 Hi, good evening, buenas tardes a todos. My name is Cynthia, and today we are here to share some scary stories from Latin America. The program is going to be bilingual, so if you would like to read the story in either English or Spanish, we are going to have the translations available on the YouTube description. Good afternoon, my name is Cynthia. Now we are going to be telling you some scary stories from Latin America. The program is going to be bilingual, so if you would like to read the story in a different language, you can find it in the description of the video on YouTube. El conmigo ahora está aquí Sheridan, Luisa, Evelyn, Ana y Brian. Buenas tardes a todos. Voy a empezar yo con mi historia. So today I'm going to tell you about a scary story that is probably the first scary story that we all heard when we were growing up. It is definitely the first monster we all learn about and it's the story of el Cucui. So el Cucui, also known as el coco or el coco, sometimes it is a female and it's called la cuca. It's similar to the boogeyman. And el Cucui comes to either eat you or to kidnap you or steal you away when you misbehave and you don't listen to your parents. So he's kind of like your parents ally in that if you don't listen to them, el Cucui is going to come and get you. And we even have a lullaby in Spanish that we sing to babies that goes, duerme de mi niño, duerme de ella porque viene el coco y te comerá. So ever since we're babies we are warned that if we don't fall asleep and we're supposed to, el coco or el Cucui is going to come and eat us. Nobody really knows what el Cucui looks like. That's not the scary part of the story. The scary part is that he's going to eat you or he is going to kidnap you or he's going to take away your spirit. And some people say that he hangs around in the rooftops watching the children seeing who's misbehaving. So he looks like probably like a dark shadow in the night. And yeah, so that's the story our parents tell us so that we behave so that we listen to them. And I think every country has a version of this in every all around the world, but el Cucui is definitely one of the most famous ones. So I'm going to go now and introduce Luisa that's going to be she's going to tell us another scary story that our parents tell us to ask us to behave. Yes, hello, I'm Luisa, my name is Luisa, and I'm going to tell the story. The best I can in English, Spanish, we'll call it. So, esta historia se llama el pacto, and es un cuento que me contaba mi mamá. So this story is a story that my mother used to tell me when I was little about five or six as a warning to that I better act right or well you'll see. Okay, so el pacto is a story about two friends there are two men in their kind of midlife around their 30s or so. They love la mala vida. So they love to drink and gamble. And well as you can imagine, all the things that go along with that kind of lifestyle. So they one day they were doing their usual at the local bar in town, drinking gambling talking about all kinds of stuff. And they were pretty far in their drinks. And they started to wonder what happens after you die. So Lupe, it's Lupe and Jose. So Lupe asked Jose, hey, do you think there's a heaven and hell? And Jose says, well, if there is we're definitely going to hell because you know how we've been doing. And he's like, you're right. And then Jose says, hey, what do you say we make a pact that whichever one of us dies first, we'll come back and we'll tell the other one whether or not hell is real. And so Lupe thinks about it and he's like, sure, why not. And so they shake on it. Well, and they continue, you know, having a good time getting their drinks laughing it up. Then the night comes to a close. They're pretty drunk at this point. So they say goodbye and they stumble each their own way home. Jose goes down his usual path. He has to cross the train tracks. And because he's stumbling, being so drunk, he gets his foot stuck in the tracks. And he's there trying to get his foot out. He can't he's drunk. He's losing his balance. He hurts himself. He falls. The train comes and wipes him out. He dies. So the next day, Lupe finds out about Jose's death and he gets really impacted. He gets like startled, frightened, impacted by this news that of the coincidence that Jose dies right after they make this pact. Lupe is terrified. He goes to church for the first time. He's, he's just like an anxious frightened mess because he's afraid that his friend is going to come back and and tell him something, you know, as a ghost or something. So he goes to church for the first time. He's just so scared. It's just like the past. It's the third day, Lupe. He can't eat. He can't sleep. He's, he just can't take it anymore. And so that night he calls out to his friend, he says, Jose, yeah, Is there heaven or hell? And then he hears a rustling outside his room. He approaches the window and he looks out the window. He gets near and all of a sudden he sees Jose's mangled, charred body pressed up on the windowsill and it says, it's true. It's a fact that there's an inferno. And that freaks Lupe out. He screams a blood curdling scream. He then has a heart attack and dies from the fright. So then from that moment on, the people in the town told this story to their children as a way to remind them that they need to behave themselves and act right and follow a righteous path because hell is real. And if they ever doubted, they would walk them past Lupe's house to show them the bar, the burn marks of Jose's hands on the windowsill from his, his fiery visit from hell. The end. Wow, that was a scary story. Now we're going to hear. Yeah, thank you for sharing that Lisa. You're welcome. Now we're going to hear from Sheridan. You're ready Sheridan. Yeah, yeah, hi everybody, my name is Sheridan. I'm going to be telling you the story of La Malahora, which is a legend from like the New Mexico area. South Texas, that whole area. And so it's the name means the evil hour. They also call it La Malahora, or even the evil doer in English. So it's said to be this wicked spirit or like an evil demon that wanders around roads and crossroads at night waiting for, you know, single travelers to drive them insane or kill them. And in some places it's even more feared than, than the devil, especially since you know New Mexico, it's all desert landscape and so these roads are in the middle of nowhere, long stretches with nothing in, you know, no towns or no people. And so they say that first, it appears as this like large black lump that people see, then it's even darker than than the night that surrounds it. So it's a large black lump and it can change shape and it can change size and it can get bigger and smaller depending on whatever it feels like you need at that moment. They say that anybody who looks at it runs the risk of being driven insane, you know, you go crazy. And that it tries to hypnotize and paralyze anybody that it comes into contact with. Some of the first accounts of La Malahora are accounts of, you know, lonely desert travelers who would be walking at night, and they would be really cold. And so when they would come upon La Malahora, they would see like a poncho made of wool that they would say, Oh man, I need to put that on right because it's really cold so they would put on the poncho, but I got into our set to get a little warmer and then little by little the poncho would get smaller and smaller and smaller. And they would try to take it off, but they couldn't. And before long it would squeeze all the air out of their lungs and it would squeeze them to death, it would smother them. And then it would disappear. And so in the morning people would find a person dead by the side of the road. You know, death from asphyxiation, and they would talk about all he must have come across La Malahora. Other times, it can actually change form and become a woman who's wearing all black she's got glowing red eyes long hair that's all unkempt and really pale skin. And one of the more famous stories that people tell is the story of a woman whose husband was away on business. And so he was out of town. And she didn't want to spend the night by herself, you know, in her house. So she decided that she was going to go visit one of her girlfriends, you know, and so she who lived, you know, down the road so she drives over and on the on the way to her house. She sees a large black lump in the road. And she thinks that it's a rock or a boulder something so she comes to a stop you know she presses the brakes. And when she looks back, she sees that it's gone. The next thing she hears is the sound of clawing at the window and she turns, and there's a woman there with black hair and red eyes who's clawing at the window trying to get inside the car. So she hits the gas to, you know, get out of there. And as she's accelerating, the woman is running alongside the car, keeping up with the car. Eventually she manages to outrun the woman. And she looks in the rearview mirror she sees that she left the woman behind but the spirit is growing bigger and bigger and bigger in the rearview mirror as if it's like the size of a tree. So finally she gets to her friend's house. You know she runs inside she slams the door behind her she's, you know, scared and panicking. And then she tells the friend what she saw. And the friend says oh it must have been La Malahora. And they say that when she appears at a crossroads like that. And as a woman, it's an evil omen that somebody is going to die. And so, you know, she, you know, let's see the poquito tecito she gets her some tea and they start to try to calm down a little bit. And finally, you know, the lady didn't sleep at all that night and she was up all night just because she was so frightened from what she had seen. Next morning, she drives back home. And when she gets there she finds a police car waiting in the driveway. And the police officer steps out of the car and lets her know that they got news that her husband was mud the night, the night before, while he was, you know, away, you know, out of town and then the mugger, in order to get his wallet shot him and killed him. And it's all around the same time that she was driving to her friend's house. And that's the story of La Malahora so don't drive alone in New Mexico by yourself at night. Okay now we're going to hear the story of La Llorona from Evelyn. Okay, so I'm going to be talking about La Llorona. We're very lucky we have at the library also a picture book about the Llorona so if you want to check it out make sure to do so. Right, La Llorona is also a very popular story. There have been many films that have been made in regards to the story, and a lot of people say that La Llorona is real that people have seen La Llorona. So let's get into it. La Llorona did start off in a small quiet village where there's a beautiful girl named Maria, and Maria wasn't only the most beautiful girl in the village she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world she said. And this really had then got Maria to think of herself as beautiful and she didn't want anyone else to tell her otherwise. She became very prideful she thought she was better than everyone else. And a lot of the men from the village, they followed Maria they wanted to make her their wife, and she don't want any of them. She said to herself I'm going to marry the most handsome guy in the world, and one day to the village came a very handsome ranchero on a high horse. He had gold he was rich and wealthy, and all the other village girls, they were head over heels for him. They all wanted him, and Maria thought, I'm beautiful. He's handsome. I'm going to make him work for it I'm not going to be head over heels like all these other girls. He would ignore him his serenades. And that's exactly what she did. He would serenade her outside her home and she wouldn't even look out the window. He would give her beautiful expensive gifts, she would toss them, throw them in the river. And, and this work actually, the ranchero was telling himself, I need Maria, I need to make her my wife. And he did eventually she gave in and did make, and they were husband and wife, and they had two kids later on. Everyone in the village thought they were happily married until this ranchero after a couple years he started leaving the village. Sometimes it was a couple days. Sometimes it was a couple months. And the only reason he would come back to the village was to see his kids, not even Maria. He would ignore her he would go outside with the kids leave Maria to do all the hard work, cleaning and feeding them. And so this really got Maria upset. Can you imagine she's this beautiful girl and now she's being treated like less. And she was really upset at him. One day she took the kids out to the river after a long day of them playing around and causing her havoc and their world. And there comes by the side, strolling in a carriage. She was in shock and not only was he there by himself he was there with a very beautiful woman. He was holding her hand. He was talking to her touching her hair. And then he sees that he bumps into his family, his wife and his children. And he's like, talking to his kids Oh hi kids. I can't acknowledge Maria at all goes on there had been rumors and and Maria had heard them that possibly the ranchero had found another woman in another village, and she didn't want to believe any of that. But this proved to be true. Now this woman had taken her spot. And she was very angry she became so angry, they were still next to that river. All she could think of was a betrayal and all the anger and the jealousy that he was paying attention to her kids and not her. And out of all that anger. She grabbed her kids she threw them in the river, being so mad filled with all that anger. She later realized what she had done, and she sobbed and sobbed. There's different versions of what happened next. Some say that Maria went into the river trying to trying to find her kids but she went in so deep that she drowned. Another version says that she purposely drowned herself so that she could die too because she figured her children were gone. And so, after that, the village found out what had happened. They buried Maria in a beautiful white long gown, and they buried her right next to the river. But they didn't know that when Maria went to the land of the dead to try to enter the land of the dead, she was denied entry. They managed back to purgatory on earth, so that she could find her children and until then, she would be allowed into the land of the dead. And so, they heard the wind, the villagers started to hear the wind, and they started to kind of hear in the wind, something being said, and a lot of the villagers started to question themselves, is that the wind is someone saying something. But then one night, a villager went by the river to get some water, and he saw from afar, right where Maria was buried, he saw in the dark a white long gown standing around there and someone weeping and someone crying and saying, me see you holes, my children, and looking and looking for her children. And so, a lot of the villagers told the children, don't go out at night because La Llorona is going to get you. She's going to mistake you for her children and take you to the land of the dead. And a lot of this was to teach the children, don't go out too late, don't, you know, stay out in the dark and be cautious of other people. And this is a story that's, you know, evolved and changed a lot throughout the years. Thank you. Okay, so now we're going to hear from Brian. All right, hi everybody. My name is Brian, and today I'll be telling you guys the story of La Siguanava. And although there's a lot of versions found throughout Latin America, the one that I saw pretty frequently was, it comes from El Salvador. So, originally called Siewet, which means beautiful woman. She was a peasant girl and she had these dreams of ascending to hope to ascend to become queen one day. And using her charms and literally a witch's brew, she lures Jason, who's this the god of rain, the Lalo son, and she eventually marries him, but after marriage. Jason leaves for war. And while he's away at war, Siewet begins to have an affair. And out of this affair, she gives birth to her son named El Cepitio. But Siewet, it turns out becoming like a terrible mother. She's famous for neglecting her son, often leaving him alone, like to meet her lovers. And in the process, she devises like this plot to use this type of magic potion to kill Jason, so that way she can claim the throne for herself and for her lover. Ultimately, the plan ends up working. You know, Jason drinks the potion, he's transformed into this hideous monster who was ultimately killed by the palace guards. And when his father, Talaloc, when he finds out about this, he curses and they condemn Siewet, and she is now, she now adopts the name of La Siewanaba, which means hideous woman. And part of her punishment was that although she was beautiful at first sight, she would turn into this like abomination after luring her victims near like isolated gorges or bodies of water, such as rivers. And she must, she's forced to wander the countryside and she will often appear to men who travel at night and is often seen washing clothes or like combing her hair. And similar to La Llorona, she's seen looking for her son, El Cepitio. But since La Siewanaba must spend the rest of her days attempting to lure like unfaithful men, just midnight stragglers, you know, walking aimlessly throughout the night, they ultimately, they do make their way towards her because these men are often transfixed by her appearance and beauty. And once an individual approaches her, although she seems harmless, especially when they see someone just combing her hair, they unsuspectingly, the La Siewanaba lunges towards them. And she reveals the head of the horse. This image often sends the man into shock, and there are two ways that I read about that the man can release the grip from La Siewanaba, either by biting down on a metal coin or their machetes, but they have to entrust both to God. And for the men who have lived to tell this tale, these are some of the testimonies that they've actually given saying that when they were face to face with La Siewanaba, that they were able to escape by biting down on their machetes and making the sign of a cross. But yeah, I hope I don't run into La Siewanaba ever, and I hope none of you guys do too. Thank you. That was a good story. And actually, like Brian mentioned, La Siewanaba had a child named Esipitio. Esipitio era el hijo illegitimo de La Siewanaba y el lucero de la mañana. Y el esposo de La Siewanaba, cuando se dio cuenta de que La Siewanaba había tenido un hijo con su amante el lucero de la mañana, los condenó no solamente a La Siewanaba, pero también a Esipitio. Y la condena de Esipitio fue de nunca crecer. Se quedó de las 10, 10 años, siempre. Era cheparo, barrigón, siempre usaba un sombrero como de bruja. Y los pies al revés. Y hay muchas historias que hablan del Sipitio, que hacía muchas travesuras, y los campesinos reportan ver los pasos, las huellas del Sipitio en el campo, pero nunca lo pueden encontrar porque como sus pies están al revés, siempre al seguirlo van al lado contrario. Y hay muchas historias, incluidas en el libro de Cuentos de Sipotes, de Sala Rue, que es un libro clásico que habla de cuentos de niños, y mencionan mucho las historias de las travesuras que hacía Esipitio. Entonces no necesariamente no todos son cuentos de miedo, pero sí el niño también fue condenado, igual que su mamá. Y ahora vamos a escuchar la historia de Ana, que nos va a contar la historia de la bailarina sin cabeza. Hi everyone, I'm Ana, and I will be sharing the story of the Big Headed Dancer, la bailarina sin cabeza. I will be talking about the story in Spanish, so you can find the English version of it in the description of the video. Entonces la bailarina sin cabeza toma lugar en los años veintes, a finales de los años veintes, en la época de la prohibición en Tijuana. Como estaba previsto en Estados Unidos, la mayoría de los residentes del sur de California cruzan a Tijuana, a este hermoso casino, que es el Casino de Agua Caliente, que pueden ver aquí atrás. Increíbles lujos, iban a apostar, all the gambling, all the drinks, everything you can imagine, all the fun, toda la diversión que pueden obtener ahí. La parte del espectáculo de este casino, de la atracción de este casino, era una bailarina que se llamaba la, era nombrada la fara una. Esta bailarina española se especializaba en bailar flamenco, y era muy famosa porque era muy hermosa, además de ser muy talentosa. Pero no solo esto, sino que empieza a ganar fama porque todo uno se da cuenta que cuando la bailarina pasa a un lado de ellos mientras apuestan, siempre ganan. Entonces empieza a cobrar esta fama de que si la bailarina cae de ti mientras tú estás apostando, empiezas a ganar. ¿Qué pasa? Que muchos hombres le empiezan a llamar y le dicen, siéntate aquí conmigo, apuestan y le empiezan a dar joyas. La bailarina empieza a crear un pequeño tesoro, empieza a guardar todas sus joyas, y es muy sabido que la bailarina tiene este tesoro, es bastante rica y continúa dando sus espectáculos. Tiempo después, la bailarina conoce este hombre de Inglaterra, este Mr. Patrick, que aparentemente es un lorno. La enamora tiene varios tiempos juntos y él siempre apuesta obviamente con la bailarina y empiezan a generar esta riqueza juntos. La bailarina le cuenta de su tesoro y él le dice, ¿Cómo que tal si? Seguimos apostando, ganamos mucho más dinero y eventualmente te llevo conmigo Inglaterra, ¿No? Nos casamos, vivimos felices para allá. La bailarina empieza a notar que Mr. Patrick es muy ambicioso y que solo le da vueltas al plan de irse a Inglaterra, pero realmente nunca pone en fecha, ¿No? A sospechar y la bailarina una persona muy lista. Llega el día en el que Patrick le dice, te veo fuera del minarete, el minarete es una torre que todavía está en el casino de Guacaliente que ahora es una preparatoria, es High School, Tijuana, es una torre muy alta, muy bonita. Entonces Mr. Patrick le dice a la bailarina, te veo fuera de la torre del minarete en la noche, trae el tesoro y ya vamos a empezar a planear todo, ¿No? para irnos a Inglaterra, pero yo voy a hacerme cargo del tesoro. Y a la hora de la cita llega pero no trae el tesoro. Obviamente Mr. Patrick se enoja muchísimo, empiezan a forcejear, es una tarde muy lluviosa, nadie escucha la pelea ni el forcejeo de la bailarina porque siempre hay jazz, ¿No? tocando en el casino y además del ruido, ¿No? del espectáculo que pasa que esta pelea sigue escalando y demás llega el punto en el que Mr. Patrick toma un cuchillo que le corta la cabeza a la bailarina. No, porque nunca le dice donde está el tesoro. Entonces dice la leyenda que el tesoro sigue escondido en el casino de agua caliente y la bailarina baila por toda esa zona asegurándose de cuidarlo, ¿No? Esa noche la bailarina que es asesinada esa noche la bailarina tenía todavía un show al que tenía que asistir. Entonces dicen que la bailarina se presenta da su show magnífico como siempre y al final al bajarse del escenario se quita la cabeza que es encostada. So now I wanted to share with you all that we have books and videos that you can check out from the library if you like these stories. I have some here to show you. Do we have some for children, for adults in English and in Spanish. We have from my story el Cucuy, está el Cucuy by John Hayes. We also have these books by Claudia Galindo Cucuy, ¿Conoces el Cucuy? ¿Tienes el Cucuy? And it's bedtime Cucuy a la cama Cucuy. So these are definitely not scary stories and Cucuy looks actually kind of friendly. But also for children we also have a collection of DVDs la serie de la leyenda de la Nahuala la leyenda del Charro la leyenda de las momias de Guanajuato y la leyenda del Chupacabras So you can check this out from the library We also have some for adults I thought this one was really interesting because it's on local folk tales Mexican folk narrative from the Los Angeles area and we also have these bilingual books that tell the stories completely in English and in Spanish. We have stories from Mexico, stories in Mexico and stories from Latin America, and Ana also has some books to share with us. You're interested in stories similar to The Beheaded Dancer if you're interested in a story similar to La Bilaria sin cabeza you can find some in this book called leyendas de México and you can also find others in this one called leyendas de Guanajuato that are specifically in the regions, especially rural areas of Mexico. Muchas gracias We hope you enjoyed the stories today You can find a list of all of the books and videos we recommended on the YouTube description as well and thank you so much, bye everybody