The Tulevieja or Tulivieja is a legendary character from Costa Rica and Panama; which is written as a female ghost that, covered by a kind of hat called "tule" (banana-shaped and made from the leaves of the plant that has the same name ) and with swollen and erect breasts (sometimes dripping with milk, depending on the version); which would transform into a monster, which wanders through the different roads and unpopulated areas.
The origin of the name has to do with the toque: Tulevieja, an old tule or an old woman with tule (the meaning of the name varies depending on the version of the legend).
Legend[]
Folklore has not been able to agree when describing this being, there are several versions of it.
The best-known version merges it with the myth of La Llorona. It says that originally the Tulevieja was a little girl who always more the tule (a hat), even to sleep. There are those who say that it was a married woman who also had a reputation for being a partygoer, who had an unwanted pregnancy (which in Costa Rica was formerly known colloquially as pata e'banco (bench leg)) with a lecherous man she met at a party; she whom she never saw again after having sex with him. It is said that when the girl became pregnant, she fled to Puntarenas, on the Pacific coast; and after giving birth, she left him next to her tule in a river, so that the child would starve and so she could continue with her life. However, later she would have repented, and she went back to the river; but the baby had already left, finding only her tule, and therefore committing suicide by drowning in the river. However, God used not to allow her soul to rest in peace and as punishment, since then, Tulevieja will be found wandering along the river, always with her breasts swollen and laden with milk; crying and looking for her baby with the hope of one day finding it; and thus end her curse. This fact causes fear in people, since they fear that she could kidnap her children, in some versions to confuse them and in others on purpose. Another version indicates that after drowning, due to his sins in life and the punishment received by God, his soul finally became a demon that as revenge, also appears to the lustful men with bare breasts, inviting him to caress them while they dance. But the beast has an anthill between her chest, and when touching it, the zombie ants sting the man to anesthetize them; moment in which its victims only manage to observe a monster with a holed face, skinny legs of sparrowhawk, wings of bat, large claws and inverted feet. Later, the Tulevieja takes flight with the unwary to devour it. In this she resembles the beautiful Greek mermaids.
There is also another version in which Tulevieja, when she is not wandering the roads, would live in the villages disguised as an elderly lady with a terrifying appearance, with a face marked by deep wrinkles and scars, with a cold and penetrating gaze, and always dressed in black; almost always carrying a load of firewood. It is said that over the years, the children of the villages inexplicably disappear after having been seen playing near the house of an old woman with a tule hat; mainly when they insult her with the nickname of Tulevieja (without knowing that she is her real one). Later, when for various reasons they disappear from one village to approach another, sometimes the real monster would be observed carrying a load of firewood to her new home.
In the same way, there are also variations of the different versions of the legend about this being.