Legends of Ocotal

    They say that Don Jorge Calderón Gutiérrez, poet, musician, pianist, teacher, and mining expert, is the man with the best memory in Ocotal. At over 75 years of age or "75 well-smoked packages" as he says, his history lessons and stories are full of the magic that only experience can provide. I believe there is no one better than him to learn a bit about the traditions of that beautiful department of our country.

    "My maternal grandmother told me some (legends), but I learned most of them from the servants. They said that La Sucia (The "dirty one") would appear by the river, she was a gigantic and bony woman with long hair, who would repeatedly say in a screeching voice: 'Take your teat, take your teat.' Because of that horrible woman, we kids wouldn’t bathe there after five in the afternoon. They also said that the red imp and the green imp would appear, though neither ever appeared to me, but they did to other people, and they still do. These visions will never leave our people in peace, as they arise from a cultural phenomenon. Another pair of ghosts were the black Cadejo and the white Cadejo. The black one was evil, the white one was not. 'When the evil one appears,' they told me, 'you have to give him the right side of the path.' But neither La Sucia nor La Mocuana ever appeared to me, nor did the Enchanted Stone of Orosí tie up my beast. They said that in Orosí there was an enchanted stone, and at night, an invisible being would tie the legs of the beasts passing by with invisible threads, leaving them stuck. But I passed through Orosí many times and also through Intelí where they said Diego Izquierdo would appear... and nothing.

    Diego Izquierdo was a restless spirit that appeared as a light at night to lead people astray. I used to spend my vacations in Santa Bárbara, near Jalapa, and also visit a friend. It was a nine-hour journey on a good horse, and I passed countless times through the plain and never encountered the famous Izquierdo. The thing is, I was sent to study at the Pedagogical Institute in Diriamba as a child, a five-day journey. We had to travel by horse to Condega, then to Estelí, later to El Sauce, from there by train to León, then another day to Managua, and another by train to Diriamba. The teaching at the Pedagogical Institute was very good, I remember studying philosophy, sociology, economics, astronomy, Greek and Latin roots, very good French and English. The teachers were progressive, I remember priests Esteban and Manuelino who taught me that those apparitions don't exist, not even the devil exists. But those legends were beautiful and became part of charming folklore. At night, since there was no electric light, we lit bonfires in the street. The appearance of carbide lamps was an amazing revolution. It was usual to retire at eight in the evening, and then, from six in the afternoon, the stories would begin. The storytellers were the cook, the laundress, and my grandmother, because everyone slept at the house... Of course, as a child, they never stopped scaring me with those things, but between fear and delight, there I was, listening intently, although my uncle José would later repeat to me that those things didn’t exist... Those family gatherings were delightful."

Stories of D. Jorge Calderón, fragment from "The Ocotal Memories of Don Jorge Calderón Gutiérrez" by Mario Fulvio Espinosa, La Prensa, April 28, 2002.