Short Stuff: La Lechuza - The Witch Owl

Today we kick off the scariest month with the legend of La Lechuza - The Witch Owl. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:12Josh 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.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  That's right, we're beginning our spookiest month of October.

• 1:24Josh Clark?

  Yes, and I'm psyched.

• 1:27Speaker 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.

• 1:50Josh 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.

• 2:16Speaker 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.

• 2:58Josh Clark?

  That's so creepy.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:00Josh Clark?

  Can you imagine a seven-foot owl woman with a 15-foot wingspan mimicking a baby's cries?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  No, it's pretty terrifying.

• 3:07Josh 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.

• 3:23Speaker 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.

• 4:04Josh Clark?

  Right. She's also been accused of being an emissary of Satan himself.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Satan?

• 4:10Josh 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.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:36Josh 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.

• 5:04Speaker 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.

• 5:22Josh 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.

• 6:07Josh 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.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  All right, shall we come back after this?

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back with more on Lalachusa.

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• 9:03Josh 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.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:13Josh Clark?

  Which makes a lot of sense.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:15Josh 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.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:42Josh 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.

• 9:56Speaker 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.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought this was really interesting, because a lot of the gods in Mesoamerican cultures were animal-human hybrids, right?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  So an owl woman may have been some ancient or eldritch deity.

• 10:47Josh 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.

• 11:05Speaker 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.

• 11:18Josh Clark?

  Have you seen the movie based on La Llorona?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't think I saw that.

• 11:23Josh Clark?

  Uh, that was, um, that was kind of scary. That is a Latino urban legend and it was okay.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  All right, well, maybe I'll check it out.

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  Go with that.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  You have good horror recommendations.

• 11:33Josh 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.

• 11:40Speaker 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?

• 11:55Josh 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.

• 12:17Josh 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."

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:33Josh 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.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:43Josh 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.

• 12:51Speaker 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.

• 13:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, um.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Spirit Halloween. Although, I mean, their stuff is really good. I'm not knocking it.

• 13:15Josh Clark?

  Have you been to Home Depot lately, dude? They've gone off the chain.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 13:19Josh 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

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Your neighbor's got it.

• 13:32Josh Clark?

  Somebody two doors down is gonna have the same thing.

• 13:35Speaker 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.

• 13:51Josh Clark?

  Good plan.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:53Josh 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.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:09Josh 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.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:22Josh 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.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  I like that version.

• 14:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, hats off, La La Chuse.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  That's right. We're good guys. Don't come after us.

• 14:45Josh Clark?

  That is true, Chuck. That is true. Anything else?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  I got nothing else.

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, then, short stuff.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 15:12Josh 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.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.