are not understood or appreciated by the dominant society. Chicano artists and writers must continue to create and to communicaf with the grass roots people, and in so doing, will reach the universal who identify with their contemporary situation whether in this or countries, whether in this or another historical moment, for art has its laws which transcend the artist, his/her time and even the ideology brought forth his/her art. Literature is a medium and a praxis whereby we can start to question oppression, not by escapism into the mythical past in sentimental reminiscent of other literary ages, but in dealing with the everyday lems. The Chicana can question and confront the society which holds her double jeopardy, of being a woman and a minority. Every Chicana's life is a novel, yet we have not read a Chicana feminist novel. The Chicana has had to be a cultural schizophrenic: in trying to please both the Chicano and Anglo publishers, not to mention pleasing the readers, who may neutralize her potential to create within own framework of ideas. We must examine closely the published works of Chicanas who have selected for publication by male editors and publishers. We have to ourselves if we have been published because we have dealt with themes that reinforce the male ego. As urban professional Chicanas, we must reinterpret our pantheistic view of the world. Are we really the prototype of the suffering indigenous mother? Are we co-opting and neutralizing tions by writing what the publishers want to read? 1 remind you that "macho" in classical Nahuatl means "image," of myself." Are we then only a narcissistic reflection, and consequently we define ourselves as a reflection of the Chicano perspective, as a reactioni' rather than action of that definition? Then it becomes necessary to examine the totality of the Chicana's expression, her motives for writing, the audience for whom it was intended;' her biography as a product of all of her past experiences which are projected into her work, and lastly to understand why her particular content is porlant in this space and time. For in examining a work in this critical we would also be examining ourselves, and could come to a collective elusion of what direction we are taking within the feministic framework the Chicano's socioeconomic and political status within the United States.

Therefore, it may be somewhat premature at this time to view the present literature of the Chicanas as a culmination of the Chicana experience. All of the literature has been positive in that it has provided a historical awareness, "una concientizacion," an inspiration to other Chicanas to affirm their literary talents, and those Chicanas who have been writing and publishing for some time now are progressing steadily on the incline of their own apogee.