Clarissa Pinkola Estés tells the story from the deserts and mountains of Northern Mexico about a wolf woman, a collector of bones, who resurrects the wild spirit of life from the depths of the Underworld.
La Loba – The Wolf Woman
There is an old woman who lives in a hidden place that everyone knows but few have ever seen. As in the fairy tales of Eastern Europe, she seems to wait for lost or wandering people and seekers to come to her place.
They say she lives among the rotten granite slopes in Tarahumara Indian territory. They say she is buried outside Phoenix near a well. She is said to have been seen traveling south to Monte Alban in a burnt-out car with the back window shot out. She is said to stand by the highway near El Paso, or ride shotgun with truckers to Morelia, Mexico, or that she has been sighted walking to market above Oaxaca with strangely formed boughs of firewood on her back. She is called by many names: La Huesera, Bone Woman; La Trapera, The Gatherer; and La Loba, Wolf Woman.
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La Loba – The Wolf Woman – animation by reachire.
The superstitious call her soul stealer, claiming she weaves a dream catcher to snatch up those who would cross over and cage them in the light of her fire. The sole work of La Loba is the collecting of bones. She is known to collect and preserve especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with the bones of all manner of desert creatures: the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow. But her specialty is said to be wolves.
She creeps and crawls and sifts through the montañas, mountains, and arroyos, dry river beds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid out before her, she sits by the fire and thinks about what song she will sing.
And when she is sure, she stands over the criatura, raises her arms over it, and sings out. That is when the rib bones and leg bones of the wolf begin to flesh out and the creature becomes furred. La Loba sings some more, and more of the creature comes into being; its tail curls upward, shaggy and strong.
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And La Loba sings more and the wolf creature begins to breathe.
She creeps through the mountains and the dry riverbeds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, she sits by the fire and thinks about what song she will sing. Then she stands over the criatura, raises her arms over it, and sings out. Hence the rib bones and leg bones of the wolf begin to flesh out and the creature becomes furred, La Loba sings some more, and more of the creature comes into being.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
And still La Loba sings so deeply that the floor of the desert shakes, and as she sings, the wolf opens its eyes, leaps up, and runs away down the canyon.
Somewhere in its running, whether by the speed of its running, or by splashing its way into a river, or by way of a ray of sunlight or moonlight hitting it right in the side, the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free toward the horizon.
So it is said that if you wander the desert, and it is near sundown, and you are perhaps a little bit lost, and certainly tired, that you are lucky, for La Loba may take a liking to you and show you something — something of the Soul.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves. Pp.26-28. She is a US poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist, raised in a nearly vanished oral and ethnic tradition, of Mexican mestiza and Magyar heritages.
Jaclyn Atkinson’s illustrations can be found at her website newjacktale.com.
Updated 20 February 2021
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Thank you for this post and for using my illustration of La Loba! Could you please link the image to my website? (newjacktale.com) Thanks.
Wow what a beautiful and inspiring image of La Loba. Definitely immediately got me thinking what a nice tattoo. I’m checking out your website.
Thank you for posting my Egg Tempera painting of ‘Wild Woman.’
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Bitch yasss!!!
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One day I’ll take my wolf and run into the wild where my home is found. We’ll walk the green grass and the path that takes us deep into the forest. The closer we’ll get, the faster we’ll run, cuz my wild horse has been waiting for me for so long, and my ancestors have been searching for my songs into the stars lighting up the darkest sky. I’ll find my laughter and the beauty of the people of the Earth. I’ll run into their hearts and let my soul embrace their souls of wonder and of love. I’ll honor roots and sing to young, and drum and dance barefoot on earth. I’ll wander then in freedom with my wolf, in speed of riding with the Wind, my wolf beside, my love ahead. I’ll feel you but not see you, cuz you are air and everywhere. I’ll breathe you deeply in, so fresh, so known into my heart, and breath you out then, free. I’ll swirl around and honor all, above, in me, below… I’ll hug my wolf and see my cave, my place of rest when out is rain, but I will choose to stay outside, to watch my star while I’m connected to the ground…
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ok so,the wolf,which laloba created,becomes laloba? “the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free toward the horizon.” or am i misunderstanding this line?
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