La Tulivieja

La Tulivieja is a monstrous ghost told of in Panama and Costa Rica. The name comes from tule, the pointed straw hat she wears. Tellings give her tangled hair, bird or bat wings, claws, reversed footprints and breasts overflowing with milk.

In the usual story a young woman with a secret pregnancy drowns her newborn in a river and is transformed by God into a monster condemned to search for the child forever. In some regions she merges with La Llorona and steals babies. She is also said to eat charcoal and ashes, so her tracks appear near dead campfires.

Researchers link parts of the legend to the Bribri people of Talamanca, on the Costa Rica–Panama border, whose mythology includes a similar being. In Ngäbe-Buglé tradition she is called Tepesa. Folklorists see it as a blend of Indigenous belief and Spanish colonial ghost stories.

She punishes lustful men and irresponsible fathers by luring them to dance, and the traditional defence is a prayer, “Alabado sea el Santísimo”, which sends her flying toward the sun. In everyday Panamanian speech “salió la Tulivieja” teases a partner who turns out less charming than expected.

A short, heavy woman with tangled hair, a pointed straw hat, wings, hawk-like legs and backward feet, dripping milk.

Rivers, riverbanks and abandoned rural places in Panama and the Talamanca region, mostly at night.

The Tulivieja is one of Panama’s best-known legends, taught in schools and told across Panama and Costa Rica.