La Xtabay

In the folklore of the Yucatán, the Xtabay is a beautiful female spirit who appears at night near the ceiba — the great sacred tree of the Maya — often seen combing her long black hair. To a man walking alone in the dark she seems an alluring woman; drawn to her, he follows into the brush, and is found the next day dead, maddened, or lost, sometimes marked as though by claws or thorns.

A well-known telling pairs her with a contrast. Two women lived in a town: one scorned as sinful, one esteemed as virtuous. From the grave of the reviled woman grew the sweet, flowering tzacam cactus; from the honoured one, a thorny and foul-smelling weed. In that inversion the Xtabay, born of the outcast, becomes something more ambiguous than a simple monster — and the details shift from village to village.

The Xtabay does the work many such legends do — a warning against wandering, drink and lust after dark, given a memorable face. She belongs to a living Yucatec Maya storytelling tradition that braids pre-Columbian and colonial layers, and she is told of still.