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The eve of
the conquest of Mexico -Tenochtitlan by Hernan Cortes
and his Spanish army was plagued by omens that Miguel
Leon–Portilla enumerates in his book, “Broken Spears:
The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico”. Based
on codices as well as from memories of the period,
Portilla describes a woman who the natives called
Cihuacoatl (the serpent woman), who wandered among
the temples of the great ‘Mexica’ capital
announcing a tragedy: “O-h-h, my children, the time
for our departure draws near. O-h-h-h, my children!
Where shall I take you?”
However, it
was during the colonial days when the legend of the
weeping woman gained the necessary strength to filter
into Mexican folklore, and although there are
innumerable versions as to the origin of this macabre
and heartrending cry, the most popular one is told in
detail herein:
Every night
at eleven, when the curfew sounded in the capital of New
Spain, the inhabitants would shut themselves in their
houses of mud and stone. The streets were left deserted.
It was then that the darkness and the silence were torn
by the long and distressing wails of a woman. “Oh, my
children”, she repeated monotonously, causing even
the bravest hearts to shudder.
Those who
dared to look out from their windows managed to see the
silhouette of a woman dressed in white, floating above
the street’s stone pavement; she would stop at the
city’s Main Square. Later, the ghostly figure would head
in the direction of Texcoco Lake, where she’d disappear
with the first rays of the dawn.
But, just who
was this woman whose face could not be discerned? Why
did she cry so pitifully? According to the story, there
was once a beautiful native woman who fell deeply in
love with a Spanish gentleman. The gentleman felt a
great passion for her, but relations between a nobleman
and an Indian woman was positively regarded with
disapproval, so he maintained his romance with her in
secret. Three children were born to the mother, who
adored and tirelessly cared for them.
Over time,
the woman sought to formalize her relationship with the
gentleman, who began to evade her. She soon found out
that he had agreed upon a convenient marriage to a
wealthy Spanish lady. Humiliated by the man she loved so
much, the woman was driven totally mad and drowned her
three children in a river. She committed suicide
afterwards. At the gates of Heaven, the woman was asked
about her little ones. “My Lord, I don’t know where they
are”, she replied. Thus, she was condemned to search
for them for all eternity.
There are
those who assure that, in her zeal to be accepted into
Heaven, the murderess Weeping Woman carries away the
firstborn children between the ages of 1 and 5 years-old
to present them before God as her children. That’s why
the proximity of her cries is so feared by all.
Other
versions affirm that the woman who wanders about crying
nightly among the labyrinth of building in Mexico City
is none other than ‘Malinche’; Hernan Cortes’
mistress, who’s accused of having betrayed her race
because of her love for the conqueror.
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