MEXICAN GHOST TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST STORIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED AVILA COMPILED BY KAT AVILA

Transcription

1 MEXICAN GHOST TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST STORIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED AVILA COMPILED BY KAT AVILA Piñata Books Houston, Texas 1994

2 CONTENTS La Llorona The Devil Dog The Bad Boy The Witches The Pepper Tree The Devil and the Match The Devil Baby The Devil s Wind The Funeral and the Goat Devil The Dead Man s Shoes The Yaqui Indian and the Dogs...69 The Caves of Death The Acorn Tree Grove The Water Curse The Bat The Japanese Woman The Brutish Indian The Whirlwind The Chinese Woman of the Sea La Llorona of the Moon The Owl

3 LA LLORONA A long time ago, in the old days, there lived a woman in Mexico. Life was hard for her because her husband had died and she was left with three small children. In time, the children became a burden for the woman. She longed for the gaiety and the dancing at the fiestas as an escape from her daily responsibilities. For this reason, the woman would go out and leave the children to fend for themselves, and because they were hungry and hurt from the beatings they received at her hands, the children cried often. One day, tired of hearing her children s endless weeping and pleading for food, the woman forced them into a sack and dragged them to a nearby river swollen from the rains in the mountains. Although the children cried out to their mother, begging her to release them, they did not suspect the grim fate she had in store for them. As the woman dragged the sack slowly to the water s edge, she could hear her children cry out, Please, mother! Please! Still, she was determined to cast off the yoke that hung around her neck because her heart was hard and cruel. Oh, to be rid of these troublesome children! she 11

4 12 MEXICAN GHOST TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST thought. Finally, the mother pushed the sack off the bank into the river with one quick move. She could hear her children s terrified screaming as they tumbled into the swift, swirling waters that swallowed them into eternity. Afterwards, the woman walked away happy. At last she was free! The woman continued her loose wicked life until she finally died. Her soul was then taken before God for judgment. Trembling and sorrowful, she stood before the Almighty. You! God said to her, are to be pitied. Not only have you sinned greatly during your time on earth, but you committed the greatest sin of all, you killed your own children. Therefore, you are condemned to roam the rivers of the world until you find their bones. You will find no rest until then, and you will wander about crying until the end of the world. If some night when there is no moon, you happen to hear a long, mournful, howling cry by the river, beware! It may be La Llorona, the Wailing Woman, looking for her children. Stay away from the river, because you don t want her to find you in the dark.

5 THE DEVIL DOG

6 THE DEVIL DOG M any years ago in the quiet sleepy village of La Colonia, on the outskirts of Zacatecas, there lived a hard-drinking man who did not care for his own people. He spent the nights drinking tequila and pulque and quarreling at the local cantina, and the days sleeping in the dusty, windy streets. Sometimes he made it back to his adobe house. It sat about a mile from the village, in a clump of mesquite trees amidst large cactus plants that grew here and there from the arid ground. The house was just a short distance from the railroad tracks. On rare occasions, a train would pass by headed north. It would carry federal troops sent to suppress the unrest stirred up by the famous Pancho Villa and the revolution that was blazing in the northern lands. One night, after drinking heavily, the man said goodbye to his friends in the cantina and staggered out reeking of tequila and lime. Stumbling in the dark, he finally found his way to the railroad tracks. At last! he said to himself in a drunken stupor. I will follow the tracks home. 15