Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know Short Stuff: La Lechuza - The Witch Owl About this episode Today we kick off the scariest month with the legend of La Lechuza - The Witch Owl.
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1:12 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and there's Jerry sitting in for Dave and this is Stuff You Should Know.
1:18 Speaker 02 That's right, we're beginning our spookiest month of October.
1:24 Josh Clark? Yes, and I'm psyched.
1:27 Speaker 02 I am too. We love our Halloweeny content and we're going to talk to you a little bit today about a, kind of one of those just fun urban legend stories that seems to be geographically specific in that it's around, you know, maybe Texas, New Mexico, border towns mainly of the La Lechuza, the owl witch.
1:50 Josh Clark? Yeah, but I think that's where its origin was, is along the border of Texas and Mexico. But I saw also it's spread Chuck to places like Argentina and Cuba, they have their own versions, but La Lechuza is a, I think somewhere around a seven-foot owl with the face of a woman, 15-foot wingspan and a bad attitude.
2:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, and this is one of those things where, you know, because it's lore and legend, it's going to differ from place to place depending on who's telling the story. By the way, we should thank How Stuff Works and All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey from there. And I found a fun article in Texas Standard from Sarah Ash and Raul Alonso that helped out with this. But yeah, this is one of those sort of legends where, and there's a lot of different versions, we're going to go review those. One is that La Lechuza will make, like, sounds like a baby is crying, hoping that someone will go, like, try and find this baby, and all of a sudden be snatchable by the Talons, and they would be snatched up and returned to the owl's nest ostensibly.
2:58 Josh Clark? That's so creepy.
3:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:00 Josh Clark? Can you imagine a seven-foot owl woman with a 15-foot wingspan mimicking a baby's cries?
3:05 Speaker 02 No, it's pretty terrifying.
3:07 Josh Clark? I don't like that. Also, some of the other stuff that's said about her is that if you see her near your house, it means it's, she's portending that something bad is about to happen to somebody in your house, maybe a piece of furniture in your house, I don't know.
3:23 Speaker 02 Yeah. If, I think sometimes if you dream about La Lechuza, a family member will die soon. And it seems like most of the tellings, it is, is it a woman who was once a, or an owl woman who was once a human woman, and something bad happened to her, some act of cruelty, usually something by a bad man, happened, or maybe, maybe happened to her child, and it turned her into a vengeful beast. Sometimes La Lechuza is more of a witches' familiar, like the, like, you know, a Dracula's or a vampire's familiar. And I think in that case, the, as a witches' familiar, they would abduct kids for the witch.
4:04 Josh Clark? Right. She's also been accused of being an emissary of Satan himself.
4:09 Speaker 02 Satan?
4:10 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's right. And one of the things you said is that she, she's often described as being vengeful because of something that happened in her past or to her kid. Usually that's chalked up to either her child was killed for a crime they didn't commit. And so now she's stealing other people's kids in return. Or that her child was killed by a drunk man.
4:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:36 Josh Clark? And that's actually one group that she seems to target in modern tellings are drunk dudes stumbling out of bars and walking home alone at night. And then 15 foot wingspan comes out of nowhere and the talons just sink into their head and carry them off by their scalp. And if they're lucky, their scalp will rip off of their head and they'll fall to the ground and die on impact. And if they're unlucky, they'll be carried by their scalp all the way back to Lalachusa's lair and bad things are going to happen to them there.
5:04 Speaker 02 That's right. If you want to kill Lalachusa, good luck, buddy. Because apparently you cannot hurt Lalachusa with bullets. I think if you try to kill one with a gun or something like that, you're going to get killed like pretty soon afterward for sure.
5:22 Josh Clark? Right. Yeah, I guess in the Lalachusa fact off, there's that whole idea that this is a woman, owl woman, who is actually some sort of spirit or familiar or something like that, means that there is an actual person involved in this elsewhere, often a member of the community secretly preying on the rest of the community as Lalachusa. And that when Lalachusa is out doing her thing, that person is unconscious back home in some room until she comes back and re-inhabits their body. So either they're possessed by her or they're using her or their special ability to enact vengeance and terrorize a community.
6:07 Josh Clark? And there's actually supposedly, I looked all over for it, couldn't find it. But there's supposedly some sort of incantation or prayer or something that a community can use that will reveal the person who is actually Lalachusa. And then ostensibly they get their scalp taken.
6:22 Speaker 02 All right, shall we come back after this?
6:26 Josh Clark? Yes.
6:27 Speaker 02 All right, we'll be right back with more on Lalachusa.
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9:03 Josh Clark? Okay Chuck, and we've been using the name Lala Chusa without explaining to non-Spanish speakers that Lala Chusa is actually the word for owl.
9:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:13 Josh Clark? Which makes a lot of sense.
9:14 Speaker 02 Sure.
9:15 Josh Clark? And this was, we said that this whole thing kind of came from the Texas-Mexico border. That seems to be the origin of it. And they think essentially that this is just like any other bit of folklore, that it was used to explain unbearable things like the disappearance of children, or probably more likely, it was used to keep kids on the straight and narrow, like fairy tales were.
9:42 Speaker 02 Right.
9:42 Josh Clark? You know, Western Europe. Same thing. If you're out messing around and, you know, spray painting somebody's brick wall or something like that, Lala Chusa is going to come out of nowhere and snatch you up, so you better be good, kind of thing.
9:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as far as where these things come from, I remember, God, many, many years ago, we did one on urban legends. And it's always pretty much impossible to trace back like the true origin. With this one, there are people who think this might have come from pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, when the indigenous peoples had very close relationships and bonds with animals. But when the Spaniards came along to Mesoamerica, they brought, of course, Christian, you know, Catholic Christian beliefs with them, and condemned the rest as paganism, of course.
10:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, I thought this was really interesting, because a lot of the gods in Mesoamerican cultures were animal-human hybrids, right?
10:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:41 Josh Clark? So an owl woman may have been some ancient or eldritch deity.
10:47 Josh Clark? And was in no way, shape or form evil, but the Spaniards came along as Christians and went to that Christian playbook and basically said, "Your gods are now Christianity's demons, so stop worshiping them." And that is a great explanation for where something like La Lechuza came from.
11:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, for sure. It's also popped up over the years in like various pop culture ways. I'm surprised there hasn't been like a pretty cool La Lechuza like movie or character in a movie or TV show, you know, that'd be truly frightening.
11:18 Josh Clark? Have you seen the movie based on La Llorona?
11:21 Speaker 02 Uh, I don't think I saw that.
11:23 Josh Clark? Uh, that was, um, that was kind of scary. That is a Latino urban legend and it was okay.
11:30 Speaker 02 All right, well, maybe I'll check it out.
11:31 Josh Clark? Go with that.
11:32 Speaker 02 You have good horror recommendations.
11:33 Josh Clark? Uh, okay, I take that back then, because I don't want to ruin my, I don't want to ruin my streak, yeah.
11:40 Speaker 02 I mentioned pop culture. I think La Lechuza was a, was an enemy in an issue of a comic book called Relampago, and that was created by Margarito Garza. So that was one. What else? There was music too, right?
11:55 Josh Clark? Yeah, there, yeah, there's a song called El Parajo Gigante de Robe, which is by a group called Los Campeones de Raul Ruiz. And the de Robe is actually talking about a specific town called Robstown, or Robstown, Texas, along the borders near Corpus Christi.
12:17 Josh Clark? And there was a outbreak of sightings of La Lechuza in 1975 and 76. And like, it was a big deal. Like, this whole town was like, like credible people are like, "I saw La Lechuza with my own eyes."
12:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:33 Josh Clark? And it turned out that there was a group of teens from town who had created a pretty convincing La Lechuza like dummy, like a life-size one.
12:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:43 Josh Clark? And was just, you know, running it around town, scaring the bejesus out of people. So that's where that, that, that inspired that song, as far as I can tell.
12:51 Speaker 02 You know, I wish I knew somebody who was a good sort of model maker, creature maker, because we've been getting more into the Halloween front yard decorations. And like to be a little outside the box and not just whatever you get at Party City. Or, no, not Party City. What is it? We did a whole episode on it last year.
13:09 Josh Clark? Oh, um.
13:10 Speaker 02 Spirit Halloween. Although, I mean, their stuff is really good. I'm not knocking it.
13:15 Josh Clark? Have you been to Home Depot lately, dude? They've gone off the chain.
13:18 Speaker 02 Oh, really?
13:19 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah. They have like 10, 12 foot tall scary monsters now. It's crazy, like their Halloween thing. But it's the same issue that you don't want, which is
13:31 Speaker 02 Your neighbor's got it.
13:32 Josh Clark? Somebody two doors down is gonna have the same thing.
13:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, I would love a custom sort of, I think a La La Chuse would be truly scary and it has kind of a fun story behind it. I like stuff that has like a legend behind it. So, hey, if anyone out there wants to just, you know, make me one, I'll just say my address on the show and you can just drop it off in the front yard.
13:51 Josh Clark? Good plan.
13:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:53 Josh Clark? There was one other thing too, and I kind of touched on it, that La La Chuse's survived into modern day and that the most modern interpretations tend to kind of drill into the kind of gender norm or flip-flop gender norms.
14:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:09 Josh Clark? That the fable or the urban legend actually kind of gets into, which is, there's a vengeful woman who is big enough and powerful enough and angry enough to punish bad men.
14:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:22 Josh Clark? And that not just the men who stumble home drunk from the bar are targeted, but men who are known to like abuse their wives or children are her favorite like prey now. So it's interesting how she kind of evolved into a bit of like an avenger for women and children.
14:39 Speaker 02 I like that version.
14:40 Josh Clark? Yeah, hats off, La La Chuse.
14:42 Speaker 02 That's right. We're good guys. Don't come after us.
14:45 Josh Clark? That is true, Chuck. That is true. Anything else?
14:49 Speaker 02 I got nothing else.
14:50 Josh Clark? Okay. Well, then, short stuff.
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15:12 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
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