The Dark Truth Behind This Dominican Monster

Añadido: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00](pensive music) - For centuries, Dominicans have feared a woman who lives in the mountains.

[00:00:06]Her backwards-pointing feet create tracks that make it impossible to find her.

[00:00:10](leaves rustling) They say she has a luscious mane of hair covering her naked body and a hypnotic beauty.

[00:00:16]Legend says that if you see her, you'll disappear forever.

[00:00:20]She moves along rivers and mountain trails in the Dominican Republic, watching, waiting, ready to seduce her next victim.

[00:00:28](suspenseful music) (leaves rustling) (ominous music) They call her La Ciguapa.

[00:00:39](compelling music) (lively traditional music) When I first learned about La Ciguapa, the story sounded familiar, like just another cautionary tale of a siren.

[00:00:57]But when you trace her origins, her story reveals something more complex than just a beautiful seductress, so I knew I had to go here to the Dominican Republic to truly try to understand her.

[00:01:08](lively traditional music) When we look back into the archives to track down her story, she first appears in written form in an 1866 short novel, one that would shape how generations came to fear her.

[00:01:28]But why did this story emerge at that exact moment?

[00:01:32]And who decided La Ciguapa needed to be feared?

[00:01:34](suspenseful music) La Ciguapa's story begins on the island of Hispaniola, which is divided between two nations, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but it wasn't always two separate countries.

[00:01:47]In 1492, Christopher Columbus named the entire island La Espanola, meaning the Spanish one.

[00:01:53]It became the first place in the Americas to be colonized by Europeans during the Age of Exploration.

[00:01:59]But while it was one island, it was never one experience.

[00:02:02]Enslaved Africans and Indigenous people resisted colonial rule almost immediately.

[00:02:08]In 1521, one of the earliest recorded slave rebellions erupted here, led by Wolof captives from West Africa.

[00:02:15]So, how does La Ciguapa connect directly to where we are right now?

[00:02:18]- This is where the first enslaved rebellion of African people took place in the Hemisphere.

[00:02:25]- [Emily] That's Ruth C. Pion, an Afro-Caribbean researcher and activist.

[00:02:29]- 10 kilometers from where we're standing right now, there's the remains of the first plantation of Monte Alegre, which was Diego Colon's plantation.

[00:02:37]Diego Colon is Christopher Columbus's son.

[00:02:39]He was one of the first people in having establishing sugar and milk plantations on the entire island.

[00:02:43]And by 1521, he had a group of people from the Wolof ethnicity and they revolted and they fled the plantation.

[00:02:51]It wasn't as successful, but it definitely left a mark in the colonizing process because after this rebellion, they had to create slave laws.

[00:03:00]- Enslaved Africans fought against Spanish rule, and many evaded capture by hiding in the mountains just like the Indigenous people did before them, the very same mountains La Ciguapa is said to roam.

[00:03:12]Could La Ciguapa embody the women from these communities seeking refuge?

[00:03:27]- [Emily] This is Jonathan De Oleo Ramos, a Dominican anthropologist and researcher.

[00:03:50]- In 1804, Haiti became the first Black republic after a successful slave revolt, and in 1822, unified the entire island under its rule, abolishing slavery.

[00:04:01]However, in 1844, the eastern part of the island declared its independence as the Dominican Republic, setting off years of violence and uprisings.

[00:04:10]By 1865, the Dominican Republic freed itself from Spain again, but the country was left grappling with the challenges of shaping a new society.

[00:04:20]Like the history of this island, to best understand her, you need to embrace the contradictions.

[00:04:25]She's a timid and sad creature who runs away at the sight of someone.

[00:04:29]But others say she's a threatening, violent figure.

[00:04:32]At first glance, she seems like the ideal feminine beauty, but look closer, and her body reveals she's something more supernatural, more mystical.

[00:04:41]She's a protector and healer of the land who lures you in with ease.

[00:04:44]But if you touch her, you won't be seen again.

[00:04:47]What was it like growing up with La Ciguapa, and when did you first hear her story?

[00:05:18]- [Emily] A nocturnal presence of the forest and mountains, her long black hair cascades over her body with backward-pointing feet, ensuring no one can trace her path.

[00:05:28]- Similar to the siren, with her bird-like sounds, she can entrance people or hypnotize people.

[00:05:35]- [Emily] This is Dr. Omaris Z. Zamora, a literature and cultural studies professor who wrote "Ciguapa Unbound," a book exploring this monster as a representation of Dominican history.

[00:05:44]- So, I asked, "What is possible in that trance, or what is she teaching us through that trance?"

[00:05:50]- [Emily] Dr. Zamora's curiosity led her into the Dominican Archives, where she found the first written account of La Ciguapa.

[00:05:56]Penned in 1866 by playwright, author, geographer, and journalist Francisco Javier Angulo Guridi, this story disrupts the legend in a surprising and profound way, turning La Ciguapa into something entirely different.

[00:06:10](lighthearted music) Guridi's version of La Ciguapa recounts the tale of a man by the name of Jacinto.

[00:06:22]After his father was exiled, Jacinto was taken in by a nearby farmer, whose land laid between a mountain and a river.

[00:06:29]Jacinto grew close to the farmer's family, especially the daughter, Marcelina, and the two quickly became inseparable.

[00:06:37]One day by the river, Jacinto declared his love, and Marcelina happily agreed to marry him.

[00:06:43]As they were leaving later that night, Marcelina saw a dark figure appear in the forest.

[00:06:47](suspenseful music) It was La Ciguapa.

[00:06:51]Marcelina screamed a sharp piercing cry that cut through the air.

[00:06:55]La Ciguapa screamed back, echoing the sound with a voice just as terrifying.

[00:07:00]Marcelina fainted, following into a fever that ended her life three days later, leaving Jacinto heartbroken and alone.

[00:07:07]He goes on to describe La Ciguapa as a beautiful figure with Indigenous features, whose presence threatens love, writing, "It has the golden skin of the authentic Indian, black almond-shaped eyes, soft, lustrous, and abundant hair that on females falls down their gorgeous backs all the way to their knees.

[00:07:24]Guridi's version of La Ciguapa seems to reflect Dominican identity in ways that still echo today.

[00:07:29]So where did Guridi first hear of La Ciguapa's legend, and what inspired him to write about it?

[00:07:35]Guridi was born in Santo Domingo, but his family left Hispaniola in 1822 after Haiti had unified the Eastern Santo Domingo side of the island.

[00:07:44]He spent the next 30 years in Cuba where he likely found inspiration for his story.

[00:07:49]Scholar Ginetta Candelario points out that La Ciguapa is also the name of a town in Cuba's eastern region, a hub of anti-slavery resistance and rebellion in Cuba.

[00:07:59]This gives us more context about the fears and tensions that shaped Guridi's understanding of this monster.

[00:08:05]Guridi was drawn back to Santo Domingo to support the fight for independence from the Spanish.

[00:08:10]He served as a colonel with the Dominican Armed Forces, and after the Dominican Republic reestablished its independence from Spain, he became a major figure in shaping the young nation's identity.

[00:08:20]At the same time, fear of Black and Indigenous resistance ran deep, and Dominican leaders were working to create a national identity separate from Haiti.

[00:08:29]Dominican is began to be framed as a mixed-race identity, but one that often prioritized whiteness and erased Black heritage.

[00:08:38]Guridi's short story framed La Ciguapa as something to fear, a figure marked as an outsider and out of place.

[00:08:44]In doing so, he drew a troubling parallel between her and Black resistance, - And so he's framing her as this kind of other, this very anthropological kind of colonial, like the other who shall be feared.

[00:08:54]At the end of the day, this is a folk tale.

[00:08:56]We're not talking about a real exact person.

[00:08:58]Folktales and culture productions are symbols and are metaphors for the formation of an idea and a culture.

[00:09:05]When we're thinking about La Ciguapa and Guridi's Ciguapa, she embodies what's to be feared.

[00:09:10]We are to fear women who have their own way and who are not inside the home because she is in the forest and near the rivers.

[00:09:19]We are to fear Indigenous people, we are to fear people who are of the mountains, which is also a maroon space, right?

[00:09:27]A space in which Indigenous and enslaved Africans fled to to resist being captured and to also form new communities in the mountains.

[00:09:35]So we are to fear those spaces in where the law does not apply, and we are to fear people who move and we cannot track.

[00:09:42]So, she embodies all the fears of the time, historically, right, thinking about social political history at the moment.

[00:09:49]- It's been nearly 160 years since Guridi first published his La Ciguapa story.

[00:09:53]Now, Afro-Dominican artists are redefining her existence through a different question, not what La Ciguapa has taken from the island, but what was stolen from her.

[00:10:02]Poet and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo reimagines the origin story of the monster in her poem, "La Ciguapa."

[00:10:10]- [Elizabeth] La Ciguapa, they say, was made of one of those ships, stitched and bewitched from moans and crashing waves.

[00:10:19]She emerged entirely formed, dark, and howling, stepped onto the auction block, but none would buy her.

[00:10:27]They wouldn't even look her in the eye.

[00:10:29]They say.

[00:10:31]They say.

[00:10:32]They say.

[00:10:34]Tuh, I'm lying.

[00:10:37]No one says.

[00:10:39]Who tells her story anymore?

[00:10:41]She has no mother, La Ciguapa, and no children, certainly not her people's tongue.

[00:10:49]We who have forgotten all of our sacred monsters.

[00:10:55]- La Ciguapa story paints her as a monster in the 19th century, but Acevedo allows her to tell her story in her own words, reimagining her as an enslaved woman, begging to be remembered by her own people.

[00:11:06]Carrying centuries of displacement and migration, this island finds its history personified in La Ciguapa, who embodies the search for belonging.

[00:11:14]- But it's also a matter of seeing people who are continuously migrating or in continuous movement are seen as people who do not belong.

[00:11:21]So, it's almost very Ciguapa-esque in the sense that you are in continuous movement and you don't belong anywhere.

[00:11:26]La Ciguapa, I think she really helps us question that idea of belonging and this idea of belonging, this idea of borders, this idea of nation.

[00:11:36]Ciguapa is anti-border, and she's like, "I don't care about your borders, I'm moving."

[00:11:40]- So do you think this is why there are so many Afro-Dominican artists, like, see her as a symbol of resistance, at least today?

[00:11:46]- Absolutely.

[00:11:48]I mean, thinking about the rootlessness of La Ciguapa, when we look at Firelei Baez "Ciguapa Series" artworks, instead of having roots, she has feet in these kind of figures that look like plants.

[00:11:58]That movement has been part of our survival, right?

[00:12:01]It is part of our resistance.

[00:12:02](lighthearted music) - [Emily] Today, Dominican artists carry that energy forward.

[00:12:06]Poet and performer Josefina Baez channels La Ciguapa to explore the challenges of migration.

[00:12:13]- [Josefina] The subway steps changed her nature.

[00:12:15]In the ups and down to and from the silver-grey fast worms, her feet became as everybody else's in the rush hour crowd.

[00:12:27]She did not notice the drastic change.

[00:12:29]And Ciguapa cut her hair; maybe to be in vogue or just to simplify her rituals.

[00:12:35]Ciguapa works in a factory making pinkish dolls.

[00:12:39]Dolls that she never had.

[00:12:41]Earning less than the minimum, she managed to pay an immigration lawyer that she never met.

[00:12:47]She got her green card.

[00:12:49]It was not green.

[00:12:51]- [Emily] Over time, La Ciguapa began to slip out of the role assigned to her as a threatening figure.

[00:12:57]People began to see her not as a predator in the mountains, but as a symbol of a woman who refuses capture.

[00:13:42]- Living through uncertainty and instability are constants of human history.

[00:13:46]Often, we can gain context into these times by making an effort to understand the folklore that emerges, the stories, languages, and cultures that cross borders to meet us.

[00:13:55]- La Ciguapa is woven into this land.

[00:13:58]And to understand where we're coming from, we need to also understand our own struggles and how to overcome them.

[00:14:04]So, I feel her like a device for resistance and liberation.

[00:14:08]She always deceived the people that persecuted her in the land.

[00:14:12]We still hear echoes of her story and her presence around us.

[00:14:16]- La Ciguapa invites us to ask: Who is teaching us to fear marginalized voices?

[00:14:20]And why?

[00:14:22]Because when we look closer, our monsters mirror our humanity.

[00:14:25]And if we're brave enough, we can learn how to protect each other through what comes next.

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[00:14:54]Thanks.