Tupac Inca Yupanqui's voyage to the Polynesian Islands

This series of posts has been exploring the possible trans-Pacific contacts between Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia, and South America. Until now we have looked at a West to East navigation of Polynesian or Melanesian people, in this post we will learn about the East to West route, and in particular, an expedition sent into the Pacific Ocean by the Inca ruler Tupac Yupanqui around 1470 AD.

There are several sources about this Inca voyage, and we will mention them below, but first, let's learn more about this "Inca" or "Inga" ("Ynga") as the Spaniards of the 16th century called him.

Tupac Inca Yupanqui

The Inca (King, or Emperor of the Inca Empire) Tupac Inca Yupanqui (c.1441-1493) - also Topa Inga Yupanqui and Tupa Ynga Yupanqui, was the tenth Inca to rule the empire, son of Pachacúc (also known as Pachacuti Ynga Yupanqui, or Yngayupanqui - see Murúa Chap. XVII). Although he wasn't the firstborn, his military abilities led his father to name him his successor. He ascended to the throne in 1471 and was succeeded by his son Huayna Capac.

During his reign he expanded the empire south into what is now Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern & Central Chile, subduing the Mapuche and setting the southern border of his empire along the Maule River in Chile (see my custom Google map). He also set out to explore the Pacific Ocean.

Tupac Inca Yupanqui. Guaman Poma (1615)

Father Acosta - 1590

José de Acosta in his Historia natural y moral de las Indias (1590) was the first to suggest a trans-Pacific contact and its influence in America and its peopling:

"There is a great account in Peru of giants who came to those parts, whose bones of immense size are found today near Manta and Puerto Viejo... They say that those giants came by sea, waged war against the inhabitants of the land, and built magnificent structures... Those men... were consumed by fire that came from the sky. The Indians of Ica and Arica also tell that they used to sail to islands far to the west, and they sailed in inflated sea lion hides. So there is no lack of evidence that the South Sea was navigated before the Spanish came. Thus, we might think that the new world was inhabited by men whom the harshness of time and the force of the North Winds drove there."

See the location of Ica and Arica in my custom map, these inflated boats are far too primitive to have crossed the ocean to Polynesia, they were used by the Chango-Chinchorro people. Manta and Puerto Viejo, in Ecuador (see my map) are sites mentioned in other chronicles as places visited by traders who came from the west, navigating the Pacific Ocean. Here, Acosta depicts them as bellicose giants.

Sarmiento de Gamboa and the Voyage across the Pacific

The first source is a History of the Incas written by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (c. 1530-1592). Sarmiento de Gamboa was a Spanish explorer, navigator, historian, and cosmographer, who arrived in Mexico (Nueva España) in 1555. Two years later (1557) he moved to Peru where he had a close encounter with the Inquisition. Later he joined the expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña that in 1567 set out to explore the South Pacific Ocean in an attempt to find the Terra Australis Incognita. They discovered the Solomon Islands in 1568. The viceroy of Peru commissioned him to write a history of the Incas in 1572 (which we quote further down). In 1578, he tried to capture English privateer, Francis Drake, and ended up exploring the coast of Chile and Southwestern Patagonia all the way to the Strait of Magellan (1579). He continued onwards, to Spain, persuaded the King, Philip II to settle and fortify the Strait and returned to Patagonia in 1581, with men, women, tools, and limited supplies. He established two towns on the Strait, but after he left them, the supply ships never arrived, and the settlers died of hunger and exposure. When Thomas Cavendish sailed by them in 1587, he rescued a sole survivor and renamed the place "Port Famine" (close to what is now Punta Arenas in Chile). During his return to Europe (1584) he was captured by the British, and then by the French. Released in 1588, he returned to Spain where he was named Admiral of the Indies Fleet. He died at sea and was buried in Lisbon, Portugal.

I have quoted his journal on the navigation of Patagonia in my book and in this blog as it is very detailed and includes references about the natives and the fauna. Below I quote Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Historia de los Incas (p.68).

"And while Tupac Inca Yupanqui was conquering the coast of Manta and the islands of Puna and Tumbes, some merchants arrived there who had come by sea from the west on rafts [balsas
sailing by sail. They told him about the land from which they came, which were islands called Avachumpi and Niñachumpi, where there were many people and much gold. And since Tupac Inca was of high spirits and high ideals, and was not content with what he had conquered on land, he resolved to try his luck at sea. But he did not readily trust the seafaring merchants, for he said that the Capac¹ should not trust so easily at first sight, because those were people who talk a lot. And to gather more information, and since it was not usual to be able to inquire about this just anywhere, he summoned a man he had brought with him on his conquests, named Antarqui, whom all these people affirmed was a great necromancer, so much so that he could fly through the air. Tupac Inca asked him if what the seafaring merchants said about the islands was true. Antarqui replied, after careful consideration, that what they said was true, and that he would go there first. And so it is said that he went by his own means, and explored the path and saw the islands, their people, and their riches, and upon returning, he gave Tupac Inca confirmation.
With this certainty, he resolved to go there. And for this purpose, he built a great many rafts, on which he embarked more than twenty thousand chosen soldiers. And he took with him as captains Huaman Achachi, Cunti Yupanqui, Quihual Tupac (these were Hanan-cuzcos) and Yancan Mayta, Quisu Mayta, Cachimapaca Macus Yupanqui, Llimpita Usca Mayta (Hurin-cuzcos); and he took his brother Tuca Yupanqui as general of the entire fleet, and left Apu Yupanqui with those who remained on land.
Tupac Inca sailed and discovered the islands of Avachumpi and Niñachumpi, and returned from there, bringing back black people, much gold, and a brass chair, and a horse hide and jawbone. These trophies were kept in the fortress of Cuzco until the time of the Spaniards. This horse hide and jawbone were kept by a principal Inca, who is still alive and gave this account. When the others corroborated it, he was present and is called Urco Huaranca. I emphasize this because those who know something about the Indies will find it a strange and difficult-to-believe case. Tupac Inca Yupanqui took more than nine months on this journey, others say a year, and because he took so long, everyone thought he was dead, but to disguise and pretend that they had news of Tupac Inca, Apu Yupanqui, his captain of the people of the land, made celebrations; although later they were interpreted in reverse, saying that those celebrations were of pleasure, because Tupac Inca Yupanqui did not appear; and it cost him his life.
These are the islands that I, in the year sixty-seven, on the thirtieth of November, discovered in the South Sea, two hundred and some leagues west of Lima, on my way to the great discovery of which I reported to the governor and licentiate Castro. And Alvaro de Mendaña, general of the navy, refused to take them.
After Tupac Inca disembarked from the discovery of the islands, he went to Tumipampa to visit his wife and son and prepared to go to Cuzco to see his father, who he was told was ill... "

1. Capac originally meant "rich", but later it was used to denote the lord, prince, high, the rich monarch of the Inca people.

Analysis and comments

Manta, and the Islands of Puna and Tumbes, and Cusco can be seen in our custom Google Map, in northern Peru and western Ecuador.

Sarmiento de Gamboa heard the account firsthand, from a person named Urco Huaranca who appears to havet taken part of the expedition. The trophies had been stored in the Inca Temple in their capital city, Cusco, and had also been seen by the witnesses. However, the Spaniards, with Christian zeal, razed the temple, looted the precious metals and burnt the relics.

This voyage took place before the death of Pachacutec (1471), possibly in 1468-70 so Urco Huaranca must have been extremely old to have sailed with Tupac Inca Yupanqui. It is likely that Sarmiento de Gamboa interviewed Urco Huaranca in 1557, and that Huaranca was young, probably a shield bearer when he sailed, meaning that he was born around 1458 so he'd have been 99 years old in 1557.

I also wonder if this story, and the chance to find gold and silver inspired the South Seas voyage conducted by de Mendaña in which Sarmiento de Gamboa took part, as a captain. They must have imagined that the islands were closer to Peru than they really were.

The Version of Miguel Cabello de Valboa

There is a second version of the oceanic voyage by Miguel Cabello de Valboa (or Balboa) see p. 322, Chapter XVII in Miscelánea Antártica, written between 1576 and 1586, and published in the 20th century. de Valboa (1535-1608) was a Spanish clergyman and writer, great nephew of Vasc Nuñez de Balboa, the man who discovered the Pacific Ocean. His sources differed frmo those used by Sarmiento de Gamboa, yet both stories are very similar. Below is an image with the pertinent text, and further down, its translation into English.

The text shown above, can be seen below, translated into English:

"...and he settled in Manta, and in Charapoto, and in Piquaza… it was where King Topa Inca first saw the Sea, which, upon discovering it from a high place, he worshipped in a very profound way, and called it Mammacocha, which means mother of the lagoons, and he had prepared a great number of the boats that the natives used (which are certain remarkably light poles) and by tying them tightly together, and making on top a certain platform of reeds, woven, it is a very safe and comfortable boat: These we have called rafts [balsas], for having gathered a sufficient number for the people he intended to take with him, and having taken from the natives of those coasts the most experienced pilots he could find, he set sail with the same vigor and spirit as if he had experienced its fortunes and trades since birth. On this voyage he traveled farther than one might easily believe; those who recount the deeds of this valiant Inca affirm with certainty that he remained at sea for a period of a year, and they say that he discovered certain islands which they called Hagua Chumbi and Nina Chubi; whether these islands are in the South Sea (on whose coast the Inca embarked) I will not dare to state definitively, nor what land might be presumed to have been found on this voyage. The accounts that the ancients give us of this voyage are that he brought back from there black Indian captives, and much gold and silver, and also a brass chair, and hides of animals such as horses, and from where such things can be brought, it is completely unknown in this Peru and in the sea that extends from it..."

The Inca grandchildren's account

A third reference is the testimony of Tupac's grandchildren in written in 1569 and published by Rowe in 1985 (La Probanza de los Incas nietos de conquistadores), who as proof of their relationship with the Inca mention his conquests and confirm he discovered "aba chumbi, nina chumbi, province that is towards the sea." Since this predates the other chronicles, it is surely based on historic facts, and different sources too!

Murúa's Account

The fourth source was written by friar Martín de Murúa (1525-c.1617) in his Historia General del Peru that he concluded in 1612, (see Chap. XXI) where he mentions a successful military campaign undertaken by Tupa Inga. He was sent by his father (Murúa names him as Inca Yupanqui) while he was still a prince. This is his account:

" Inca Yupanqui ordered his son and heir, who was to succeed him as ruler, named Tupa Inca Yupanqui, to go to war with a very large army, and so he dispatched him...
Tupa Inca Yupanqui and his brothers left Cuzco with a large army from different nations, and began their conquest in the province of the Quechua... and in the province of the Angares... in the province of Jauja... the province of Huailas... and in the Chachapoyas... and then the province of the Cañares... Continuing his conquest, Tupa Inca Yupanqui arrived at the very powerful province of Quito, where there were great skirmishes and battles with its people, but in the end he defeated and subdued them... From there he went down to the Huancas Vilcas, where he built the fortress of Huachalla, and from there he began the conquest of the Huancas Vilcas, and although difficult, through the multitude of his people and the courage and industry of his captains he subdued them, and their principal leaders, Huacapi Huamo and Manta Yucara and Quisiri to Huachumpi and Nina Chumpi"

The last words of this quote mention the "Polynesian" islands recorded by Sarmiento de Gamboa, Cabello de Valboa, and the Inca grandchildren, with a different spelling, but same sounds: "Huachumpi and NinaChumpi" as the last territories to be subdued after the defeat of the local chiefs in Huancavila. But it says nothing about an oceanic voyage.

Joan de Santa Cruz

The final reference is a historic chronicle by Joan de Santa Cruz, whose Inca name was Pachacutec Yamqui Salcamaygua, written in 1613. He was a christianized native, from a noble Inca family; his paternal family name was originally Condorcanqui. He wrote a history of Peru, and regarding our Inca voyager, there is an interesting text published in Tres Relaciones Peruanas (1879) p. 274.

Joan de Santa Cruz, in a similar way to Sarmiento de Gamboa and de Valboa, he writes about the 8th Inca, "Pachacutiyngayupangui" and mentions his military expedition, naming places jist like Murúa did but in this case the Inca is not Tupac, but his father, who "finally, at the Ancoallos enters the mountains deep inside, taking their idol, and from there the said Pachacutiyngayupangui returns with a great sum and abundant gold and silver and umiña [emeralds]. And coming thus, he arrives at an island of the Yungas where there were mothers of pearls, called churoy-mamam; and he finds much more umiña. And from there he went to the town of the province of Chimo, where he found Chimocapac and Quirutome, curaca of that province of the Yungas."

The "Yungas" was a word used by the Incas to name lowlanders, people who lived on the coast, or in the hollows of valleys (Source), the highlanders were "Serranos". The yungas in this case is the land between Trujillo (Chimu) and Tumbes, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The same Inca conducted another campaign towards the South (Arequipa), "and he entered Cuzco and celebrated, and then they say that he brought into Cuzco a great sum of silver and gold and a whale."

So, in this narrative, we have the Inca, his expedition, but the inca isn't Tupac Yupanqui, instead, it is his father Pachacutui. Who reaches the Yungas with gold, silver and mother pearl, and on a second campaign has a triumph when he returns to Cusco with gold, silver, and the bones or remains of a whale (the horse in the chronicles of Gamboa and Valboa!).

The Polynesian Merchants and Giants

The merchants mentioned in Sarmiento's history are also described in an ancient myth of the Yungas people. Pedro Gutiérrez de Santa Clara (c.1522-1603), was born in Mexico, a creole with a Native American mother; he reached Peru in 1543 and wrote about the Civil War raging there between Pizarro and his associate Almagro over the spoils of the Inca empire. Finally settled in 1554 when the Spanish Crown created the viceroyalty of Peru. In his work Historia de las Guerras Civiles del Perú (Vol. III, Chap. LXI, p. 527) he describes balsa rafts, and the myth of their origin:

"The Indians of the towns of Paita and Puerto Viejo de Tumbes, and of the island of Apuna Puná, and those of the entire coast, have used, since time immemorial and still use today, rafts made of light, dry wood and reeds with triangulated lateen sails and a rudder at the stern. When they want to fish, they board them and go out to sea more than four leagues with the sails set. When the land breeze comes, they catch a fish, pluck out its eyes, and eat it without any disgust...
And after midday, when the tide came in, they returned to land with their sails set and their rafts laden with many kinds of fish. They say further that this way of sailing was learned from their ancestors, and that they, in turn, learned it from a man who had come by sea and arrived there on a raft with sails like the ones they use now. And that this man was called Viracocha, which means sea foam or sea butter, and that the sea begot him and that he had neither father nor mother, and since later the Spaniards arrived in these lands in ships, they are called Viracocha to this day. And that this same man spent a long time among their ancestors, teaching them good doctrine and law, and that afterwards they did not know where he had gone, and that he was a good man, and that he spoke like them; it is understood by the Spaniards that he must have been some disciple of the disciples of the Lord, who passed through here preaching to them."

Viracocha, is similar to the man-god Quetzalcoatl of the natives living in Central America and Amalivaca, of the Orinoco indians. He came from the sea, civilized the natives, and then vanished returning to the sea.

Amerindian Balsa rafts were formidable vessels, the story above says they navigated over 4 leagues into the into the Pacific (22 km or 14 mi.). Below is an engraving (See it online), from 1742, showing a balsa in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

de Santa Clara (see p. 566) also mentions the story of the "giants" who arrived in boats from the West, but gives more details than father Acosta gave:

"The very ancient and old Indians who lived in Puerto Viejo, which are those of the province of Manta, said that in ancient times, when Topa Inca Yupanqui reigned, that while that land was at peace, it was all thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a great number of giant Indians, who were of unusual height and size. And that these came in very large boats or rafts, made of reeds and dry wood, which bore triangulated lateen sails, coming from the direction where the sun sets and from the Moluccas Islands, or the Strait of Magellan, and that these, entering the land, began to tyrannize it, conquering some lands and killing many Indians, and driving others out of their villages. The natives of Puerto Viejo, when they saw these aliens arrive with such great fury and pride, and how they treated them so badly, and how they could not defend themselves against them, were filled with great fear, for which reason they immediately sent word by post to Topa Inca Yupanqui, who at that time was in the city of Cuzco..."

The Inca sent his warlords to tell the giants to submit or they would all be killed, they spoke by signs, and the giants surrendered and told their story:

"These giants told the natives of this land how they had come from some very large islands and lands in the southern sea towards the west, and that they had been cast out of them by a great Indian lord who lived there, who was as large and of stature as they were. And furthermore, that they had sailed the sea for many days by oar and sail, and that a certain squall or storm had cast them into those parts, without knowing where they were going but that fortune would take them wherever it wished, and that they were better off being subjected in foreign lands than free in their own, with continuous wars as they had had there, and so they said other things. The weapons with which these people fought were very large stones, which they threw with their hands, and each stone killed an Indian if it hit him, and with knotted sticks and clubs that they made after they arrived on land, because they did not bring any weapons, because their enemies took them from them by defeat... These gave great news of the many islands they had seen in this South Sea..."

Then they were given land to settle at punta de Tangarata, later named Santa Elena by the Spaniards, it lacked water so the idea was that they die of thirst or leave, but they found water and stayed there. Lacking women, they released their natural instincts by becoming sodomites and God punished them with a ball of fire. Some managed to survive.

Polynesian Rafts

Did the Polynesians have rafts similar to those used by the South American natives? Yes, they did. We have mentioned their sewn-plank canoes and outriggers, but they also used rafts. Frederick William Christian mentions them (Source, see p.200): "The Pahi or raft-boat, which somewhat resembled the Balsa of ancient Peru, and the catamarans of the Chatham Islands, also called Pahi by the natives, the construction of which allows the water to wash through the body of the vessel..." Below is an image of a raft seen in the Mangareva Islands (See Captain F.W. Beechey's voyages in the mid 1820s, and his book, which includes this image); see Mangareva in my custom map. Compared to the South American raft it looks rather primitive, but it shows that large rafts were built in Eastern Polynesia.

F. W. Christian (1932) also noted that these rafts may have had a Peruvian influence: "the well-attested fact of the use by the Mangarevans of a large raft-canoe of non-Polynesian model, is just as decisive evidence in its way, of an alien culture - contact as that of the presence of the outrigger - canoe in Chiloe Island." Evidently Christian favored a two-way trans-Pacific interaction between Polynesia and South America.

Trade between South America and Eastern Polynesia would account for cultural exchange such as the Mapuche chickens, the use of ceremonial adzes, and the dispersal of sweet potato from South America to Polynesia and Melanesia (see this paper about the sweet potato).

The Inca people usd knots tied on strings as a mnemonic technique, they were called Quipu, an identical method was used in Polynesia, and it was found in Hawaii (source) and also in the Marquesas as a memory aid where it was known as too mata (source p.117).

Mythical Tupa in Mangareva and Rafts

Several sources mention a paper by F. W. Christian, published in 1924 (Early Maori Migrations as Evidenced by Physical Geography and Language. Report of the 16th Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science. Wellington, NZ. p.525) which says that a Mangarevan natives' myth mentions "a chief called Tupa, a red man,... came from the east with a fleet of canoes of non-Polynesian model, more like rafts." Another local account recorded by Peter H. Buck, Peter, 1938 (Ethnology of Mangareva. Bulletin of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Vol. 157. Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. p.22), is the following: "An important visitor to Mangareva was Tupa... [he] had a brother, Noe, by a different mother. The two brothers landed at an island named Te Rohau. Tupa killed Noe during a quarrel over who should have Mangareva... the body of Noe was placed on a raft (take take)... Tupa... came to Temoe and built a marae [marae = "temple", "altar"], but finding no food, he sailed on... Tupa sailed to Mangareva through the southeast passage subsequently named Te Ava-nui-o-Tupa (Great Channel of Tupa)... Tupa had many gods and it was he who tahught the people about them. Before he returned to Hiva [Hiva = "distant lands"], he told the Mangarevans about a vast land named Havaiki and Takere-no-te-henua which contained a large population ruled by powerful kings."

This visit took place during the 14th Century (this wold place him in Mangareva 100 years earlier than Tupac Inca's voyage). Interestingly, on page 288, Buck mentions that only the Mangarevans did the rafts take the place of canoes, and gives a detailed desceription of their features (p. 281).

The Opinion of Experts

I read Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) when I was a child, and its black and white pictures of the balsa wood raft crossing the Pacific were fascinating! Heyerdahl was the first to test the feasibility of his theory, in 1947, by crossing the Pacific ocean from Peru to the Raroia (Tuamotu) using the wind and oceanic currents. He wrote several books and in one of them, Seafaring in Early Peru (1996), written book in both English and Spanish, he looked into rafts, and also mentioned the Tupa myth in Polynesia, and suggested that Mangareva in the Marquesas was the spot viisited by Tupac Inca.

José Antonio Salas García in his thorough and excellent work Travesías Ultramarinas de Tupac Yupanqui (Tupac Yupanqui's Overseas Voyage), Ernst & Young, 2024, suggests that the Inca Tupac used the Polynesian merchants as pilots, and was driven by the oceanic current across the Pacific, and used the counter-current to return. That the balsa wood had been impregnated (palm oil, wax) using a technique known to the Ecuadorian natives, to keep them from becoming waterlogged. That he reached the Marquesas Islands (Mangareva), on their return trip the went by Rapa Nui. The gold and silver were taken by his Generals during military campaigns against the Chimu, the mother pearl could be Polynesian or Ecuadorian, and the hide and bones were either of a whale or a seal. Finally, the "black" people were captives, who were called "yana" in Quechua language, which means "servant" or "slave", and later after the Spanish conquest, it was applied to African slaves, hence its other meaning, "black".

Clements R. Markham (Historia del Peru, 1895, p.34) mentions the navigation and suggests that the islands Tupac visited were the Galapagos: "Yupanqui advanced from Quito to Manta, following the coast north of Guayaquil, and according to Bilbao [sic], he gathered a large number of rafts with which he undertook new conquests. He reached the islands of Nina Chumpi and Hahua Chumpi, which mean Island of Fire and Outer Island. If this curious tradition can be believed, it is likely that these are the Galapagos Islands." Markham had already suggested this in his Discovery of the Galapagos, published in The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, Vol 14, No. 5, May 1892 p, 314 identifying them and using the meaning of their Quichua names: "... and discovered two islands which he named Nina chumpi and Hahua chumpi Chumpi means a girdle or encircled space in Quichua hence an island Nina means fire and Hahua outside The Fire Island and the Outer Island Albemarle and Narborough Islands it is supposed With regard to Nina chumpi there is later evidence of the activity of Galapagos volcanoes In 1546 smoke was seen issuing from a crater Darwin saw a small jet of smoke issuing from the summit of one of the craters in 1836."

The Galapagos have a volcano, several islands, but no gold, silver, or inhabitants (see this paper that states they were uninhabited until their discovery by the Spaniards in 1535).

José Antonio del Busto in his work "Tupac Yupanqui" offers two different alternative explanations. The first is that the balsa fleet sailed to the Galapagos Islands. The "bronze" chair could have come from Colombia, where the locals used an alloy that the Spaniards called "tumbaga" that blended gold and copper (and sometimes silver), it was unknown in Peru. The horse head could have been a seal head, a rare thing for a highlander Inca ruler to have seen before, and the black people could have been the dark people seen by Balboa in the Gulf of San Miguel, the Carecuá people (see my post on the "black Indians" that Balboa encountered there). The second is that they reached Polynesia where they captured some Melanesians, the bones and hide belonged to pigs, and the gold, and the bronze chair, absent in Polynesia (no metals there), was obtained on the Colombian coast, when the returned.

Final Comment

This post closes the series on Trans-Pacific contact in Prehistoric America and Polynesia. The index to all of these posts will be posted tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

---

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Ukumar and bears or Homo erectus?

I have already written about the "Yeti" in the southern parts of South America , (Jan 18, 2011), but I will go over this subject again since several cryptozoology blogs and books [2] mention hairy ape-like men in the High Andes and some cite an event reported in the Puna region in Salta, Argentina, in 1956, at the small village of Tolar Grande (try googling "tolar grande 1956 sighting" and see the results).

Yeti and the media

The context is always important when you look at repeated reports of similar phenomena in a given period of time (for instance witches in the middle ages, UFOs in the 1950s and 60s).

The Yeti burst into the public eye and mind in the early 1950s: footprints were reported by Eric Shipton in 1951, and the team that were the first to conquer the summit of Mount Everst, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay also reported them on the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. [1]. Later, in 1954 an expedition was sent to find one alive, funded by the English newspaper, the Daily Mail.

So it is not surprising that the Yeti was something that would crop up when strange hairy mountain beings were reported in the fifties. Also, the early 1950s was a period when UFOs began gaining public attention and newspapers published sightings weekly.

Cerro Macón

Cerro Macón (5.611 m - 18,396 ft.) also known as Icomán is a mountain located in the Province of Salta in northwestern Argentina (24° 27' S, 67° 15'W) it is part of the Cumbres del Macón Range of the Andes Mountains.

It is located in between the enormous salt flats of Pocitos and Arizaro and juts out above the surrounding extremely high Puna plateau which in this area is about 4,100 m high (13,440 ft.); it is an ancient sacred site for the local native Americans.

On its summit, there is a mound of stones 1.4 m (roughly 5 ft.) high, where the local natives leave their offerings (coca leaves, cigarettes) as well as two rectangular platforms 0.8 m (nearly 3 ft.) above ground level, these were evidently built during the period of Inca domination in the late fifteenth Century AD.[3]

The following map shows the location of Cerro Macón in the Puna, Salta province, Argentina. The village of Tolar Grande is at the tip of Route "27" and is set at 3.528 m (11,567 ft.) above sea level. It has only 148 inhabitants and was built in a lonely spot next to the railway station of the Salta - Antofagasta railroad.

Ver mapa más grande

The events of the mid 1950s

Below is a summary of what happened in the mid 1950s, I have found an interesting website [4] which has posted the actual cuttings from a local newspaper. I have translated the relevant parts.

• July 17, 1956. The "El Tribuno" daily, of Salta city, reported that people had seen, close to Macón Mountain, "enormous human foot prints that are bigger than the size of those of elephants", it added that cigar shaped aircraft had been seen in the Puna skies as well as a "mysterious crash reported on the slopes of Cerro Macón, of which nothing else has been heard about to date". In other words, a Roswell accident in the Puna!
• July 18, 1956. Same newspaper. An engineer by the name of "Audio Level Pitch" (odd indeed, sounds like an electronic device) saw "tracks going towards the imposing summit of the mountain, which are of a formidable size and that by logic deduction cannot belong to a human being or the animals of the region [...] the tracks are very similar to those of the "abominable snow man". The 50's context: Yetis and UFOs in one story. A newspaper seller!
• July 19, 1956, Same source. The witness' name changed to "Claudio Level Spitch" . The tracks were spotted in the "cold sand and snow" , and are similar to those of the Yeti, but, must be of extraterrestrial origin since there was a "crash on the slopes of the Macón Mountain"
• July 27, 1956. El Tribuno. A man named Ciriaco Taritolay, an animal driver from the Escoipe Canyon area (south of El Tolar Grande, and an access to the southern part of the Puna. Map of this area), saw at the entrance of the "Agua Chulla" Canyon, a "supernatural being", the man "remembered the descriptions he had read in EL TRIBUNO about the Yeti Man and thought that it may be Snow Man" , bearing this in mind he chased the creature with his shot gun but it quickly got lost in the hills. He described it as follows: "Tall, sturdy, its body covered with hair resembling frost, its feet 45 to 50 cm (18 - 20 in.), and very agile".

Comments on these incidents

The odd name of the source, Audio Level Pitch, loudly says "hoax". So I belive it was made up by some bored reporter at the El Tribuno. UFOs and Yeti were hot eye-catchers at the time, so it would have tempted someone to write about them.

The final article though it actually confirms that the eye witness read about the Yeti in the EL TRIBUNO!, points towards another local mythical being a hairy ape man, or, more correctly, the "bear-man".

The Ucumar

I will skip all the more recent authors who cite this book which I will mention below, and all the websites that copy and paste. I will go directly to the source, a treatise on Argentine popular myths written by Dr. Berta Elena Vidal de Battini, an anthropologist and sociologist who gathered local lore from direct sources all across the country, in the 1950s, tales, myths and popular stories which she published in her ten volume work "Cuentos y leyendas populares de la Argentina" (see sources below where you can read the digital book). [5]

Dr. Vidal de Battini specifically mentions the Ucumar in the stories she compiled (#2304 to #2310), the date is given at the end of each entry; all are in the early 1950s:

• "The Ucumar is like a bear, like a bear-man. They say that it lives in places deep within the canyons, in the caves in the cliffs. They say he is stubby and has a pot belly. He has a long beard and his feet and legs like those of bears... the Ucumar steals women and takes them to live with him and he also nabs children. They say he has small but bright eyes. There are many cases in which the Ucumar has stolen women and had children with them. They say that after some time the wife and child run away from the Ucman and come to live with the woman's family". 1953. Salta.
  Comment. Notice how he compares it with a bear but calls him bear-man, who can mate and have offspring with humans.
• "The Ucumar is an animal thal looks like a man, its body is completely covered with long black hair. It lives in the forest in uninhabited areas. The people fear it...". 1950.
  Comment. This person also mentions that it kidnaps women.
• Calling it Ucumar: "On some nights, screams could be heard at the tops of the hills... [a man, in the forest stopped to drink at a stream and heard his dogs bark] he saw a being that resembled a man with long hair that covered his face, which he lifted to be able to see... he had the aspect of a hairy, long haired man". 1952
• Calling it Ucumari: "it is a creature like a big man, that always goes about on two feet. The arms and legs are hairy or woolly and the face is very similar to that of a person". 1952. The story teller reports that it also steals women to have children with them.
• Calling it Ucumare: "it is a small man, with his body covered with hair and his feet turned backwards... it is a monster-man, with extraordinary strength. The Colla women have told that they have had to fight with them to avoid being carried off whenever they come across one. They say that he has stealed women, taken them to the forest and that they have never returned" . 1958.
• "Ucumar is a ugly creature that takes off people. If it is a male it will steal women; if it is a female it will take of the youths... Once a Ucumar female took a young man with her to the deepest jungle and put him in a cave, blocking the entrance with a stone. After some years she had a baby with the man." 1952.

Dr. Vidal de Battini outlines the main thread of all these stories: a bear that kidnaps women and has children with them. The bear-man is indeed the image of a real bear that lives in the Andes but is quite rare in northern Argentina. The stories about Ucumar were known by all those that lived in this area in the 1950s.

The bear that originates this myth according to Vidal de Battini is the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus), the only bear found in South America. A shy jungle beast found from Venezuela to Bolivia on the eastern slopes of the Andes, in the tropical rain forest, and infrequently spotted in Argentina.

It can appear man-like since it, like all bears, can stand up on two feet (see a excellent National Geographic photograph of a standing spectacled bear)

The following image also shows a standing spectacled bear and, a Native American dressed up to resemble it!, more below: [6]

An ukuko - ukuku dancer and a spectacled bear. From [6]

Ukuku "dancers" in Peru

During the Catholic festivity of Corpus Christi, at the Catholic Sanctuary of "Señor de Qoyllorit’i", at Mawayani, in Quispicanchi, close to Cusco, Peru, there are dances and celebrations. One group of "dancers" (they don't actually dance, but accompany the dancers) are men are known as "paulucha", "ukuko" or "ukuku".

They use costumes that make them look bear-like (see photograph above). The dress is called an "unku", which is a kind of long tunic with woollen fringes from which bells and mirriors hang. The man wears a balaclava called "waqollo" that gives his face a bearish look, and carries a whip. He does not dance, actually he follows the dancers and walks around in a clumsy manner. [6]

Their name comes from the native Quechua word for bear, "ukuku". And it originates in an ancient native myth.[6] According the myth, the ancestor of the ukuku was the son of a bear and an Indian woman. He was half man, half animal. He protects humans from the "condemned" that roam around the mountains. These are "living dead", zombies that have been fated to walk the slopes due to the sins that they comitted (especially incest) when they were human. Interestingly the ukuku has a "falsetto" shrill voice, a female voice in a male body.[7] How did our distant relatives the H. erectus vocalize? did they have a squeaky voice?

Bears in the Puna?

The spectacled bear is found in northern Argentina, in Jujuy and Salta, but in the jungles a the foot of the mountains that cordon off the high plateau of the Puna. Its habitat is a jungle known as the "Yungas" ecostystem, with a subtropícal climate. [8]

The Puna (where Mount Macón and Tolar Grande are located, as well as the Escoipe Canyon) is a very arid place, with scarce vegetation and high altitude (averages 4,000 m - 13,100 ft.). No jungle here, only rocks, cliffs, sand flats, boulders, sand, cacti and dry grasses. Rainfall is scarce.

Bear or hominid?

Probly the myth moved from the jungles of the lowlands to the arid high plateau with the natives in Pre Hispanic times. Alternatively the Inca from Peru may have brought their Ukuku myth with them when they conquered the area in the 1450s. Or, the myth may be local and refer to an endemic hominid that lives in the Puna (it could hunt the local camelids: llama, vicuña and guanaco or the taruca deer).

The bear myth seems to have pervaded the Natives of the southern tip of South America, and is found among the Mapuche in Patagonia: see my post on Patagonian bears.

In any case, the myth may or may not refer to a bear. Those who Vidal de Battini interviewed seeme to make it clear that it was bear-like. But they did not say that it Was a bear. Perhaps some grotesque interpretation of a hominid led them to compare it with a bear.

The fact that it can mate with women and men, means that it is a hominid very close to us, modern humans, very likely a H. erectus.

Sources

[1] Edmund Hillary. Epitaph to the elusive abominable snow man. Life Magazine. pp. 72. Jan 13, 1961

[2] George Eberhart, (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. ABC-CLIO, pp. 565

[3] María Constanza Ceruti. (2997). Prospecciones en sitios de alta montaña en el noroeste andino argentino: informe preliminar. 49^th Congreso Internacional Americanista, Quito, Ecuador. July 7-11, 1997.

[4] Ovinsalta.com.ar. Caso Cerro Macon.

[5] Vidal de Battini, Berta Elena, (1960). Cuentos y leyendas populares de la Argentina Vol. 8. Alicante, 2010 pp. 823

[6] Carlos Olivera. (2011). Los ukukos en Qoyllorit’i June 01, 2011

[7] Fernando Martínez Gil, Gerardo Fernández Juárez. La fiesta del Corpus Christi. Univ de Castilla La Mancha. pp 353

[8] Del Moral J. Fernando, Bracho Andrés E. Indicios indirectos de la presencia del oso andino (Tremarctos ornatus Cuvier, 1825) en el noroeste de Argentina . Rev. Mus. Argent. Cienc. Nat. [revista en la Internet]. 2009 Jun [citado 2012 Mayo 12] ; 11(1): 69-76. Disponible en: http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1853-04002009000100008&lng=es.

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

Korupira, the red haired Amazonian man

O Curupira - Lenda Amazônica. The Curupira, Amazonian legend),[2] by Manoel Santiago (1926) from [3].

The romantic style painting shown above, by Manoel Santiago, depicts a half-naked native sleeping on a hammock by the sea while a lewd satyre covered with reddish hair looks at her and caresses her leg. The satyre is no other than the Brazilian Corupira or Korupira (also Curupira or Kurupira as it has many other names as we will see below).

This “hominid” has been reported across a vast area of South America and may be, together with the other ape-men mentioned in my previous posts (found in Peru, Venezuela and Guyana) belong to the same species although they are known by different names.

Korupira area of distribution. The places mentioned in this blog. The red circles show other places with ape-men (see my previous posts). Copyright ©2012. A. Whittall

The map above shows the distribution range of Korupira has been reported: the Amazonian basin and surrounding areas is this hominid’s territory. The red circles show places where other hominids (or all are the same being?) have been sighted.

First written account 1560
The first written reference about it dates back to the end of May,1560. In a letter written by father José de Anchieta to the General Fatehr at Sao Vicente.
Anchieta ( 1534 – 1597) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary who was living at that time in the oldest permanent town of Brazil, Sao Vicente, in the Bay of Santos, very close to modern Sao Paulo.
I will quote his letter (you can check the original Portuguese text online at the link shown below at [1]). After dealing with real animals found in the area (sloths, tapir, etc.), he goes on to tell his superior about the other creatures:

I will now add some few words abouth the nocturnal spirits or rather demons with which the Indians frighten themselves with. It is well known, and all say that there are certain demons which the Brazilians call corupira that often attack the Indians in the jungle, beating them and bruising them, and killing them. Proof of this is given by our Brothers who have sometimes seen those killed by them. [...].[1]

He added that the natives used to leave on the summits of high mountains, feathers, arrows and similar presents, praying fervently to the Curupiras, so they do nota harm them.[1]

About the Korupira
The name Corupira or Korupira, Kurupira comes from the Tupi language and means curu,a contraction of curumi, boy and pira, body, that is “with the body of a boy”.
There is an excellent book by Joao Barbosa Rodrigues (1890), which you can read in full (Portuguese) by following the link shown below at [4] which deals entirely with this mythical being. He transcribes many native stories about it. He also describes it and its natural distribution over a vast area of South America. Below I will cite Barbosa Rodrigues: [4]

• In Matto Grosso it is also known as Korupira. But some mistake him for the “wolf-man” or werewolf (Lobis-homem in Portuguese). He is a small sized black man that mounts a wild boar.
• In Paraguay he is known as Kaapora and looks like an old native who is master of the forest.
• In Amazonas and Pará states he is known as Kurumi, has only one leg and “Red hair, which civilization has turned into a red bertet (Pará).
• He has a wife Yatacy (Amazonas) or Tatámanha (Pará) is an old dark native dressed in rags. They have children.
• It is known as Máguare in Venezuela, Salvaje (savage) in Colombia and Chudiachaque in the Inca Peru. In Bolivia it is the Kauá of the Cocamas.
• In Perú, in the mountains it is a nearly black satyre whose hair reacheas his waist, and who kidnaps women for his orgies.
• The Makuchys of the jungles in Roraima (Brazil), call it Pokái and the Parikys of Yatapú River know it as Iurokó.
• it carried about a wooden axe

Red hair: a Neanderthal?
The description of Korupira as being red headed is interesting if we believe that homind with red hair was shown on Piri Reis 1513 map of South America.

It was widely distributed
As we can see Joao Barbosa Rodriguez believed that the myth was indeed Pan-American and shared by the native peoples of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Perú, Bolivia and Parguay . These people believed that Korupira protected and reigned over the jungles and its creatures.
In its northern reaches, in Colombia, it was also known with a different name: Boraro.

The Boraro skin
In Colombia, Corupira is also known as Boraro , Pírrarro and Hojarasquín and is described as a brown skinned giant with thick fingers [5].
There is a very odd story involving this creature which I will transcribe below [6], it deals with the The Bará, or Fish People (Tukanoans), of the Northwest Amazon, along the area shared by Brazil and Colombia.
These people which call themselves “Waípinõmakã”, live along the upper Tiquié and upper Igarapé Inambú rivers (see the map).
The Boraro’s skin myth is the following: a man found the skin of a boraro while its owner was fishing shrimps, “the skin was like clothing; the boraro always removed it to swim”, the man put the skin on, and it took control over him. It made him do some dreadfull things: kill and ate he boraro, go to his home and take over his place there –even sleep with his wife. Years later he returned to his tribe and told his story. He went back with a relative to the boraro territory and the relative donned the boraro wife’s skinn while she was fishing. They ate the woman and returned home. Their kinsmen refused to believe them so all went back to the boraro land. The two original men put on the boraro furs and killed and ate the other men.
So it seems that the “furry” “hairy” ape-man, the Boraro = Korupira is just a man wearing a fur, otherwise there is no explanation for a furry man to remove his fur. Could this imply that they were primitive beings wearing skins as clothing, just as our distant ancestors did?
Is this legend a myth about primitive Neanderthal men and their barbaric (i.e. murderous and cannibalistic) ways?

Sources


[1] Anchieta, José de, S. J. (1933). Cartas, informações, fragmentos historicos e sermões / Padre Joseph de Anchieta. Rio de Janeiro : Civilização Brasileira, 1933. Pp.128 Carta X.
[2] Painting: Manoel Santiago (1897-1987): O Curupira - Lenda Amazônica (The Curupira, Amazonian legend), 1926. Oil on cloth 96 x 157 cm. Taken from [3]
[3] Neto, João Augusto da Silva, Figueiredo, Aldrin Moura de. Uma imagem, duas narrativas: as representações de uma lenda amazônica em Manoel Santiago. 19&20, Rio de Janeiro, v. VII, n. 1, jan./mar. 2012.
[4] Barbosa Rodrigues, João, (1890). Poranduba amazonense, ou kochiyma-uara porandub, 1872-1887. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. de G. Leuzinger & Filhos. pp. 6, 12, 13
[5] Guillermo Abadía, (1994). 2.300 adiciones al vocabulario folklórico colombiano. Volumen 142, Biblioteca Banco Popular.Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura del Banco Popular
[6] Jean Ellizabeth Jackson, (1983). The Fish People: Linguistic Exogamy and Tukanoan Identity in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology. Nbr. 39. Cambridge University Press, 1983. Pp 108 – 111.

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

Sacharuna or chullachaqui the “jungle men”

Indian dressed up as a Sacha-runa, from a watercolor by Joaquín Pinto (1842-1906).

Sacharuna or chullachaqui the “jungle men”
Continuing with my series of posts on South American hominids (I began in Guyana and then continued with the Colombian-Venezuelan border area, mentioned some Peruvian hairy beings) today I will write about the Sacharuna. As I usually do, I will not copy and paste or rehash what has already been written by my other cryptozoological colleagues. Instead I will go directly to the sources.

The oldest written references

As in all things dealing with ancient South America, the oldest sources about how things were, are the journals, minutes, diaries or accounts of the Spanish Conquistadors during the early sixteenth century. The native South Americans did not possess any written language other than knots tied on cords made from llama wool (known as “quipu”).

The word Sacharuna , according to Garcilaso de la Vega (He was the first American Born historian, son of an Inca Princess and a Spanish Conquistador . 1539 – 1616), in the ancient Peruvian language, meant "savage" and was used to name the people that lived in the mountains. Note that he is not speaking about animals, ape-men or weird beings, just coarse mountain men.
“Sacharuna” is actually the combination of two Quechua language words: Sacha = jungle and Runa = man.

Spanish jesuit priest Bernabé Cobo (1572-1657), in his Historia del Nuevo Mundo (History of the New World), published in 1653, mentions a very strange “ape-man” with notably human abilities: [2]

“But among all the species of Apes or Monkeys, there is a strange one that has been seen in the Andean mountain ranges, not far from the city of Cusco: it is about the height of a twelve year old boy, that always go about on two feet, their face is more similar to the human one than to that of the other monkeys, its body is voered with hair, and its face has noen, or it is so delicate that it appears to have none, its feet like those of men, only different in that they bend, like hands do; the Indians call it Sacharuna, which means both Indian of the jungle or wild man, and they attribute to it such a strange instinct or inventiveness, that they affirm that this animal, sets snares for deer and in such a manner hunts them for his sustenance, that it makes balls with which it plays and even small drums with which it makes sounds, it is believed that some of them have horns, which if so, would let us say that they are satyrs, fauns or sylvans... ”[2]

A very man-like ape, or perhaps a primitive hominid (was it furry or wearing furs?).

Another Spanish chronicler, who lived in Peru was Antonio Rodríguea de Leon Pinelo (c.1595 – 1660), who recorded that in the jungle at Carabaya, a Sacha Runa was slayed, and he asserted that it was the outcome of an aberrant mating between man and monkey. (LeonP IV-5) note that he wrote down what others had seen, he did not witness the event. Apparently he based his account on a now lost work by Felipe de Pamanes (Los Notables del Perú) in which the Sacharuna are refered to as “Carabaya monkeys” and “Savages... whose face seemed human... it shouted like a man” and also “had the height of a medium brawny man”.[4]

The following map shows the places mentioned in this post and oultine the habitat of Sacharuna:

Map showing Sacharuna's habitat. Copyright © 2012 by Austin Whittall

Trying to justify their origin, Pinelo suggested an antinatural mating between human and ape. In a similar line of thought, Miguel Cabello de Balboa (c.1535 – 1608), another Spanish priest, wrote about the case of an Indian woman who gave birth to a dead monster after being “impregnated by a bear” at Carangue, close to Quito, Ecuador.[5]

What is it like?

The creature is also known as “chullachaqui”, and in Northeastern Perú, on the Amazonian side of the Andes, in the region of Loreto, the natives name it “Yahsingo”, “Sranshico”, “Shaningo”. “Shapshico”.

The natives here, in the Equatorial jungles are not Quichua, but Amazonian natives (such as the upper Napo and Bobonaza Indians), describe it as a being that appears to hunters in the forest, to frighten them.

It is a man-like creature that prefers to live in solitude, far from humans, whose presence it tries to avoid. Interestingly: [3]

they are attracted to humans and will kidnap human beings for the purpose of copulationg with them. Yashingos use kidnapped human beings for procreation, even though they can also breed within themselves [3]

The image that appears at the top of this post [6] is an Indian dressed up as a Sacha-runa, from a watercolor by Joaquín Pinto (1842-1906) (Eduardo Samaniego y Álvarez Collection), its green color is due to the belief that its body was also covered by moss or lichen.

Sources

[1] Garcilaso de la Vega, (1617), Historia general del Perú: ó, Commentarios reales de los Incas. Impr. de Villalpando, (Ed. 1800). Vol 5, pp 353.
[2] Cobo, Bernabé (1653), Historia del Nuevo Mundo, pp. 978 - 980.
[3] Ilkka Pyysiäinen (Ed.), (2010). Religion and Reason, Religion, Economy, and Cooperation, Walter de Gruyter , Vol. 49 pp 84.
[4] Francisco Carrillo, (1990) Cronistas que describen la colonia: las relaciones geográficas, la extirpación de idolatrías Volume 5 of Enciclopedia histórica de la literatura peruana. Ed. Horizonte. Pp 75 citing Leon Pinela “Monos hay en todas las Indias y de Peregrinas Condiciones”
[5] Miguel Cabello Balboa, (1586). Miscelánea antártica: una historia del Perú antiguo . UNMSM.
[6] The Sacharuna Photo is online here, and is part of: pp.552, El arte ecuatoriano, by José María Vargas, O.P.

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

Miocene South America a map

 

South America during the Mid Miocene (about 10-14 Million years ago).
Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

In several posts I have written about marine creatures from the Miocene Epoch (which spans from about 23.3 to 5.3 Million years ago). During this period the geography of South America was quite different from what it is nowadays. As the map above shows, vasts parts of the continent were submerged by marine ingressions due to higher sea levels. Some "islands" remained safe and dry (the highlands which comprised the Brazilian and Guyanan shields as well as the rising Proto Andes). All the rest was under water.

Submerged South America

During the mid Miociene, between 10 and 20 million years ago, the sea levels rose and reached a maximum level, some 30 to 40 m (100 - 130 ft.) above current sea levels about 14 million years ago.

Seawater flooded the interior of South America forming "epicontinental" seas. There is still some discussion regarding the exact extension of these seas and if they were all interconnected however the fact remains that most of the Amazon basin and the Paranáa River basin and the Pampas were under the sea.

Parts of Patagonia were submerged (Somuncuráa Plateau and the Deseado shield) kept dry.

Cryptozoological implications

This marine enviornment would have created new access routes for Northern Hemisphere sea-going mammals such as the ancestors of modern seals, manatees and walruses. We have already mentioned the 'Central American seaway" (left red arrow) through Panama which linked the Caribbean with the Pacific Ocean as a route for dispersion. But, as you can see in the map, another narrow seaway connected the Caribbean with the Pebesian Sea (right red arrow). From here these creatures could have moved east into the Amazon or South all the way down to Patagonia.

Could the marine creatures discovered in southern Peru and Northern Chile ('walruses', giant marine sloths and sea cows) have counterparts on the eastern side of the Andes? In fact, the amazonian manatee and all other manatees around the world are said to have originated in Colombia (from the potamosiren). One of the members of the American manatee family (Trichechidae), the ribodon could be found all the way from the coast of North Carolina in the U.S. to Argentina in the south.[1][2]

The lack of fossils in this region which was formerly the coast of these ancient seas may be due to their placement on the eastern foothills of the Andes. An area which is covered by dense jungles in the north and central parts of South America and, in the whole area, by hundreds of feet of sediment deposited there by the rivers dragging soil from the constant erosion of the Andes.

Maybe future exploration may yield new fossils that could help clarify the origin of some of South American cryptids (and hopefully, Patagonian cryptids too).

Quizás futuras exploraciones resulten en nuevos fósiles que puedan explicar algunos de los criptidos sudamericanos (y patagónicos).

This seaway joining the Caribbean and the South Atlantic is worth deeper analysis from a cryptozoological viewpoint as a route for cryptid dispersion.

Bibliography.

[1] Daryl P. Domning, (1982). Evolution of Manatees: A Speculative History.
Journal of Paleontology, vol. 56, No. 3 (May, 1982), pp. 599-619.
[2] Evolution of the Sirenia
[3] For the map:

Kirby M.X., Jones D.S., MacFadden B.J., (2008) Lower Miocene Stratigraphy along the Panama Canal and Its Bearing on the Central American Peninsula. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2791. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002791

Marengo, H.G., (2000). Rasgos micropaleontológicos de los depósitos de la transgresión Entrerriense-Paranense en la cuenca Chaco-Paranense y noroeste argentino, República Argentina. En: F.G. Aceñolaza y R. Herbst (eds.), El Neógeno de Argentina. Serie Correlación Geológica 14: 29-45.

Alonso, Ricardo N., (1999). El terciario de la Puna salte˜ña In: Congreso Geológico Argentino, 1999, Salta. Relatorio XIV congreso geológico argentino, tomo I. , 1954. p.311 – 316.

Bush, Mark B., and Oliveira, Paulo E. de, (2006). The rise and fall of the Refugial Hypothesis of Amazonian speciation: a paleoecological perspective. Biota Neotrop., vol.6, n.1. ISSN 1676-0603. doi: 10.1590/S1676-06032006000100002.

Lea este post en español

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Pincoy the mermaid, from Peru to Patagonia

 
Llast November I wrote an entry about Patagonian mermaids, which I translated today into Spanish to post in the "Spanish language" part of this blog. While doing so I decided to do some more research on this interesting being, and I came across the information that I share below:

According to Chilean folklorist Orestes Plath [1], the word used to name the Chiloé mermaid, Pincoya , is not a word of the Mapuche language. It is Quechua (the language of the Andean natives of Peru and Bolivia), and it means "princess or wife of the Inca Emperor".

That means that the mermaid myth is not local but of Inca origin. The word "Coya" means, in Quechua, "wife of the Inca emperor".[2]

That the mermaid is of Inca origin can be seen in the following remark: [3]

All that remains of the palace of the Incas in the present day is a wall eighty-four paces long and eight high, […] on the lower wall the figure of a mermaid, or syren is carved in relief on a square slab[3]

This relief can still be seen at the palace of Manco-Capac, Colcampata (Qollqanpata, Qolqanpata), and is known as the “Sirena” (mermaid). It has “a fish's tail, about a yard [91 cm] high […] it much resembles the mermaid-like figures on one of the Carthagininan mosaics in the British Museum” [4]

The mermaid can be seen in the following image:

Mermaid carved in stone at Cusco, Peru. Taken from [5] ('a carved mermaid')

Landlocked mermaids

In the southern Peruvian province of Lampa (Puno), far from the sea but close to Lake Titicaca there are several places named Sirenayoc. [7] This place name combines the words “sirena” [Spanish] and “yoc" [Quechua] = “who has its" or "who owns", that is, "where there are mermaids".

But these mermaids do not live in the sea nor in Lake Titicaca, they live in “the pure mountain springs” and “rivers where the water flows quickly”. [8]

Mermaids have permeated current popular culture in Peru and they shape has even been incorporated into their local guitars (charango):[9]

Charango (guitar) shaped like a mermaid. From: [9]

Nevertheless, and even though the Andean people had their own water spirits, the question remains unanswered: Why did thy choose to use a Spanish word (sirena) to name their Quechua water beings?. [8] Note that the word pincoya is not found in Peru, it is Chilean.

The fact is that mermaids were taken to Chile by the Inca conquerors who added that country to their empire in 1430 and held it until the Spanish conquest of America. With their armies, came farmers who also brought their beliefs with them. These were adopted by the conquered locals and soon became part of the native lore. This has also happened with several other myths (snakes, double headed condors and so on).

Pincoya became adapted to her new Chilean environment and from being a freshwater creature, became a sea dweller, and adopted the shape of sea creatures:

Her shape varies according to different locations, mostly she is described as having the lower part of her body fish-shaped. But, in Linao, she has feet shaped like the fins of a sea wolf.[10]

She nevertheless kept her taste for freshwater because she is also found on the marshes and bogs (mallin) of Chiloé.[10]

This is a very interesting subject and I will keep on researching (were there any mermaids among the coastal Peruvians? which is the oldest record in Chile regarding mermaids?).

Bibliography.

[1] Plath, Oreste, (1994). Geografía del mito y la leyenda chilenos. Grijalbo. pp. 322
[2] Anales de la Universidad de Chile. (1950). Imprenta del Siglo. pp. 46
[3] Markham, Clements. (1856). Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas. The New Monthly Magazine. London. Vol. 106. pp. 443
[4] Bollaert, William. (1865 – 6). Contributions to an introduction to the Anthropology of the New World. Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London. Vol. 2, pp. 143
[5] Photograph by MONINCC Qollqanpata. 21.09.2009.
[6] Renato Cárdenas Alvarez. (1997) El Libro de la Mitología de Chiloé. Anaquel Austral. Ed. Virginia Vidal. Santiago : Editorial Poetas Antiimperialistas de América. 15.09.2005.
[7] Gisbert Teresa, (1980). Iconografía y mitos indígenas en el arte. pp. 32
[8] Turino, Thomas. (1983). The Charango and the "Sirena": Music, Magic, and the Power of Love. Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1983), pp. 81-119 1. Spanish version: El Charango y la Sirena: Música, magia y el poder del amor
[9] Photograph from: Charangoperu.com
[10] Contreras O., Constantino. (1966). Estudio lingüístico-folklórico de Chiloé: mitos y actividades laborales rudimentarias.Boletín de filología (1966). Univ. de Chile, Santiago. Vol. 18. pp. 133+

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Marine Ground Sloths

 

Marine sloth. From: [4]

A very interesting yet unknown fact about the sloth family is that there was an amphibious sloth!

The first creature of this sea-going sloth group, discovered in the late 1970s, was named Thalassocnus natans [1] , which means “slow-swimmer of the sea” (thalassos is Greek for “sea”, ocnos for “slow”, and natans is Latin for “swimming”).

We now know that there were at least five of these swimming sloths that lived along the Peruvian sea coast between 6 and 1.5 Million years ago. This was a surprising discovery because all known sloths until then, were terrestrial.
They probabily started out as beach-combing animals and then evolved into sea-going beings that waded or swam into the Pacific Ocean where they fed on algae and other sea plants.

Thalassocnus had a series of features such as the ability to move its tail up and down as an aid in swimming, the way otters do.

Another species of this group known as T. yaucensis had evolved into a creature that resembled the sea lion.

It had evolved well to adapt to its marine environment, its jaws grew longer and slimmer in comparison to its terrestrial relatives, perhaps to allow it to graze on the kelp with slender jaws and strong lips while it grasped the seabed with its claws.

The later species have less dental erosion (striae) on their teeth than the older ones, which may indicate less sand (which caused these grooves in their teeth enamel) in their diet, and therefore, that they swam further away from the shore to feed.

The dry coastline which offered little food may have driven these sloths to the sea, where marine plants grew in abundance.[2]

An interesting question is whether it had a fur (like seals or sea going otters) or was it “naked” like whales and sirenids. Perhaps it shed the thick fur of the ground sloths for a lighter pelt. It may have also developed a thick layer of fat under its skin.

Marine sloths and Patagonian lake monsters

No marine sloth remains have been found in Patagonia or in southern or central Chile, so we can not state that extant members of this group may have originated the myths regarding Patagonian lake monsters.

However, it would not be too far fetched to believe that they expanded southwards, along the Pacific rim, towards Southern Chile.

There they could have continued their evolution, and even become fresh water creatures.

These may have later, (after the Ice Ages) colonized the newly formed Patagonian lakes originating the "lake monster" myths in Patagonia.

Of course, all of the above is speculation and has no backing whatsoever. But it is an interesting thought. Perhaps one day marine sloth remains may be uncovered in the region.

For those interested in the science details of the "real" Peruvian marine sloth, you should read Muzion’s paper to which a link is given below [3].

Bibliography.

[1] Muizon, C. de & McDonald, H. G. (1995). An aquatic sloth from the Pliocene of Peru. Nature 375, 224-227. Cited in: Ten things you didn't know about sloths. 30.01.07. Darren Naish. Tetrapodzoology.
[2] The Giant Swimming Sloths of South America. 07.02.07. Brian Switek. Laelaps.
[3] Christian de Muzion, H. Gregory McDonald, Rodolfo Salas, and Mario Urbina,(2004). The youngest species of the aquatic sloth thalassocnus and a reassessment of the relationships of the nothrothere sloths (mammalia: xenarthra). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 24(2):387–397, June 2004 q 2004 by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
[4] Image source: http://darwiniana.org/NewFossilMammals.html

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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