The Mixed Told Legend of La Tunda

Presented by Paola Salazar

The Mixed Told Legend of La Tunda

• The Story Of La Tunda
• Two Versions of the Tale
• Analysis
• Conclusion

Tabel of Contents

La Tunda’s story begins in the costal line of Colombia, she lives close to the waters and travels through the jungle and mountains.

• According to their research, the story was told around the 1500s
• They describe her as a woman who can shapeshift The version of La Tunda in Colombia does not give her an origin story, but she is known for her killings against unbaptized children, misbehaving children, but especially cheating husbands.

• Once she does that, her victim follows her into the jungle and stays where she prepares shrimp and crab for them to devour.
• It is said that she makes this food out from her body and gives it to victim, and then drains them of their blood to kill them off.

La Tunda

This story is heard as “La Patasola,” a similar figure to La Tunda. This creature’s story originated in Colombia and has been told and popularized throughout South America.

• .La Patasola, was a young beautiful woman who ended up marrying a peasant man.
• His boss wanted to be with his wife, so he gave her compliments and gifts to flirt with the beautiful woman.
• He one day pretends to leave for the market, like he normally would do, but then hides and waits for his boss to meet with his wife. He found that the boss came into their home and embraced each other in bed.
• He was so full of rage, he bolted in the house and with one blow from a machete, he killed his boss and sliced off the foot of his wife.

La Patasola

This last story that is like both folktales is La Sayonna, which is told in Ecuador.

• La Sayonna's begins with another young women, named Casilda, was married to her husband with her baby. He was a hard-working and honest man in her eyes, and they all lived in an incredibly content home.
• The wife started to hear rumors that her husband was having an affair. She went to her mother’s house and found that her husband was sleeping and had the baby there with him.
• She was so livid, she decided to burn the house down, and when her mother showed up, she sliced her with a machete.
• Before her mother died, she curses Casilda and demanded that she would wander and kill all unfaithful men.

La Sayonna

1. La Tunda
1. Racist historical background; it was supposed to scare Afro-Latina slaves into staying with the Spainards and prevent them from leaving their masters.
2. Christianity and Catholicism play a significant role in Latin American culture and history. People follow their beliefs system, and some of those beliefs include baptism and being loyal to your husband and wife.
2. La Patasola & La Sayonna
1. Feminicide is a critical issue that needs to be addressed towards not only the women in Colombia, but as a realization to Latino men
1. How they see their women, paying attention to the lack of care, and understand how the perspective of women was based on the men that came before them.
2. The legend of La Patasola is a remarkable story that comes to the realization on how many men treat their women, and how many women, especially in Colombia, are be killed because of that mentality.
3. The legend of La Sayonna depicts her as a victim of an affair, but her story expresses feminine rage and her power to commit such actions.

Analysis on La Tunda

When developing this writing assignment, I could hardly find any information for my folktale. I searched for different versions for what could relate to my topic including terms such as Colombian folktales, Latin American folktales, horror stories from Latin America, etc., and I could only find one valid source that was related to my topic. This highlights how Latin American culture is not spread throughout globally, especially Afro-Latino culture. These issues about the lack of representation in Latin American literature, attention towards feminicide in Colombia, the sexism behind these stories, as well as lack of knowledge towards Latin American history are all topics that stem from this one folktale. La Tunda is a great folktale because seen from a small perspective, it is just another horror story, but analyzing it, searching for others like it, you notice how these stories influence Latin American society, and our society in America.

Conclusion

The End

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Work Cited