Localizing myself..

In the past few days I’ve had the chance to learn a lot about the local lore from my Spanish Teacher Eduardo. We have class almost every day for about 6 hours, and it typically consists of applicable vocabulary, cultural information and general conversation in Spanish and it’s been one of the highlights of my training thus far. One of our recent lessons detailed several accepted myths about local espantos, or ghosts. Eduardo told us three different stories, each accompanied with a report of a first-hand encounter with the spirit.

The first was about La Llorona, or the weeper, a woman from the colonial period who fell in love with a Spaniard and bore his child. After a short period, the man left the Guatemalan woman to return to Spain to marry someone of his own social class, a union which would be more socially acceptable. When the woman found out about his plans to leave she drowned his child in a nearby river. As legend has it, La Llorona has since repented and still regrets her actions, openly weeping near any body of water – be it a lake, river, brook or even the common sinks – pilas - found in almost every home. (This one made me particularly uneasy, because my bedroom faces the pila)

The second was a tale of a siren-type figure that beckons already enamored men to pursue her, usually appearing as a beautiful woman near the edge of a cliff or precipice. According to Eduardo, she encourages the men to follow her inviting beauty to their deaths. This one reflects on the traditional Mayan belief that physical beauty is not an admirable quality, and that it can be dangerous and deceitful to its admirers.

The third, and my favorite, told of El Sombrerón, a very short man of dwarf-like proportions who dresses entirely in black with a wide belt and a silver pistol at each side. But his distinguishing feature is his [comically] oversized hat –thus the name, El Sombrerón (Sombrero is the Spanish word for hat). From the description, he sounds like a Yosemite Sam, or Speedy Gonzales type of figure. The legend says that he appears at the window of young women with big beautiful eyes and long flowing locks. He bewitches them with his smooth guitar melodies until they fall into a trance-like state that keeps them from eating or drinking, leaving them to eventually die in their sleep if their condition goes unnoticed. According to Eduardo - and this is where the legend got a little strange even in mythical terms - El Sombrerón likes long-haired young women because he likes to braid their hair at night when they sleep. Yes, that’s right, braid their hair. He also likes to braid horses’ manes and tails, and to find your horse’s hair braided is a sign that you’ve been paid a visit by El Sombrerón. Although this one was so strange that I found myself laughing as Eduardo finished the story, I thought to ask my host mom, Aura, about it when I returned home from class.

When I mentioned the others, she merely laughed at the local superstitions just as I had earlier. But when I went on the mention that I had also heard the story of El Sombrerón, she got very quiet and told me straight-faced that she herself had had an encounter with the little ghost, to the point that she found the hair on her grandfather’s horse in tight little braids following the sighting. To ease her nerves, she immediately cut her own long hair while her grandfather got holy water from the parish priest to sprinkle all over the horse and throughout the entire house.

Good thing I chopped my hair off before I got to Guatemala, eh? I’m not sure how I feel about a short little man with a huge hat braiding my hair in my sleep.

Until next time..