Awurwur - ostrich men

 
Today, as promised, a new post, on the mysterious awurwurs, the ostrich men.

Ostrich Skeleton, the "knee" is actually the "ankle".

Mateo Martinic in his book on the Aonikenk natives of Southern Patagonia [1] wrote about the awurwur as follows (bold mine):

The Patagonian hunters' mythology transmitted by tradition and compiled by some informants and modern & contemporary austors, mentions a "semi-legendary aboriginal group", as Escalada defined it, known under different names such as agongures, agougures, awurwur, aawurwur or auwurwan, aire or airre. They ,according to a legendary aboriginal belief (accepted by authors such as Francisco P. Moreno and Thomas Hrrington), a "Fuegian" group (occidental boat men or kawéskar) settled on the mainland of oriental Patagonia in the southern sector comprising the regions of Santa Cruz and the Strait of Magellan, whose distinctive features were that its members were very fast, because they had their knees facing backwards, like those of ostriches, and they used a tail of feathers

This is very interesting indeed, however I must point out, as you can see in the image above, the things that point backwards are not the bird's knees, they are its ankles!.

The question of the awurwurs is treated by Martinic in a very scholarly manner, and he, of course sets the bird-men aside and goes on to analyze the fuegian boat men.
However, in this blog we can afford to be a bit more extremist, and propose outlandish ideas such as the following:

Could the awurwur myth go back to the days of terror-birds? Do they embody fearful monstrous man eating predators? After all, a ñandú or South American ostrich is a very harmless creature that hides from sight camouflaged by its brown speckled feathers, which blend it into the steppe's vegetation, and its tail is not all that memorable. But what about a gigantic terror bird? (see my posts on them:
Terror birds and some images).

Could this hint at a relatively recent extinction of these giant carnivore birds?

Ok, enough for today! but it is an interesting thought isn't it?

Sources

[1] Martinic, Mateo, (1995). Los Aonikenk, Historia y Cultura. Ediciones Universidad de Magallanes. pp. 93

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Big Birds - Surviving Terror Birds

 

Red Legged Seriema. From [1]

The closest living relatives of the Terror Birds are the (much smaller) seriemas, which live in the southernmost regions of South America.

The seriemas are the only surviving members of the ancient family Cariamidae which dates back to nearly 63 million years, and which comprised the Terror Birds.

They can be found in northern and central Argentina, though not in Patagonia.

There are only two species, the Red Legged Seriema (Cariama cristata) and the Black Legged Seriema (Chunga burmeisteri). Both measure about 75 to 90 cm tall (30 to 35 inches. Omnivorous, they also eat snakes, frogs, small mammals and insects.

The Black Legged Seriema runs quickly (60 km/h - 37 mph) and only flies if forced to, and then, only for a short distance.

Their monstrous relatives

Imagine their prehistoric relatives, monsters that weighed up to 40 kg (88 lb.) and were about 1,40 m tall (5 ft.), who eat large sized mammals competing with the Sabre tooth cat!.

A recent paper [1] indicates that one of these terror birds, the Andalgalornis steulletiits "bite's strength" was smaller than expected and that it must have it "applied multiple well-targeted strikes in a repetitive attack-and-retreat strategy" or restrained its prey -though it lacked claws. Its big but hollow beak could not withstand lateral shaking so the bird pecked with repeated boxer-like blows at its victim (see an image here).

Sources

[1] Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled
[2] Degrange FJ, Tambussi CP, Moreno K, Witmer LM, Wroe S, (2010). Mechanical Analysis of Feeding Behavior in the Extinct “Terror Bird” Andalgalornis steulleti (Gruiformes: Phorusrhacidae). PLoS ONE 5(8): e11856. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011856

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

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

Terror Birds - some images

 

Some images to illustrate our previous post on "Big birds".

Size comparison of some of the better known large, flightless, extinct predatory birds. Kelenken, Phorusrhacos, Titanis and Gastornis.. Author Shepherdfan. From [1]

Kelenken. The giant bird could snap up dog-sized mammals. From [2]

Drawing of Phorusrhacos, a giant prehistoric bird by Charles R. Knight published in Animals of the Past (1901). From [3]

Bibliography.

[1] Wikimedia.
[2] Telegraph. Hang on to your dog: meet the vicious 10ft terror bird. 26.10.2006.
[3] Wikipedia.




Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

Flying creatures - Strange birds. Part 3.

 

Flightless “Big birds”

Besides giant condors, there was also another kind of monster bird in Patagonia, the predator flightless one.

Alicanto

The Mapuche believe in “Alicanto”, a big bird with a curved beak and long legs ending in big claws. It is nocturnal creature with a strange diet: it eats gold and silver ore; these somehow shine through its body, giving off an eerie golden light. It can’t fly, it runs. If followed by miners seeking a new strike, it may turn on them and kill them.[1]

Folklorist Bertha Koessler-Ilg, when describing the evil beings that the Mapuche believed that lived in the forests, mentioned that at one time “even the big birds dared to attack the small people of the valleys: they wounded them to devour them later, they kidnapped their children”.[2]

This implies carnivorous birds much larger than humans.

Kelenken

A similar though independent myth is found among the Aonikenk, where “Kelenken” the twin brother of “Maip”, the evil spirit of the cold, was a gigantic black bird of prey.[3]

Once again, both legends point towards an enormous raptor that could maim adults and carry away their children.

Father Alonso de Ovalle’s map Tabula geográfica Regini Chile dated 1646 not only showed a tailed Fuegian Coludo, it also depicted, in the correct scale, guanaco, llama, deer, ñandú and also, a strange man-sized bird of prey. This bipedal animal is drawn standing on the steppe and looks very much like a now extinct Patagonian killer bird.[4]

Gigantic bird of Prey. Detail of Ovalle’s map (1646). Notice the relative sizes of the ñandú (top), llama (bottom) and “big bird” (center). From: [4].

Male ñandú

The Aonikenk believed in a “Male ñandú”, that was an evil creature controlled by a witch, Kéenguenkon (the moon-woman), who sent it to attack and kill men.[5]

Terror birds

Patagonia was home to a now extinct group of carnivorous flightless birds. These predatory creatures dominated South America while it was an island continent from 65 Ma. to roughly 2 Ma. when the terror birds died out around the time that North and South America merged at the Isthmus of Panama. Pressure from the invading placental mammals let to their demise.

These birds didn't fly because they didn't have to. Instead, they put their biological resources into growing bigger and faster than anything else on the continent. They were warm-blooded energetic beings. The largest of these monsters was the “Terror Bird”, a phorusrhacid that was nearly 3 meters (10 ft.) tall and weighed about 500 kg (1,100 lb.). Its discoverers named it Kelenken guillermoi, after the Tehuelche’s fearsome killer bird.[6]

The question is why did the Tehuelche have a myth involving a “Terror bird”? and why did de Ovalle depict one in his map?

They seem to have been a very persistent myth because in the early 1900s, professor F. B. Loomis noted that the local Patagonian gauchos (cowboys) “sometimes talk of great wingless birds”, he attributed it to their alcohol induced fantasies.[7] But, how could these mostly illiterate men have learnt about a killer flightless bird if not from personal experience? Were terror birds still roaming the steppe barely one hundred years ago?

Part 1 of Strange Birds is Here.
Part 2 of Strange Birds is Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Vicuña Cifuentes, J., (1915). Op. cit. pp. 1.
[2] Koessler-Ilg. B., (2000). Op. Cit. pp. 81.
[3] Baleta, M., (1977). Joiuen Tsoneka (Leyendas Tehuelches). Río Gallegos: Talleres Gráficos Noguera.
[4] de Ovalle, A. Op. Cit. Tabula geográfica Regini Chile. pp. 521.
[5] Colombres, A., (2008). Op. Cit. pp. 40
[6] Bertelli, S., et al., (2007). A new phorusrhacid (Aves: Cariamae) from the Middle Miocene of Patagonia, Argentina. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27, 409-419. pp. 410.
[7] The New York Times, (1922). Seeing things in Patagonia. New York. US 11.03.1922.





Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters