Curly haired Tarpan horses in Poland

Tarpan is a Tartar name meaning "wild horse", and was applied in 1780 by Pallas to describe wild horses that roamed the Eastern European steppes.

It was later used to designate the European wild horses (Equus ferus ferus) whose remains have been found in post-glacial sediments from the Holocene.

Their range surely extended east beyond Europe into Asia and primitive wild horses (i.e. Riwoch's horse of Tibet) found there may be related to them.

The Tarpans became extinct in 1879. They had been hunted down and killed by the farmers who were fed up with the stallions stealing their domesticated mares and also, that these herds ate their crops.

Modern "Tarpans" derive from wild horses captured in Bialowieza Forest, in Eastern Poland, in the 1780s. These were taken to the game park of Count Zamojki and, after it closed down in 1812, the horses were given to local peasants in Bilgoraj. Eventually these horses bred with others but retained part of the Tarpan genome.

Professor Tadeusz Vetulani (1897-1952) worked with these horses in the 1920s and "recreated" the Tarpan lineage, now known as Konik.

Below are two texts from the book The Natural History of Horses: The Equidae Or Genus Equus, by Charles Hamilton Smith, Conrad Gesner published in 1841. It describes the "curly haired" horse with "narrow hoofs" which is exactly what Azara described in Paraguay, South America, in 1802: the curly haired Pichaí, with narrow asnine-like hoofs and curly hair: (I have underlined the text in red)

These wild horses are surely the ones mentioned by Darwin (see my previous post) when he stated that there were curly haired horses in Russia. In fact this forest is now in Poland, but during most of the XIXth century, it was part of Belostok Oblast, a province of the Russian Empire.

Finally, some images of Tarpans, the first is "The tarpan wild horse", from Sir William Jardine The naturalist's Library 1840s. The photograph is from a page on the recreator of Tarpans, and seems to depict a Tarpan from the early 1900s.

Of course modern Tarpans have mixed with domesticated horses for thousands of years, so they are not the "original" wild pre-domestication horse that roamed the steppes from Poland to Siberia. But they do retain some of the characteristics of these primigenious wild horses.

What is the link between Tarpans and American Bashkir Curlies (now -after dropping the Bashkir part of the name- known as American Curlies)? Also, what are Bashkir's anyway? Are these "Russian" horses linked to the American ones?

That will be the subject of our next post. To be continued...

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2019 by Austin Whittall © 

Seals that live in freshwater

Florian Paucke (1719 - 1780) was a Jesuit missionary, born in Bohemia. He spent almost twenty years among the Mocoví natives in the missions of Paraguay between 1749 and 1767, when the Spanish crown siezed the properties of the Jesuit Order and deported its members back to Europe.

Paucke depicted the daily scenes of his mission, the natives and the animals of the surrounding regin in a series of naive watercolors. One of his paintings is reproduced below. It shows a group of natives hunting capivara or carpincho with spears. Around the border of the painting it also shows some aquatic riverine mammals:

Animals painted by R. Paucke late XVIII century. Paraguay.

During his stay in Southern South America, he encountered different creatures: Carpinchos, jaguars and, as shown in the image above, a very strange seal (red arrow).

Besides painting them, he wrote a book, "From here to there: a stay among the Mocoví Indians (1749-1767)" from which we took the following quote, describing an island on the Paraná River:

"On this tiny island there were many tigers [jaguars] , deer, wild pigs, ostriches [ñandu - Rhea], venison, leopards, [ocelote or Leopardus pardalis mitis] sea wolves and sea pigs (carpinchos) in large quantities....". [1]

He depicted one of the sea wolves, upper central part of the image above. Marked with a red arrow.

The caption above the creature reads: "Sea Wolf, Lobo Marino, enelaviagei ?". In German or English, Spanish and Mocoví ? respectively.

The words Sea and Marino, which is the Spanish word for "belonging to the sea" clearly identify this creature as a sea faring animal. Which is surprising since Paraguay is several hundred kilometers from the sea. The description of a Carpincho as a "Sea Pig" is also surprising since this is definitively a fresh water animal.

Taking a closer look at the "sea wolf", it appears to be very otter-like, with a long slim bushy tail, claws (no webbing between its toes), short ears and short snout. Yet it does not stand up on its legs, it lies on its belly, in a seal-like manner. Quite intriguing indeed!

The Paraná River was home to all the animals that he mentioned in his text, except for the "sea wolves". There were what the Spaniards called Lobitos de río, that is "Tiny River Wolves", which are otters. But he clearly states that they were sea going animals, perhaps implying that they were not otters, but seals.

The larger River wolves were the White-chested Otter (Lutra brasiliensis), the biggest otter in the world, currently found in the Amazon River basin, whose range in the past included the River Plate basin. [3]

But Sea wolf is the Spanish name for a type of seal, not an otter.

Paucke must have surely seen seals and sea wolves when he reached South America, on the islands at the entrance to the River Plate, in an estuarine salt - fresh water area. Even today they can be found on the rocks close to Cabo Polonio, Santa María and Punta del Este, in Uruguay. They may have been more abundant in the 1700s.

But what about the region further upstream, along the Parana and Uruguay Rivers, that flow into the River Plate?

Seals in the River Plate basin

I found a reference that states that phocidae and otariidae (seals) swam upstream along the Parana and Uruguay Rivers [2].

Another reference comes from Spanish naturalist Félix de Azara (1801) who mentions a river over 700 km (435 mi) from the sea, which flows into the Paraná River, as having "sea wolves":

"The Corrientes river is large and bigger than the Guayquiraró: it has sands and breeds many sea wolves, stingrays that sting with cruelty, yacarés [a South American croc] and many other fish." [4]

Sea Wolves are even mentioned in landlocked Salta province, over 1,300 km (800 mi) from Buenos Aires and the sea. Naturalist Holmberg cites Stuar who, in 1878, saw "Sea and river wolves" [5] in Salta. This should not be surprising since the Pilcomayo, Bermejo, Juramento rivers, which flow into the Paraguay and Paraná rivers, reach the Andean foothills in Salta. All of these rivers are part of the River Plate Basin. Seals could, in theory, swim upstream along any of them.

Sources

[1] Florian Paucke. Hacia allá y para acá: (una estada entre los indios Mocobíes, 1749-1767). Vol. 2. pp. 41. Editorial Nuevo Siglo, 2000.
[2] Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina, Volumes 127-128. 1939 pp. 295
[3]O. V. Aplin, (1894) Field-Notes on the Mammals of Uruguay. Zoological Society of London
[4] Félix de Azara, (1801). Memorias sobre el estado rural del Rio de la Plata en 1801: Demarcacion ..... Sanchiz, 1847. pp. 34
[5] Claudio Bertonatti, (1994). Los que se van: especies argentinas en peligro. Editorial Albatros, pp. 244.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

More on the Caaiguá wild men

My recent post on the Caaiguá people, wild men, left me a bit intrigued, so I did some more research and came across the original texts written by contemporary witnesses: Jesuit priests from the Missions in the jungles close to where these people lived.

The Jesuits's written accounts show that these people were quite singular:

• They spoke a language that was quite different from the Guaraní language spoken by the surrounding tribes.
• It had a "whistling" like sound
• The Caaiguá lived in caves and were stone-age hunter gatherers
• They were described as similar to both apes and men and with limited intellectual capabilities
• They were also very belicose and violent

I am inclined to believe that they were indeed a relict Neanderthal group, human yet not human enough, feature that led both natives and missionaries to consider them authentic wild men.

Wild Men in detail

Father Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, wrote several learned books on the native languages of North and South America, and, as could be expected, mentioned the language spoken by the Caaiguas. I quote him below (the bold font is mine):

"The Caaiguá Language.
The Caaiguá language is spoken by the nation of the same name that has settled to the east of the Uruguay River to the north, near its sources [Shaded in red in map below] it is a peculiar language of rough and difficult pronounciation as Techo correctly notes, and speaks about the Caaiguá tongue as follows: 'The Caaiguás use their own language which is hard to understand because when they pronounce the words they do not seem to speak but instead whistle or form unintelligible tones in their throats'.
The name Caaiguás is Guaraní and means wild and because the converted and civilized Guaraní usually give the name of caaiguá to some Guaraní tribes that wander about in the jungle, some authors have believed that the Caaiguá is a Guaraní dialect and have mistaken the true Caaiguás for the nomad Guaraní tribes..." [1]

This is very interesting, it clearly points out that these people are not Guaraní. That the also name applies to ethnic Guaraní people who live under their pre-hispanic conditions, in the jungle. But that the real Caaiguá people are a distinct group with their own peculiar language.

And a very strange language indeed, with whistling sounds!. I looked up the text written by father Techo, which Hervás y Panduro quoted, and it proved to be very interesting too:

Nicolás del Techo's text

He was born in Lille in 1611 as "du Toict" (which he modified to a Spanish version: "del Techo"), and died at the Mission in Apóstoles in 1687. He became a Jesuit in 1619 and came to America in 1640 working as a missionary, and historian in South America.

This text was published in Antwerp in 1654 as the "Relatio triplex de rebus indicis". It was a letter that he wrote in 1651 at the Mission of Santa María La Mayor, on the Uruguay River in the Missions of Paraguay.

Map showing the probable territory of the Caaiguás and the Jesuit Missions
Copyright © 2014 by Austin Whittall

The mission is located in Argentina, in the province of Misiones, Santa María municipality. It was founded in 1626 and abandoned in 1767. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been restored.

Below I quote the intersting parts of the text (bold font is mine):

"We are taking care of here, the two of us, of two thousand six hundred indians [...] To this task we add another, not less difficult: the taming of the most ferocious Caaiguá people. [...]
The Caaiguá people are not very numerous and are the less apt for work among all the indians. They live in the jungles between the Paraná and Iguazú rivers [Shaded in Yellow in the map below] , and for this reason the surrounding tribes call them jungle inhabitants (which is the meaning of the name Caaiguá). They speak their own language, not very easy to learn, because, they when they issue their sounds, it seems that, instead of speaking, they whistled, producing a whirlwind of inaticulate explosions in their throats.
They have very few huts and these are very far apart. Most of these indians are happy living in hovels, like animals, and do not procure their food any better than them, so they do not practice agriculture or have any farming activities. The fish and hunt with bow and arrow. Nevertheless, most of the year they eat raw worms, mice, ants and other small creaturs that they can catch easily. The fight with tapirs [...] they kil them and eat them; climbing up trees they catch monkeys with such dextrity, as if they themselves were apes. They like monkey meat a lot and eat jaguar meat without flinching [...] They are physically deformed and are monstrous, similar to both monkeys and men, especially if you look at their noses, which allows you to fairly call them stub-nosed. As they live in the jungles most of them have their backs bent and hunched, making their gaze remain fixed towards the ground. They walk in a bent over manner. However many of them have a nicer appearance, especially the women, who born and bred in the shade keep the color of their body quite similar to that of Europeans." [2]

He also mentions that they were wild and fierce, muderding anyone who dared to go into their territory, that the Guaraní killed them whenever they could. And that when captured they were "difficult to tame [...] refused food and died in a few days". A missionary, Father Claudio brought up a Caaiguá boy and taught him the Guaraní language so that he could be an interpreter for him (a clear indication that Guaraní and Caaiguá spoke distinct languages) and went to their territory to convert them, enticing some to come down to the mission:

"So some of them came out of their caves and [...] canme to the town of Santa María La Mayor.[2]

They did this again and: "After a journey of nine days this illustious hunter of souls went into the caves of the wild men and through his interpreter managed to get eighteen of them to agree to be converted and follow him [...] he found the inept to retain and obtuse to undestand clearly." [2]

The Jesuits fought against a slaver raid by the Brazilian Mamelucos and freed several Caaiguá natives, earning their gratitude.

The Brazilians hunted natives to capture them and sell them as slaves. This decimated the native tribes of what is now Southern Brazil, Paraguay and the Argentine provinces of Misiones and Corrientes. The Jesuits organized armies to fight them off, but when the Spanish cronw expelled the Jesuit Order from America, their missions quickly dissolved and became ghost-towns, swallowed up by the jungle. The natives disbanded and returned to their old customs.

The region remained forgotten during the independence and civil wars of the early XIX century. It returned to the limelight during the war between Paraguay and Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina in the 1860s and its borders were drawn up during the late 1800s. At that time Argentine explorers such as Ambrosetti and Lista visited the region (which was part of a border dispute between Brazil and Argentina). Both of them mistook the ethnic "wild" Guaraní people for the original Caaiguá people.

Juan Ambrosetti (1886) called them Kaingangues, Caigua, Caingua and Ramón Lista (1883) Caayguás, but these were not the real Caaiguá mentioned by del Techo, who had probably already become extinct due to the slaving raids of the late 1700s.

Sources

[1] Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, (1800). Catálogo De Las Lenguas De Las Naciones Conocidas, Y Numeracion, Division, Y Clases De Estas Segun La Diversidad De Sus Idiomas Y Dialectos: Lenguas Y Naciones Americanas. Rank, Vol 1. pp 296.
[2] Nicolás del Techo, (1654) Relación Sobre la Gente Caaigua que se empezó a convertir. Republished by Arturo Nagy & Francisco Pérez Maricevich, (1967), Tres Encuentros Con América. Ed. del Centenario, Asunción.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

The Caaigua Wild Man

I just came across another type of "wild man" that lived in the South American jungles, the Caigua (or Caaiguá). These creatures were people, since they were baptized and settled in Jesuit Missions. Unlike other putative wild men, these were not monkeys (they actually hunted monkeys).

These wild men were regarded by the more civilized Native Americans as people who lived in the jungle, savages.

Wild Men according to the Jesuits

In the late 1700s, the Spanish Jesuit missionary, Father José Guevara (1719 - 1806) wrote about these mysterious "Caaiguás" people: "their name in Guaraní [a Native American language] means wild people... men with noses like monkeys; hunchbacked that look towards the ground... short neck and so sunken that it barely protrudes above the shoulder... They live in the jungle and chase monkeys, jumping from branch to branch and from tree to tree with admirable dextrity and litheness."[1]

That these natives also known as Caiguas or Coaiguás were human is attested by the fact that they were considered, "nomad Guaraní natives" [2] some of them were even placed in a Jesuit Mission:

The Spaniards controlled the natives by gathering them and settling them next to a mission (most missions were run by Jesuits). They worked for the mission in its fields or craft shops, and were indoctrinated and converted to Christianism.

These settlements were known as "Reducciones" (from the Spanish verb "reducir": subdue, subjugate, pacify). There were other means of dominating the natives which the Spaniards copied from the Inca rulers that they had overthrown: forced labor, a serf system and communal work (Mita, Yanacona and the Encomienda systems).

Father Francisco Vázques Trujillo in a letter to his superior in the Jesuit Company, wrote about them: "they are known as Caiguaras. They are a nation that lives in the jungles, that seem like little lambs. They are always looking towards the ground. Father Juan de Porras, who is in charge of this Reducción, with his good manners has taken them out of the jungle..." [3]

The "lamb-like" allusion is not about their appearance, but about their character (peaceful and tame). Their other physical features are quite odd: hunchbacked, sunken head (like embeded deeply in their shoulders - short necked), a gaze fixed on the ground... What can that mean?

Since they are not described as hairy and being interned in a Mission we can safely guess that they were people, odd people, but humans. Their Tarzan-like dextrity (jumping from branch to branch) is amazing indeed.

Could they be a relict tribe of hominids? (i.e. Neanderthals or H. erectus), their "primitive" appearance would have been remarkable and noticed by the Jesuits, they would have noticed that they were humans, but not exactly like us.

Just as I was posting this I came across some more information on Caaiguas, I will post this once I have read it in detail. Thanks.

Sources

[1] Guevara, J. "Historia del Paraguay, Rio de la Plata y Tucumán", Ed. Pedro de Angelis (1836)Book 1, part 1.
[2] Azara, F. (1793). "Descripción e Historia del Paraguay y del Rio de la Plata". Vol. 1
[3] de Gandia, E. (1929). Historia Crítica de los mitos de la Conquista Americana. B. Aires, J. Roldan y Cia. pp. 34

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a"> Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Southern South American Manatees

Manatees belong to one genus, Trichechus. It is made up by three species: one living along the southeastern coast of the US, the Central and South American coast along the Caribean. Another lives in the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers and a third one, on the shores of Senegal, in Western Africa.

They are big aquatic mammals measuring over 4 m (12 feet) long and weighing more than 1,000 kg (2,200 lb.). They graze the grasses and plants that grow in the river beds.

Their have adapted well to their aquatic environment: their front limbs have flattened into webbed flippers and they have a flat - single lobed dorsal tail. Their body is streamlined and they are excellent swimmers, capable of staying under water for over 15 minutes. Nevertheless, they are not capable of moving on land. [3]

A manatee, from [3]

The Amazon manatee is exclusively a fresh water creature, the others live in sat water and freshwater. All live in warm waters, from the Equator to roughly 20° from it.

Could these placid animals explain the "lake creature" sightings in Patagonia such as the "lake bulls"? Today's post will look into this question.

South American home to ancient Manatees

Manatee remains have been found in Argentina, along the banks of the Paraná River. They have been dated to the Upper Miocene (see my post on Miocene Americas)

These remains belong to the Rigodon limbatus a genus of the extant Trichechus manatees; it lived in the Upper Tertiary, and very likely belongs to the filogenetic line that leads to the modern Trichechus manatees.

The genus was first described by Florentino Ameghino in 1883 based on an upper molar found embedded in the clary cliffs along the shores of the Paraná River. He originally thought it may belong to a genus of the Tapiridae family, but after checking other molars he correctly identified them as belonging to a Sirenid -Sirenids span not only manatees but their relatives, the dugongs- in 1892 (he believed it to belong to the familiy of the Halitheridae, but we now know that they were Trichechidae.) [1]

Florentino Ameghino (1854-1911) was an anthropologist, zoologist and paleontologist. In 1886, he worked as Secretary and Sub-Director of the La Plata Museum. Between 1902 and 1911 he was Director of the Buenos Aires National Museum. Together with his brother Carlos he secured a large collection of Patagonian fossils and transformed South American geological studies.

He firmly believed humans had evolved in America and dispersed to the rest of the world from here. He also belived that extant mylodons could be found in Patagonia. He was a controversial scientist, yet many of his discoveries have proved sound.

Nowadays there are no manatees in the River Plate Basin, which comprises a large portion of southern South America spanning Brazil, Paraguay,Uruguay, Bolivia and Argentina, including the Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay Rivers.

Could they have lived there until recently? An article written in 1899 seems to confirm this idea. It was written by Florencio de Basaldúa, an Argentine government official:

"While I was on a tour of duty for the National Government in the Territory of Misiones, I heard that Left Tennant Basualdo, subdelegate at the Port of Santo Tomé, on the shores of the upper Uruguay River, on the border with Brazil, reported to the General Ports Commander the existence of a great amphibian monster, whose lair was in a deep pool, close to his post. He believed it to be a hippopotamus, which the Brazilians living along the shore called mio-cao," [Bold mine] "because they had seen it swim in the river and graze on its shores, assuring that it was not Danta, Anta or Gran Bestia, common in that area" [Great Beast, all these names refer to the Tapir]. "And was not similar to any other animal that lives in those regions... [2]

Of course, we are well aware that hippopotami only live in Africa, and we imagine Basaldúa knew that too. So when he later met Florentino Ameghino and jokingly told him about this creature. Ameghino told him not to laugh about that story,and mendioned that in the past Augusto Bravard had reported a creature, the Manatus of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, similar to the Manatee or sea cow of the Amazon.

This does not mean that Bravard actually saw one, it is more likely that he found bones or teeth. More research is needed on this point.

Basualdúa's "Mio-Cao"

Interestingly, the creature mentioned by Basaldua as a Mio-Cao is a well known South American cryptid. It is the Minhocao or "Giant Earthworm". A snake-like being measuring 50 m (150 ft.) long and 5 m (15 ft.) wide.

However, being so big and, based on the description below, it is not something that one would identify with a Manatee. Perhaps Basaldúa used the wrong name to describe it.

The Minhocao's body is covered with scales, its skin is armored. It has a pig-like snout. Being a worm it lives underground but, is also amphibious. It burrows deep, attacks animals while they are crossing rivers and turns boats over. It knocks down trees, undermines roads and is found across the southern Amazon, southern Brazil and Uruguay.

All of these features are very unlike those of the placid grass munching manatee. Surely Minhocao and manatee are not the same creature. But the grazing bulky aquatic animal mentioned by Basaldúa is quite similar to a manatee.

Manatees, some extinct species

Manatees are endangered species, hunted for their blubber and meat, and accidentally hit by water craft and hurt by propellers, they are under pressure.

In a previous post, I mentioned another sirenid, a variety of manatee (Stller's sea cow) which lived in the North Pacific Ocean, close to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and was hunted to extinction. I also conjectured about a possible "Sea Cow" in the South Pacific Coast of Chile.

There was also another manatee that lived on Saint Helena Island in the mid South Atlantic Ocean. These manatees were killed by the locals for their oil. The last sighting took place in 1810.

St. Helena is a tropical island located in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1,950 km (1,210 mi.) from Africa and 2,900 km (1,800 mi.) from South America.

However, at the island's Manatee Bay -suggestive name indeed- manatee sightings have been reported recently [4][8].

An article printed in 1873 stated that in the early 1800s they were very abundant on the island: "at the beginning of this century the Manati or Manatee Sea cow or Sea lion existed in such numbers as to furnish employment for a fishery on it" [St. Helena Island] [5].

Yet, in the next paragraph it surmises that it was most likely a seal and not a manatee. Other authors belive it was a seal too (see:Theodor Mortensen, 1933).

Seals eat fish, manatees graze on sea grass and sea weeds... St. Helena island has over 60 marine algae and one species of red algae (Predaea feldmannii) is reported to be endemic. Close to the shore, at the base of the cliffs, there " is rock with a coating of seaweed and molluscs" [9], that means that there was food for them.

So here we have a possible sea-going manatee in the mid Atlantic. Could it have also dwelled along the South Atlantic coast? There is plenty of kelp in that area, enough to support a large manatee population. The cold water would not have been a problem (Steller's sea cow dealt with it in the freezing Alaskan waters).

Manatees and hippopotamus in Chile

We have information that there were manatees in Southern Chile: they are mentioned by Father Juan Ignacio Molina, the first European naturalist to describe Chilean animals in his book “Essay On The Natural History Of Chile” (1810) [6]:

"In the Araucanian seas certain animals known as Sea Cows can sometimes be seen by its inhabitants; I could not assure if they are Lamantines or Rosmars, [walrus] or if they belong to another genus. According to the fuzzy description that they have given me, I am more inclined to believe that they belong to the species of the Trichecus Manatee. The first Spanirds who settled the large island of Juan Fernández captured a large quantity of such animals, on whose meat they joyfully fed; but the continuous killing that went on, has forced them to abandon the island's shores. [6]

Molina also mentions a variety hippopotamus in Chile, though he is cautious about it being a real creature (see my post on this): [6]

"The hippopotamus of rivers and lakes of the Araucan country, different to the African and similar in height and shape to the land horse but with palmed feet like those of seals. The existence of this animal is universally believed in, all over the country, and there are people […] who say they have seen its skin, which, they say, is covered with soft hair, of a color similar to that of tiny sea wolves."

Molina's is a very strange hippo; its soft fur makes it very different from the hair-less African variety. Also, its palmed feet differ from the hippo’s sturdy toes.

Historian José Toribio Medina mentions hippos en Chile in 1878: "I did not have the chance to see the sea horse. Based on the description of those who have seen it under water, I did not think that it was different to the African hippopotamus. Later, others who have seen it out of the sea, have told me that has the height of an ordinary horse, which it resembles in its head, tail and back, that its feet are like those of the seals, webbed." [7]

Toribio Medina's and Molina's descriptions are quite similar, but the animal they refer to is not a manatee, it is another type of beast, though what it is, will remain a mystery.

Getting back to our "sea cows", if there were sea cows on the Pacific Ocean seabord, and in St. Helena island, were there any along the Patagonian Atlantic coast?

Assuming that there were, could these creatures have swam upstream (along the Negro, Neuquén, Limay, Chubut, Senguer, Santa Cruz Rivers) towards the Patagonian Andean lakes, and originate the "Lake Bull" myths?

I am reading old sources to find refrences about sea cows in the South Atlantic Ocean. Who knows, we might find some surprises hidden in ancient texts.

Sources

[1] Rosendo Pascual, (1953). Sobre nuevos restos de Sirénidos del Mesopotamiense. Asociacion Geologica Argetina pp. 167. VIII No. 3, July 1953.
[2] Florencio de Basaldua, (1899), Monstruos Argentinos, Caras y Caretas II No. 32. May 13, 1899
[3] Trichechidae
[4] Lynas Murdoch, (2010). Four Years on St Helena. AuthorHouse, pp 82.
[5] Andrew Murray, Dec. 17, 1868. On the Geographical Relations of the Chief Colepterous Faunae. The Journal of the Linnean Society of London. vol 11, 1873 pp 16.
[6] Molina, J., (1986). Ensayo sobre la historia Natural de Chile. Santiago: Ediciones Maule. pp. 266
[7] Toribio Medina, J., (1878). Colección de historiadores de Chile y documentos.... vol 11
[8] G. C. Retching. Letters to Editor. Nature 138, 33-34 (04 July 1936), doi:10.1038/138033b0. The Manatee of St. Helena
[9] St Helena cle - JNCC. Defra.gov.uk

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Curupi, a Paraguayan wild man

In a previous post I mentioned the Curupira or Korupira, the Amazonian “wild man”. Today I will write about a Paraguayan creature with a very similar name, but different in both its meaning and its physical appearance: the Curupi

The names

The Similar sounding name of the Curupi: COO- ROO–PEE (in English) is nearly the same as that of the Corupira COO-ROO-PEE-RA . Nevertheless the names differ in their meanings.

Both names have a different geographic origin even though both come from the Guarani language. Whereas Corupira comes from Brazil and is the combination of the words: “Curu” = boy and “pira”, body, meaning therefore “with the body of a boy”, the Paraguayan Kurupi comes from the words: “Kurú” = rough, grainy and “Pira” or “Piré” = skin, bark, crust. Therefore it means “rough skin”. [1]

The name is appropriate since this creature is a horrid Indian, whose skin is as rough as that of the Kurupikay tree, a hairy and well endowed man. [1]

Its very odd appearance

The Curupira of the Amazon is a lewd red haired wild man while the Paraguayan Curupi on the other hand is dark skinned, ugly and, equipped with an extremely long penis as can be seen in the following image:

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Museo mitologico de Capiata

So, the Curupi is a veritable satyr, who carries his very long virile member wrapped around his waist. He is a lewd creature, always prowling around on the lookout for women to engage in intercourse with. It is said that he uses his masculine organ to snare his victims.[1]

As usual, there are many different descriptions for the same creature:

Argentine historian and archaeologist Ambrosetti describes him as a strong and white faced man, which some say is not too tall [3]. For Another source [2] , he is a stout reddish colored dwarf, capable of strangling the strongest man but whose body lacks joints, it is built in one piece, so he is easy to get away from: just climb a tree. He cannot climb it. Neither can he swim. He is a man eating being.

The Yasy-Yateré

Trying to explain the origin of this mythical being, Ambrosetti believes that the Curupí "is actually very similar to the Yasy-Yateré [and that] one is the other transformed”. He based the analogy on their “Dionysian” apetites (he wrote this around 1900, so we can forgive his Edwardian or Victorian euphemism). [3]

In other words, one morphed into the other. This Yasy-Yateré is another Guaraní creature, a naked blond dwarf, with a long beard, who carries a club. He appears during the early afternoon and kidnaps children which he kills or abandons after playing with them. He also kidnaps pretty women to mate with, and their offspring is another Yasy – Yateré. [3]

Yasy – Yateré and Curupi share some common features: they are both forest creatures of the Guaraní region, both are sexually aggressive and kidnap women. But one is an ugly dark hairy man and the other is cute, fair haired and dwarfish.

Coimán [4, explains the fair dwarf's name: "Yasí Teré, Yasí Yateré, Yasí Ateré (means) moon fragment”, an odd name for a being that shuns the night and, instead, stalks its victims during “siesta” time (the nap taken after lunch, when the heat is oppressive.

In my opinion the Yasy-Yatyré and the Curupi are not the same creature. Though both have an enhanced libido, they are not the same being.

Sources

[1] Eloy Fariña Nuñez, (1926). Mitos Guaraníes.

[2] Veldemiro Ayala Gauna (1944). La Selva y su Hombre.

[3] Juan Bautista Ambrosetti, (2001). Supersticiones y leyendas: región misionera, valles calchaquíes, las pampas. Emecé. Original Ed. 1917. pp.63

[4] Coimán, Narciso, (1937). Nuestros Antepasados.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2012 by Austin Whittall ©