La Segua: a Warning to Drunk and Unfaithful Men in Costa Rica.
Stories are not just a very important repository of a people’s traditions, but in addition a robust personal procedure planning to search unfavorable behavior.
“La Segua” is a Costa Rican legend that chastises incorrect and loose women behaviour, and drunken and unfaithful activity of males, thus strengthening sex stereotypes within a Latin-American context. The storyline takes place in Cartago, the existing funds of Costa Rica (before it ended up being transferred to San Jose in 1823).
Cartago ended up being the earliest Spanish payment in Costa Rica, dating back to 1563; the fact that the storyline of Los Angeles Segua occurs in Cartago is actually considerable, because the story is fundamentally colonial in nature, and therefore, it offers both native and Spanish factors which inevitably supplement but in addition conflict together.
The gist for the tale will be the after. There seemed to be once a beautiful Cartaginesa (female inhabitant of Cartago) of blended Indian and Spanish bloodstream. She is typically depicted as having gorgeous white skin which contrasts together with her jet-black attention and cascading long-hair. One of the versions from the legend states that she fell deeply in love with a Spanish policeman who tricked the lady and smashed her cardio.
The precise way the guy “tricked” the lady is not entirely obvious, but there is however a clear recommendation it involved some improper improvements, intimate in the wild, and very prohibited for a female from a good Catholic household. After the Spanish rogue had gone away, the girl went ridiculous, and a horrible curse befell the lady, flipping their into a monster, forever destined to wonder depressed highway.
La Segua*, because the monster is known as, presents given that stunning lady that she used to be, and she waits of the roadside for unsuspecting males that http://datingmentor.org/xmatch-review would end up being operating their unique ponies after a lengthy nights heavy drinking around. Keen on the sweetness, they recognize to offer this lady a ride to their horse, but as they change, versus beholding the enchanting friend, they arrive face to face with a horrendous monster utilizing the head of a horse and fiery reddish attention. The caution is obvious: men should stay away besides from heavy-drinking, but most notably, from attractive lonely ladies who can tempt them from their family existence. Women are perhaps not excused from caution. In order to not be changed into a heinous apparition, cursed to wonder forever, unmarried females should not cave in to improvements of men.
In addition, La Segua’s fate is just as worst because it’s, because like La Malinche, the Mexican Indian girl which served as Cortes’s translator and partner (Cortes is the ruthless,main Spanish conquistador of Mexico), she’s betraying their everyone by falling in love with a Spaniard, the oppressor.
And even though La Segua was of mixed-blood, in a colonial framework that will maybe not setting their for a passing fancy stage as individuals of “pure” Spanish lineage. Consequently, Los Angeles Segua cannot only betray the honor of their household considering this lady licentious behavior, but by sleeping with all the adversary. After showing this Costa Rican legend, the question about the “Gothic” character within this story remains. Yes, you will find Gothic factors, for example a curse, the supernatural, anxiety, the monster, the unsuspecting rider on a lonely roadway,coming upon this terrible creature which very nearly frightens these to passing, etc. But should this particular legend, also stories which are folkloric be regarded as Gothic, since they consist of these characteristics?
Include these stories, belonging to an oral heritage, as well remote to our authored and then filmic customs to be regarded as medieval? I will be providing two even more Costa Rican old-fashioned myths which will hopefully stimulate a discussion along these grounds.
Far more frightening animals, drunken males and disobedient women are available, but until the next legend, we could all look at the problem of how “Gothic” or otherwise not a legend may be, and perhaps even think about European advice that might express the issue notably. *Segua generally seems to are derived from the word “Sihua,” meaning lady in Nahuatl. Nahuatl was a group of Mesoamerican languages of Aztecan or Nahuan beginnings. Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, and currently 1.5 million people in Central Mexico speak a Nahuan language. There can be an Indian legend regarding the Sihuanaba or Segua in Nicaragua, and in they, the Sihuehuet or “beautiful girl” provides a love event using child with the goodness Tlaloc. She’s got his son, in purchase meet up with the woman enthusiast, this woman is a poor mother, continuously leaving this lady child alone.
