La Lechuza, The Owl-Woman Of Mexican Folklore That Kidnaps Children And Can Kill You With Just One Touch

According to hundreds of years-old folklore, La Lechuza has the face of an outdated girl atop the human body of an owl and she preys on drunk adult men and kids in the lifeless of evening.

Alongside the border of Northern Mexico and Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, there are whispers of a creature identified as La Lechuza, a seven-foot owl with a woman’s deal with whose cries can be heard at night time, engaging victims to wander into her clutches.

In some tellings, La Lechuza was after a human female, but an act of cruelty fully commited versus her or her baby turned her into a vengeful monster. In some others, La Lechuza is a witch’s acquainted, serving her mistress’ will by abducting young children, or perhaps she is a servant of Satan himself, a person who feeds on the unfavorable emotions of the individuals who have the misfortune of encountering her.

In each version of the legend, though, just one issue is certain — viewing a Lechuza is a negative omen, most likely of your very own dying, and never ever one thing to be taken flippantly.

What Is La Lechuza?

Like a lot of legends, descriptions of the Lechuza are inconsistent, with only a several similarities from tale to story. Nonetheless, the commonly approved understanding of the Lechuza describes the figure as a large owl, approximately seven toes tall with a wingspan of 15 toes and an old woman’s experience.

As writer Kayla Padilla recounted in the Trinitonian, tales of the Lechuza are popular in some areas of Mexico and Texas. In Padilla’s hometown, it was claimed the Lechuza — basically translated to “owl” — was a white owl possessed by a witch. Elsewhere, nonetheless, the Lechuza may possibly just take the sort of a female during the working day and an owl at night time. Yet again, the particulars differ.

Several variations of the tale, which include Padilla’s, say that La Lechuza will make seems like a crying toddler, hoping to attract its sufferer out into the open in which it can snatch them up and then return to its lair, prey in its clutches. A particular person also should really not search at a Lechuza’s encounter for way too long, lest the creature become angry.

Some believe that that although the Lechuza is out searching, its human physique stays elsewhere, commonly in a locked space, unconscious. A lot of think that killing a Lechuza also kills the human being inhabiting it — and that a special prayer can unveil the genuine id of a Lechuza inside of a community.

1 of the most well-known recurring themes in La Lechuza legends, in accordance to Mexico Unexplained, is that the Lechuza was as soon as a human lady who was wronged in some way and now roams the Earth as a 50 percent-human creature in search of revenge.

Some variations of the tale say her baby was killed for a crime he did not dedicate, so now she steals missing small children absent from their dad and mom. A further variation of the tale states the Lechuza’s child was killed by a drunk guy, and that she exacts her revenge by preying on drunks who stumble out of nearby bars.

Most tales of the Lechuza emphasize the trouble of killing or warding off the legendary creature. It just can’t be harm by bullets — and one who tries to shoot it and fails to eliminate it dies in its stead. Any person the Lechuza touches, even if it is just a single feather from its wings, dies. Dreaming about the Lechuza signifies a family member will before long die.

Encountering a Lechuza, then, suggests just about certain dying. Even now, there are numerous procedures of warding off a Lechuza, most of which involve the incantation of prayers or the appliance of herbs such as Chile powder and salt, but like the legends by themselves, these approaches differ from story to tale.

But with so quite a few versions of the legend, how did tales of La Lechuza start out in the to start with position?

The Origins Of La Lechuza In People Tales

Like several folks stories, tales of the Lechuza had been passed alongside orally, which helps make it complicated to identify the authentic supply of the legend — right after all, there is no known written account that might definitively pinpoint a sole author. Instead, it’s possible that the legend of the Lechuza progressed over time, with enter and variations from every man or woman who instructed the story.

But industry experts have been able to loosely trace the story back again to its roots and offer a broader knowing of the place, when, and perhaps most importantly, why this legend arrived about.

In pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, indigenous peoples designed spiritual bonds with animals. Their associations with character affected their associations with the gods.

Speaking with NPR’s “Latino USA” podcast, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Anthropologist Servando Z. Hinojosa stated, “Life exists in many distinct orders. It exists in a human get of remaining, it exists in animal orders of currently being, but these were not solely different. There were permeable boundaries concerning them.”

When conquering Spaniards came to Mesoamerica, Hinojosa explained, they introduced with them agency Christian beliefs — and condemned the beliefs of the natives as Paganism and devilry.

The Spanish colonizers quickly sought to expel these tips and substitute them with Catholic values. And presented the time time period, roughly 500 yrs in the past, the fear and persecution of “witchcraft” was deeply embedded in the Christian belief method — and nocturnal animals these types of as cats and owls became inextricably linked to witchcraft.

“No for a longer period were being they seen as spiritual allies or other kinds of human beings or deities,” Hinojosa reported. “Now they were being viewed much more and much more as how the Europeans experienced been observing them for centuries — as evidence of a form of bizarre partnership with darkish forces.”

As Christian values took maintain of colonial Spanish Mesoamerica, they also slowly began to embed them selves in the narratives of classic oral storytelling. Ultimately, the owl turned a symbol of evil linked with witchcraft, a poor omen and a symbol of death.

Therefore, the Lechuza was born.

Disturbing Contemporary Accounts Of Encounters With La Lechuza

Even though the Lechuza could not share the fame of some of its famous brethren — this sort of as the Wendigo or Bigfoot — north of the border, the legendary witch-owl has firmly rooted alone in the society of northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley.

To this day, individuals share tales of genuine-lifetime encounters that they declare to have had with the Lechuza. A single these kinds of illustration comes from a user on Reddit, who wrote:

“This took place when I was only a couple weeks previous and my mother made the decision to go to Mexico to demonstrate me to her loved ones who lives there… My mom advised me that her relatives decided to have a major bash to celebrate our arrival. When it was about, my grandmother took my mother and I to the visitor bed room where by we would be sleeping… As we received settled, my grandma’s Rottweiler named Rocky arrived in, he did not want to go away so he stayed in our space. It was also scorching that evening, so my mother opened a sliding glass door that direct to a balcony open to permit some air in for the evening, we were on the second floor, so she felt safe leaving it open.”

The writer goes on to describe how their mom awoke in the middle of the night to come across Rocky, typically a gentle, silent pet, barking at the window, and the toddler wailing, encounter down on the mattress.

Rocky was barking at one thing out on the balcony, and when the writer’s mom turned to see what it was, she couldn’t imagine her eyes. Prior to her was a massive, hideous owl with feathers as black as coal.

Rocky darted for the owl, but the big creature flew away. According to the author, their grandfather later observed a reduce on the baby’s modest leg and found that the pillows experienced been thrown throughout the space.

“Today, my mom tells me that I survived a kidnapping attempt from la lechuza,” the Reddit person wrote. “Whenever I go take a look at my relatives, they often contact me lechuzita, as a remembrance for surviving la lechuza’s try. The authentic hero listed here, though, is my grandma’s dog, Rocky.”

Of study course, everything on the world-wide-web should be taken with a grain of salt. Continue to, there are hundreds of stories shared online that communicate of the Lechuza, and for some, the dread is quite significantly serious.

From a cultural viewpoint, the legend of the Lechuza stands as a image of the history and beliefs of a team of folks, just one that has morphed around the yrs as the society all-around it transformed. Right now, La Lechuza strikes panic into the hearts of numerous men and women who, right before colonization, might have once regarded creatures like the owl a good friend.

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The Lechuza is not the only creepy legend from south of the border — master about La Llarona, the spirit stated to have killed her own kids and who now roams the Earth looking for her following victims. Then, go through about more of the most chilling monsters of Indigenous American folklore.