May 5, 2023 • 56 mins
It's a common campfire tale -- a mysterious, ghostly entity roams the land, lamenting the loss of her children... and perhaps kidnapping living children to replace her own. In today's episode, Ben and Matt dive deep into the evolution of La Llorona, exploring the nature of folklore, narrative evolution, and story as technology.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel can't be with us today, but he
will be returning shortly.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control Deck, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
the stuff they don't want you to know. Today, we're
going back to the roots of conspiracy, stuff of stuff
they don't want you to know. When Matt and I
(00:52):
started this show white some time ago, if time is
not a construct, we loved examining cover ups. We loved
to examining conspiracy theories. We also loved examining the paranormal.
One of the very first conversations, Matt, that you and
I had a while back when we first met, was
(01:12):
indeed about stuff like the Twilight Zone and X Files,
which still weirds me out because it was like my
first day or week on the job, and I probably
should have been asking work questions.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And No I think that was right on the money,
solidified something right we oh uh huh yeah and got
the poccor Like, just tell me more about how much
you're into this, because I'm in it too. Uh yeah.
We love paranormal stuff. I think that I don't know.
The folklore to it is always the most fascinating. I
(01:43):
think when we dive deep into these topics like we're
going to get into today, what are the roots of
these stories that get spread and continue spreading and everybody
tells their kids.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And why do some stay at the status of local
legends or family tales, and why do others spread across
the world, across generations, across civilizations, from the ancient times
to the modern day. It's a weird question, and it's
it's something that we're going to attempt to answer in
today's episode. We are I don't know. I was thinking
(02:19):
about how I was thinking of the best way to
get into this. Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker
or have you ever hitchhiked? Not once, neither not once
not never? Huh Okay, yeah, well your mileage may vary, folks.
Oh that's a terrible, terrible pun. But everybody I think
(02:39):
has at some point maybe seen a mysterious, bizarre, extraordinary person. Right.
You might not have talked to them, but they may
be imprinted on your memory today. Like Matt, I will
always remember. Just for one example, I was reading Borhyes
(03:01):
on a public transit, right and stopping in a train station,
and I turned to look. There was another train across
the platform going in a different direction. I turned to look,
and there was this lady staring at me. And I
was by the window. I was holding this book, and
she held up the exact same not just the same book,
(03:24):
but the exact same trade paperback version of Labyrinths by Borges.
And then we just stared at each other and the
train took off in those opposite directions. I imagine we
will never meet again.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But I'm pretty sure that's a movie, Ben, You're just
remembering a movie you saw one time. I'm just joking.
That's like a movie moment, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It was, yeah, you know, and if we had talked,
it might have ruined it. But you know, fellow Borges fan,
great taste in books, I guess, and that that was
not a supernatural nor extraordinary circumstance necessarily, right, That's just
a very bizarre coincidence. But if you ask a lot
(04:08):
of people, especially here in the West, about a strange
or disturbing person they may have seen, then they may
have told you a story about a ghostly entity that's
said to roam across the north and south of America,
Mexico and the southwestern US and Central America in particular,
(04:32):
an entity known as La Yirona or the Weeping Woman
or the whaling Woman. Now have you heard this story before, Matt,
Have you heard this legend?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yes, most definitely, going back to those old conversations we had,
and it really it's a story that sticks with you
when you hear it as maybe an outsider from those
areas that we just mentioned where this story is very common.
It hits because, depending on which version you're told, it
(05:03):
is creepy it is really one of those things because
there's sound associated with the tail, right, There's almost always
a sound. There's almost always a lurking figure and then
often a chasing figure, right, which really just hmmm amps
up the fear and danger.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
M Yeah. And you know, as we've said before, and
stuff they don't want you to know. Just as a disclaimer,
regardless of your personal beliefs, or experiences with the supernatural,
whether or not you believe in ghost If you are
in an unfamiliar territory and someone tells you sincerely that
(05:48):
a place is haunted, just don't go you know what
I mean, don't be that guy in the movie. Just
don't don't mess with it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well, yeah, and that's a really good point too, because
even if it's not something pair or normal, maybe there
are tales about it being haunted because there's a person
or a bad group of people around there that are blamed,
you know, or are a part of this thing that
becomes a tail. You never know, you never know, you.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Never know, like that old Oh gosh, it's not that old.
That documentary about a supposedly haunted abandoned mental.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Facility Session nine.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, No, this it turned out to be true, though
it turned out to be partially based in truth. There
was a former resident I want to say a start
with a B. I can't remember, anyways, like an urban legend,
and the documentarians along the way found the root of
the story. Well, anyway, story for another day. Gather around
(06:51):
the campfire, folks, Here are the facts. If you're from Mexico,
the US, Central or South America, maybe further field these days,
you've heard some version of the legend of Lairona.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and as we said, there are many different versions
of it, variations on a theme here that can they
continue to be told today? Oh yeah, let's do this.
Let's give a shout out to the Weeping Woman Encounters
with La Yourona by Edward Garcia Krall and Judith Beattie
b E A. T. T. Y. It's got all kinds
(07:29):
of different versions of the tale. And you know, a
legend encounters with something that is supposedly La Yourna and
again whether it's a sound or a woman whose faces
changed or something like that. But I guess let's let's
give you a version of it so that you can
have an understanding. Then we'll talk about the variations.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Once upon the time, the tour guy said, back in
the turn of the century, there was this this little
boy who lived on a farm by a lake. This
was a big operation on what you call it an estate,
and the boy's family had lots of servants, and his
family was very rich. Being rich don't make it happy.
You know, this kid is miserable. His mother died when
(08:15):
he was young. Because the boy was the son of
the patron, the wealthy owner. And because all the other
boys his age were sons of the servants, this little
boy had no real friends. His father, who was a
very nasty guy, wouldn't let him talk to the other kids.
So this boy, he just wanders around the estate when
(08:36):
he isn't with his tutor. His friends become the birds,
the trees, the little frogs hopping along the shore. While
he's distant for most things. He's a smart kid. He's
heard the rumors, the things adults say when they think
children aren't listening. And you know, it's surprising what children
(08:58):
can understand.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He was a crime.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
He hears these whispers about his old man doing things
to women on the farm. It's all hushed up and
he owns the police, and sometimes the women disappear. The
kid don't think much of it, but he does like
the mystery. Kids love mysteries, right, so the tour guy says.
(09:25):
One night, the little boy wanders out along the lake
and he sees this lady along the shore. At first,
he thinks she's kind of walking on, maybe dancing, kind of.
He sneaks up as close as he dares, hiding in
the bushes until he sees her feet aren't touching the ground.
(09:49):
He can even, he thinks, sort of see through her
if he squints hard enough. And as he watches she
opens her mouth. Issy screams.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
All right. And that is that is featuring the talents
of voice actor Jay Jones. This comes to us from
twelve ghost which is a fiction anthology that came out
in December that Matt u eped along with Aaron Mankey.
(10:27):
And we can tell you conclusively this version of the
tale is not true because it is from a work
of fiction. Also shout out to Chris Child, sound designer
on that.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, yes, but it is based on the tale of
law Yourna.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, it is it is and this has a lot
of those commonalities. Do check out twelve Ghosts if you,
if you get a chance, if you if you like
spooky fiction. You'll notice that the character who is telling
us the story pronounces it la la na instead of
(11:07):
la rona. There's a reason for that. And what is
that reason? Well, you have to listen to find out.
Call that to ease in the business, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And you can find out more by going to Grim
and Mild dot com slash twelve Ghosts. That's the numbers one,
two and then ghosts.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Perfect and Matt, I love that you're pointing out commonalities
in this right because we have both read a lot
of different versions of this story, and they the modern
ones primarily seem to focus on an indigenous woman, Indigenous
(11:45):
American woman who has born children consentually or non consensually
with with a wealthy person from Spain or someone descended
from the days of Spanish contact, and this harrowing personal
tragedy drives her to madness. The wealthy guy abandons her,
(12:11):
or the wealthy guy commits murders, or the wealthy guy
commits infidelity, and this character regardless of how they find
themselves there, they are consigned to a hellish afterlife where
they wander along the shore of a body of water, weeping, wailing, lamenting,
(12:33):
and then it gets worse, right, Like we were talking
about this a little bit earlier. In some versions, La
Yourona is not just sad, but she could also be
a threat to the living. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah? What's really important here is that in many of them,
she kills her kids out of the whatever terrible situation
she's in or what she's going through. Sometimes she just
goes mad. And kills her children, and like, that's why
she's so scary, I think, because she committed some terrible, heinous,
(13:08):
many would say evil act. Right, and then she's out
there weeping, and for one reason or another, she either
doesn't know that her children are dead or she doesn't
know what she did to them, right, and she's still
looking for her children. And that whole like seeking out
(13:29):
another child, is a really important aspect, often to the tail,
because it means if you are a child and out
near the lake, the water, whatever body of water it is,
or just at night or three days after it rained,
depending on which tale you've heard, she could be coming
after you because she thinks you might be one of
(13:49):
her kids.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, and put yourself in the moment, folks. The first
things that will happen in terms of sensory experience, you
might see a distant figure, sometimes clad in white, in
a wraith like wrapping of some sort, which also is
older than you think. But often people hear this before
(14:12):
they see it. They hear something that sounds like a
person whose life has absolutely been broken, weeping, wailing again, lamentation,
And we're saying it again, but we want to emphasize
that's why it's in the name.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, I imagine if that's the first thing that happens.
You're in the dark, maybe you're alone, you're just walking
along a roadside, and you hear that in the distance somewhere,
and it's getting louder and louder as you continue along
the path. Right, that alone, probably gonna nope out head
the other way. I would maybe, Well, I'm not sure,
(14:48):
because maybe it's someone in trouble. And that's where the
story really kicks in too, Right, Maybe there's someone in need.
Maybe there's someone that you could provide help for. Maybe
you see a woman, a figure in the distance that
looks like they're just crying their eyes out. Would you
want to provide assistance and help? A part of you
(15:08):
probably would, right? And what if you're in a different situation.
What if you just saw a woman on a park
bench who seemed to be doing the same thing, right,
would you help?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And then to add to that, you
can see this idea of an explanation for an anomalous
sound throughout culture. Matt. Earlier, you did some great stuff
on the Indonesian cryptid, the auhoul, which is primarily identified
by or known by its sound. We also see that
(15:44):
as time goes on with this story that dates at
least back to the time of Spanish contact, we see
that the story has evolved. It's merged with other stories
that were once separate but had enough in common that
over the great game of telephone, they got kind of
you know, they got multiversed, they got adapted and revised, right,
(16:09):
And this kind of practice, the syncretism, has happened way
way way before Rick and Morty or Marvel films. One
thing that you might be hearing fellow listeners about the
basic you know on the story. You might say it's
missing a few parts. Doesn't she interact with people in
(16:30):
other ways? You may have heard a more recent version
that picks up the story of the Ghostly hitch Hiker,
another very popular one in the West.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, we've talked about this one briefly in a couple
other episodes. But it's just the concept where a person
is picked up a hitch hiker, often a woman, so
like you can kind of see where maybe there was
some transition there into this story, often a woman who's
picked up by just a drive, any old driver. You
probably that's the idea right when you're hearing the story.
(17:05):
Maybe it's you picking up a hitchhiker. This person gets
in the car, rides with you for a while until
you reach the destination where they've asked you to go,
and you turn back as the driver and there's no
passenger anymore, and you're like, oh, that's weird. She was
in here. We haven't opened the doors. And then you
find out through one means or another that, oh, the
(17:28):
person you're describing has been dead for like twelve years.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
They drop you. You pull into the diner and the
hitchhiker's gone, and they say, oh, that's right, it's May fourteenth.
It was since thirty five years ago. Yeah. There's a
great Tom Waits song that subverts this genre to or
plays with this, called Big Joe and Phantom three h nine.
(17:57):
Won't spoil it for you, but if you like this,
its story is a good one. There's also a Pee
Weez Playhouse.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Big Adventure Pee one of the one of Pee Wee's
does something like that. There's an entire episode from the
new series of Unsolved Mysteries that deals with this happening
in Japan. A specific version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
We should totally do urban legends. In Japan, there's some
there's some pretty pretty fascinating stuff there. And I love
the way you set the stage here, man, because we
know their variants of this as well. Right, there might
be a physical object left behind, you know, in older
(18:40):
stories it was two silver coins like you would put
over your eyes at a burial. Traditionally you get it's
a little on the nose, but then there might be
like a book, a scarf. Scarves are very popular, the
purse the protagonist goes back to try to figure out
who this mysterious hitchhiker is is only to find the
(19:01):
gravestone or you know, surviving relatives or familiar humans. And
we're quite fortunate in that the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend was
researched extensively by a folklore named Jan Brunvand in the
nineteen eighties, and it led to his book The Vanishing
Hitchhiker American Urban Legends and their Meanings. And this might
(19:24):
blow your mind, because I think it did, at least
for me when I learned this. The tale of the
Vanishing Hitchhiker is older than automobiles. There were few, and
I mean it makes more sense too, because there could
have been a real life event. If you're in a
horse drawn carriage, right, you pick someone up. Horses are loud,
(19:45):
roads are rough. Maybe they ducked out and you just
didn't know. And now you're thinking it's a ghost. They
just left behind all their stuff. Well they could have
just you know, they could have just rolled out.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, why would they leave with the stuff in the
carriage though, come on to prove a point.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, right, So horse drawn carriages. That's where the ghostly
hitchhiker comes back. And the ghostly hitchhiker idea a stranger
ill met on the road is a very ancient story,
but this one has become one of the most popular
American ghost stories because it keeps showing up in oral
(20:27):
tradition and popular media. There are even police reports that
appear to be at a loss to explain how a
hitchhiker was there one moment gone the next. Also, while
we're at it, shout out to Jan Brunvand for being
a huge part of coining the term urban legend. And
he really he puts some gas in the tank of
(20:51):
academic studies of folklore. So credit where it's due.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Thank you. Thank you, sub.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Right, and so we've I think we've established too that
the vanishing hitchhiker overwhelmingly often is a woman or female
identifying person who has met with misfortune. So it's not
too surprising. I would argue that the hitchhiker and the
weeping woman have enough commonality to at some point converge.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Sure, well, why not throw in the hairy hand?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Why not.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Do the hairy hand? Do the hairy hair win while
we're bout we camp fire?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think we did all episode on that, or at least, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The hairy hands, right, they grab the wheel, Yeah, and
they turned the and it's right around the time cars
come out. Yeah, why not? I would love to hear
all of your favorite urban legends. Uh, that's why you
will hear versions of the hitchhiker story that talked about
picking up a lady by a bridge near the water.
(21:56):
You know, things like that, or she asked you to
drop her off near the water or something like that.
These things don't occur in a vacuum. But this is
a bit of a walk around the block to lead
us to the question where does Laona come from? You know,
I don't know. Did it surprise you that the hitchhiker
(22:17):
legend is literally older than the car, because I'll be honest, sure.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I mean, yeah, it surprised surprised me quite a bit,
I think because we so closely associate it with driving
a vehicle, and many of us, most of us have
only ever driven an automobile and not a carriage, right,
So like, yeah, it makes sense that for us. It's like, oh, sure,
if there's a hitchhiker, there's a car involved, but yeah,
(22:45):
maybe it's a hitchhiker on the back of your horse pal.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. It's kind of like
if you heard a spooky story about an astronaut, you
would assume there was a spaceship involved at some point.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Probably, Yeah, yeah, I like that very real.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah. Probably. But so with all this in mind, we
ask where this story, this legend Lairna comes from. Then
what we learn is the story is much much older
than anyone might have imagined.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
We're gonna take a quick break here a word from
our sponsor, and then dive in to the roots, the
ancient roots of this story.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right. First off, you're
gonna hear a lot of versions of this that say,
you know their cast of characters is a children who
are led to misfortune, right, whether by accident or by design,
an indigenous woman, a Spaniard dude, Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But he goes back much older than that. And the
roots that exist here in the commonalities with ancient characters,
we're talking quite old characters are pretty dang compelling. Specifically
Aztec God's been that really fascinated me as we got
into this, figures that existed in as tech mythology. That
(24:18):
law yourona seems to mirror, or at least be reverberations of.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, Mesoamerica is deep. We have to remember this civilization
existed thousands of years before Europeans are traveling there. This
story is so old, in fact, that no one is
sure when the first version happened. No, no one really knows.
We can confirm written mentions, though, and that's even that
(24:48):
just accelerates our kaiser. So say aspect of this, because,
like you were saying, the earliest confirmed La Yourna's story
we know it dates back to a written format in
the fifteen hundreds. There are a couple of contenders. One
is in fifteen fifty in Mexico City, but it also
(25:10):
it has the air of a cover song. Dare I say,
it sounds like it's referencing some other well known work
and the written version. This happens all the time with
these stories. The written version is going to most likely
be an adaptation or retelling of a narrative that already existed.
And so even in the modern day, folklorist and anthropologists
(25:34):
all across the Americas and across the world are trying
to figure out the pre Columbian roots of this tale.
And this gets to what you were talking about, Matt,
ancient gods things that are things that existed, and we're
established parts of belief systems way before the Spanish arrived.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, oh yeah. When we're talking as tech gods, gods
of fertility or goddesses, I think of fertility and motherhood,
goddesses of the earth, really really interesting stuff. I guess
we can talk about. See what quadal is. That's one
of the biggest goddesses that appears to have similarities. When
(26:18):
you're describing law Youurona as a character. She was a
goddess of motherhood and she did some things that were
pretty similar to law Youurona.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Ys a protector of children and also as a I'm
gonna say something's kind of weird, and a lot of
people might not be aware of this, But from these
sources that I read often in the Aztec belief system,
accidents did not exist, such that if, for instance, you
(26:52):
and your buddies are out hunting in the woods and
you accidentally injure one of your compatriots, the legal system
at the time treats you as though you did it
on purpose, because accidents do not exist. So this gets
really complicated. We're talking about accidents that Bethel children seahook
(27:15):
is like mean, it translates to like snake woman, which
is pretty common when you talk about fertility gods or deities.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, she has some really interesting stuff going on with her.
So I want to get into another piece of the
Laurona story that exists in some versions of the tale.
In some versions, she's killed her children. She doesn't know
they're dead, but her the bones of her children are
somehow like fused into her back right like, which is creepy,
(27:48):
really creepy, messed up. They are literally physically haunting her
while she is haunting this area, right but uh sewa quaddle.
Part of one tale about her is that she worked
with quets a Quotal, who was like, I, this is
not correct, But in my mind I think about quets
(28:09):
a Quotal as like the Zeus of Aztec world, like
the over god. Maybe I'm just completely wrong, that's how
I visualize it. But she worked with quets a Quotal
to create humanity as it exists in this realm, this epic,
this version of humanity that we all experience in those tales.
She did that by grinding up the bones of previous
(28:32):
versions of humanity and mixing it with quetze Quotal's blood.
And I thought that bone connection was really interesting. There
as like a tipping off point somehow, grinding the bones
to make the human very very strange. Oh and this
is the other thing. She apparently abandoned a child at
(28:53):
a crossroads.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, according to the lore, and there's a and additionally,
the rule of the Si Tito, which is the deified
spirits of women who passed away during childbirth and ktsal
Cultol is very interesting to me, as the plume serpent
and you know, the patron god of the priesthood and learning.
(29:16):
So they're they're generative deities, but you know, all deities,
virtually all deities end up being sources of potential destruction
if they're sources of great generation, if they're great generative forces. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Absolutely, But again, like see what quaddle is thought to
go back to that crossroads that I just mentioned, ben
and cry weep loudly sound famililed it.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, And see.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
What Quaddal is not the only Aztec goddess that has
things in common with this stuff. There's another one, isn't
there a quat lique or something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
M Yeah, also known as our lady mother or tananzi uh.
This is it functions as both a significant maternal figure
and as a monster who devours filth and sin. So
this story Laurona is much much older. Like it also, okay,
(30:17):
fast forward the Spanish conquistadors come right, and a real
life tragedy plays a huge role in the modern version
of La Iroona. It's La Malinche, who is a Nahua
woman who was enslaved by the Spanish and worked directly
with the infamous Ernan Cortes. This is kind of a
(30:42):
Pocahontas vibe. So this is a real historical figure as
far as we can tell, born sometime around fifteen hundred
and dying in her late twenties, most likely sometime around
February of fifteen twenty nine, and just like the tragic
real life character of Pocahontas or not character the real
(31:02):
life person Pocahontas, la malinche is. She's an interpreter, She's
an advisor. She's kind of a fixer, as the Spanish
go around contacting and conquering, you know, and infecting Native
people's She was one of twenty people given to the
Spaniards in fifteen nineteen by natives of Tabasco, and Cortes
(31:29):
had a sexual relationship with her. She gave birth to
his son, who is considered, I guess symbolically one of
the first mestizos. His name is Martin. I believe mestizo
would be a term for people of mixed Indigenous American
and European ancestry. If you look at art over the centuries,
(31:52):
then you'll see that this woman's reputation in the public
sphere shifts back and forth over time. She is she's
an archetype. Now right, there are a lot of conflicting
views about her. There are paintings or works of art
depicting her that have been moved according to protests, and
(32:15):
she's often compared in literature to the like the real
life La Rona, you know, and maybe maybe with her
forced cooperation with the Spanish, maybe she abandoned Mesoamerica, you know,
maybe that's the abandoned child's here. It gets complex and symbolic,
(32:39):
you know, but we do have to mention her because
she's associated with it now. But if you dive deeper, right,
we have to remember she's almost certainly not the original
source of the legend. We can say based on those
that one text we mentioned, right, she's born in fifteen hundred,
(33:00):
fifteen fifty. This story is around, right, we know that
people already were telling this story, and this becomes a
kind of cognitive hook upon which to hang the tail.
But we also know that there was another text called
the Florentine Codex sometime in fifteen nineteen. This is around
(33:25):
and this does never neither of these, by the way,
ever use the phrase la iRORA. But they have some
very maybe a bit of wordplay here, but some very revelatory,
highly dramatic language about a great catastrophe or disaster. And
(33:45):
they in the Codex outlea's a series of omens that
the locals can use to tell when trouble is coming.
And I think we draw a special attention to the
sixth Omen.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, I can just read it. Quote. The sixth Omen
was that many times a woman would be heard going
along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, oh,
my children, we are about to go forever. Sometimes she said,
oh my children, where am I to take you? That's interesting?
(34:21):
Where am I to take you? I guess if you're
a soul seeking your you know you're passed over, but
you're still here as some kind of spirit, and you're
looking for your children, how do you take your children anywhere?
Would hum? There's a connection there. Oh, man, Ben, I
don't want to take us back to the Aztec times,
but I think it's worth it really quickly, back to
(34:42):
seawa Quaddle. At the time when the in the Aztec civilization,
women who were going through childbirth were considered warriors. Right,
if you're going through that battle of bringing life onto
the into this plane, you're considered a warrior. And if
you happened to die in childbirth while fighting that fight,
(35:05):
you as a mother were celebrated as a fallen warrior.
And there was I forget the term for it. There's
a specific term for women who died during childbirth, and
they were thought to haunt crossroads and look for children
(35:25):
to steal them because they never got to experience being
a mother. They like, perhaps they gave birth to a
child and it survived, but they never got to experience it,
so then they haunt those crossroads to find one, to
find a child like you probably sorry, just thought about that.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It's perfect. Yeah. And also the Florentine Codex describes the
the appearance of this figure of sijuhtl as dressed in white,
with her hair as if she had horns crossed above
her forehead. The original passage says that she was covered
(36:04):
in chalk, the wood peer at night, dressed in white,
walking and crying. I mean, how many coincidences does one need?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
This?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay? So there are these ancient myths. They've transformed over time,
and we see this all the world around throughout human
civilization a lot. Not infrequently, these become the basis of
modern folk tales as well as modern religions. The character
of the weeping woman of La Irona has evolved through
(36:34):
multiple iterations over the over the centuries. You know, and
just to just for anyone who likes rabbit holes. You
can find other examples of this. You can look at
the Tale of King Arthur. Who is King Arthur is
not just a real dude. King Arthur is a mixtape
(36:56):
of several real dudes and they're they're like, they're their
greatest hits are all collected into this thing. And now
that thing is the author. And we're going to go
to Renaissance Festival so we can so Matt and I
can experience it firsthand, right.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
My son, we go. My sons would go at evil
times for the first one. What yeah, do you like it? Yeah?
I loved this man his night one?
Speaker 1 (37:24):
What up? What the odds are kind of against you? There?
A good job, bro, It's because it's because he was
the best cheerer.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Haven't been there in years. Man. I every so often
I get that wild Dave and Buster's hair, I'm like, oh,
let's go. What will it be like when I now
do have twenty five or thirty dollars to spend on
that mug shit?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Roll in the day Dave and Busters with one hundred
dollars bill and be like, I'm the king of this
place for fifteen.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Minutes because it adds up. Yeah, we're going to speed
run DMB after this. So and not to ruffle feathers, folks,
But another great example of how this oral communication works
and how it evolves into the written word. Just look
(38:19):
at the early works of Christianity, right in the very beginning,
when people are still kind of creating the authorities, authorities
to decide what is or isn't officially part of the Bible,
what stories or anecdotes do or do not belong in there,
You're going to see a lot of stuff that comes
from other belief systems. Maybe they pre exist and they
(38:44):
got translated into Christianity. Maybe they There are a lot
of no wait, but this is totally our thing moments
in organized religion. And there's another local example, and we'll
keep this brief because you've heard about it if you
listen to the show for a while. There are folk saints.
(39:05):
San Simone is one. San Simone or Machimone is a
folk saint who exist in various forms, aspects and their
durations in the Guatemalan highlands, and his true background was
obscured for a long time. If you do the digging
you see that before the Spaniards, before all this cross
(39:27):
cultural contact and conflict, the entity called San Simone was
actually a kind of mom, sort of a trickster mountain god,
responsible for floods and earthquakes and thunder and so on.
That's the interesting thing about these stories. They're palimpsested, and
(39:49):
if you peel back the layers, you're going to find,
just like paint on a wall, you're going to find
another couple of hues and shades beneath. Now we have
to ask why this story stuck around so long. People
are experiencing thousands, thousands terrible, terrible things all the time.
(40:10):
That's part of being a human being. So what is
the difference here? Why do we still have this story?
Why do people still believe they have seen Youroona or
some iteration in the modern day. Oddly enough, we don't
always get to say this, Matt, I think we have
some answers.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
No, boy, do we, And we're going to tell you
all about it after another quick word from our sponsor.
All right, So why though, Oh you're asking.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Me, I'm asking you.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
All right, cheers, I've drink a gatorade. You're drinking orange juice.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, trying to get my stomach right. Trying to get
stomach right.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Perfect. So to answer this question, really we have to
look at some of the basic mechanics of storytelling as technology.
So not just we're not just saying, hey, here are
some campfire stories that people like. It's how you scare kids.
We're asking why, we're asking why this happens.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, I love that. Hey, come here, let me tell
you how to scare kids.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Oh boy? Uh yes, okay. So one thing we know
is that people in general love connecting. Right, All people
have what's sometimes called main character energy. That's not necessarily
a bad thing. It means that human beings will tend
(41:50):
to share stories that, in one way or another, remind
them of themselves in their environment. So life for most
of you, human history sucked. It was just it was
just not great. I'm not saying it's perfect now by
any means, but think about think about this. Pregnancy and
(42:12):
childbirth were some of the most dangerous parts of every
single person's life. Infant mortality rates are nuts, right, And
if you're a woman and you're pregnant, you're a woman,
you're giving birth, then this is statistically, this is a
(42:32):
point in your life where you are more likely to
die than at almost any other point before your birth
when you survived that one. So we know that people
hearing these ancient stories would tragically be familiar with miscarriages,
it would be familiar with infant mortality. These things existed
(42:54):
at a much higher rate than they do in many
parts of the modern world. I do think we we
should point out that when you read statistics about life
expectancy in the ancient world, we all need to remember
those are incredibly misleading. People did make it to old
age back then, they certainly did. The problem was you
(43:19):
were far more likely to die early, especially when you
were a vulnerable little human being. Infant mortality, constant threat, malnutrition, disease,
infection plagues. As weird as it might sound in a
world where most people live in urban environments now, a
big enough animal just snatches your kid from the woods,
(43:42):
you know, jaguar in the forest. You know, it could
be a crocodile on the shore of the Nile. Just
depends on where you live, because the animals are out there,
and there were many many more wild animals than there
are today, and many many more than there will be
next year, but next week, parties next week.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It really makes you understand with all of that you
know going on in your life and everybody's life around
you at that time, if you lived then that the
heartbreak that's at the heart of this story of a
mother losing a child, or a mother passing before her
child before she gets to meet her child, that would
(44:26):
be pretty normalized. It would be it would be a
universal thing that everyone would have an understanding of.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, Unfortunately, if you have not personally experienced it, you
probably knew someone who had, right and this is this
is a situation no one ever wants to be it.
So that's the first part the commonality. The second part
in stories as technology is this function. Stories like Lairna
(44:55):
stick around because they have a real world function. Not
for nothing does every single culture throughout human history have
some form of boogeyman that roams the wilderness and you know,
the dangerous places at night looking for kids who are
trying to be all Dennis the Menace and not thinking
(45:16):
about what their parents tell them to avoid. These stories
help adults impress safe behavior upon their children. It's it's
all about behavior modification. That's why these stories are around.
You know like, of course, people back then were the
same as people now, for good or for ill. You
might travel back centuries and talk to someone who you
(45:40):
might watch them tell their kid stay away because this
deity might come snatch you, right if you don't behave
and listen to me. And then the kid may say okay,
and they go to bed and you're talking to this person.
Let's assume it's not weird to them that you've traveled
through time and you say, hey, do you believe in
this story? And they might say no, man, of course not.
(46:03):
What about twelve? I don't believe in this. But if
I can scare my kids away from the dangers of drowning,
or I can ensure they don't walk into the woods
and get snatched by something, then this is valuable. So
I will propagate this story, which I don't think makes
some bad people at all.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
No, I don't think so. Again, all you ever have
to do, if you're faced with that and feeling worried
about some story you teach your children, just say, sanna
elf and he's got a shelf. I mean, that's come on,
Come on, when.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
We passed the line a long time ago, right, and
it's weird. How quickly the elf on the shelf came
around to normalize surveillance and erode the idea of privacy.
That guy, anyway, you can play along at home if
you like folks, regardless of where you live in the world, world,
or regardless of where you come from or where you're
going odds are. You can think of any number of
(47:06):
spooky stories that you were told and you were given
society as a kid, and you can identify those two
factors again commonality, common fears, desires, motivations, and then real
world functions warning against an activity, or like in your
excellent case of Santa Claus, there man prescribing a series
(47:28):
of incentives toward desirable behavior. Right, you better let this
guy break into your house, and you better be good
the whole year before. The only crime you can aid
in the entire year is helping this guy break into
your house and make it nice for him. Give him
some stacks.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, And if you're bad and you do bad things,
you're not getting.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And that's another question. I can't be the only one
asking this. Was he Cole way more important? Why was
Cole the bad?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Like, that's if if you're bad. Santa's gonna pay our
light bill. That's better. They're better threats. Look, nobody asked
us to help make this story.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
If it was the sixteen hundred's and you were getting
firewood for Christmas, it would have been like straight up
cash money because it's yeah, okay, it was the currency.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, And when the end times come, please please join
us at Matt and Ben's firewood emporium. Unlike First Republic Bank,
we will at a deposits of firewood. So unless there's
JP Morgan firewood, guys, get us all right anyhow, So
(48:55):
we're not saying that these parents and these cultures are
lying to their children for fun. As a matter of fact,
many of us listening today may wholeheartedly believe in the
La Yourna phenomenon, or may have believed that we experienced
it firsthand. The thing is, the belief is not the
primary issue. It's not why this story is still around.
(49:18):
The manipulation of behavior is the prime mover here. And
now we get to the big question. I'm not sure
how to address it. This is all speculation that Matt, Okay,
we know we cannot pinpoint the origin of this story.
We know that it endures because as commonality and real
world function. Is it possible that this story has, like,
(49:41):
at some point, a grain of truth, a basis in truth.
I don't know. I'm on the fence, but I think yes, honestly.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I think so. I think loss. I think this story
is about loss. This story is about not wanting to
lose a child. I think that's exactly what is And
you outline it there. We're talking about these things. We're
talking about, Sanna, we're talking about all of that. As
a parent, once you successfully have a child and have
(50:13):
them in the world, the worst thing that could ever
happen is for that child to be gone right, specifically
through death, you know. So, as you said, these stories
go back to a time when it was so easy
to lose a child. You would tell them anything to
protect them from the things you know are out there.
(50:35):
And you and I think it's a lot easier to
make a child afraid of a ghost or a monster
or a demon than it is to make them afraid
of a leopard or a wild boar or water or water. Yeah,
oh yeah, because kids love water, but they don't understand
(50:58):
currents yet, they don't understand and a lot of the
dangers of what water is. So you tell them stories
about how dangerous that monster is that's in that water. Now,
I think I think that, I think that explains it,
at least for me.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I see you, man, I also think statistically, unfortunately, there
is probably a There is probably a basis in fact.
I mean, imagine it like this, sometime before the dawn
of global communication. You, yes, you are walking around. There's
somewhere out there in the world, walking along the water evenings,
(51:36):
drawing on perhaps and in the distance, maybe across the lake,
the pond, what have you, the holler. You see a
woman and she's beside herself with grief. As a matter
of fact, you may have heard her before you saw her,
because she's very distant and you can't make out what
she's say, but she's clearly having a terrible, terrible day.
(51:59):
You can tell that she wailing. You can't get to her,
you're on your way, she's very far away. And then
maybe later you tell somebody else about it in your community.
You're wondering if they saw it, and maybe they did,
Maybe they explain it to you and you forget about it,
or maybe someone just remembers the story and then days, months, years,
(52:19):
decades later, they see something very similar ticks all the boxes.
Single individual, probably a woman, screaming there have been deaths
of children recently, and you start to wonder if this
is related to that story you heard earlier. This is
how these stories begin. It's the great game of telephone.
(52:40):
It continues, Embellishments emerge, revisions, adaptations to make them narrative
more directly reflect the current circumstances and fears of the
age of which it's told. You know what I mean, Like,
I honestly I wonder how long we have as a
society before Santa's bad gift becomes something else? You know
(53:01):
what I mean? Like how many I don't know.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
The hand grenade and when you pull the bow, it
pulls the hot pin.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Oh wow, okay, sociopath clause.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
All right, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
I'm just saying, like, because we know the prevalence, because
we know that these terrific accidents did occur, right and
continue to occur today. Like how many people drown in
our local spot, Lake Lanier every year? Right? It's least
a few? Yeah, yeah, I feel like someone in antiquity
(53:38):
saw this happen and this became part of the story
that is told today. And with that, here's where we
passed the torch to you, folks. We want to hear
your take on other similar tales. What are some paranormal
stories from your neck of the global woods? What do
they tell you and hopefully us about the societies in
(53:59):
which they We cannot wait to hear from you. We hope.
Also let us know if you enjoy paranormal episodes. We
love doing them.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Well, and tell us your law, your ownA encounters.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Maybe you've had yes, perfect, please do, and please point
out anything you had that didn't seem to fit the
official narrative. We just want to hear your stories and
if we get enough, maybe we can make a Maybe
we can just make a show all all with retellings
of those stories, because we do have great fun with it.
(54:29):
We're grateful that you're here, and while we're asking you
for stuff, we'd love to hang out with you online Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
all the hits, conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff show or some
derivative of that. Just start googling those things and you know,
tell us where we end up.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
It is. It is hard to find us sometimes on
TikTok and Instagram so make sure you plug in conspiracy
stuff show in those two.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
But Matt, what if someone listened to our episodes on
social media and those it's not worth it to play
the dopamine casino.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Ah, well, you're on the right track. The next step
is to call one eight three three std WYTK. It's
a voicemail system. You've got three minutes to say whatever
you want. After that, it cuts you off. So you
got to stay in that three minutes, make up a
cool name for yourself and let us know if we
can use your voice and message on the air. If
(55:26):
you've got more to say they can fit in that
three minutes. Why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel can't be with us today, but he
will be returning shortly.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control Deck, and most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
the stuff they don't want you to know. Today, we're
going back to the roots of conspiracy, stuff of stuff
they don't want you to know. When Matt and I
(00:52):
started this show white some time ago, if time is
not a construct, we loved examining cover ups. We loved
to examining conspiracy theories. We also loved examining the paranormal.
One of the very first conversations, Matt, that you and
I had a while back when we first met, was
(01:12):
indeed about stuff like the Twilight Zone and X Files,
which still weirds me out because it was like my
first day or week on the job, and I probably
should have been asking work questions.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And No I think that was right on the money,
solidified something right we oh uh huh yeah and got
the poccor Like, just tell me more about how much
you're into this, because I'm in it too. Uh yeah.
We love paranormal stuff. I think that I don't know.
The folklore to it is always the most fascinating. I
(01:43):
think when we dive deep into these topics like we're
going to get into today, what are the roots of
these stories that get spread and continue spreading and everybody
tells their kids.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
And why do some stay at the status of local
legends or family tales, and why do others spread across
the world, across generations, across civilizations, from the ancient times
to the modern day. It's a weird question, and it's
it's something that we're going to attempt to answer in
today's episode. We are I don't know. I was thinking
(02:19):
about how I was thinking of the best way to
get into this. Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker
or have you ever hitchhiked? Not once, neither not once
not never? Huh Okay, yeah, well your mileage may vary, folks.
Oh that's a terrible, terrible pun. But everybody I think
(02:39):
has at some point maybe seen a mysterious, bizarre, extraordinary person. Right.
You might not have talked to them, but they may
be imprinted on your memory today. Like Matt, I will
always remember. Just for one example, I was reading Borhyes
(03:01):
on a public transit, right and stopping in a train station,
and I turned to look. There was another train across
the platform going in a different direction. I turned to look,
and there was this lady staring at me. And I
was by the window. I was holding this book, and
she held up the exact same not just the same book,
(03:24):
but the exact same trade paperback version of Labyrinths by Borges.
And then we just stared at each other and the
train took off in those opposite directions. I imagine we
will never meet again.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But I'm pretty sure that's a movie, Ben, You're just
remembering a movie you saw one time. I'm just joking.
That's like a movie moment, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It was, yeah, you know, and if we had talked,
it might have ruined it. But you know, fellow Borges fan,
great taste in books, I guess, and that that was
not a supernatural nor extraordinary circumstance necessarily, right, That's just
a very bizarre coincidence. But if you ask a lot
(04:08):
of people, especially here in the West, about a strange
or disturbing person they may have seen, then they may
have told you a story about a ghostly entity that's
said to roam across the north and south of America,
Mexico and the southwestern US and Central America in particular,
(04:32):
an entity known as La Yirona or the Weeping Woman
or the whaling Woman. Now have you heard this story before, Matt,
Have you heard this legend?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yes, most definitely, going back to those old conversations we had,
and it really it's a story that sticks with you
when you hear it as maybe an outsider from those
areas that we just mentioned where this story is very common.
It hits because, depending on which version you're told, it
(05:03):
is creepy it is really one of those things because
there's sound associated with the tail, right, There's almost always
a sound. There's almost always a lurking figure and then
often a chasing figure, right, which really just hmmm amps
up the fear and danger.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
M Yeah. And you know, as we've said before, and
stuff they don't want you to know. Just as a disclaimer,
regardless of your personal beliefs, or experiences with the supernatural,
whether or not you believe in ghost If you are
in an unfamiliar territory and someone tells you sincerely that
(05:48):
a place is haunted, just don't go you know what
I mean, don't be that guy in the movie. Just
don't don't mess with it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Well, yeah, and that's a really good point too, because
even if it's not something pair or normal, maybe there
are tales about it being haunted because there's a person
or a bad group of people around there that are blamed,
you know, or are a part of this thing that
becomes a tail. You never know, you never know, you.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Never know, like that old Oh gosh, it's not that old.
That documentary about a supposedly haunted abandoned mental.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Facility Session nine.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, No, this it turned out to be true, though
it turned out to be partially based in truth. There
was a former resident I want to say a start
with a B. I can't remember, anyways, like an urban legend,
and the documentarians along the way found the root of
the story. Well, anyway, story for another day. Gather around
(06:51):
the campfire, folks, Here are the facts. If you're from Mexico,
the US, Central or South America, maybe further field these days,
you've heard some version of the legend of Lairona.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and as we said, there are many different versions
of it, variations on a theme here that can they
continue to be told today? Oh yeah, let's do this.
Let's give a shout out to the Weeping Woman Encounters
with La Yourona by Edward Garcia Krall and Judith Beattie
b E A. T. T. Y. It's got all kinds
(07:29):
of different versions of the tale. And you know, a
legend encounters with something that is supposedly La Yourna and
again whether it's a sound or a woman whose faces
changed or something like that. But I guess let's let's
give you a version of it so that you can
have an understanding. Then we'll talk about the variations.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Once upon the time, the tour guy said, back in
the turn of the century, there was this this little
boy who lived on a farm by a lake. This
was a big operation on what you call it an estate,
and the boy's family had lots of servants, and his
family was very rich. Being rich don't make it happy.
You know, this kid is miserable. His mother died when
(08:15):
he was young. Because the boy was the son of
the patron, the wealthy owner. And because all the other
boys his age were sons of the servants, this little
boy had no real friends. His father, who was a
very nasty guy, wouldn't let him talk to the other kids.
So this boy, he just wanders around the estate when
(08:36):
he isn't with his tutor. His friends become the birds,
the trees, the little frogs hopping along the shore. While
he's distant for most things. He's a smart kid. He's
heard the rumors, the things adults say when they think
children aren't listening. And you know, it's surprising what children
(08:58):
can understand.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He was a crime.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
He hears these whispers about his old man doing things
to women on the farm. It's all hushed up and
he owns the police, and sometimes the women disappear. The
kid don't think much of it, but he does like
the mystery. Kids love mysteries, right, so the tour guy says.
(09:25):
One night, the little boy wanders out along the lake
and he sees this lady along the shore. At first,
he thinks she's kind of walking on, maybe dancing, kind of.
He sneaks up as close as he dares, hiding in
the bushes until he sees her feet aren't touching the ground.
(09:49):
He can even, he thinks, sort of see through her
if he squints hard enough. And as he watches she
opens her mouth. Issy screams.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
All right. And that is that is featuring the talents
of voice actor Jay Jones. This comes to us from
twelve ghost which is a fiction anthology that came out
in December that Matt u eped along with Aaron Mankey.
(10:27):
And we can tell you conclusively this version of the
tale is not true because it is from a work
of fiction. Also shout out to Chris Child, sound designer
on that.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, yes, but it is based on the tale of
law Yourna.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, it is it is and this has a lot
of those commonalities. Do check out twelve Ghosts if you,
if you get a chance, if you if you like
spooky fiction. You'll notice that the character who is telling
us the story pronounces it la la na instead of
(11:07):
la rona. There's a reason for that. And what is
that reason? Well, you have to listen to find out.
Call that to ease in the business, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And you can find out more by going to Grim
and Mild dot com slash twelve Ghosts. That's the numbers one,
two and then ghosts.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Perfect and Matt, I love that you're pointing out commonalities
in this right because we have both read a lot
of different versions of this story, and they the modern
ones primarily seem to focus on an indigenous woman, Indigenous
(11:45):
American woman who has born children consentually or non consensually
with with a wealthy person from Spain or someone descended
from the days of Spanish contact, and this harrowing personal
tragedy drives her to madness. The wealthy guy abandons her,
(12:11):
or the wealthy guy commits murders, or the wealthy guy
commits infidelity, and this character regardless of how they find
themselves there, they are consigned to a hellish afterlife where
they wander along the shore of a body of water, weeping, wailing, lamenting,
(12:33):
and then it gets worse, right, Like we were talking
about this a little bit earlier. In some versions, La
Yourona is not just sad, but she could also be
a threat to the living. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah? What's really important here is that in many of them,
she kills her kids out of the whatever terrible situation
she's in or what she's going through. Sometimes she just
goes mad. And kills her children, and like, that's why
she's so scary, I think, because she committed some terrible, heinous,
(13:08):
many would say evil act. Right, and then she's out
there weeping, and for one reason or another, she either
doesn't know that her children are dead or she doesn't
know what she did to them, right, and she's still
looking for her children. And that whole like seeking out
(13:29):
another child, is a really important aspect, often to the tail,
because it means if you are a child and out
near the lake, the water, whatever body of water it is,
or just at night or three days after it rained,
depending on which tale you've heard, she could be coming
after you because she thinks you might be one of
(13:49):
her kids.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, and put yourself in the moment, folks. The first
things that will happen in terms of sensory experience, you
might see a distant figure, sometimes clad in white, in
a wraith like wrapping of some sort, which also is
older than you think. But often people hear this before
(14:12):
they see it. They hear something that sounds like a
person whose life has absolutely been broken, weeping, wailing again, lamentation,
And we're saying it again, but we want to emphasize
that's why it's in the name.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, I imagine if that's the first thing that happens.
You're in the dark, maybe you're alone, you're just walking
along a roadside, and you hear that in the distance somewhere,
and it's getting louder and louder as you continue along
the path. Right, that alone, probably gonna nope out head
the other way. I would maybe, Well, I'm not sure,
(14:48):
because maybe it's someone in trouble. And that's where the
story really kicks in too, Right, Maybe there's someone in need.
Maybe there's someone that you could provide help for. Maybe
you see a woman, a figure in the distance that
looks like they're just crying their eyes out. Would you
want to provide assistance and help? A part of you
(15:08):
probably would, right? And what if you're in a different situation.
What if you just saw a woman on a park
bench who seemed to be doing the same thing, right,
would you help?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And then to add to that, you
can see this idea of an explanation for an anomalous
sound throughout culture. Matt. Earlier, you did some great stuff
on the Indonesian cryptid, the auhoul, which is primarily identified
by or known by its sound. We also see that
(15:44):
as time goes on with this story that dates at
least back to the time of Spanish contact, we see
that the story has evolved. It's merged with other stories
that were once separate but had enough in common that
over the great game of telephone, they got kind of
you know, they got multiversed, they got adapted and revised, right,
(16:09):
And this kind of practice, the syncretism, has happened way
way way before Rick and Morty or Marvel films. One
thing that you might be hearing fellow listeners about the
basic you know on the story. You might say it's
missing a few parts. Doesn't she interact with people in
(16:30):
other ways? You may have heard a more recent version
that picks up the story of the Ghostly hitch Hiker,
another very popular one in the West.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, we've talked about this one briefly in a couple
other episodes. But it's just the concept where a person
is picked up a hitch hiker, often a woman, so
like you can kind of see where maybe there was
some transition there into this story, often a woman who's
picked up by just a drive, any old driver. You
probably that's the idea right when you're hearing the story.
(17:05):
Maybe it's you picking up a hitchhiker. This person gets
in the car, rides with you for a while until
you reach the destination where they've asked you to go,
and you turn back as the driver and there's no
passenger anymore, and you're like, oh, that's weird. She was
in here. We haven't opened the doors. And then you
find out through one means or another that, oh, the
(17:28):
person you're describing has been dead for like twelve years.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
They drop you. You pull into the diner and the
hitchhiker's gone, and they say, oh, that's right, it's May fourteenth.
It was since thirty five years ago. Yeah. There's a
great Tom Waits song that subverts this genre to or
plays with this, called Big Joe and Phantom three h nine.
(17:57):
Won't spoil it for you, but if you like this,
its story is a good one. There's also a Pee
Weez Playhouse.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Big Adventure Pee one of the one of Pee Wee's
does something like that. There's an entire episode from the
new series of Unsolved Mysteries that deals with this happening
in Japan. A specific version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
We should totally do urban legends. In Japan, there's some
there's some pretty pretty fascinating stuff there. And I love
the way you set the stage here, man, because we
know their variants of this as well. Right, there might
be a physical object left behind, you know, in older
(18:40):
stories it was two silver coins like you would put
over your eyes at a burial. Traditionally you get it's
a little on the nose, but then there might be
like a book, a scarf. Scarves are very popular, the
purse the protagonist goes back to try to figure out
who this mysterious hitchhiker is is only to find the
(19:01):
gravestone or you know, surviving relatives or familiar humans. And
we're quite fortunate in that the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend was
researched extensively by a folklore named Jan Brunvand in the
nineteen eighties, and it led to his book The Vanishing
Hitchhiker American Urban Legends and their Meanings. And this might
(19:24):
blow your mind, because I think it did, at least
for me when I learned this. The tale of the
Vanishing Hitchhiker is older than automobiles. There were few, and
I mean it makes more sense too, because there could
have been a real life event. If you're in a
horse drawn carriage, right, you pick someone up. Horses are loud,
(19:45):
roads are rough. Maybe they ducked out and you just
didn't know. And now you're thinking it's a ghost. They
just left behind all their stuff. Well they could have
just you know, they could have just rolled out.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, why would they leave with the stuff in the
carriage though, come on to prove a point.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, right, So horse drawn carriages. That's where the ghostly
hitchhiker comes back. And the ghostly hitchhiker idea a stranger
ill met on the road is a very ancient story,
but this one has become one of the most popular
American ghost stories because it keeps showing up in oral
(20:27):
tradition and popular media. There are even police reports that
appear to be at a loss to explain how a
hitchhiker was there one moment gone the next. Also, while
we're at it, shout out to Jan Brunvand for being
a huge part of coining the term urban legend. And
he really he puts some gas in the tank of
(20:51):
academic studies of folklore. So credit where it's due.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Thank you. Thank you, sub.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Right, and so we've I think we've established too that
the vanishing hitchhiker overwhelmingly often is a woman or female
identifying person who has met with misfortune. So it's not
too surprising. I would argue that the hitchhiker and the
weeping woman have enough commonality to at some point converge.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Sure, well, why not throw in the hairy hand?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Why not.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Do the hairy hand? Do the hairy hair win while
we're bout we camp fire?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I think we did all episode on that, or at least, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The hairy hands, right, they grab the wheel, Yeah, and
they turned the and it's right around the time cars
come out. Yeah, why not? I would love to hear
all of your favorite urban legends. Uh, that's why you
will hear versions of the hitchhiker story that talked about
picking up a lady by a bridge near the water.
(21:56):
You know, things like that, or she asked you to
drop her off near the water or something like that.
These things don't occur in a vacuum. But this is
a bit of a walk around the block to lead
us to the question where does Laona come from? You know,
I don't know. Did it surprise you that the hitchhiker
(22:17):
legend is literally older than the car, because I'll be honest, sure.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I mean, yeah, it surprised surprised me quite a bit,
I think because we so closely associate it with driving
a vehicle, and many of us, most of us have
only ever driven an automobile and not a carriage, right,
So like, yeah, it makes sense that for us. It's like, oh, sure,
if there's a hitchhiker, there's a car involved, but yeah,
(22:45):
maybe it's a hitchhiker on the back of your horse pal.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. It's kind of like
if you heard a spooky story about an astronaut, you
would assume there was a spaceship involved at some point.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Probably, Yeah, yeah, I like that very real.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah. Probably. But so with all this in mind, we
ask where this story, this legend Lairna comes from. Then
what we learn is the story is much much older
than anyone might have imagined.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
We're gonna take a quick break here a word from
our sponsor, and then dive in to the roots, the
ancient roots of this story.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right. First off, you're
gonna hear a lot of versions of this that say,
you know their cast of characters is a children who
are led to misfortune, right, whether by accident or by design,
an indigenous woman, a Spaniard dude, Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
But he goes back much older than that. And the
roots that exist here in the commonalities with ancient characters,
we're talking quite old characters are pretty dang compelling. Specifically
Aztec God's been that really fascinated me as we got
into this, figures that existed in as tech mythology. That
(24:18):
law yourona seems to mirror, or at least be reverberations of.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, Mesoamerica is deep. We have to remember this civilization
existed thousands of years before Europeans are traveling there. This
story is so old, in fact, that no one is
sure when the first version happened. No, no one really knows.
We can confirm written mentions, though, and that's even that
(24:48):
just accelerates our kaiser. So say aspect of this, because,
like you were saying, the earliest confirmed La Yourna's story
we know it dates back to a written format in
the fifteen hundreds. There are a couple of contenders. One
is in fifteen fifty in Mexico City, but it also
(25:10):
it has the air of a cover song. Dare I say,
it sounds like it's referencing some other well known work
and the written version. This happens all the time with
these stories. The written version is going to most likely
be an adaptation or retelling of a narrative that already existed.
And so even in the modern day, folklorist and anthropologists
(25:34):
all across the Americas and across the world are trying
to figure out the pre Columbian roots of this tale.
And this gets to what you were talking about, Matt,
ancient gods things that are things that existed, and we're
established parts of belief systems way before the Spanish arrived.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, oh yeah. When we're talking as tech gods, gods
of fertility or goddesses, I think of fertility and motherhood,
goddesses of the earth, really really interesting stuff. I guess
we can talk about. See what quadal is. That's one
of the biggest goddesses that appears to have similarities. When
(26:18):
you're describing law Youurona as a character. She was a
goddess of motherhood and she did some things that were
pretty similar to law Youurona.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Ys a protector of children and also as a I'm
gonna say something's kind of weird, and a lot of
people might not be aware of this, But from these
sources that I read often in the Aztec belief system,
accidents did not exist, such that if, for instance, you
(26:52):
and your buddies are out hunting in the woods and
you accidentally injure one of your compatriots, the legal system
at the time treats you as though you did it
on purpose, because accidents do not exist. So this gets
really complicated. We're talking about accidents that Bethel children seahook
(27:15):
is like mean, it translates to like snake woman, which
is pretty common when you talk about fertility gods or deities.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, she has some really interesting stuff going on with her.
So I want to get into another piece of the
Laurona story that exists in some versions of the tale.
In some versions, she's killed her children. She doesn't know
they're dead, but her the bones of her children are
somehow like fused into her back right like, which is creepy,
(27:48):
really creepy, messed up. They are literally physically haunting her
while she is haunting this area, right but uh sewa quaddle.
Part of one tale about her is that she worked
with quets a Quotal, who was like, I, this is
not correct, But in my mind I think about quets
(28:09):
a Quotal as like the Zeus of Aztec world, like
the over god. Maybe I'm just completely wrong, that's how
I visualize it. But she worked with quets a Quotal
to create humanity as it exists in this realm, this epic,
this version of humanity that we all experience in those tales.
She did that by grinding up the bones of previous
(28:32):
versions of humanity and mixing it with quetze Quotal's blood.
And I thought that bone connection was really interesting. There
as like a tipping off point somehow, grinding the bones
to make the human very very strange. Oh and this
is the other thing. She apparently abandoned a child at
(28:53):
a crossroads.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, according to the lore, and there's a and additionally,
the rule of the Si Tito, which is the deified
spirits of women who passed away during childbirth and ktsal
Cultol is very interesting to me, as the plume serpent
and you know, the patron god of the priesthood and learning.
(29:16):
So they're they're generative deities, but you know, all deities,
virtually all deities end up being sources of potential destruction
if they're sources of great generation, if they're great generative forces. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Absolutely, But again, like see what quaddle is thought to
go back to that crossroads that I just mentioned, ben
and cry weep loudly sound famililed it.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, And see.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
What Quaddal is not the only Aztec goddess that has
things in common with this stuff. There's another one, isn't
there a quat lique or something like that.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
M Yeah, also known as our lady mother or tananzi uh.
This is it functions as both a significant maternal figure
and as a monster who devours filth and sin. So
this story Laurona is much much older. Like it also, okay,
(30:17):
fast forward the Spanish conquistadors come right, and a real
life tragedy plays a huge role in the modern version
of La Iroona. It's La Malinche, who is a Nahua
woman who was enslaved by the Spanish and worked directly
with the infamous Ernan Cortes. This is kind of a
(30:42):
Pocahontas vibe. So this is a real historical figure as
far as we can tell, born sometime around fifteen hundred
and dying in her late twenties, most likely sometime around
February of fifteen twenty nine, and just like the tragic
real life character of Pocahontas or not character the real
(31:02):
life person Pocahontas, la malinche is. She's an interpreter, She's
an advisor. She's kind of a fixer, as the Spanish
go around contacting and conquering, you know, and infecting Native
people's She was one of twenty people given to the
Spaniards in fifteen nineteen by natives of Tabasco, and Cortes
(31:29):
had a sexual relationship with her. She gave birth to
his son, who is considered, I guess symbolically one of
the first mestizos. His name is Martin. I believe mestizo
would be a term for people of mixed Indigenous American
and European ancestry. If you look at art over the centuries,
(31:52):
then you'll see that this woman's reputation in the public
sphere shifts back and forth over time. She is she's
an archetype. Now right, there are a lot of conflicting
views about her. There are paintings or works of art
depicting her that have been moved according to protests, and
(32:15):
she's often compared in literature to the like the real
life La Rona, you know, and maybe maybe with her
forced cooperation with the Spanish, maybe she abandoned Mesoamerica, you know,
maybe that's the abandoned child's here. It gets complex and symbolic,
(32:39):
you know, but we do have to mention her because
she's associated with it now. But if you dive deeper, right,
we have to remember she's almost certainly not the original
source of the legend. We can say based on those
that one text we mentioned, right, she's born in fifteen hundred,
(33:00):
fifteen fifty. This story is around, right, we know that
people already were telling this story, and this becomes a
kind of cognitive hook upon which to hang the tail.
But we also know that there was another text called
the Florentine Codex sometime in fifteen nineteen. This is around
(33:25):
and this does never neither of these, by the way,
ever use the phrase la iRORA. But they have some
very maybe a bit of wordplay here, but some very revelatory,
highly dramatic language about a great catastrophe or disaster. And
(33:45):
they in the Codex outlea's a series of omens that
the locals can use to tell when trouble is coming.
And I think we draw a special attention to the
sixth Omen.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, I can just read it. Quote. The sixth Omen
was that many times a woman would be heard going
along weeping and shouting. She cried out loudly at night, saying, oh,
my children, we are about to go forever. Sometimes she said,
oh my children, where am I to take you? That's interesting?
(34:21):
Where am I to take you? I guess if you're
a soul seeking your you know you're passed over, but
you're still here as some kind of spirit, and you're
looking for your children, how do you take your children anywhere?
Would hum? There's a connection there. Oh, man, Ben, I
don't want to take us back to the Aztec times,
but I think it's worth it really quickly, back to
(34:42):
seawa Quaddle. At the time when the in the Aztec civilization,
women who were going through childbirth were considered warriors. Right,
if you're going through that battle of bringing life onto
the into this plane, you're considered a warrior. And if
you happened to die in childbirth while fighting that fight,
(35:05):
you as a mother were celebrated as a fallen warrior.
And there was I forget the term for it. There's
a specific term for women who died during childbirth, and
they were thought to haunt crossroads and look for children
(35:25):
to steal them because they never got to experience being
a mother. They like, perhaps they gave birth to a
child and it survived, but they never got to experience it,
so then they haunt those crossroads to find one, to
find a child like you probably sorry, just thought about that.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
It's perfect. Yeah. And also the Florentine Codex describes the
the appearance of this figure of sijuhtl as dressed in white,
with her hair as if she had horns crossed above
her forehead. The original passage says that she was covered
(36:04):
in chalk, the wood peer at night, dressed in white,
walking and crying. I mean, how many coincidences does one need?
Speaker 3 (36:12):
This?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Okay? So there are these ancient myths. They've transformed over time,
and we see this all the world around throughout human
civilization a lot. Not infrequently, these become the basis of
modern folk tales as well as modern religions. The character
of the weeping woman of La Irona has evolved through
(36:34):
multiple iterations over the over the centuries. You know, and
just to just for anyone who likes rabbit holes. You
can find other examples of this. You can look at
the Tale of King Arthur. Who is King Arthur is
not just a real dude. King Arthur is a mixtape
(36:56):
of several real dudes and they're they're like, they're their
greatest hits are all collected into this thing. And now
that thing is the author. And we're going to go
to Renaissance Festival so we can so Matt and I
can experience it firsthand, right.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
My son, we go. My sons would go at evil
times for the first one. What yeah, do you like it? Yeah?
I loved this man his night one?
Speaker 1 (37:24):
What up? What the odds are kind of against you? There?
A good job, bro, It's because it's because he was
the best cheerer.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Haven't been there in years. Man. I every so often
I get that wild Dave and Buster's hair, I'm like, oh,
let's go. What will it be like when I now
do have twenty five or thirty dollars to spend on
that mug shit?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Roll in the day Dave and Busters with one hundred
dollars bill and be like, I'm the king of this
place for fifteen.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Minutes because it adds up. Yeah, we're going to speed
run DMB after this. So and not to ruffle feathers, folks,
But another great example of how this oral communication works
and how it evolves into the written word. Just look
(38:19):
at the early works of Christianity, right in the very beginning,
when people are still kind of creating the authorities, authorities
to decide what is or isn't officially part of the Bible,
what stories or anecdotes do or do not belong in there,
You're going to see a lot of stuff that comes
from other belief systems. Maybe they pre exist and they
(38:44):
got translated into Christianity. Maybe they There are a lot
of no wait, but this is totally our thing moments
in organized religion. And there's another local example, and we'll
keep this brief because you've heard about it if you
listen to the show for a while. There are folk saints.
(39:05):
San Simone is one. San Simone or Machimone is a
folk saint who exist in various forms, aspects and their
durations in the Guatemalan highlands, and his true background was
obscured for a long time. If you do the digging
you see that before the Spaniards, before all this cross
(39:27):
cultural contact and conflict, the entity called San Simone was
actually a kind of mom, sort of a trickster mountain god,
responsible for floods and earthquakes and thunder and so on.
That's the interesting thing about these stories. They're palimpsested, and
(39:49):
if you peel back the layers, you're going to find,
just like paint on a wall, you're going to find
another couple of hues and shades beneath. Now we have
to ask why this story stuck around so long. People
are experiencing thousands, thousands terrible, terrible things all the time.
(40:10):
That's part of being a human being. So what is
the difference here? Why do we still have this story?
Why do people still believe they have seen Youroona or
some iteration in the modern day. Oddly enough, we don't
always get to say this, Matt, I think we have
some answers.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
No, boy, do we, And we're going to tell you
all about it after another quick word from our sponsor.
All right, So why though, Oh you're asking.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Me, I'm asking you.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
All right, cheers, I've drink a gatorade. You're drinking orange juice.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, trying to get my stomach right. Trying to get
stomach right.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Perfect. So to answer this question, really we have to
look at some of the basic mechanics of storytelling as technology.
So not just we're not just saying, hey, here are
some campfire stories that people like. It's how you scare kids.
We're asking why, we're asking why this happens.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, I love that. Hey, come here, let me tell
you how to scare kids.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Oh boy? Uh yes, okay. So one thing we know
is that people in general love connecting. Right, All people
have what's sometimes called main character energy. That's not necessarily
a bad thing. It means that human beings will tend
(41:50):
to share stories that, in one way or another, remind
them of themselves in their environment. So life for most
of you, human history sucked. It was just it was
just not great. I'm not saying it's perfect now by
any means, but think about think about this. Pregnancy and
(42:12):
childbirth were some of the most dangerous parts of every
single person's life. Infant mortality rates are nuts, right, And
if you're a woman and you're pregnant, you're a woman,
you're giving birth, then this is statistically, this is a
(42:32):
point in your life where you are more likely to
die than at almost any other point before your birth
when you survived that one. So we know that people
hearing these ancient stories would tragically be familiar with miscarriages,
it would be familiar with infant mortality. These things existed
(42:54):
at a much higher rate than they do in many
parts of the modern world. I do think we we
should point out that when you read statistics about life
expectancy in the ancient world, we all need to remember
those are incredibly misleading. People did make it to old
age back then, they certainly did. The problem was you
(43:19):
were far more likely to die early, especially when you
were a vulnerable little human being. Infant mortality, constant threat, malnutrition, disease,
infection plagues. As weird as it might sound in a
world where most people live in urban environments now, a
big enough animal just snatches your kid from the woods,
(43:42):
you know, jaguar in the forest. You know, it could
be a crocodile on the shore of the Nile. Just
depends on where you live, because the animals are out there,
and there were many many more wild animals than there
are today, and many many more than there will be
next year, but next week, parties next week.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
It really makes you understand with all of that you
know going on in your life and everybody's life around
you at that time, if you lived then that the
heartbreak that's at the heart of this story of a
mother losing a child, or a mother passing before her
child before she gets to meet her child, that would
(44:26):
be pretty normalized. It would be it would be a
universal thing that everyone would have an understanding of.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, Unfortunately, if you have not personally experienced it, you
probably knew someone who had, right and this is this
is a situation no one ever wants to be it.
So that's the first part the commonality. The second part
in stories as technology is this function. Stories like Lairna
(44:55):
stick around because they have a real world function. Not
for nothing does every single culture throughout human history have
some form of boogeyman that roams the wilderness and you know,
the dangerous places at night looking for kids who are
trying to be all Dennis the Menace and not thinking
(45:16):
about what their parents tell them to avoid. These stories
help adults impress safe behavior upon their children. It's it's
all about behavior modification. That's why these stories are around.
You know like, of course, people back then were the
same as people now, for good or for ill. You
might travel back centuries and talk to someone who you
(45:40):
might watch them tell their kid stay away because this
deity might come snatch you, right if you don't behave
and listen to me. And then the kid may say okay,
and they go to bed and you're talking to this person.
Let's assume it's not weird to them that you've traveled
through time and you say, hey, do you believe in
this story? And they might say no, man, of course not.
(46:03):
What about twelve? I don't believe in this. But if
I can scare my kids away from the dangers of drowning,
or I can ensure they don't walk into the woods
and get snatched by something, then this is valuable. So
I will propagate this story, which I don't think makes
some bad people at all.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
No, I don't think so. Again, all you ever have
to do, if you're faced with that and feeling worried
about some story you teach your children, just say, sanna
elf and he's got a shelf. I mean, that's come on,
Come on, when.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
We passed the line a long time ago, right, and
it's weird. How quickly the elf on the shelf came
around to normalize surveillance and erode the idea of privacy.
That guy, anyway, you can play along at home if
you like folks, regardless of where you live in the world, world,
or regardless of where you come from or where you're
going odds are. You can think of any number of
(47:06):
spooky stories that you were told and you were given
society as a kid, and you can identify those two
factors again commonality, common fears, desires, motivations, and then real
world functions warning against an activity, or like in your
excellent case of Santa Claus, there man prescribing a series
(47:28):
of incentives toward desirable behavior. Right, you better let this
guy break into your house, and you better be good
the whole year before. The only crime you can aid
in the entire year is helping this guy break into
your house and make it nice for him. Give him
some stacks.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, And if you're bad and you do bad things,
you're not getting.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And that's another question. I can't be the only one
asking this. Was he Cole way more important? Why was
Cole the bad?
Speaker 3 (48:03):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Like, that's if if you're bad. Santa's gonna pay our
light bill. That's better. They're better threats. Look, nobody asked
us to help make this story.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
If it was the sixteen hundred's and you were getting
firewood for Christmas, it would have been like straight up
cash money because it's yeah, okay, it was the currency.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, And when the end times come, please please join
us at Matt and Ben's firewood emporium. Unlike First Republic Bank,
we will at a deposits of firewood. So unless there's
JP Morgan firewood, guys, get us all right anyhow, So
(48:55):
we're not saying that these parents and these cultures are
lying to their children for fun. As a matter of fact,
many of us listening today may wholeheartedly believe in the
La Yourna phenomenon, or may have believed that we experienced
it firsthand. The thing is, the belief is not the
primary issue. It's not why this story is still around.
(49:18):
The manipulation of behavior is the prime mover here. And
now we get to the big question. I'm not sure
how to address it. This is all speculation that Matt, Okay,
we know we cannot pinpoint the origin of this story.
We know that it endures because as commonality and real
world function. Is it possible that this story has, like,
(49:41):
at some point, a grain of truth, a basis in truth.
I don't know. I'm on the fence, but I think yes, honestly.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I think so. I think loss. I think this story
is about loss. This story is about not wanting to
lose a child. I think that's exactly what is And
you outline it there. We're talking about these things. We're
talking about, Sanna, we're talking about all of that. As
a parent, once you successfully have a child and have
(50:13):
them in the world, the worst thing that could ever
happen is for that child to be gone right, specifically
through death, you know. So, as you said, these stories
go back to a time when it was so easy
to lose a child. You would tell them anything to
protect them from the things you know are out there.
(50:35):
And you and I think it's a lot easier to
make a child afraid of a ghost or a monster
or a demon than it is to make them afraid
of a leopard or a wild boar or water or water. Yeah,
oh yeah, because kids love water, but they don't understand
(50:58):
currents yet, they don't understand and a lot of the
dangers of what water is. So you tell them stories
about how dangerous that monster is that's in that water. Now,
I think I think that, I think that explains it,
at least for me.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I see you, man, I also think statistically, unfortunately, there
is probably a There is probably a basis in fact.
I mean, imagine it like this, sometime before the dawn
of global communication. You, yes, you are walking around. There's
somewhere out there in the world, walking along the water evenings,
(51:36):
drawing on perhaps and in the distance, maybe across the lake,
the pond, what have you, the holler. You see a
woman and she's beside herself with grief. As a matter
of fact, you may have heard her before you saw her,
because she's very distant and you can't make out what
she's say, but she's clearly having a terrible, terrible day.
(51:59):
You can tell that she wailing. You can't get to her,
you're on your way, she's very far away. And then
maybe later you tell somebody else about it in your community.
You're wondering if they saw it, and maybe they did,
Maybe they explain it to you and you forget about it,
or maybe someone just remembers the story and then days, months, years,
(52:19):
decades later, they see something very similar ticks all the boxes.
Single individual, probably a woman, screaming there have been deaths
of children recently, and you start to wonder if this
is related to that story you heard earlier. This is
how these stories begin. It's the great game of telephone.
(52:40):
It continues, Embellishments emerge, revisions, adaptations to make them narrative
more directly reflect the current circumstances and fears of the
age of which it's told. You know what I mean, Like,
I honestly I wonder how long we have as a
society before Santa's bad gift becomes something else? You know
(53:01):
what I mean? Like how many I don't know.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
The hand grenade and when you pull the bow, it
pulls the hot pin.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Oh wow, okay, sociopath clause.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
All right, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
I'm just saying, like, because we know the prevalence, because
we know that these terrific accidents did occur, right and
continue to occur today. Like how many people drown in
our local spot, Lake Lanier every year? Right? It's least
a few? Yeah, yeah, I feel like someone in antiquity
(53:38):
saw this happen and this became part of the story
that is told today. And with that, here's where we
passed the torch to you, folks. We want to hear
your take on other similar tales. What are some paranormal
stories from your neck of the global woods? What do
they tell you and hopefully us about the societies in
(53:59):
which they We cannot wait to hear from you. We hope.
Also let us know if you enjoy paranormal episodes. We
love doing them.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Well, and tell us your law, your ownA encounters.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Maybe you've had yes, perfect, please do, and please point
out anything you had that didn't seem to fit the
official narrative. We just want to hear your stories and
if we get enough, maybe we can make a Maybe
we can just make a show all all with retellings
of those stories, because we do have great fun with it.
(54:29):
We're grateful that you're here, and while we're asking you
for stuff, we'd love to hang out with you online Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
all the hits, conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff show or some
derivative of that. Just start googling those things and you know,
tell us where we end up.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
It is. It is hard to find us sometimes on
TikTok and Instagram so make sure you plug in conspiracy
stuff show in those two.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
But Matt, what if someone listened to our episodes on
social media and those it's not worth it to play
the dopamine casino.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Ah, well, you're on the right track. The next step
is to call one eight three three std WYTK. It's
a voicemail system. You've got three minutes to say whatever
you want. After that, it cuts you off. So you
got to stay in that three minutes, make up a
cool name for yourself and let us know if we
can use your voice and message on the air. If
(55:26):
you've got more to say they can fit in that
three minutes. Why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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