Ocupal, La Pampa, another cryptid

 
Ocupal, is what geographer Alberto Vuletín calls a "paleo-toponym" (ancient place name). In his book on La Pampa province toponyms he mentions it as one of the names given by the natives of that region (Araucanized Tehuelches) to the Salado River.

It is interesting because its name refers to a strange animal.

The River

As there are many Salado Rivers in Argentina, I will specify which one by means of the following map showing the Colorado (in orange) and Desaguadero - Salado - Curacó(in yellow) river drainage basins: [2]

Basins of the Colorado and Desaguadero - Salado - Curacó rivers.
Adapted by Austin Whittall from [2]

The river, which changes its name along its course is nearly 1,500 km long (932 mi.), and has its northernmost sources in the province of La Rioja high in the Andes at 5,500 m altitude (18,000 ft.). It flows in a North-South direction parallel to the Andean Cordillera and receives the flow of many rivers which also have their sources in the Andean glaciers such as the Jáchal, Vinchinas, Atuel, Tunuyán and Diamante. Many of these rivers are now used to irrigate the vineyards at the foot of the Andes in the Cuyo region provinces of La Rioja,Mendoza and San Juan.

This has led to a dramatic drop in the flow of the Desaguadero River. Its wetlands (such as Guanacache and Bañados del Atuel have dried up due to this cause). It has also led to friction between the province of La Pampa (downstream) and the provinces of Cuyo region (upstream) about water usage rights.

So, until the early 1900s, the river carried plenty of water and the western region of La Pampa was more humid than it is nowadays.

It is known as Desaguadero along the border between the provinces of San Luis and Mendoza, but after receiving the inflow from the Atuel River in the province of La Pampa (36°16'S) it is known as Salado ("Salty" due to its brackish water) or by the Mapuche language words Chadileuvú or Chadileo which mean the same thing (salty river).

It drains into the salt water lakes of Urre Lauquen and La Salada, and then, changes its name to Curacó (stone water) and continues southward until it flows into the Colorado River at (38°50'S, 64°58′W).

Its basin covers a surface area of 260,000 km² (one hundred thousand sq. mi.).

The Animal

According to Vuletín [1]:

Its meaning [Ocupal] has been sought but nobody has found anything concrete about it, though it may seem to refer in a vague manner to some animal that existed in the area and that nowadays has disappeared [1]

He wonders if it could be the Aguará or maned wolf, or, "the name of the animal of a "horrid howl", mentioned by the native Mariqueo"[1] in the early 1800s.

He states that it is also spelt as: Osocopal, Osopal and locates the place in the Limay Mahuida Department, Lot 19, Fraction A, Section XIX. Which is roughly located at 37°07'S, 67°03'W. At the southern tip of Vutaló Creek and to the east of El Potrol Stream, west of the Chadileuvú River and north of the Limay Mahuida hills.

Regarding Potrol, Luis de la Cruz, who trekked through the area from Antuco Chile to Buenos Aires Argentina in 1806 (when it was still a wild country in the hands of the natives), said that at a lake there lived the ñirrivilu snake-fox. His guide "the Indian Pulemanque told him that the Salado used to be known as Ocupal and that it ran in the Potrol's bed" [1].

Oop, ocupal, the same beast

The monster of a "horrid howl" is mentioned by de La Cruz, as an "Oop" and it was named after its high-pitched yell (follow the link above Aguar&aacutr; for more details on Oop).

What is the relationshp between Oop and the faintly similar word "Ocupal". A lot! Actually the suffix "al" at the end of Ocupal turns what precedes it into a collective noun, thus "Ocupal" is the collective of "Ocupa", which is very similar to "Oop".

Ocupal would mean "pack of Oop" or "many Oop".

The other ways of spelling it, Osocopal, Osopal seem to imply that the beast was known as Osocop or Osop, both of which are similar to "Oop".

I want to point out that the word "oso" in Spanish means bear, but there are no bears in this part of South America (at least nowadays; see my post on Bears in Patagonia).

Sources.

[1] Alberto Vuletín, (1972). La Pampa, Grafías y etimologías toponímicas aborígenes. B. Aires, Eudeba. pp. 148 and 106.
[2] Image by Knusser; Own work using Digital Chart of the World and GTOPO data. It is licensed under a Generic Creative Commons Attribute / Share-alike 3.0

I adapted the image by adding some place names. It is licensed under the same terms.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2011 International Year of Forests Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall © 

Maned Wolf (Aguará Guazú) in Patagonia

 

Maned Wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus ). From the Internet

In previous posts on the Falkland Island wolf, possible Patagonian wolves and the Water Tiger I mentioned the Maned Wolf or Aguará Guazú, whose image is shown above. Today I will give some more details on this stange canid, related of course to cryptozoology in Patagonia.

Current status of the Aguará Guazú

The animal which is South America's largest Canid, was once widely distributed in the continent from the north of Brazil to Uruguay, including Paraguay, Bolivia and Central Argentina. Nowadays it is restricted to central and eastern Brazil, north of Argentina, central Paraguay, and is only found in very small numbers in Bolivia and Uruguay.

It is about 1 meter (3.3 ft.) tall and 1,30 m long (4.2 ft.). It has a reddish coat and a fox-like appearance (like a long-legged red fox). These long legs may have originated as the animal adapted to an environment with tall grasses, as can be found in the wetlands of Southern South America.

It has a sharp dark snout and a mane (hence its name) of black hairs from its head to its shoulders. The mane stands upright when the animal is alarmed. Its red color is interrupted by white areas on the tip of its tail, the inside of its upright ears and its throat. It is omnivorous and eats fruits as well as small animals.

Endangered, it is protected in Argentina and Brazil (where road kills are the most common cause of death). Its environment being encroached by man, is also a threat to its long term survival. Some 24,000 animals survive in the wild and it is listed on CITES "Red List" as Near Threatened.

Did they live in Patagonia?

There has been some debate about this and a lot of inconclusive evidence. Lets go over it:

1. Musters (1870). This English explorer rode from Punta Arenas by the Strait of Magellan all the way to Carmen de Patagones, on the Negro River, with a group of Tehuelche natives (his journal is a very interesting account of their way of life). I marked his itinerary with a blue line and with the number "1" in the map below.

Musters had been told about the "water tiger" and trying to find some animal that could account for it, after discarding the puma and the jaguar, he also discarded the aguará guazú, because, having seen a hide of one of them in Carmen de Patagones at the end of his journey, he was told by the natives that its habitat did not extend into Patagonia.[5]

2. De la Cruz (1806). Who crossed Patagonia in from Concepción in Chile, to Buenos Aires in Argentina. His route is shown in the map "2" with a blue line. He recorded that in Neuquén the native Peguenches [sic] told him that “there are other animals they call oop, whose body is shaped like a dog, which it resembles with its head, snout, legs and tail and with the ears of a cow; they state that the wool that covers it is like that of a sheep, a span or more in length, very soft and of a bright yellow color”.[6] It was named after its high-pitched yell.

Map showing current and past distribution of the Maned Wolf in Argentina. Adapted from [4]

As the photograph above shows, "oop" and maned wolf are both dog-like. However its ears are not cow like (click to see cow ears image). Its mane is long and it has a dense fur, but these are not "a span or more" in length (9 in. or 22 cm).

3. The Natives. Apparently the “Northern Tehuelche” had a specific word to name the aguará guazú. This word was “huica. [1]

I found a reference that states that the “Araucano” (apparently Mapuche or Araucanized Tehuelches - Puelches) called it “guequen” [2].

However, Ernest Moesbach who included the word in his dictionary, does not indicate that it was the name of the maned wolf, he placed it under the following entry:

Guaquén (Huaquén) Guaqui: huaquen
huaqueñ: meter mucha gritería, haber ruido continuo; ladrar del zorro. [3]

Which, translated from Spanish, means: "shout a lot, a continuous noise; the bark of a fox".

Comments.

Moesbach's dictionary seems to imply that the "quequen" was not a maned wolf, but a variety of fox.

There is strong evidence of the animal having lived close to Patagonia's northern reaches in some wetlands (now dissecated) in Mendoza, La Pampa and San Luis provinces along the now intermitent (due to water usage upstream for irrigation) Chadileuvú - Salado - Curacó river system. Also it had been reported in Buenos Aires province in the XVIII^th century. But there is no fossil or physical evidence that the animal ever lived in Patagonia or in Chile.

Though there is a "Northern Tehuelche" word for it, there is no equivalente Aonikenk word, meaning it was not found south of Río Negro. Furthermore, these "Northern Tehuelche" had expanded outside of Patagonia into the Pampas where, as mentioned above, there were aguaras. The Mapuche word as used in Argentina may have also come from this source as there was a great cultural flow between Tehuelche and Mapuche in this region the former adopting the Mapuche language and the latter embracing many Tehuelche beliefs.

There was probably some other canids in the area, the above mentioned "Andean Wolf" or perhaps some distant relative of the "Falkland Islands Wolf - Fox", but in my opinion, there were no Maned Wolves in Patagonia.

Bibliography.

[1] Friedrich Hunziker, Félix Faustino Outes, (1928). Vocabulario y franseario genakenn (puelche). Coni. pp. 280.
[2] José M. Suárez García, (1940) Historia del partido de Lobería. Talleres Graf. San Pablo. vol 1.
[3] Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach, (1944). Voz de Arauco: explicación de los nombres indígenas de Chile. pp. 98
[4] Sistema de Información sobre Biodiversidad
[5] Musters, G., (2007). Vida entre los Patagones: un año de excursiones desde el estrecho de Magallanes hasta el río Negro: 1869-1870. B. Aires: Continente-Pax. pp. 104 and ff.
[6] De la Cruz, L. (1835). Descripción de la naturaleza de los terrenos que se comprenden en los Andes, poseídos por los peguenche... B. Aires: Imprenta del Estado. pp. 25-26.

Further reading: Canids.org.

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©