Patagonian Peccaries

 

Mapa showing current distribution of the peccary in America and its probable former distribution in Patagonia. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

Peccaries (Tayassuidae) are very similar to the Old World pigs (Suidae). They came to North America from Asia and then spread into South America some 3 Million years ago when north and south America joined.

It is an extremely adaptable animal and the fossil remains of a peccary have been found in the Great Lakes region of North America, the Platygonus compressus, which fed in the grasslands "near the edge of the glacier", that is, in a very cold and harsh climate. It also lived in South American during the Pleistocene. This Platygonus was the largest of all peccaries and had the size of an European wild boar. [1]

Patagonian Peccaries

¿Could it have lived in Patagonia at the end of the Last Ice Age?

Intriguingly, a source,[2] states that "Catagonus is a genera related to the Platygonus [...] which during the sixties has been found alive in Patagonia" . This is surprising since I have not found any records or references about it. Furthermore there are no peccaries in Patagonia nowadays.

Regarding the Catagonus (Catagonus wagneri) it was believed extinct until it was rediscovered in Paraguay in 1972. It is currently restricted to the dry Chaco region in Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. [3] It is the largest surviving member of the peccary family and can weigh up to 35 kg (70 lb) and measure over 1 m (3.3 ft.) long. In its curent arid habitat it eats cacti.

No peccaries are found beyond this area. Well to the north of Patagonia. Nevertheless we have some clues that lead us to believe that they did inhabit Patagonia in relatively recent times. Lets see the proof:

• The northern Tehuelche lived in the area between the rivers Chico and Chubut in the south to the Negro River in the north, and outside of Patagonia they could be found in La Pampa and the province of Buenos Aires, They had a word in their language to name the peccary: Olasiq. This word does not seem to have been taken from any other language and has no equivalent in Spanish or Mapuche it must therefore refer to a native "pig". It could also refer to wild or feral Old World pigs.[4]
• In 1876, Francisco Moreno mentioned the "pachyderms" in the forests close to Lake Nahuel Huapi which he did not see, but based on the native's description thought they could be "forest pigs" or peccaries.[10]
• In that same area, in 1862 Chilean explorer Guillermo Cox said he had noticed wild pigs on the shores of Limay River. [11]
• The native path used by Tehuelches and Mapuches that joined Valcheta with the Negro River at Carmen de Patagones through San Antonio Oeste, was known as the "Pigs Road" ("Camino del Chancho").[6]

This seems to indicate the presence of peccaries, at least in northern Patagoina. I show this in the map (above) where in yellow I mark the current range of all peccary species and in green, only for Argentina, their probable distribution in until the ninetheenth century.

It is possible that they had extended their range into southern Patagonia because we have reports on pigs there:

Captain FitzRoy, commander of the HMS Beagle sailed along this region between 1826 y 1833, and recorded that the natives:

were much frightened by sheep and pigs. They would not land on a small island where some pigs were turned loose, and when talking of them, made signs that they had very big noses which alarmed them. When a pig was killed by the crew and part of it cooked, the natives refused even to taste the meat.[12]

Also at the straits of Magellan, in 1593 Sir Richard Hawkins reported something very similar to the pig-like tapir: “Hogs […] here we saw certaine Hogs, but they were so farre from us, that we could not discerne wether they were of those of the Countrey, or brought by the Spaniards”.[13]

Ned Chace, an american who lived in Patagonia between 18981 and 1930, also wrote about giant pigs in southern Patagonia (beyond 48°S):

A friend of his had followed a track [...] until he caught sight of what he took for a hairy pig as big as a bull. Just a glimpse he had. [14]

Taboo

According to the jesuit father Strobel, in 1740 there was a taboo among the northern Tehuelches and the Pampas or Puelches:

They do not eat pork and asking one why, he answered that those animals had been at one time bad men that then became pigs. [7]

This is similar to a legend compiled by folklorist Bertha Koessler Ilg, which mentions the creation of pigs as a punishment for some men and additionally that for this reason their meat could not be eaten and that in summer: "your flesh will be harmfull because it is poisoned".[9] The Tehuelche myth in northern Patagonia is evidently of Mapuche origin (due to the Araucanization of the Tehuelche: the Mapuche progressively extended their influence eastwards towards the Pampas, and through war, trade and cattle rustling, absorbed and Araucanized the original Puelche inhabitants of Tehuelche blood during the eighteenth-and nineteenth-centuries).

But, in the deep south of Patagonia, the Aonikenk, towards the end of the nineteenth century, according to explorer Ramón Lista "Do not eat fish, nor pork. These two animals are considered disgusting, and show for them an insurmountable repugnance", which he believed was due to some taboo regarding their god Elal. [8] This aversion is very similar to the one mentioned by FitzRoy.

These myths may indicate a widespread animal similar to a pig within Patagonia.

We have found, besides the word Olasiq [4] mentioned above, another one, which according to Casamiquela, was used by the northern Tehuelche to name the peccary kúcha which he believed was due to the snorting sound it made.[6] I disagree with this interpretation. -It is clearly (see following image) that the word comes from the Mapuche language spoken at Chiloé (and apparently from Quechua too) who called the pig cuchi because it was the word used for dirt:

Cuchi word used for pig in Chiloé. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall

According to Casamiquela [5] the Mapuche called the collared peccary "sañwé" (pronounced shañwé). But again I believe he is mistaken as this is not a native word, father Augusta's dictionary [12] has an entry for "swine: sanchu, sañ:we", and the same for pig (in Spanish "chancho") [12] which is without doubt the word from which the Mapuche one comes from (chancho - sanchu), as both have the same sound. The word is of Spanish origin.

Tapir or peccary?

Why would the natives have a taboo against eating pork? (We will not suggest silly ideas such as the Patagonian natives belonged to the lost tribes of Israel -amusing and interesting which I may look into later).[16]

It is a question for which we do not have an answer, but it is likely that Patagonia was home to a big animal (the giant pig seen by Chace's friend), one that provoked fear in the natives (as mentioned by FitzRoy), a monstrous pig or something similar.

It is likely that there were no peccaries in Chile (that is why I did not paint Chile green in my map above), and that they only came into contact with the Spanish pigs after the conquest.

But the northern and southern Tehuelches did know a local native animal resembling a pig. Maybe it was a peccary, or it could have been some other animal such as a tapir.

Bibliography.

[1] J. Alan Holman. (1995). Ancient life of the Great Lakes Basin: Precambrian to Pleistocene. University of Michigan Press. pp. 198
[2] Eudald Carbonell, (2005). Hominidos: Las primeras ocupaciones de los continentes. Editorial Ariel pp. 617
[3] Maffei, Leonardo, Cuellar, Rosa L. y Babegas, Jorge. Distribución del solitario (Catagonus wagneri) en Bolivia. Geographic distribution of Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri) in Bolivia. Ecología en Bolivia. [online]. ago. 2008, vol.43, no.2 , p.141-145.
[4] Mariano Martín Fernández El pecarí de collar. Chancho autóctono de La Pampa
[5] Casamiquela, R. (1968). Geonimia: obra mapa de La Pampa. Biblioteca Pampeana, pp. 25
[6] Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología, Volúmenes 8-10 (1974), Sociedad Argentina de Antropología. pp. 114-115.
[7] Furlong Cardiff, Guillermo (1938): Entre los pampas de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos San Pablo. pp. 97
[8] Lista, Ramón, (1998) Los Indios Tehuelches -Una Raza Que Desaparece. Ed. Confluencia. pp. 72
[9] Bertha Kössler-Ilg, Rolf Foerster, (2006). Cuenta el pueblo mapuche: Cuentos y fábulas. vol .iii. MN Editorial. pp 238
[10] Moreno F., (2007b). Exploración de la Patagonia Sur I-Por las cuencas del Chubut y el Santa Cruz: 1876. B. Aires: Continente pp. 73.
[11] Cox, G., (2006). Expedición de la Patagonia Norte: un viajero en el Nahuel Huapi: 1862-1863. B. Aires: Continente-Pax. pp. 194.
[12] FitzRoy, R., (1839). Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836… London: Henry Colburn.
v. ii. pp. 195 - 6.
[13] Purchas, S., [Comp], (1625). Haklvytvs posthumus or, Pvrchas… London: H. Fetherston. v. 4. pp. 1384.
[14] Le Moyne Barrett, R. y Barrett K., (1931). A Yankee in Patagonia, Edward Chace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 29-30.
[15] Augusta, F., (1916). Diccionario Araucano - Español y Español - Araucano. Santiago. Impr. Univ. pp. 97 y 208.
[16] Bernardo Graiver, (1980). Argentina bíblica y biblónica: historia de la humanidad en la Argentina bíblica y biblónica. Editorial Albatros. Also see Enrique García Barthe (Online).

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Comparative sizes different beasts

 

Comparative sizes, man, tapir, bison, giant otter, spectacled bear. Adapted from [1]

Relative sizes of some of the creatures mentioned in this blog. In different posts I have mentioned these real animals suggesting that they could be the explanation for or the source of some of Patagonia's mythical beasts. These are, from left to right:

- Mountain Tapir
- American Bison
- Giant River Otter
- Spectacled Bear

Source.

[1] I Combined and adapted different sketches from National Geographic site.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Tapir or cattle - Knivet's input

 
In my post on Anthonie Knivet's account on tapirs in Patagonia, I mentioned the tapetywason he saw at the Strait of Magellan, which he likened to the "the beast which before I have told you of, called gumbe which is bigger than a horse" which he saw in Africa.[1] The footnote by the editor states that "gumbe" is "undoubtedly a cow" and he is correct because the Swahili - English dictionary [2] in its entry for Cow uses the same sounding word ng'ombe.

This editor then adds that the Guarani in Brazil used the word tapyra to name any large animal. Hence cattle was known as tapyra sobay go ara or "foreign beasts" while the local tapir were named tapyra caapora.

I believe that he may be right, because the Guarani words "caá" means "plant" and "porá" means "ghost", so this would be a tapir of the "forest ghost" (a spirit that took care of the jungle animals". On the other hand, "sobayguará" derives from "sobay" (from in front, from the other side, that is, from abroad) and "guara" (native, indigenous): "native from Portugal". [3]

Yet Knivet named the animal "tapetywason" which is remarkably similar to the Guaraní name for the tapir.

So, what did he see, a tapir or a wild buffalo? There are no native bovids (according to our current knowledge) in Patagonia, though there may have been "prehispanic cattle in Patagonia".

A mystery. Worth looking into.

Sources.
[1] Purchas S.,(1901). The strange adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh, in Angola and the adjoining regions Hakluyt Society, London. pp. 95



[2] Arthur Cornwallis Madan,(2002)Madan's English-Swahili dictionary. Asian Educational Services, pp.122. (entry for Cow)
[3] José Gregório (irmão)(1980). Contribuição indígena ao Brasil: lendas e tradições, usos e costumes, fauna e flora, língua, raízes, toponímia, vocabulário, União Brasileira de Educação e Ensino Vol. 3, pp. 978

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Water Bulls in northern Neuquen

 
Another post on Water Bulls, this time in northern Neuquen Province.

They are taken from local stories told to Argentine folklorist Berta Vidal de Battini in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and published in 1984, both are very similar to others that I have included in previous posts on "lake bulls" (see my Everything you ever wanted to know about...Lake Bulls or Water Bulls).

Bull at Tres Chorros.

At Tres Chorros, Ñorquin, in the Argentine province of Neuquen, the locals reported in 1952, a "Water bull".
The story is told by Berta Vidal de Battini, [1], as follows:

They say that in the lagoon close to this place, lives a black bull. Many neighbors have seen it in the middle of the lake and walking in the fields that surround it.
Sometimes it gets together with other animals [...] They say that in several lakes in the region there are bulls that take care of them. Also other animals like horses, cows and pigs come out [of the lakes].
Many people have seen them but they can never be lassoed.[1]

Bull at Los Miches.

At Los Miches (37°14'S,70°52'W), in Neuquen, another story compiled in 1949 mentions the "Bull with the golden horns at Guanaco Lagoon":

'I have 'eard that in that lagoon there are bad things sir. [my uncle] told me as we passed by the lagoon that in it lived a bull, muddy, hairless, terribly fierece and almost without the shape of an animal.
That when a cow went in to the lake to drink water, it always came out pregnant by this bull and that when the cow was to give birth, it always died.
He said that he had seen it once, when the bull went into the lake and that it got lost in the water'.[1]

Comments.

These two lakes are in the area just by the foot of the Andes and very close to another lake with strange creatures (Lake Caviahue). Both are on the Atlantic side of the continental divide and in an area with a stron influence of the Mapuche culture.
Tres Chorros flows into the Truquico River and from there into the Neuquen River.

They are also relatively close to the northern basin of the Colorado River, home to a strange aquatic creature.

The interesting creature is the "Los Miches" being, a bald dirty monster that does not even resemble a bull. Which may indicate that the animal is not a bull (perhaps some variety of tapir -hence the lack of hair?). Muddy seems to imply a creature that likes to roll about in the mud (notice the "pigs" mentioned at Los Guanacos; pigs are barrel shaped stout creatures, just like tapirs.). This may indicate some tapir - lake monster connection, as I have suggested in previous posts (Patagonian Tapir).

Map of both locations: Tres Chorros and Los Miches.

Bibliography.

[1] Berta Vidal de Battini (1984). Cuentos y Leyendas Populares de la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Ed. Culturales Argentinas Vol VII. pp. 1366 and 1367.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Cisnal the mythical animal

 
If you understand some French, read this. It is very interesting. An article published in 1864 about the Huemul, oop, cisnal, anta.
Its author is Georges Claraz (one of the first explorers to cross Rio Negro province through Valcheta to the Chubut River), he also wrote about Ellengassen:



Some may find oop very "wolfish", perhaps an Andean wolf?

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Patagonian Tapir - more evidence

 

Today my post on Iemisch was commented by Alan Lowey, who wrote the following (I will quote the relevant parts):

(…) The toe configuration fits with that of an odd-toed ungulate (4 front, 3 back) the same as the Beast of Gevaudan etc imo. Also fits with African Nandi Bear suggesting a common ancestor before the continents parted some 110 million years ago.

Perissodactyla – odd-toed ungulates

Perissodactyla (from the Greek words perissos abundant and daktulos toes), is an order of hoofed mammals that comprises three families: Equidae (horses), Tapiridae (tapirs), and Rhinocerotidae (rhinoceroses). There were more families, 15 in total, but they became extinct. [1]

The interesting point is that there is an extant odd-toed ungulate living in South America, it belongs to the family Tapiridae , which is “ the closest family to the ancestral perissodactyl condition - possess four toes on the forefeet […] and three on the hind” [5]

Patagonian Tapir, would be an odd-toed animal

I have posted on the hypothesis (a view first put forward by me – as I have not seen it postulated by anybody until now) that the tapir reported by many of the first explorers may be an unknown species within the Tapiridae and can actually explain many of the pig, hipoppotamus or cow/bull shaped aquatic cryptids found in the native and contemporaty myths and reports on Patagonian lake “monsters”.

I posted on this in a three separate entries on the Patagonian Tapir.

Of course, there are no known tapir in Patagonia. But if there presence there could be proved, it may explain many lake creature sightings.

As the photograph below shows, it has 3 toes and 4 toes on its hooves, just like the Iemisch "water tiger" beast:

Undersides of the front (left) and back (right) hooves of a Malayan tapir at rest.
By Sasha Kopf [4].

I was unaware until now of this fact (the number of toes on tapir's hooves), and it seems to link both creatures together. I thank Mr. Lowey for his comment.

No Patagonain chalicotheres?

Just as my commentator indicates, some cryptozoologists have suggested that the African cryptid, the Nandi Bear may be a carnivorouos species within the chalicothere family.[2]

These chalicotheres (now extinct), had long arms and very short legs which bore most of their weight. Like modern gorillas, some species “knuckle-walked” on their front paws, which had long curved claws. [3]

They could be found all over the world except South America, which means that our Patagonian cryptids are not chalicotheres.

But, as suggested by Lowey Iemisch, Nandi Bear and Beast of Gevaudan may share a common ancestor before the continents parted some 110 million years ago.

In the case that Iemisch and these Old world cryptids evolved from a common ancestor, the American side of the family, being a chalicothere, would not be related to Tapirs and there would be no need to postulate the existence of the Patagonian Tapir.

Tapir with talons

This proposed South American chalicothere may explain the strange tapir with talons reported in some parts of South America. A beast that could account for the aggressive predator behavior of certain Patagonian lake creatures. Common tapirs are not able to drag bullocks under water or behave violently like the Iemisch because they are not fierce carnivores.

However Captain FitzRoy wrote about a strange kind of tapir that was mentioned to him by Rodriguez, the commandant of the Bahia Blanca garrison in 1833. Rodriguez told him that in Paraguay he had seen:

a 'gran bestia,' [great beast] not many months old, but which then stood about four feet high. It was very fierce, and secured by a chain. Its shape resembled that of a hog, but it had talons on its feet instead of hoofs; the snout was like a hog's, but much longer. When half-grown, he was told that it would be capable of seizing and carrying away a horse or a bullock. I concluded that he must have seen a tapir or anta; yet as he persisted in asserting that the animal he saw was a beast of prey,* and that it was extremely rare.
- Neither of which remarks apply to the Anta.[6]

Bibliography.

[1] Nowak, R., (1999). Walker's mammals of the world. JHU. V.1 pp. 1007+
[2] Eaton, M., J., The Nandi Bear: Ferocious killer from the past
[3] Prothero, D., Schoch, R., (2002). Horns, tusks, and flippers: the evolution of hoofed mammals. Baltimore: JHU Press. pp. 249.
[4] Photos taken by Sasha Kopf at the Woodland Park Zoo,Seattle, Washington. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.
[5] Order Perissodactyla. Odd-toed ungulates
[6] FitzRoy, R., (1839). Op. Cit. v.ii. pp. 107.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity

Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian tapir. Part 3 (last) the Andean tapir.

 

In my previous posts I have written about Patagonian tapirs. We have read reports by chroniclers and explorers and we must conclude that there may be a shred of truth in them. The main issue however, is how could a tropical mammal survive under the harsh Patagonian conditions. Today we will try to find out if this could be possible.

Tapirs in Patagonia, but how?

Tapir can be found in Northern Argentina and the surrounding tropical and subropical areas of Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. Nevertheless, free access from this region into Patagonia is impeded by an “Arid Gap" (which I have already written about in a previous post). See map.

Current aridity in the Patagonian steppe and along its northern border would impede migration of tapir into the region.

Besides, Patagonia’s cold climate is the opposite of this creature’s current tropical habitat. Nevertheless climatic changes of the post-glacial period, which shifted forest ranges northwards from Patagonia and south towards it from the subtropical region, may have allowed the formation of a continuous forest bridge through which tapirs could have moved into the southern Andean woods.

In Central Chile, at Talinay (30°40 S, 71°35’ W), a relict forest growing in the midst of a currently arid region is proof of this possibility. This forest thrives on the mist blown in from the ocean and its vegetation is very similar to the Valdivian rain-forest of Patagonia.[1] It could have originated by the Valdivian forest’s northwards advance during the Ice Ages or, as a survivor of the ample subtropical forests that covered southern South America at the end of the late Cenozoic Era. The former is more likely and means that the temperate Patagonian forest extended out of Patagonia towards the current habitat of the tapir merging with the tropical forests.

Rainfall patterns during the late Cenozoic Era some 30 to 50 thousand years ago confirm the prevalence of humid conditions in what is now the arid horseshoe that separates Patagonian forests from the subtropical jungle in northern Argentina.[1] These damper conditions could have narrowed the “gap” of this Arid Continental horseshoe and maybe even created a continuous forest coverage that could have allowed tapir circulation into Patagonia. Additional rain would have provided the necessary water sources for the tapir to bridge this now arid gap.

When the arid conditions were restored after deglaciation, the tapir remained isolated in Patagonia in areas where abundant water and forests could provide a suitable habitat.

But, could the tapir, whose usual habitat is the very warm subtropical or tropical jungles in South America and South East Asia survive in the cold Patagonian climate?

The woolly tapir

Yes, it could; in fact, one of the South American tapirs has extended its habitat upwards into the cold Andean peaks where it lives at high altitudes (between 2.000 and 4.400 meters - 6,600 and 14,400 ft.). At those heights it is quite common for the temperature to fall below freezing point.

Mountain Tapir. Photo courtesy John Abbott and Kendra Bauer. From [2]

Notice how it feels at home in the frothing waters of a mountain stream. If you saw a tapir in a stream or a lake, would you liken it to a horse or a cow? i.e. a lake bull (I have many posts on lakes with these "bulls" frolicking in their waters).

To survive under those harsh conditions this tapir developed a woolly coat. A woolly fur that is remarkably similar to the preceding description of “hairy hogs” and woolly creatures.

This species is known as the wooly tapir or mountain tapir of the Andes (Tapirus pinchaque); they are the only species of tapir to live outside the lowland forests. Their habitat is now restricted to Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, but may have extended further in the past (perhaps south along the Andean peaks).

They are the smallest among the tapirs being about 1,8 meters long (6 ft.) and about 1 meter high (3.3 ft). They can weigh up to 225 kg (500 lb.). Like all South American tapirs, their fur has a uniform dark brown or gray color.

Mountain tapir’s splayed hooves allow it to walk even on the high mountain glaciers and snow,[3] and it can run swiftly through the thick forests and up mountain slopes. (See a photograph of the Mountain tapir’s foot).

Perhaps it is these tracks that Ned Chace likened to “cleats”. It would also allow them to trek the Patagonian ice fields and climb its mountains.

Though placid and gentle, if angry a tapir can be a dangerous beast. Prone to “tantrums”, they can become wild and aggressive and use their teeth to maul and bite. In 1998, a tapir pulled a zoo keeper into its cage and bit her arm off at the Oklahoma City Zoo in the US This trait would have made them fearsome and very probably frighten the natives.[4]

Tapirs usually live solitary lives in the thick jungle and prefer swamps close to lakes and rivers, where they wallow in the mud and splash about in the water. They are extremely good swimmers and will jump into the water and even dive under it like a hippopotamus when chased by a predator.

They are exclusively herbivorous and eat the twigs, buds, leaves and fruits of the forest. Being night creatures, they spend most of the daylight hours asleep, concealed.

Many native peoples in America hunt them for their meat putting pressure on the species. As their reproductive rate is quite low and females bear only one calf after a thirteen month gestation period if they are under a high hunting pressure and their population density is too low to allow for them to meet and mate, they can easily become extinct at a regional level.

With this in mind, it could have been possible that the tapir lived in Patagonia in scant numbers, safe by the forests in the southern Andes in the Tehuelche territory south of the land of the Mapuche.

François Déiré Roulin, who described the Andean tapir for the first time noted that excluding the pig, the tapir is the most adaptable amongst the pachyderms and could thus live in very different environments.[5]

Patagonian forests are a tough environment during winter, but adapting like the woolly mountain tapir, the Patagonian variety could have survived the in the low lying valleys by the lakes.

Furthermore, these are the low altitude valleys where Onelli had expected to find his edentate during the plesiosaur expedition they would have provided a milder climate during winter and abundant vegetation to feed on.

Thus the tapir may explain the plesiosaur and other aquatic creatures.

A strange tapir with talons

Woolly Tapir’s cannot explain the aggressive predator behavior of certain Patagonian lake creatures, they are not able to drag bullocks under water or behave violently like the Iemisch.

However Captain FitzRoy wrote about a strange kind of tapir that was mentioned to him by Rodriguez, the commandant of the Bahia Blanca garrison in 1833. Rodriguez told him that in Paraguay he had seen:

a 'gran bestia,' [great beast] not many months old, but which then stood about four feet high. It was very fierce, and secured by a chain. Its shape resembled that of a hog, but it had talons on its feet instead of hoofs; the snout was like a hog's, but much longer. When half-grown, he was told that it would be capable of seizing and carrying away a horse or a bullock. I concluded that he must have seen a tapir or anta; yet as he persisted in asserting that the animal he saw was a beast of prey,* and that it was extremely rare.
- Neither of which remarks apply to the Anta.[6]

This killer tapir is indeed a creature something that could drag bullocks underwater, it would also fill Iemsch’s shoes and could even account for the “bloody” behavior of Succarath.

Despite being reported in Paraguay, far away from Patagonia, it may have been this species –now unknown- and not the Woolly Tapir that had marched south into Patagonia.

The animal described by FitzRoy seems to be the “tapiré-iauará” which is said to live in remote areas of the Amazon jungle. It is also known as onca d'agua -“water jaguar” in Portuguese- a name which is strikingly similar to the Patagonian “water tiger” and could probably be the same creature –that crossed the arid gap together with the tapir.

As tapir are peaceful herbivores, the bloody tapiré-iauará must belng to some carnivore species distinct from tapirs.

It has been suggested that it belongs to a long extinct group of predators which were replaced by the “pawed” carnivores that we are familiar with today such as wolves, lions, seals and bears.

Before them, there were “hoofed” predators, the Mesonychidae, who lost the competition for survival against pawed predators.

All of them died out except one which became aquatic, a kind of hoofed otter that later evolved into whales and dolphins.

Mesonychids were well adapted to running, had large heads with strong jaws and their toes ended in tiny hoof-like claws.

Their disappearance. Tapir are not seen again.

Nowadays there are no tapir in Patagonia -woolly or clawed- or if there are any, they are very well concealed.

If we assume that they somehow managed to migrate and adapt to the Patagonian environment, their current absence is a sign that they have become extinct quite recently.

Maybe the pressure by the encroaching Spanish conquistadors and the continuous war that engaged Mapuche and Spaniard led to an increased demand for Tapir hides as body armor. This could have led the more mobile (due to the horses introduced by the Spaniards) Tehuelche tribe to over-hunt them.

Colder weather that began around the XV^th century (Little Ice Age) may have added to this negative impact on their population and these factors coupled with the hunting by the Tehuelche and their low birth rate may have given the Patagonian tapir its final blow, pushing them to extinction together with its Patagonian jaguar predator.

A few surviving Tapir in isolated pockets could easily explain the myths about pig-like bulky long haired animals. Their barrel shaped bodies would indeed look like those of the lake creatures described by Juana Sheffield at Epuyen or Elías Geríz at Lake Colhue Huapi.

They could also be taken for bulls or horses cavorting in the lakes (Calimayos).

It is possible that the legends regarding Patagonian lake creatures are the undying specter of the wooly tapir.

Read Parts one and two of the Patagonian Tapir.
Also, my Feb. 2010 post on Patagonian tapirs - more evidence.

Bibliography

[1] Villagrán, C. and Hinojosa, L., (2005). Esquema Biogeográfico de Chile. In: Llorente Bousquets, J. and Morrone, J., [Eds.], (2005) Regionalizacion Biogeogrefica en Iberoamerica y topicos afines. Mexico: Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Chap. 33. pp. 560+
[2] Mountain Tapir photograph. courtesy John Abbott and Kendra Bauer.
[3] Oglethorpe, J., et al., (1997). Tapirs: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan, IUCN/SSC. Cambridge: IUCN. pp. 10.
[4] Los Angeles Times. (1998). Tapir Bites Off Zookeeper's Arm. Los Angeles, US 21.11.1998.
[5] Boussingault, J., et al. (1849). Viajes Cientificos a los Andes ecuatoriales. Paris: Lasserre. pp. 253.
[6] FitzRoy, R., (1839). Op. Cit. v.ii. pp. 107.

Further reading and data on Mountain tapirs.


Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Patagonian tapir. Part 2. Proof

 

Patagonian Tapirs, second post (see the first post). Today we will look into the "proof" of their existence.

Suit of hide armour. Copyright © Trustees of the British Museum. From [21].

Magellan’s time, 1520s

The first report on tapirs in Patagonia dates back to the time of its discovery by Magellan in 1520.

Magellan’s chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta ate tapir meat in Brazil and wrote “Mangiammo della carne d'un animale detto anta, il qual e come una vacca” (we ate the meat of an animal named anta, which is like a cow).[1] Note that “Anta” is the Spanish and Portuguese name for the tapir.

Thus having seen the animal Pigafetta and his companions would not have made a mistake in identifying a tapir when seeing it again in Patagonia, at San Julián;[2] it was there that Francisco Albo, boatswain of the “Trinidad”, one of the ships of Magellan’s fleet, wrote in his diary that the Indians “were covered with anta skin”.[3]

In 1526, Juan de Aréizaga, also noted that the natives covered their pudenda “with pieces of anta skin”. During his stay with the natives he ate a “danta [sic] that they had hunted”.[4] Spanish historian Francisco López de Gomara wrote in his Historia General De Las Indias that these natives had fed Aréizaga with “badly roasted anta”. He also reported that they also hunted “very big wild goats” (evidently guanaco), thus proving that anta and guanaco were not the same animal.[5]

Tapir close to the Strait of Magellan in the late 1500s

Spanish official Sarmiento de Gamboa who explorer the Strait of Magellan in 1579-1580 wrote that at Madre de Dios Islands in Southern Chile “there must be Antas and deer: we did not see them, only their tracks and big bones”.[6]

It was at these same islands that, according to British Captain FitzRoy’s (1833), the Chono canoe people:

were much frightened by sheep and pigs. They would not land on a small island where some pigs were turned loose, and when talking of them, made signs that they had very big noses which alarmed them. When a pig was killed by the crew and part of it cooked, the natives refused even to taste the meat.[7]

Pigs and sheep, were brought to America from the Old World, and were unknown here. The natives would have been surprised the first time they saw them. However it seems that the pigs really frightened them. Perhaps the “very big noses which alarmed them” evoked memories of some pig-like beast such as the tapir with its long snout. Pigs and tapirs look very alike –except for their size (tapir’s are much bigger).

In the 1591, Anthonie Knivet, an adventurer who had sailed with English Privateer Cavendish, wrote a vivid book about his voyages around the world. He mentioned that at the Strait of Magellan he saw “a kinde of Beasts bigger than horses”,[8] he also noted that they were very good, with “great eares about a spanne long and their tailes are like the tailes of a Cowe[sic]”. He added that the Brazilian Indians called this same creature “Tapetywason” (a word of Guaraní origin) implying that the beast’s habitat extended from Brazil to Patagonia (See my post on a possible link between the Patagonian Mapuche and the Guaraní people) .

Returning to Knivet and his Tapetywason, “tapety” is very similar to the Guaraní word for tapir (“tapi'I”), and the “wason” suffix must be the same sounding “guazú”, which in Guaraní means big; thus tapetywason would become “tapi'i guazú” or big tapir.

As Knivet gave the Patagonian beast the same name as the Brazilian one, there can be no doubt that bot creatures were the same; the animal that he saw at the straits was a tapir.

Also at the straits, in 1593 Sir Richard Hawkins reported something very similar to the pig-like tapir: “Hogs (…) here we saw certaine Hogs, but they were so farre from us, that we could not discerne wether they were of those of the Countrey, or brought by the Spaniards[sic]”.[9]

More reports from the 1700s

It was at the Strait of Magellan that in 1766, Captain Wallis saw “an animal that resembled an ass, but it had a cloven hoof, as we discovered afterwards by tracking it, and was as swift as a deer”.[10] It is very likely that this creature was not a tapir but a huemul [*] but we cannot ascertain it.

[*] The huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is a stocky Patagonian deer that is about 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall and 1,65 m (5.4 ft.) long, and weighs between 40 and 100 kg. (88 - 220 lb.). Like all deer, males have antlers about 30 cm (1 ft.) long. Its habitat ranged from 34°S to the Strait of Magellan and in the forests from the Pacific Ocean to the edge of the steppe. But now, its limited and endangered population of less than 1.000 individuals lives in isolated pockets within the Chilean and Argentine Andean mountain forests.The species is endangered.

Joseph Banks, naturalist of Captain James Cook expedition reported the “footsteps of a large beast” in 1769, at a bog in Tierra del Fuego. Cook wrote the following: [11]

when Mr.Banks was at the top of the highest hill that he ascended in his expedition through the wood, he saw the footsteps of a large beast imprinted upon the surface of a bog, though he could not with any probability guess of what kind it might be. [1]

Perhaps they were guanaco tracks, but they could have belonged to a tapir.

Basilio Villarino who sailed from Carmen de Patagones up the Negro and Limay rivers in 1782 exploring the region for the Spanish crown also reported tapirs there. He noted in his diary on April 26, 1783 that “the Guilliche Indians give the name halegilque to the anta and call its skin ysnam”.[12]

More reports on tapirs in Patagonia

Edward “Ned” Chace, an American who lived in Patagonia between 1898 and 1929 wrote about giant pigs in southern Patagonia (beyond 48°S):

A friend of his had followed a track like that of a wooden shoe with two cleats across the sole, until he caught sight of what he took for a hairy pig as big as a bull. Just a glimpse he had. Once or twice, long afterwards, on a still night in a forest, beside a glacier, Chace himself heard a trumpeting, something like a steamboat whistle. That was long before there was a whistle on any Cordilleran lake.[13]

This is a pig-like bull-sized beast; the fact that it is hairy (tapir are like rhinos and elephants, hairless) is not incompatible with at tapir as we will establish in our next post.

There are other reports indicating that the Patagonian natives domesticated some large animal. In fact the first to ponder this was father Falkner “I do not know wether there have been ever any attempts to tame this animal [tapir][…] might be of great service, on account of its strength, if it could be brought to labour”.[1]

A Briton, Arthur Button, who had settled in the Puerto Natales area in 1905, wrote in his memoirs about hearing tales of “Indians working harvesting corn with animals as large as mylodons and almost buried in the corn”.[14] Since mylodons are extinct, could these large beasts have been tapir? (See my post on the Mylodon at Puerto Natales).

Furthermore, English Admiral Byron visited Patagonia, and in 1771 wrote about the gigantic Patagons stressing that “so much were their horses disproportioned, that all the people that were with me in the boats, […] swore that they were all mounted upon deer”;[15] since deer are not known in the Patagonian steppe, and considering the stag-tapir similarity mentioned by Falkner and Knivet, could Byron have seen the natives riding tame tapir? Although highly improbable, it is much more likely that the natives used tapir than an extinct mylodon to work their fields. [*]

[*] Note that the nomadic Patagonian natives (the Tehuelche) were nomads and lacking a permanent home were not farmers. Button in his diary is referring to the mythical “Caesars” and their lost city. This “City of Caesars” was an “El Dorado” which is a tale that deserves a book of its own, yet it can be summarized as follows: The legend of the City of Caesars began in the mid XVIth century. It revolved around an incredibly rich city set in Patagonia (i.e. its roads were paved with gold) and was inhabited by people of European origin who led secluded lives there. Several expeditions were sent to find it, and it was not until the late XVIIIth century that it lost credibility.

Getting back to our mounted “giants”, Patagonian deer (Huemul), even if they could have been seen on the steppe, which is unlikely, would be much smaller than a horse so if the gigantic Patagons mounted any animal other than a horse, it would have been a tapir –or they may have ridden on surviving ancient Hippidion horses which were sturdier than modern horses, had shorter and wider legs and resembled donkeys. Interestingly, a Spanish Government report written in 1601 about the natives at the Strait of Magellan, it stated that “the Indians ride on horses. But not horses, they appear to be donkeys”.[16] See my post on the possible survival of pre-Hispanic horses in Patagonia.


“Cisnam” or “Schenam” were they tapirs?

Another yet unknown creature was reported in the 1860s by Jorge Claraz on the Rio Negro. He wrote that the natives spoke about a creature called “Schenam”, which was similar to a donkey due to the size of its ears; others said it was more like a pig (donkey-pig creatures seem to crop up all across Patagonia).

The traders at Carmen de Patagones told him that the Tehuelche natives made their body armour from the hide of this animal, which they called “Cisnal” or “Cisnam”. Note the similarity of this name to Villarino’s “Ysnam” both sound the same in Spanish- which was the hide of an anta (tapir) and also its use as “body armour” by the Indians.

The image at the beginning of today's post shows an authentic body armour from the British Museum. Though this one is made from seven layers of horse hide sewn together and not anta hide. Perhaps by the time this armour was made in the early 1820s, the tapir had been hunted to extinction.

Aonikenk (Southern Austral Tehuelches) Chief Kongre (or Congo) in 1838 as drawn by Ernest Goupil during Jules Dumont D'Urville's expedition at Port Peckett in Southern Chile in his body armor, which is described as being made from "ox hide". Below is Goupil's drawing:[22]

Chief Congo in a hide armour. From [22].

Captain FitzRoy (1839) wrote about the Tehuelche that he had seen in Patagonia during his voyage on HMS Beagle (1825-1836) wearing this armour (he uses the word anta when referring to the skins that the armour is made from (I highlighted the phrase):

On their heads they then wear conical caps, made of hide; and surmounted by a tuft of ostrich feathers. Another kind of armour, worn by those who can get it, is a broad-brimmed hat, or helmet, made of a doubled bull's hide: and a tunic, or frock, with a high collar, and short sleeves, made of several hides sewed together; sometimes of anta skins, but always of the thickest and most solid they can procure. It is very heavy, strong enough to resist arrows or lances, and to deaden the blow of a stone ball (bola perdida); but it will not turn the bullet fired from a musket. Some say that it will do so, but that which I saw had been pierced through, in the thickest part, by the musket-ball which killed the wearer.[23]

Getting back to Villarino and Claraz, note that Villarino had said the animal was a “halegilque” and not a “Schenam. This different name may be due to Claraz and Villarino using different native languages (Rio Negro was the border between two Tehuelche groups, the Puelche to the north and the Gennakenk to the South. They spoke different dialects. Or it may mean that there were two different animals, one was a tapir the other something else.”

Claraz managed to get a hide and though it apparently belonged to a young animal it was big, 1,5 m (5 ft.) long from ears to tail and its ears measured 17,6 cm (6.9 in.).[12]

Years later, Claraz would believe that the “Schenam” was a “rehe” – (he spoke German, and this is the German word for deer).[17]

He came to this conclusion after a friend of his showed Tehuelche chief Sinchel engravings in a biology book and Sinchel soon identified a great deer with antlers as a male “yoam or Schonem” – Tehuelche words for huemul.[18] Note that Schonem sounds similar to Schenam but yoam is quite different.

Claraz was therefore confident that the Schonem creature was a huemul; but as mentioned above, huemul don’t venture far from the Andean forests, so they would not have been found several hundreds of miles from the Andes in the Rio Negro Valley close to Sinchel’s camp. This has led some biologists to suggest that the animal was a Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus), which, considering the Tehuelche word for this animal “yoam shezce” may mean that Sinchel had correctly identified the Yoam as a deer. But that does not mean that the Cisnal was also a deer.

This idea is supported by Argentine Admiral O’Connor’s report during the 1880s mentioning “guanaco, deer, cisnal” as abundant in the Upper Limay River valley. This makes clear that this creature is neither a deer nor a guanaco.[19]

Furthermore, the Tehuelche did not interact frequently with the huemul because they did not venture into the animal’s habitat, the forests (the natives feared the forests I will post on this interesting subject later -what were they afraid of?). We have proof of this: Chief Kánkel who lived a few kilometers from the Andean Forests by the Apeleg, Senguel and Mayo Rivers in what is now the Argentine province of Chubut, had never eaten huemul meat until Welsh explorer ap Iwan shot one during an expedition. [20] This indicates that they very rarely saw a huemul.

In our next and last post (Part 3) we will see how could a tapir, whose habitat is the tropical jungles, live in the cold Andean forests in Patagonia.


Bibliography.

[1] Pigafetta, A. Op. Cit. pp. 7.
[2] Fernández de Navarrete, M. Op.Cit. pp. 39.
[3] Ibid. pp. 214.
[4] Becco, H. Op. Cit. pp. 7.
[5] Rivadeneryra, M. Op. Cit. pp.213-214.
[6] Sarmiento de Gamboa, P., Op.Cit. pp 95.
[7] FitzRoy, R., (1839). Op. Cit. v. ii. pp. 195 - 6.
[8] Purchas, S. Op. Cit. pp. 1233.
[9] Purchas, S. Op. Cit. pp. 1384
[10] Hawkesworth, J. Op. Cit. v. i. pp. 388.
[11] Cook, J., (1842). The voyages of Captain James Cook. London: William Smith. v.1. pp. 27-8.
[12] Claraz, G., (1864). Travaux Inédits. Sur l’Eqqus Bisculius, de Molina... Revue et magasin de zoologie pure et appliqué. 2e sér.:t.16. pp. 242 - 249. Citing: Diario del Piloto de B. Villarino, del Reconocimiento que hizo del Rio Negro, and de la Cruz. Op. Cit. pp. 110.
[13] 18 Le Moyne Barrett, R., and Barrett, K. Op.Cit. pp. 29-30.
[14] Button, A., (1948). Op. Cit.
[15] FitzRoy, R., Op. Cit. Appendix v. ii. pp. 109-110. Citing: Extract from Pennant's Literary Life, pp. 47 – 69.
[16] Gandía, E., (1929). Historia Crítica de los Mitos de la Conquista Americana. B.Aires: J. Roldán. pp.265.
[17] Claraz, G., (2008). Op. Cit. pp. 196.
[18] Ibid. pp. 186-7.
[19] Fonck, F. Op. Cit. pp. 70.
[20] Roberts, T. and Gavirati, M. Op. Cit. pp. 91-93.
[21] Suit of hide armour. British Museum.
[22] Martinic, M., (1995). Los Aonikenk Historia y Cultura. Punta Arenas: Vanic, Punta Arenas.pp. 201
[23] Fitz Roy, R. Op. Cit. pp.147. Online.


Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

Patagonian tapir. Part 1

 

Father Falkner's book on Patagonia (1774).

Perhaps the key to the mystery of “lake bulls”, calimayo and Patagonian hippopotamus was revealed over two centuries ago by Jesuit father Thomas Falkner.

Falkner wrote a very interesting book Description Of Patagonia in 1774 reporting his first hand experience with Tehuelche natives in the Pampas just north of Patagonia. He described the geography, rivers, animals, fish and natives of Patagonia and, regarding the wildlife, he wrote that:

there are also many anta […] of the stag kind, but without horns. Its body is as big as that of a large ass; its head very long and tapering, ending in a small snout; its body very strong, and broad at the shoulders and haunches; its legs and flanks are long, and stronger than those of a stag; its feet cloven like those of a stag, but something larger; its tail short, like that of a deer.[1]

“Anta” was the Spanish and Portuguese word for Tapir. These animals are a relict species that managed to survive the megafauna of the Late Pleistocene era. They belong to the mammalian order of Perissodactyla together with horses, asses, zebras and rhinoceroses. Tapirs are large creatures about the size of a donkey that have a barrel shaped body with a tapering front and rounded rear; designed for moving about the forests quickly. They have long flexible snouts, short stubby tails and four toes on their front feet and three on their rear ones.

Of the four known species of tapir, one lives in Asia, and the other three thrive in the warm South American jungles. Falkner may have seen them in Paraguay, which he visited or in the Pampas and Patagonia.

Lowland Tapir, wild, Brazil. Photo by Richard Bodmer. From [2]

Patagonia is too dry and cold for tapirs

There is only one problem with the tapir hypothesis: there are no known tapirs in Patagonia and the current southernmost range of their habitat is about 1,200 km (750 mi.) to the north of Patagonia in Argentina’s tropical and subtropical jungles (click on this external map to see the global distribution of tapirs).

The drier open “monte” region that stretches between these lush jungles and Patagonia would have been an insurmountable obstacle in their migration to the verdant Andean forests. Tapir are fond of water and this transitional region lacks water; moreover its arid environment could not even provide enough vegetation to feed them.

But Falkner insisted

Yet Falkner explicitly noted that the Tehuelche sold tapir hides to the Mapuche so that these could make body armor from them.

For those who think that he was mistaken, in the same passage that he mentions the anta, he also mentions the guanaco, so he was not misguided about the animal; Falkner was adamant about the existence of tapirs in Patagonia.

Patagonia’s arid steppe, lacking vegetation and water could not be home for tapirs, and Falkner correctly places them to the west of the steppe, in humid grasslands at the foot of the Andes.[1] The damp mountain forests could have offered them a safe habitat.

Tapir must be the Patagonian "lake bull"

The tapir with its large size, bulky shape and fondness for water could easily be the lake monster that we have been seeking. See the following photograph of a swimming tapir. It definitively looks "horse-like" (a Calimayo perhaps?).

Adult Lowland tapir swimming. Parque Nacional Brasilia, Brazil.
Copyright © 2006 Paulo Andre Lima Borqes. From [2].

To be Continued...

But, can we confirm its existence in Patagonia? We will continue in our next post.

See the final (Part 3) post here.

Also, my Feb. 2010 post on Patagonian tapirs - more evidence.

Bibliography.

[1] Falkner, T. Op Cit. pp. 106+
[2] Tapir Specialist Group Tapirs of the World


Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia