Legends are often a mix of history and imagination. Real events combine with the ideas or points of view of people and ripen over time. A legend like La Llorona entails the ideas, values, beliefs, and fears of many generations of people over many places and times. The word, Mexico, means 'navel of the moon'. Traditionally in cultures all over the world, the moon is a symbol closely associated with women.
Mothers are symbolic with the giving of life.
In the clash of cultures that engender Mexico's horrific problems also germinates a great flowering of humanity. Legends tell how a mother gave away her children in a time of famine and now, brokenhearted, forever mourns them. This was interpreted as an omen for the fall of the Aztec Empire. Some say La Llorona is Malinche, mistress of Cort s, endlessly lamenting her betrayal of her own Indian people to the Spaniards. Perhaps La Llorona was an Indian girl of noble blood who lived with a Spanish gentleman.