Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest

by Alfred Ávila

  “It’s heavy. Let’s open it and check its contents,” this second sailor suggested.

  Anticipating some item of value, the two men opened the urn only to find ashes and bits and pieces of human bone charred by a crematory fire.

  Shocked, the shopkeeper asked his friend to kindly dispose of the ashes and the urn, something the sailor agreed to do on his way home while on shore leave.

  The following morning, the sailor left the area and headed down the long dusty road home to Atoyac, a small town about three days travel from Acapulco.

  On the second day, as he walked in the hot blazing sun, the weight of the urn became a small burden to him and was sapping his strength. The old sailor felt sorry for the unknown person. He had wanted to bury the urn in Acapulco, but he did not have that much money. The local priest had refused to accept the urn because the deceased had been a heathen.

  The sailor was getting tired of the extra weight. He stopped to rest alongside the road by a large cactus patch. He decided to leave the urn in the undergrowth where it could remain unnoticed and undisturbed. He walked into the cactus patch, entered as far as he could, and set the urn down. He wrapped it in an old serape because he felt bad about leaving the deceased in this place.

  “At least he will be warm and protected against the elements,” the old sailor said.

  He knelt in the undergrowth, said a prayer, and apologized for having to abandon the deceased so far from a cemetery. He slowly turned and walked back toward the road. He looked back one last time, feeling very sorry for his action. It was not the nature of his people to treat the dead so uncaringly, but he had no choice. His village was still too far for him to continue carrying the heavy urn.

  Walking away from the cactus patch, the sailor felt the same desolation as when one of his shipmates was buried at sea and the only thing that he could see after the body plunged down into the waters was a bit of white foam on the surface of the ocean. Down, down it would go into the darkness of the deep where only the dead themselves would know where their final resting place was, the sailor thought sadly. In the same manner, no one would ever know the final resting place of the poor soul whose ashes were held in the Japanese urn.

  Once more the sailor stopped briefly for a backward glance at the cactus patch. It was then that a horrible, spine-chilling screech, like the yowling of a large cat, pierced the air.

  “It’s probably a puma,” he said, moving away as fast as he could. “I’m lucky to get away with my life! Little did I dream the cactus patch was the home of a deadly cat, or for all I know, the Devil,” he added with relief later, once he had put some safe distance between himself and the source of the terrible cry, making the sign of the cross on his forehead, his chest, and his lips, The man was still muttering to himself as he headed home down the dry, dusty road heading home.

  The days passed into weeks and months. The urn sat in the brushy undergrowth forgotten, in the shadows of the cactus trees. But soon stories were heard of a haunted cactus patch by the road out in the lonely countryside. Indians and mestizos alike would avoid the area after the evening twilight. It was not a safe place to be, they said.

  A large fireball would appear at night by the cactus patch. It would float and move in various directions over the dirt road, and then it would vanish. This was usually followed by a loud screech and a howl of what sounded like a puma or some sort of large cat.

  Sometimes the wailing and moaning of a woman in much emotional pain and sorrow could be heard. There was one peculiar thing though. The ghostly woman mourned in a foreign tongue and could not be understood. The words sounded like Spanish, maybe Indian, but the language was unknown to all.

  A few Indians said that on moonlit nights they could see an odd-looking cat—bigger than a puma, three times larger than a puma. It would howl and screech in the faint light. It had not one, but four hairy tails waving in the air. The next day a traveler would usually be found dead and mangled on the road by the cactus patch.

  Everyone in the vicinity lived in fear. At night they would not even venture to the village well for water.

  “The work of the Devil,” some folks whispered, as if they were afraid they might be heard. “The Devil has come in the form of a four-tailed cat to take souls to the Dark Pit. We are hopeless. We are but poor hardworking Indians and peasants. Why does he come to torment us? Have we not suffered enough in this sad life?”

  They lit candles and burned incense to the ancient gods. Others prayed to the god of the Spaniards. But to no avail. The killings continued on the lonely road by the cactus patch. Woe to the ignorant traveler who passed the cactus patch at night. He became a sacrifice for the strange demon.

  Some of the villagers went to see the local curandera, or healer. She was their last hope. She would be able to enter the spirit world, seek the reasons for the demon’s terrible acts, and know how to pacify it.

  That evening, the locals gathered in front of the curandera’s hut. She came out and lit a half-circle of torches made from thick tree branches soaked in resin. She stood tall behind the burning torches. She pulled out a button of peyote, the sacred god spirit of the curanderas and the Tarahumara Indian shamans. With this, she would be able to enter the spirit world and be protected from the evil spirits she would meet.

  The villagers watched as she stood in the flickering light, waving her arms wildly over the flames and chanting the secret words that would put her in a trance. She waved, twisted, and chanted. Suddenly, she stopped. Her eyes became white and she spoke in a a foreign tongue.

  “Watakushi no haka, doko ni arimasu ka? Watakushi wa sabishii desu! … My grave, where is it? I am so lonely! …”

  The curandera shuddered as she continued in the same language. “Where am I? This is not my land. … This dry, hot, and windy land is strange. It is filled with strange-looking people unknown to me and with strange smells and sounds!

  “I was removed from my grave, from the temple grounds of Shinsho, near the village of Katsura. Oh, how I miss the green pine trees! I long for the bamboo groves and mountains of my province. I miss the winter snows.

  “What place is this? … Am I in Hell? The crying ghost screamed as if it were in terrifying pain. The curandera’s body shook violently.

  The people could do nothing other than stare at the curandera. She was in a trance, possessed by a demon who spoke gibberish. They could not understand a single word coming out of her mouth.

  “Do you people … understand? Oh, dear! How cruel, how cruel!” The Japanese words continued pouring from the healer’s lips.

  Then the healer fell sideways in a faint, barely missing the low-burning candles. The people stared in fright. After a long spell, the curandera rose slowly and regained her senses. The villagers were relieved. The torches had almost burned out by this time.

  The curandera said, “We must find a way to control this woman’s spirit. I do not know where she is from. She is angered by her present circumstances. Her spirit turns into a vengeful cat, a demonic cat of enormous size that kills out of anger and frustration. We must find someone who has been to many lands and knows her language. One of you must go to the coast, to the town of Acapulco, and find a sailor who can help us understand the demon and her tongue.”

  That night, two more travelers were killed on the road by the cactus patch. The danger was still in the area. The demon cat had killed more viciously, tearing up the bodies brutally after the killing.

  The villagers waited and waited for their scout to return from Acapulco. It would take at least a week for the trip. They prayed and prayed for the evil to disappear, but the demon’s hatred was growing.

  The village scout searched the cantinas in Acapulco for someone who could help them. After enduring a few beatings along the way for bothering an occasional unfriendly drunkard, he finally found the person for whom he had been searching in a smoke-filled cantina near the docks. It was a grizzle-bearded sea dog, well tempered by the trials of the sea and very knowledgeable i
n the ways of the Orient. He had been to Japan, been imprisoned in Korea after a shipwreck, and had made many a port on the Chinese mainland. Sipping his pulque, the sailor listened to the stories the villager told.

  “So, her tormented soul turns into a cat that kills people? The demon must be from Japan, for only there do they tell stories of demon cats. Most of their cats are bobtailed. They believe that a long-tailed cat is evil and has magical powers, and that a cat with four tails is a Cat of Death. The word for four in Japanese, shi, also means death,” the sailor explained.

  “I will go with you and try to help you rid the area of this demonic cat,” the sailor finally said.

  The villager and the sailor traveled for three and a half days. It was a slow journey because the old sailor was not used to these land trips. It had been a very long time since he had been a land crab, as he enjoyed calling landlubbers. At last they arrived at a small village some distance from the cactus patch, a village that had lost its share of victims to the demon. There, the sailor rested.

  The following day, the curandera took the sailor to the cactus patch where the strange things were occurring. The sailor stood there on the road and looked at the patch. It was a large area filled with huge cactus trees. Some were flowering; some were filled with prickly pears. He could hear a few birds warbling their lovely songs in the morning sunlight. For the old sailor, this was a beautiful place, something rare after so many years at sea. However, although he sensed no danger, he could smell the stench of death in the air. Even in the daytime this gave him an uneasy feeling.

  That night, after talking with the curandera, he went to the cactus patch with a large wooden torch and stood across from the patch waiting. He could hear the crickets chirping in the darkness. The air was warm and dry. A slight breeze was blowing.

  Suddenly, he felt a cold shiver. As he turned around and raised his torch, a fireball rushed past him above his head. The fireball went across the dirt road and lingered over the patch as if it were studying him. It was flying and moving in slow erratic motions.

  “Who are you?” he asked. But the fireball disappeared with a snapping sound. The sailor remembered that in Japan this fireball is called a will-o’-the-wisp. It is the soul of a deceased person as it wanders the earth. Now, in the area where the will-o’-the-wisp had disappeared, stood a giant cat with four tails; its eyes glistened in the light from the sailor’s torch. Out of its mouth came hate-filled words.

  “For whom are you waiting?” yowled the cat.

  “I’m waiting for you!” the sailor shouted back in Japanese. “I have been waiting for you, demon cat.”

  The cat stood there a long time looking at him. “Who are you?” asked the cat with its four tails nervously swishing.

  “I’m a sailor … from the sea. Why did you come to this land to spread death and terror?”

  “I hate these people! I hate this land! I miss my homeland very much. In my loneliness and terror, after years of waiting to find peace and rest, I have become the monster that I am, killing to take revenge on those who brought me to this desolate place!”

  The cat crept closer as it was talking to the old sailor. The man walked with the torch in front of him to prevent the cat from attacking. The cat tried to gain an advantageous position. The old sailor moved backward into the cactus patch.

  The cat followed slowly, sometimes yowling in frustration. It wanted to rip this sailor to pieces but was unable to reach him. The cat became furious when the sailor went deep into the patch. It was too big to get around the cactus trunks.

  “Mr. Sailor! Mr. Sailor! Come here!” it screamed. The cat knew it could not get to the sailor. It could change itself back into a fireball, but it could not do any harm in that form.

  The sailor crouched in the cactus, waiting for the demon cat’s next move. It charged at the cactus. It yowled and leaped back in pain when it hit the cactus pads covered with sharp thorns.

  It stood there on the road staring at the sailor in the flickering light of his torch. The large cat nervously paced back and forth on the dirt road. It yowled and screeched in frustration. As the morning sun lightened the sky, the growling cat faded to nothing.

  The old sailor had a hunch. He started to slowly search the floor of the cactus patch. He moved carefully among the trunks of the cacti searching through the brush, grass, and fallen pads of the cactus plants. He was pricked occasionally by the thorny plants. His torch had long burned out.

  As the skies grew brighter, the search was easier. He looked to one side. There it was, a tattered serape faded by time wrapped around a decorated urn. He could make out white and gold cherry blossoms on the exterior of the urn.

  He had found the urn at last. He pushed off the worn serape. It fell away easily. He picked up the urn gently with his hands. He did not want to drop and damage it. The sailor carried it out of the cactus patch and went straight to the curandera’s house. He was tired and sleepy, but he told the healer to go with him to the village of Atoyac where a large cemetery was located.

  “We must bury her before nightfall, or else we will be in trouble.”

  They both left quickly and headed for Atoyac. Once they arrived at Atoyac, they asked the village priest, Padre Juan, to help them bury the Japanese woman’s remains in the cemetery. They told him everything that had occurred, and he agreed to help them.

  After digging the burial plot at the cemetery, they were joined by other villagers. They wrapped the urn and placed it into a box. They lowered the box into the hole and covered it with earth. The people all prayed for her. The white-haired priest said a short prayer for her, praying for her eternal rest in a place so far from her homeland, Japan.

  The next day they placed a tombstone on the grave. The tombstone was inscribed “The Japanese Woman, So Far From Her Homeland Japan/Rest In Peace.” From that day on, the demon cat was no longer seen.

  As local custom demands, every year on the Day of the Dead the villagers whitewash her stone and cover her grave with marigold flowers. She is not forgotten. Although she was responsible for many deaths, they have long since forgiven her.

  As for the old sailor, the day of the burial he returned to put some flowers on the grave and to say goodbye to the Japanese woman. He was thanked by the villagers for helping to eradicate the demon and was rewarded with a small monetary donation. He left for Acapulco, where he disappeared into the world of the cantinas.

  If you walk by the cemetery in the village of Atoyac during the evening twilight, you might hear the gentle crying of a woman in the corner of the cemetery. They say it is the Japanese woman crying in her loneliness so far from her beloved homeland.

  THE BRUTISH INDIAN

  THE BRUTISH INDIAN

  The forest path was lush with green plants and occasional flowers. A humming voice could be heard in the humid air. It was the voice of a woodcutter. The tune was an ancient one, passed down by the local Indians. Nobody remembered the words, only the tune. The old woodcutter hummed as he walked along the forest path with a load of tree branches pressing down heavily on his bent back.

  “I want a cup of cold water,” he suddenly said to himself out loud.

  It had been a hard day for him. He was headed back to the village to sell his firewood. He was a simple man, a little awkward in manner and very poor. He came up on the hill and he could see the village in a distant clearing below. There was still a river to cross. The river would be up above his knees. It was getting late, and he would have to cross the river in the darkness.

  He stopped to rest and sat down to watch the ants of the forest. They moved in a narrow line, darting and scurrying in one direction or the other. The small creatures fascinated him. In his simple mind, he identified with them. They were always working, with no time to rest.

  “Poor small creatures,” he thought to himself. “They are probably the souls of evil people who died and are reborn as ants to work until the end of this world. They have their tunnels that go down into the innards of the earth
, to the center of Hell where the Devil works them endlessly.”

  The sun was setting fast. The long shadows of the trees told him that he must hurry or he would be walking the path home in the dark. He trudged steadily along the path with his heavy load of wood. He could hear the crickets starting to chirp here and there in the creeping darkness as he stumbled on the wet rocks of the riverbank. He tried to move carefully among the rocks as he stepped toward the river and into the slow swirling waters.

  It was a wide river, and it felt good as the water cooled his tired legs. Suddenly, a long mournful crying sound came drifting across the waters. He stopped to listen for the direction of the sound, but he could only hear the soft swirling of the river past his legs. He stood quietly looking at the silhouette of the tall trees in the forest, but no sound came from there.

  An instinct born of centuries of Indian survival told his brain, “Awaken! Something is wrong.” But his simple mind only dulled his instinct. He was weary of his heavy load, wishing only to get back to his peaceful home and rest.

  Out of the distant darkness came another mournful cry and a long howling scream. He lifted his head quickly and listened. He thought to himself, “It’s probably a puma hunting for its evening meal.”

  He was only halfway across the river when he saw the phantom coming over the water in his direction. It was a huge woman. He marveled at the ghost, this huge apparition moved, floating above the river waters. Her loud mournful screams made the Indian feel sorry for the woman. She looked so lonely and sad. He stood there staring and staring at her approaching form.

  He felt no fear of the ghost. His simple mind could not comprehend that he was in mortal danger. He looked at her as if she were an angel from beyond. His dulled senses had not warned him that this ghost was the infamous La Llorona, the crying woman, who roams the rivers at night looking for her children, the little ones she killed by throwing them into a river and drowning them. She was cursed by the gods to find no peace until the end of the world. Whatever foolish mortal met her near the river ran the risk of dying gruesomely.