La Segua: a Warning to Drunk and Unfaithful Men in Costa Rica.

La Segua: a Warning to Drunk and Unfaithful Men in Costa Rica.

Stories are not only a valuable repository of a people’s customs, but additionally an effective personal method planning to inspect undesirable habits.

“La Segua” try a Costa Rican legend that chastises improper and loose female habits, and additionally drunken and unfaithful activity of men, thus strengthening gender stereotypes within a Latin American context. The story occurs in Cartago, the existing investment of Costa Rica (earlier got transferred to San Jose in 1823).

Cartago ended up being the eldest Spanish payment in Costa Rica, dating back to 1563; the fact the storyline of Los Angeles Segua takes place in Cartago are considerable, because story is actually basically colonial in general, and thus, it offers both indigenous and Spanish areas which undoubtedly supplement but also clash with one another.

The gist for the tale will be the appropriate. There clearly was once a beautiful Cartaginesa (feminine inhabitant of Cartago) of mixed Indian and Spanish blood. She actually is often portrayed as creating gorgeous white-skin which contrasts together jet black attention and cascading long-hair. One of the forms in the legend claims that she fell so in love with a Spanish policeman who tricked the girl and broke her cardio.

The exact way he “tricked” her just isn’t totally clear, but there is an obvious recommendation it included some poor progress, sexual in the wild, and intensely prohibited for a girl from a Catholic families. Following Spanish rogue got vanished, the woman gone ridiculous, and an awful curse befell her, flipping this lady into a monster, forever destined to ask yourself lonely roads.

La Segua*, just like the monster is known as, presents because the gorgeous lady that she used to be, and she waits by the roadside for unsuspecting boys who become driving their unique ponies after an extended night of heavy drinking in town. Keen on the wonder, they recognize supply the lady a ride to their pony, but while they turn around, as opposed to beholding the enchanting partner, they come face to face with a horrendous beast using skull of a horse and fiery yellow attention. The warning is clear: people should steer clear not simply from heavy-drinking, but the majority notably, from attractive depressed women that can tempt them away from their loved ones existence. Women are not excused from warning. So that you can not changed into a heinous apparition, cursed to ask yourself permanently, single lady ought not to surrender to improvements of men.

Additionally, Los Angeles Segua’s fate can be bad as it is, because like La Malinche, the Mexican Indian girl whom served as Cortes’s translator and fan (Cortes is the ruthless,main Spanish conquistador of Mexico), she’s betraying the lady folk by dropping deeply in love with a Spaniard, the oppressor.

Despite the fact that Los Angeles Segua was of mixed blood, in a colonial context that would perhaps not destination her on a single amount as folks of “pure” Spanish ancestry. Consequently, Los Angeles Segua doesn’t merely betray the honor of the girl parents for the reason that the girl licentious behaviour, but by sleeping using the adversary. After providing this Costa Rican legend, practical question regarding the “Gothic” character within this tale stays. Yes, you can find medieval aspects, including a curse, the supernatural, anxiety, the beast, the naive driver on a lonely road,coming upon this awful animal which virtually scares them to passing, etc. But should this kind of legend, alongside myths that are folkloric be looked at medieval, since they contain these factors?

Are these stories, owned by an oral tradition, too remote to your composed and then filmic customs getting regarded medieval? I’ll be presenting two extra Costa Rican conventional reports which will ideally promote a discussion along these reasons.

More scary animals, drunken boys and disobedient women can be waiting for you, but before the next legend, we can all check out the dilemma of how “Gothic” or otherwise not a legend may be, as well as perhaps actually contemplate European instances which may express the problem significantly. *Segua appears to are derived from your message “Sihua,” which means girl in Nahuatl. Nahuatl was several Mesoamerican dialects of Aztecan or Nahuan beginnings. Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, and currently 1.5 million people in Central Mexico speak a Nahuan language. There clearly was an Indian legend associated with Sihuanaba or Segua in Nicaragua, along with they, the Sihuehuet or “beautiful woman” provides a love affair aided by the son in the goodness Tlaloc. She’s their daughter, in purchase to satisfy her partner, this woman is a terrible muslim chat room turkish mummy, consistently making her child by yourself.

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