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Xtabay
(Mesoamerican myth)
Siren of the Yucatan
Chaste and virtuous woman spends life assuming she’s better than her more sex-positive neighbor, and for this haughtiness becomes in death a demonic woman who lures wayward men to their death – a stunning indigenous inversion of the Madonna/whore complex.
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Just a question… Which source are you using for the legend?
I don’t have a copy of the book on me right now, but it was a copy of Myths of the Yucatan, if I recall correctly…? It’s in the citations section at the back of the book.
Nevermind, found it – Mario Diaz Triay’s “Guia Turistica de la Peninsula de Yucatan, La tierra de los Mayas” (“A tour guide of the Yucatan Peninsula, Land of the Maya”). The chapter on Xtabay is republished on the Merida tourism board’s website: http://www.merida.gob.mx/municipio/sitiosphp/turismo/contenido/cultura_in/xtabay.htm
Thank you very much :)
Like with everything, this story has many versions, and the one I grew up with was completely different. So I’m really grateful to get the reference from the “other side of the story”