The Monstrefact: Monster Mantas of Chilean Folklore

focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. We've been talking about manta rays on Stuff to Blow Your Mind recently, so I thought it was high time to discuss a selection of creatures that captivated me many years ago when I first picked up a copy of Carol Rose's Giants, Monsters and Dragons and Encyclopedia of Folklore, legend in myth If you've listened to the show for any amount of time, you've heard me champion this book a lot.

My copy is well worn. Rose compiles an exhaustive, if inevitably incomplete, encyclopedia of mythic, folkloric, legendary and literary creatures, and early on I was captivated by some of the Chilean creatures listed in its pages, several of which relate to hides and bladders. Not only are some of these possibly connected to observations of mantas and other rays, manta even has its own listing. She describes the manta as a giant sea going monster. From the folklore of ch Chile.

Perhaps she means Chiloe island. It's just the creatures described as quote a flat, extended skin like a cow's hide, with eyes around the perimeter, four more on top where a head would have been, and tentacles and tail with cloths. So this creature is said to attack swimmers, folding around their bodies and pulling them into the depths to consume them. Rose shares that some have speculated that the tail might actually refer to some manner of cephalopod, like an octopus.

The folkloric salt water manta, which as a reminder, means blanket in Spanish, would also connected to the freshwater quero Spanish for hide, which has the same mo in appearance and is said to be derived from the hide of a donkey that quote fell into the river, unfolded, came alive, and then engulfed every other living thing that came its way. Both are also said to cause storms when they return

to the water after basking on the rocks. So once more we have a flattened or amorphous entity that could easily be compared to various octopi and certainly rays. There are no known freshwater cephalopods. However, there are freshwater rays native to South America, if not actually to Chile itself.

She also mentions the trel Kawikov from the folklore of the Arocanian people of Chile, which also matches the description of the quiro and the folkloric manta, but with the added detail that it is the minion of the dreaded Imvunche or Imbunche, a great bladder like vampire creature that lives deep in an underground lake, and it depends on

the trel quukure to deliver its human prey. Rose also profiles another Chilean monster said to be part of this horrific community of creatures, the Shivato, also part of Arocanian traditions, said to be a monstrous cannibal humanoid created by witches from the body of a kidnapped child, a horrifying process said to take many years, also known as enserados in Spanish, Rose describes how the witches were said to sow up the orifices of the abducted child and feed them only

goat and human flesh, gradually transforming them into hairy, gray savages beings which might also eventually transform into an invunce or Embunche, or even a shivato. Other accounts list other horrifying mutilations that are part of the transformation process quite a horrific, monstrous life cycle. Rose's main source for these creatures would seem to be the nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine book Lake Monster Traditions by Mirger and Gagnon,

which is rather hard to come by these days. The Invunce or Embunche in particular, has found its way into various popular works of modern fiction, including Chilean author Jose Donoso's magical realist novel The Obscene Bird of Night from nineteen seventy, as well as Alan Moore's terrific run on

DC comics Swamp Thing. I've had a hard time finding additional materials on these various creatures, at least in English, which is a shame, because I'd love to know more about where these accounts come from, how they're interconnected, and what they meant to the people who hold or held these traditions. Certainly, if you, the listener, know of any good resources on these creatures these topics, please send them my way and we can follow up in the future.

But in the absence of such resources, we can only speculate to what extent some of these traditions may have been based on the observation of salt water or even freshwater rays, as well as octopi. Most such creatures are of little thread. Of course, even steamrays result in no more than I believe one or two human deaths per year. But just as many human traditions have identified something otherworldly and even divine in the movements of rays, others have

cast them as potentially dangerous predators. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster, Fact, the Artifact, or anomiliustipendium each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.