“La Segua” is a Costa Rican legend that chastises inappropriate and free women actions, in addition to drunken and unfaithful activity of males, therefore reinforcing gender stereotypes within a Latin-American context. The story happen in Cartago, the existing money of Costa Rica (earlier was actually transferred to San Jose in 1823).

Cartago is the earliest Spanish settlement in Costa Rica, dating back to 1563; the point that the story of La Segua happen in Cartago is considerable, because the story try basically colonial in the wild, and as such, it includes both native and Spanish items which certainly enhance and clash together.

The gist for the tale will be the following. There seemed to be when an attractive Cartaginesa (women inhabitant of Cartago) of mixed Indian and Spanish bloodstream. The woman is generally illustrated as creating beautiful white-skin which contrasts together jet black vision and cascading long-hair. Among forms of this legend says that she fell so in love with a Spanish policeman whom tricked the lady and broke her heart.

The precise manner in which the guy “tricked” the lady is certainly not completely clear, but there is an obvious tip which engaging some incorrect progress, intimate in nature, and very prohibited for a female from an effective Catholic family members. Following Spanish rogue had gone away, the woman moved insane, and an awful curse befell the lady, turning the woman into a monster, forever destined to ponder lonely roads.

La Segua*, once the monster is named, presents given that beautiful girl that she once was, and she waits of the roadside for naive guys who would become operating their particular ponies after a long nights heavy-drinking in town. Interested in the beauty, they accept supply her a ride on the pony, but because they best polish dating sites uk turn around, as opposed to beholding the charming partner, they show up one on one with a horrendous monster aided by the head of a horse and fiery red vision. The caution is clear: people should keep away just from heavy-drinking, but most significantly, from attractive lonely women that can lure them from the their loved ones lifestyle. Women can be not exempt through the alert. To be able to not transformed into a heinous apparition, cursed to question permanently, single ladies ought not to cave in to advances of males.

Moreover, La Segua’s fortune can be bad as it’s, because like La Malinche, the Mexican Indian woman who supported as Cortes’s translator and fan (Cortes was the ruthless,main Spanish conquistador of Mexico), she’s betraying this lady everyone by dropping in love with a Spaniard, the oppressor.

While Los Angeles Segua was of mixed-blood, in a colonial framework that would not setting the woman on the same level as folks of “pure” Spanish ancestry. Therefore, Los Angeles Segua does not merely betray the honor of this lady parents for the reason that the woman licentious habits, but by resting using the opponent. After showing this Costa Rican legend, the question in regards to the “Gothic” characteristics for this tale continues to be. Yes, there are Gothic areas, such a curse, the supernatural, worry, the beast, the unsuspecting driver on a lonely road,coming upon this terrible animal which almost frightens them to passing, etc. But should this kind of legend, and other myths that are folkloric be considered medieval, simply because they include these characteristics?

Are these tales, owned by a dental tradition, also remote to the authored and now filmic practices to get considered medieval? I am providing two even more Costa Rican conventional myths that will hopefully promote a discussion along these grounds.

Far more terrifying animals, drunken males and disobedient women are waiting for you, but until the after that legend, we can all look at the dilemma of just how “Gothic” or perhaps not a legend is likely to be, and maybe actually remember European advice that might clear up the matter rather. *Segua generally seems to are based on the word “Sihua,” meaning woman in Nahuatl. Nahuatl is actually several Mesoamerican languages of Aztecan or Nahuan source. Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, and currently 1.5 million people in Central Mexico speak a Nahuan language. You will find an Indian legend for the Sihuanaba or Segua in Nicaragua, along with it, the Sihuehuet or “beautiful girl” have a love event using child with the goodness Tlaloc. She’s got his boy, however in purchase to meet their partner, she is a bad mom, consistently making her daughter alone.