The Monstrefact: Monster Mantas of Chilean Folklore

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses a pair of creatures from Chilean folklore that may connect to observations of the manta ray…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
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

(00:33):
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,

(00:56):
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.

(01:21):
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.

(01:44):
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

(02:06):
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

(02:30):
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

(02:51):
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

(03:12):
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

(03:33):
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

(03:56):
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

(04:19):
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

(04:40):
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

(05:03):
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

(05:26):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
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