Circa
1515 |
La
Malinche is given to Mayan merchants for slavery. In addition to her
mother tongue of Nahuatl (Aztec), she learns to speak
Mayan.
|
*Circa
1521 |
La
Malinche gives birth to two twin boys by Cortés. Cortés continues
his conquests. The King and Queen of
Spain, fearing that Cortés has betrayed them and is building his own
empire, repeatedly ask him to return to Spain. He refuses, saying
that if he leaves they will lose their new territories. The King and Queen send a
beautiful Spanish lady to convince him to return.
|
*Circa
1522 |
The Spanish lady seduces Cortés, convincing him to return to
Spain with his two sons. Cortés tells La Malinche of his decision to
return with his children and to leave her behind.
La Malinche, now
realizing the role she has played in helping Cortés massacre her
people, prays to her gods for help. One of her gods appears to her
and says, “If you let him take your children, one of them will
return and destroy your people.”
The night before Cortés’
departure, La Malinche escapes with the babies. Cortés’ soldiers
soon discover her absence and set out after her. Upon arriving at
the lake that Mexico City now rests on, the soldiers surround La
Malinche. Just as they are at the brink of capturing her, she pulls
out a dagger and stabs her babies in the heart, dropping their
lifeless bodies into the water.
La Malinche lets out a
heart-wrenching cry, “Oh, hijos mios.” (Oh, my
children.)
|
*Circa
1531 |
La
Malinche dies. Up to the time of her death she is seen and heard
near the lake weeping and wailing for her children. She is given the
name “La Llorona,” the crying woman.
|
|
1531 |
The first apparitions of La Virgen de Guadalupe occur in
Mexico.
|
|
1547 |
Hernán Cortés dies of dysentery. In a letter preserved in the
Spanish archives, Cortés writes “After God, we owe the conquest of
New Spain to Doña Marina (La Malinche)” .
While in Spain Cortés
praises her name, in Mexico “Malinche” becomes a word denoting
betrayal.
|
|
1550 |
The first documented appearances of La Llorona after La
Malinche’s death occurs in Mexico City. She is most often seen on
the night of a full moon, wandering the streets wearing a white
dress with a light veil covering her face. Her agonizing cries
terrorize everyone who sees or hears her. Her last stop is always La
Plaza Mayor where she lets out her most desperate, horrific cry,
after which she vanishes into the lake.
|
1550 -
Present |
Sightings of La Llorona spread throughout the most of the
Americas with people in each town/city/country believing she is
local to their own area, creating a powerful and passionate belief
in this horrifying ghost.
|
|
1970s |
Like many Hispanics in the U.S. and throughout Latin America,
the director of
 , Bernadine
Santistevan, is told stories of La Llorona—a woman who, betrayed by
her husband, drowned her children out of revenge in a nearby river.
The punishment for this horrific act: La Llorona’s spirit is
condemned to roam the earth for eternity, crying for her children.
Bernadine, along with the
other children in her small northern New Mexico town, is told that
if she plays by the river alone or misbehaves, La Llorona will take
her away.
|
|
1995 |
Susan Smith is found guilty of murder in the drowning deaths
of her two sons by strapping them in their car seats and rolling the
car into the John D. Long Lake in South Carolina.
A portrait made of Smith
is published where she is referred to as “A Modern Day
Llorona.”
|
1998 -
2003 |
Bernadine starts her search for La Llorona. Initially, she
believes this ghost is from her home town in New Mexico. She soon
discovers that La Llorona’s reign of terror has blazed across Latin
America and the United States.
In the end, Bernadine
spends 5 years searching for La Llorona across the
Americas—interviewing people who believe they have seen or heard
her, collecting music, poems, and art work dedicated to her, and
working with historians and Jungian psychologists who study La
Llorona as a cultural phenomenon and universal female archetype.
|
|
2000 |
Bernadine creates a community website with some of the
findings she has uncovered about La Llorona. To date, the website,
LaLlorona.com, has been visited by
millions and is being used by numerous schools and colleges across
the U.S. as a teaching tool.
|
June
2001 |
Andrea Yates drowns her five children, ages 6 months to 7
years, in the bathtub of her suburban Houston, Texas home. Yates
claims that she heard voices.
|
March
2002
|
Andrea Yates is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to
life in prison. |
Oct.
2002 |
A
woman named Bernadine Flores drowns her two children and herself in
a river near Pilar, New Mexico.
|
|
2003 |
Bernadine writes a script about La Llorona titled
, a contemporary supernatural thriller that
includes much of the factual discoveries about La Llorona that she
came across in her search.
|
|
2004 |
is shot in New York City and in northern New
Mexico.
Bernadine learns only a
few days before shooting the key scene where La Llorona drowns her
child that the river location she had selected is the same place
that Bernadine Flores drowned her two children and herself.
|
May
2005 |
Brooke Shields’ book “Down Came the Rain, My Journey through
postpartum depression” is published.
|
2006 -
2007
|
is in post-production. |
March
2006 |
Claudia, the post-production manager for ,
has a freak experience at work where tears of blood drip out of her
eyes. In , La Llorona
says, “Sisters. You’re like me. You’re fingers will scrape the
bottom of the rivers searching for your child…and you will cry tears
of blood.”
|
May
2006 |
A
screen test of a near complete version of is
held in Santa Fe, NM where close to 2000 people stand in line for
hours in the hope of attending the showing. A second unscheduled
screening is held to accommodate the crowd, and is
overwhelmingly well received.
|
July
2006 |
A
Texas Jury overturns Andrea Yates’ capital murder conviction and she
is declared not guilty for reasons of insanity. Yates is committed
to North Texas State Hospital.
|
End of
2006 |
is completed. Meanwhile, Bernadine receives
numerous emails and phone calls from people throughout the U.S. who
have heard of the Santa Fe test screening of
and who want to watch the film.
|
|
Present |
In
the United States alone, an estimated 28 to 35 million Hispanics
have grown up with stories of La Llorona, with this vengeful ghost
considered by many to be the Latino world’s “best kept secret.” The
majority of these “believers” are located in California, Texas,
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Illinois.
is
in distribution negotiations.
After many years
searching for La Llorona, Bernadine is still convinced that La
Llorona is real. |
| |
*Based on legend
Research by Bernadine
Santistevan
Copyright 2000-2007
LaLlorona.com |
