Gods, warriors, supernatural beings, demons, souls, dead and animals are part of the myths of Mexico. In the long night of colonization, Europeans tried to burn the memory of a civilization that, however, had safeguarded in word and forever an entire worldview embodied in oral legends of Mexico .
Today dozens and dozens of these legendary narratives are preserved, a mixture of pre-Hispanic myths, short myths and horror myths that are part of the soul of the Mexican people. We reveal below the most surprising myths of Mexico.
- You can also read: The 7 best short horror myths to be very scared.
Myths and legends of Mexico
In Mexico there are countless myths and legends that are part of the oral culture of the Mexican people. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the pre-Hispanic myths had transmitted from generation to generation amazing myths that build a magical universe of incredible events starring gods, animals and supernatural beings.
These legends became part of the reliquary of the myths of antiquity when the conquerors tried to annihilate the pre-Columbian cultures . The sacred codices were burned, but not the oral tradition that had already settled in the consciousness of an entire civilization that magical world of the myths of Mexico.
Later, while the monks tried to reconstruct the myths in the solitude of their cells in the permanence of written letters, little by little the new generations continued with the mythological tradition .
The myths of Mexico after the conquest are an amalgam of frightening narratives in which a magical world tries to represent the fear of blood , death and cultural crisis that the Colony entailed. Some stories are based on real events, and others fight against superstition halfway between myth and painful truth.
But one and the other have left an endless list of stories and legends for the history of one of the most magical and mysterious countries. These are the 10 most amazing myths of Mexico .Short myths of Mexico
Mothers in Mexico scare their children by saying that La Llorona, the most popular of the protagonists of short myths, will come. La Llorona is one of the many legendary figures that constitute the swarm of myths and short stories of Mexican popular culture.
Sometimes it is just stories told from generation to generation, with the sole function of entertaining or causing amazement; on other occasions they try to explain the origin of a natural phenomenon, a population, a bridge or a historical event. These are the five most popular short myths of Mexico: 1. La llorona
The quintessential short myth of Mexican culture is “La llorona”. In its essence, the narrativeexplains through the myth the origin of the crying that many peasants and travelers say they have heard at some time on the banks of the river in the middle of the night.
The most widespread version tells the story of a young teenager who, migrating from the village to the city in search of a better life, was hired as a servant by a wealthy family. She fell in love with the cruel son of the bosses , she was abandoned and fired after becoming pregnant.
Back at her house, her luck was not much better: her family, with deep Catholic convictions, did not accept her situation either. In desperation, the girl went down to the river and after giving birth she abandoned her babydownstream. When I became aware of it, I started running, chasing his son along the banks of the river, crying and screaming.
Often visitors and locals stop at the banks of a river thinking they hear the painful cry of a girl , the cry of La Llorona. 2. The legend of the black Charro
A legend as popular and well-known as that of La Llorona spreads through the towns of Mexico: The reading of the black Charro. In Mexico charro means horseman, and the story tells of the mysterious encounter of the young and promiscuous Adela with a black charro .
The myth tells that Adela, despite her young age and despite the warnings of her long-suffering mother, enjoyed flirting and seducing the men of her small town. On one occasion, while she was waiting alone for one of her beaus, a black rider appeared and convinced her to get on the back of her horse.
As soon as Adela got on the horse, the rider began a horrible march towards hell, opening furrows of fire with the rapid trot of her horse: Adela had been seduced by the devil himself .
The residents of the town continue to tell today that that night they saw a woman burning on the horse of a black charro laughing out loud. And since then, panicked,the town girls behave with scrupulous neatness . 3. The Hidden Queen
Throughout the face of Mexico there are endless pre- Hispanic myths that are part of the Aztec cosmogony , the myths through which natural phenomena and their creation are explained.
One of the most emblematic is “Water and love”. It is told that in the town of Bolochen, condemned to an eternal drought, his chief protector, a brave warrior, had lost his head for a girl . Her capricious mother hid her so that no one could usurp her precious daughter.
This is how the warrior abandoned his people and gave himself body and soul to the search for his beloved. After praying to the gods, someone alerted him that they had heard the cries of a woman in a lost cave. After much effort to reach the source of the tears, the warrior found her .
The surprise was that it was surrounded by seven water ponds : Chacha (red water), Pucuelha (waves like the sea), Sallab (waterfall), Akabha (dark water), Chocoha (hot water), Ocila (dark water). milky) and Chimaisha (with many insects). And that’s how love brought water to the town of Bolochen. 4. The myth of Papatzin
The myth of Papatzin is the best known of the stories that anticipated, before the arrival of the conquerors, the fall of the Aztec civilization . Here is one of the most famous myths of antiquity in Mexico.
It tells the story of Papatzin, the sister of the governor of Tenochtitlan, the powerful Moctezuma. Papatzin, young and dazzlingly beautiful , was also much loved by the people for her kindness and simplicity. People used to greet her during the long hours she spent sitting in front of her garden. But a disease suddenly took his life, and Moctezuma buried her in a nearby cave. The next morning, a girl from the town who did not know the news of her death claimed to have seen her sitting as she used to in front of her garden.
The princess told the girl to tell the butler’s wife, who fainted when she saw Papatzin, and when she woke up she went to tell the butler that when she saw the princess she lost consciousness. Upon awakening, he received an order: report her presence to Moctezuma himself . The butler, fearing reprisals for having invented such a story, did not obey.
So the mayordomo spoke with her husband Netzahualpilli, who informed Moctezuma that his sister was still alive. She is she appeared before the emperor himself, and notified him that a young man with white wings had announced terrible changes in the world. Shortly after his second death, the conquistadors arrived . 5. The Devil’s Bridge
This short myth explains the origin of the name of this bridge that is located in the town of Jalisco: behind its terrifying name, a beautiful love story is hidden .
In that region, the towns of Puente Grande and Zapotlanejo were separated by a mighty river whose waters were always raging, and on one side and the other lived two lovers. Without a bridge linking the two towns,The man tried to swim across the river , but always ended up in a futile risk.
Grief consumed him and he began to frequent the taverns where he drowned his martyrdom in alcohol. In one of his drunken sprees and on the way home he shouted three times ” I would give my soul for a bridge that would let me cross the river.”
A voice appeared from the shadows to make a pact with the drunk : if at the end of the night he managed to build a bridge he would keep his soul.
But on the other side of the river a neighbor had witnessed the scene and quickly went to her lover, who was afraid of losing the soul of her beloved, imitating the rooster’s song.awakening in turn the song of all the roosters of the city. The devil, who only had one stone left to finish the bridge, assumed his defeat and disappeared.
The Devil’s Bridge, in Jalisco, is one of the most important myths of Mexico. | Image from: Youtube.
This is how the woman managed to deceive the devil, and reunite with her beloved. This bridge still separates Puente Grande from Zapotlanejo, and there is still the hole in the last brick : they say that if someone tries to fill that hole, the stone ends up coming loose. Myths of terror in Mexico
Mexican popular culture also includes an extensive list of horror stories that make your hair stand on end. In it are collectedshort stories that continue to be told from generation to generation , by word of mouth, with some kind of final moral. These are narrations that explain the origin of supposed apparitions in the middle of the night.
The horror myths in Mexico usually tell the story of unfortunate beings who paid a high price for their mistakes in life, so they try to alert us to the dangers of pride, stinginess, caprice and other vices and defects. Here are some of the most widespread and chilling: 1. The woman of five
In a small border town in Mexico lived a ruthless woman long ago whose husband had abandoned her children together. As revenge, her mother mistreated her little ones with torture and punishment. The cruelty was such that some nights he locked them naked for an hour in a tiny dark room.
The grown up boys abandoned her mother as soon as they could, and this she, in her loneliness, she began to feel the horrible weight of her guilt . Repentant, she visited the parish priest hoping that her confession and God’s forgiveness would appease her soul.
But her father, hearing the woman’s misdeeds, proclaimed that he was unable to grant her pardon, which corresponded only to the Pope of Rome. But how was such a poor woman going to travel to Rome
? She would have to beg for money with coins no larger than five cents until she got the sum necessary to travel. This is her penance”, sentenced the priest.
The unfortunate beganto wander like a banshee through the streets and around the church , but the penance was so hard that it began to take its toll on his health and physical appearance.
The old woman died of madness without having obtained the desired amount, and legend has it that her soul appears at midnight through the streets of downtown Mexicali. Those who have seen her describe her as a skeleton with a skull wearing a handkerchief . If you ever find it, always have a five cent ready. 2. The chained well
In the middle of a desert far from the neighboring towns to the north of Mexico lived a couple without children. The peaceful peasants dwelled in peace in their little house: the man took care of a small garden, and his wife was in charge of the housework.
Until there came two mysterious strangers who claimed to have lost their way. While they got their bearings, they asked for some water and rest. The man took them to a well that the couple had for water supply, just behind the house. The travelers stayed overnight .
Neighbors from neighboring towns say that, despite the fact that the couple’s house was far away, in the middle of the night they heard a bloodcurdling scream. The couple was never seen again in the towns of the area: it is presumed that the travelers wanted to rob them, and they were thrown into the well where they drowned.If you visit his house today you can still see the chained well , from which the bloodcurdling screams of the man and the woman continue to come out at night. 3. The soul in pain of La Rumorosa
In the town of Tijuana, near the border of Mexico with the United States, lived the nurse Eva, known for helping the residents of the town and its surroundings whenever they needed it. In one of those, she received a visit from a woman from La Rumorosa who asked her if she could visit her sick husband.
La Rumorosa was an isolated rancheria in the middle of the desert, so Eva had to walk several kilometers under a suffocating sun. Disoriented and without strength, I end up lost in the middle of that desertof which the stories of ghosts and apparitions were famous. As night fell, the girl panicked.
Eva never arrived at La Rumorosa’s farm, nor did she ever return to her town. They say that at night the rocks were transformed into diabolical series that chased her until she tripped and fell off a cliff.
They also say that travelers who travel the La Rumorosa highway see her appear wandering in sorrow with a white suit. 4. The bad daughter
This myth of terror tells that during the years of the Revolution many wealthy families sought refuge from bandits in the town of Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco. The Peon Valdes family arrived there, made up ofa marriage that was graced with the birth of a daughter whom they called Blanca Rosa.
Blanca Rosa was born with incomparable beauty, so she soon became the treasure of her parents and the admiration of all her neighbors. When she grew up she began to be courted by the boys from Lagos, but Blanca Rosa always remained immutable.
One night Blanca Rosa went to sleep as if nothing had happened, but when her mother went to wake her up at dawn, the girl was not in her bed and from the window, wide open, she hung a rope. She apparently had eloped, and rumors started about who she was with.
Despite the enormous efforts of her parents and neighbors to find her, she was never heard from again. Some years later, many neighbors claimed to see Blanca Rosa dressed as Blanca with a bundle in her hands , shouting “Where are they
? Where will I find them
?”
Later it was learned that her daughter had left her house to go live with Chicho, a handsome gallant with whom she had four children. The myth tells of her that Chicho surprised her with another man and prisoner of her madness killed her children and then killed her . The figure of the beautiful Blanca Rosa continues to appear in Lagos de Moreno, repentant for having been a bad daughter. 5. The headless body
In a town in the state of Durango I lived in the fiftiesa man who worked in the care of the railway tracks . In one of those, the man was invited to a wedding. At that time the contracting parties were married in the morning, and throughout the day the guests celebrated, drank and danced until the next day.
The man in question drank early in the morning, so that by nightfall he was the object of a tremendous binge. However, he did not forget that at twelve o’clock at night the train was going to the capital , so he had to change the tracks. And he did so, after which he decided to rest for a while before going home.
That was how the man, lost drunk, leaned his head on the rails and around midnightThe express to the capital crossed Durango, severing the drunk’s neck . His ghost keeps appearing punctually around midnight walking along the tracks with his headless body.
- It may interest you: Cosmogony: definition and 6 great myths.
