Monument to La Llorona

La Llorona (“The Weeping Woman”) is a legendary ghost prominent in folklore of Latin America. This myth has a tendency to take aspects of an urban legend and is present throughout Mexican culture. According to the tradition, La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who lost her children and now cries while looking for them in the river, often causing misfortune to those who are near or hear her.

Among the many unique things found on secondary routes across Mexico, discovering a monument to La Llorona is to penetrate a world where the legend merges with reality, and it is also to realize that there are still many places that hold secrets of various kinds.

On the road that connects Dolores Hidalgo with San Luis de la Paz, both cities in Guanajuato, Mexico, is the former hacienda 7 Reales, nowadays a hamlet that still retains part of the big house and church. Inside the grounds of the former hacienda, there is a unique monument that can be seen from the road in times of planting. This monument, made of quarry, is dedicated to the weeping woman: La Llorona.

As can be read in an inscription carved in the quarry, the monument was erected in September 1913. According to a legend, because La Llorona had been prowling around these places and people were very scared, the owner of the Hacienda ordered to bring a priest, who made an exorcism and suggested to lift the monument, and since then the weeping woman stopped loitering around. To add extra intrigue, not long ago a lightning fell on the cross of the monument, removing it completely.