Lilith and the "The Little Faces"

Ancient Christianity is littered with references of semi-divine women and full blown female deities   Figures like Asherah, Sophia, Mary Magdalene and Lilith fascinate us in the modern age, now that we have the resources to revisit them.  Lilith is the most notorious.  There is no denying that.  Most likely this is due to her popularity as Judaism's Queen of Demons.  There is no great emphasis placed on the rest of the story, what transpired before she arrived in the desert and after she left Eden.

     The Zohar paints an interesting picture of Lilith's adventures.  Some time after leaving Adam behind in Paradise (or immediately after) she flew to Heaven.  There she noticed the Cherubim:

"She desired to cleave to them and to be shaped as one of them, and was loath to depart from them.  But the Holy One, blessed be He, removed her from them and made her go below...

Then He...gave him [Adam] a partner, as soon as Lilith saw Eve clinging to his side she was reminded by his form of the supernal beauty, she flew up from thence and tried as before to attach herself to the 'little faces' [Cherubim].  The supernal guardians of the gates, however, did not permit her.  The Holy One, blessed be He, chide her and cast her into the depths of the sea."

So Lilith, the "Queen of Demons" is capable of feeling affection and loss.  She left Eden because her mate insisted he was superior to her.  She found a new home and attempted to join a community.  Ultimately she is rejected in a very serious way. Sometime after Adam and Eve are expelled, God brings Lilith out from the depths of the sea:

"...and gave her power over all those children, the ''little faces' of the sons of men, who are liable to punishment for the sins of their fathers.  She then wandered up and down the world.  She approached the gates of the terrestrial paradise [Eden], where she saw the Cherubim, the guardians of the gates of Paradise, and sat down near the flashing sword, to which she was akin in origin.  When she saw the flashing sword revolving, indicating that man had sinned, she fled and wandered about the world...finding children liable to punishment."

     Lilith's fate has strong parallels with the legend of La Llorona, the roving specter explored in a previous entry concerning Latin America.  La Llorona was once Maria, a Mexican divorcee who drowned her children to punish her adulterous husband.  Maria was turned away from the gates of Heaven and instructed to find her children, which is why she roams the world, finding children who resemble her own.

Lilith's story does not end after she leaves Eden.  She does not deteriorate and become the Queen of Demons.  Like Moses, Elijah or Jesus himself, her story is told in layers.  In Midrash, the Talmud and the Dead Sea Scrolls we have additional chapters in the evolution of a turbulent character.  But unlike her Biblical contemporaries  Lilith's name occurs in older parts of the world, linking her with past lives and an older class of gods and heroes. 

Ghost Stories: Lilith in Latin America (Revised, 11/25)

Lilith is best known as the Queen of Demons in Jewish Mythology, the spectral genetrix of every of "unclean spirit" we've ever known. Oddly enough her presence is felt in the the folktales of Latin America as the roving ghost La Llorona.  Like it or not, she also bears resemblance to Brujeria's favorite folk saint, Holy Death.  Let's take a look at a few of the reasons why.

As a child in the American Midwest I heard very little about Mexico.  The older people in my neighborhood didn't paint a pretty picture.  Most of the information they gave me was based on ignorance.  It became clear this was a misunderstood place, home to people who weren't at all welcome in my conservative hemisphere.  Every so often we'd read a geographical fact or folktale in grade school credited to Mexico.  By third of fourth grade I heard about La Llorona, the ghostly woman in white who hunted for children.  By twenty-three I was living in New Mexico and learned several different versions of her tale.  It became clear she was just as misunderstood as the Mexicans who occasionally made their way to my home town.  

     So who is La Llorona?  I asked my boyfriend who grew up in Moriarty and Albuquerque, New Mexico, if he ever heard of her.  He told me she was a woman who was searching for "her kid" and drowned at a certain point.  "I always kind of thought she was real, you know?"  This from a practical twenty-six year old who grew up with the realities of racism, violence and road rage that plagues our city.  "I just knew."

     There are several different versions of La Llorona.  Like Santisima Muerte (The Holy Death) she is partially rooted in Cihuacoatl, the Aztec deity who supposedly appeared weeping in white for her children who would be conquered by the Spaniards.  Later she is linked to La Malinche, an Aztec woman who stabbed her children by a lake in Mexico City to protect them from Cortes.  After her death she was said to haunt the area as the Weeping Woman, terrifying locals with her famous scream.  In more modern times the name has been applied to Maria, a mother who drowned her own children to punish her husband.  After he death she was turned away from the gates of Heaven and told to find her children.  She exists ever after as the mournful Weeping Woman, searching for children who look like her own.

     So how do these spirits relate to Lilith?  They each transcend Christian and Pagan boundaries.  They each have many hats. La Llorona has been called a Mexican Lamia, the child-stealing monster discussed last entry.  Lilith, who was said to steal human children to replace those God had murdered was also refuse by Heaven when she tried to retire there like Maria's Weeping Woman.  In the case of Santisima Muerte we have a Mexican folk saint believed to derive from pre-Christian sources, whose colored robes connect to certain events in the Garden of Eden. Her messenger is none other than Lilith's totemic owl.  They are all phantoms, but they are also angels and ghosts.