Here’s how the legend of this creature goes according to the Maya-Quiché history, which is one of the pre-Columbian cultures that existed in El Salvador.
Most every person in the Maya-Quiché culture had their own Cadejo blanco (white dog), which people saw as a "guardian dog" (like today’s "guardian angels"). This dog represented everything good in the world. However, everything good usually has a bad or evil counterpart. In this time, the counterpart to the Cadejo blanco was the Cadejo negro, or the "black dog". This dog caused fear and terror, especially if people had bad skeletons in their closets or knew that they weren’t doing good in their life. People wouldn’t leave very often really late at night for fear of being attacked by the Cadejo negro. If someone knew they were a good person and had their trusty Cadejo blanco protecting them, they knew they would be safe from the Cadejo negro.
Do you believe in legends like this? What do you think these legends are for? Even if you don’t think the Cadejo is a real thing, what can you learn from the legend?
The Cadejo comes from Maya-Quiché culture, which is one of the three pre-Columbian (which means pre-Spanish arrival to Central America) cultures of indigenous people who lived in this region. The Maya-Quiché culture spanned from parts of southeastern Mexico to about halfway through El Salvador and into Honduras.
