Another post on Water Bulls, this time in northern Neuquen Province.
They are taken from local stories told to Argentine folklorist Berta Vidal de Battini in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and published in 1984, both are very similar to others that I have included in previous posts on "lake bulls" (see my Everything you ever wanted to know about...Lake Bulls or Water Bulls).
Bull at Tres Chorros.
At Tres Chorros, Ñorquin, in the Argentine province of Neuquen, the locals reported in 1952, a "Water bull".
The story is told by Berta Vidal de Battini, [1], as follows:
They say that in the lagoon close to this place, lives a black bull. Many neighbors have seen it in the middle of the lake and walking in the fields that surround it.
Sometimes it gets together with other animals [...] They say that in several lakes in the region there are bulls that take care of them. Also other animals like horses, cows and pigs come out [of the lakes].
Many people have seen them but they can never be lassoed.[1]
Bull at Los Miches.
At Los Miches (37°14'S,70°52'W), in Neuquen, another story compiled in 1949 mentions the "Bull with the golden horns at Guanaco Lagoon":
'I have 'eard that in that lagoon there are bad things sir. [my uncle] told me as we passed by the lagoon that in it lived a bull, muddy, hairless, terribly fierece and almost without the shape of an animal.
That when a cow went in to the lake to drink water, it always came out pregnant by this bull and that when the cow was to give birth, it always died.
He said that he had seen it once, when the bull went into the lake and that it got lost in the water'.[1]
Comments.
These two lakes are in the area just by the foot of the Andes and very close to another lake with strange creatures (Lake Caviahue). Both are on the Atlantic side of the continental divide and in an area with a stron influence of the Mapuche culture.
Tres Chorros flows into the Truquico River and from there into the Neuquen River.
They are also relatively close to the northern basin of the Colorado River, home to a strange aquatic creature.
The interesting creature is the "Los Miches" being, a bald dirty monster that does not even resemble a bull. Which may indicate that the animal is not a bull (perhaps some variety of tapir -hence the lack of hair?). Muddy seems to imply a creature that likes to roll about in the mud (notice the "pigs" mentioned at Los Guanacos; pigs are barrel shaped stout creatures, just like tapirs.). This may indicate some tapir - lake monster connection, as I have suggested in previous posts (Patagonian Tapir).
Map of both locations: Tres Chorros and Los Miches.
Bibliography.
[1] Berta Vidal de Battini (1984). Cuentos y Leyendas Populares de la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Ed. Culturales Argentinas Vol VII. pp. 1366 and 1367.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
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