Singer/Songwriter - Rachel Sedacca: Music Clips
La Llorona
(Rachel Sedacca)
2006-05-05
Traditional
Many versions of La Llorona's origin exist. Some describe a beautiful young woman in Mexico or New Mexico, who married or was seduced by a local man, by whom she had several children. The man leaves her, sometimes for another woman, sometimes for reasons of employment, and sometimes just to be away from La Llorona and her several children. At any rate, La Llorona chooses to murder her children, almost always by drowning, either to spare them a life of poverty, to free herself to seek another man, or for revenge against their absent or stray father.
The tales vary mostly in the several motives they give to the mother and father for the murder. The version popular in Las Cruces, New Mexico says that "La Llorona" drowned her children in the Rio Grande when she could no longer support them. On nights with a full moon, says the story, La Llorona can be heard crying near the river.