There are many pre-Hispanic legends that have been explained in Mexico for thousands of generations. They are their greatest reflection of what they were and of what still endures in this town. They usually include fantastic, mythological, historical characters and real places. Some stories that mark and have marked a society. INDEX
1. What are the Mexican legends
2. Short Legends of Mexico
3. Legends of Mexico of terror What are the Mexican legends
The Mexican legends are a series of folkloric stories that are transmitted from generation to generation orally. These narratives usually include mythological characters, ghosts, entities, gods and haunted places.
Many of them focus on pre-Hispanic Mexican folklore, explaining stories of the Aztecs, Mayans and Mexicas . A wonderful way to learn more about these Mexican cultures, their interests, values and fears. Short Mexican
legends Pre-Hispanic legends are focused on explaining the meaning of life, the universe, its gods and its religion . Then we leave you with a selection of legends to discover a little more about the culture of Mexico. 1. The Legend of Corn
This Aztec legend tells that at the beginning of its history, this town of Mexico suffered from food shortagesThey hunted few animals and had to collect roots to try to appease their appetite. They knew that there was corn, but it was hidden behind some great mountains and was inaccessible to them.
The old gods, aware of how bad their people were, tried to open a gap between the mountains , but their efforts were not enough. However, everything changed when the god Quetzalcoatl arrived, who possessed great wisdom, insight and ingenuity.
To solve the problem, Quetzalcoatl turned into an antand set out on his way to the corn. After overcoming many obstacles, he reached him and grabbed a grain of corn with his jaw, which he then took to his village so that he could plant it. The Aztecs carefully cultivated the grain until corn sprouted. Since then, corn has become a sacred food and its food base. 2. Quetzalcoatl
According to this Mexican legend, when the creation of the world was finished, humans and gods lived together. All the gods were happy except the god Quetzalcoatl , who did not like to see how humans were subjugated by the other gods.
To put an end to this situation, Quetzalcoatl decided to adopt a human appearance to explain and teach them the knowledge that the gods had. When he arrived in the human world, he wandered until he reached Tollan, where a sacrifice was being made for the brother of the god Tezcatlipoca . Enraged by such brutality, he stopped the act and explained to the people that from that moment on, as long as he was with them, Tollan would flourish like no other.
Reliefs in a Mexica temple. | stocks. 3. The house of thunder
This short legend from Mexico tells that in the past seven priests celebrated, from time to time, a tribute to the thunder godin a cave located in a lonely and uninhabited region. But the years passed and Totonac settlers began to arrive in those lands, to inhabit and harvest them.
The priests, enraged by the inhabitants and because their lands were no longer uninhabited, decided to invoke the thunder god and ask him to rain and not stop until the new inhabitants left. And so it went for several days.
The Totonacs, seeing themselves desperate due to the situation, were forced to reach an agreement with the priests in order to stop the rain. They agreed to build a temple on those lands and worship them there . 4. Legend of the volcanoes
This legend of the Mexican mythology triesprovide an explanation for the presence of the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes in the Valley of Mexico. According to this legend, the people of Tlaxcalteca fought against the Aztec empire to stop the oppression that they exerted on them and thus obtain their freedom.
Popocatepetl was a young warrior who was in love with Iztaccihuatl. His love was reciprocated, and before he went to war against the Aztec empire, he was betrothed , postponing the celebration of him until he returned from the war.
But time passed and the lack of news from the Tlaxcalteca army and from Popocatepetl made an old enemy of Popocatepetl tell Iztaccihuatl that his lover was dead.. The young woman fell into a deep sadness and died. Shortly after, Popocatepetl returned victorious with the rest of the army.
Upon hearing the news, Popocatepetl took the body of her beloved and took her to the top of a mountain. He laid her down so that she could rest in peace while hers, kneeling before her, would watch over the eternal sleep of the beautiful Iztaccihuatl. 5. The Cempasuchil flower
This Mexican myth tells of the origin of the Cempasuchil flower. As explained, Xochitl and Huitzilin were two young Aztecs in love since they were little . In their youth they climbed hills and offered flowers to the sun god Tonatiuh.
But when Huitzilin was old enough to fight, he had to leave his town to join the rest of the warriors and fight. Unfortunately,the young man was killed in battle . When her beloved Xochitl found out about her, she climbed a mountain and begged the sun god to let her be with her beloved.
Tonatiuh ignored her and cast a ray of sunlight on her, turning her into a pretty orange flower. Huitzilin, turned into a hummingbird, could approach her and kiss her. And this is the origin of the Cempasuchil flower , used in the pre-Hispanic tradition to guide the dead to the world of the living. Mexican horror legends
Both in the Mayan and Mexica cultures, horror legends featuring ghosts and spirits abound. It was a way of explaining strange things that happened in towns, such as disappearances, noises and deaths.1. The shaman’s wife
It is a Mexican horror story that takes place in the jungle of Chiapas, where there was a shaman who healed the people of the town and surroundings. The women, grateful for having cured them or a family member of theirs, presented him with fruit, corn, vegetables and other spices. The shaman’s wife, jealous and believing that they wanted to take her husband away from her, went deep into the jungle to ask the spirits for help.
After a series of incantations, she tore off her skin and turned into a jaguar.. That same night he killed one of the women that the shaman had cured and her entire family. This action was repeated every night with all the women who had approached her husband. To this day, it is still said that the jaguar lives in the jungle and that it appears to everyone who crosses its path. 2. The messenger of death
This Mayan legend tells the story of an owl, a species of owl from Mexico, which was considered the wisest of birds. The rest of the birds always came to him, to ask for advice or to solve a problem . But one day, the rest of the birds invited him to a party and he got drunk.
A man passing by saw him drunk and made fun of the owl. The pain felt by the owl was such that he decidedtake revenge on all humans . For this he decided to choose his best virtue, smell. He went to the cemetery every night to learn to recognize the smell of death. Since then, the owl announces death to people, singing the hour of his fateful moment.
3. Youaltepuztli or the nocturnal ax
This pre-Hispanic Mexican myth of the Mexica culture tells that at night when you hear an ax cutting wood, it is the entity Youaltepuztli, who appears to scare people and torment them . This meant a bad omen, because if you found him nothing good could happen to you.
To the brave who wanted to go to discover what exactly that noise was, they would find a ghostly silhouette. If they challenged and grappled with the entity, it would show itself as it was, a headless body with its chest split open by an ax blow . If the brave man won, Youaltepuztli offered him wealth, fame and glory to reward his bravery. But if the man could not defeat Youaltepuztli, he would fall into misery for life.
Some of these legends may give you chills. | Unsplash. 4. Ghosts of the night
In the Mexica culture it is said that at night the ghosts that appeared were representations of the god Tezcatlipoca . There were several forms that he adopted to scare the people and the towns of Mexico.
She could take the form of Cuitaplaton, a dwarf woman with long hair and a duck-like gait. She appeared to the men, who when they saw her returned home trembling with fear and with the conviction that sooner or later some misfortune would happen to them.
Other ghosts that appeared at night was a skull-shaped entity , which jumped down the calf and made a shocking noise, chasing those who fled from it. He also presented himself as a deceased lying on the ground moaning and complaining. If someone tried to catch him, he would find out that he was a ghost.
The last form that he adopted was that of Sahagun, a coyote that prevented travelers from passing ., to warn them of some misfortune that would happen on their way or some danger. 5. The Xtabay
One of the most popular Mexican horror legends is the legend of the Xtabay . This was a woman, with long hair and dressed in a white dress, who frightened drunken and lustful men, who were led to Xibalba, a world where disease and death reign.
This Yucatan legend tells the story of two Mayan sisters . One was Xtabay, beautiful and kind who gave herself to love and who received criticism and was rejected by all the people for her sins. The other was Utz-Colel, cold and proud who never committed any sin and was greatly admired by all.
When Xtabay died, from her graveIt gave off a delicate perfume and beautiful flowers bloomed . No one believed what was happening, because a sinful body could only give off a bad smell. When Utz-Colel died, his tomb gave off a pestilence and a cactus with long spines was born.
The spirit of Utz-Colel, jealous of the Xtabay flower, thought that everything good that had happened to Xtabay after her death was because in life she had given herself over to love and did not understand that it was actually because of her kind heart. .
For this reason, he decided to give himself to all the evil spirits so that the same thing happened to Xtabay. It was in this way that they allowed him to return in the form of an entity to the world of the living , to make men fall in love and take them to the world of death.
- Read our 20 short legends for all ages.
Bibliographic references
Meza, O. (1988). Mexican prehispanic legends. Publishing Landscape.
Riva Palacio, V., Peza, JDD, & Ortiz Monasterio, J. (1996). Mexican traditions and legends. Selected works.
Sodja, CF (1993). Mexican legends before and after the conquest (Vol. 10). Books for Everyone.
Barlow, G., & Stivers, W. N. (1989). Mexican legends: a collection of Mexican legends. National Textbook Company.
