Prehispanic Cattle in Patagonia (revisited)

I posted about native bovids in Patagonia several years ago. Today I found an interesting interview published in June 1969, in the Boletín de Intercomunicación de la Familia Salesiana, which appeared in a 2011 blog post. The Boletín is a magazine of the Catholic Salesian Congregation, a religious organization founded in the 1850s by Father "Don" Juan Bosco to help the young vulnerable people. The Salesians worked in Patagonia helping the Natives, starting in the 1880s. There are many Salesian schools, and even a University in Argentina.

The person that is interviewed is father Manuel Jesús Molina (link to a post with his bio), and the part I quote below deals with "bovids" and horned animals. There are no known native bovids (cows, buffalo, bison, antelopes, or goats) in Southern South America yet, there are many native myths involving horned animals.

"— Who, when, where, and how were these rock engravings and paintings done?
— The natives, the oldest of which date back to ten or eleven thousand years ago; there are other which are more recent: six thousand years. I have just concluded an investigative work at Lake Posadas, in Santa Cruz, precisely about rock engravings and paintings.
— How old are they...?
— I had already received information from a technician of the museum who had been sent there ten years ago, to investigate the area, and he brought a series of really good photographs. Later, one of our pupils -a rancher- sent me another set of photographs. When I compared them and studied them, I found that there was something that wasn't running, that wasn't clearly visible: but it gave me the impression that some of the paintings of bovids were from the Spanish period. As I alreay had photographs of bovid scenes that were much older, when I conducted my study, I imagined that those at Lake Posadas were more recent. Well, now I went back to conduct a complete study of the site, and I came across this new finding: that these bovids which I had interpreted as being from the time of the Spaniards, were clerarly from the native period, and so ancient, that I found them painted at a height of five meters [16 ft.] on the rock walls in the middle of the Cordillera...
—Painted by…?
—The Patagonian indigenous people.
—Could you explain how they could paint at five and a half meters high? How tall were the Patagonians?
—It means the following: the Patagonian didn't bother to paint high up; they painted at ground level, about half a meter up.
—How did they manage to paint? What did they use? What did they rely on? What were those paintings like?
—To explain the origin of those paintings, I only had to look at the geological formation of the region. It was once a large glacial lake. The remnants are the small lakes that remain: Posadas, Lago Salitroso, Lago Pueyrredón. But there was a time when all of that formed an immense interglacial lake. Later, as the ice retreated, the lateral moraines (which are large accumulations of rocks, rubble, clay, and mud) left behind sediments that settled against the hill. When the indigenous people arrived, they found the sediments at a height of about five meters, and—standing on the moraines—they created their paintings. Then, over time, five or six thousand years, those moraines eroded, crumbled, and were demolished by erosion. Today they are almost at that level.
—How tall were the Patagonians?
—Between 1.80 and 2.30 meters tall.
—Do those paintings date back eleven thousand years?
—Those paintings date back to an imprecise time, after the lake drained. One could say eight thousand years.
—What other interesting details about those paintings could you give us?
—The most interesting thing about these paintings is this: I've corrected a mistake I made when analyzing the previous photographs, because I had always believed that these paintings were from the Spanish period. Now I've discovered that they're not from that era, but from the old indigenous period. At first, I interpreted them as Spanish bovines: bulls and cows from the Spanish colonial era. Now—having been there and taken photographs of those paintings—I've found that they represent animals called unicorns, that is, animals with a single horn. And there isn't just one representation, but four, including a large, curved horn, which is identical to the painting I had documented near the Santa Cruz River, dating back six or seven thousand years before Christ. Now it turns out it's the same animal in four different representations: the male depicted with a horn, and the female without. It's an interesting case, because there's no unicorn animal in Argentine paleontology. Once, when Dr. Frenguelli published something about a bovid, all the Argentine paleontologists denied it. When I sent the photograph of that animal to the prehistorian Dr. Osvaldo Menghin, he didn't take it seriously; but when he later saw the diagram drawn by a technician, he said: "Now we have in hand an argument to prove that bovids, or at least unicorns, existed in Argentina, and that Frenguelli was right." The fact is, unicorns did exist in Argentina."

Analysis and Comments

The site of these paintings is Cerro de los Indios (map), close to Lake Posadas, the eastern tip of Lake Pueyrredón. Below is an image of the paleolake formed by these two lakes, plus Lake Salitroso. To the north is Lake Buenos Aires / General Carrera. During the Last Glacial Maximum, they drained eastwards across the steppe into the Atlantic (A). Now, after the ice field melted, they both drain west into the Pacific and their level has dropped (B).

Paleolake Pueyrreón LGM and nowadays. Source

Another view of the Paleolake and its evolution, the colors indicate different water levels, pale blue color marks the current lakes Pueyrredón, Posadas, Salitroso (left to right) and Ghio center-right. Number 5, marks the Cerro de los Indios, site of the unicorn paintings.

Paleolake Pueyrreón, at different levels. Source

Molina mentions Joaquín Frenguelli and a publication about bovids. I found the publication, but it is not digitalized (Frenguelli, ]., 1933. Restos de Bovino en el Lujanense de Santa Fe. Anales de la Sociedad Científica de Santa Fe, 5: 14-24.) the title is "Remains of Bovine in the Santa Fe Lujanenese".

Another source about Frenguelli and his comments on bovids is a newspaper article, Were there Horses and Cows in the Prehistoric Pampas? Crítica, July 8, 1935, p.6. This article mentions Joaquín Frenguelli, Director of the La Plata Museum, and his discovery of prehistoric bovids in Argentina, it says that "The Findings of Dr. Frenguelli... nevertheless does not got beyond believing very possible, and in no way proven, the bovine origin of the remains he found." It also mentions a previous finding by Florentino Ameghino and Muñiz of the remains of primitive American oxen, though later Ameghino said they were antelopes. The photograph below is from the Critica article:

Fragment of a skull of Nothobos Pampaens, the horns, as can be seen, are similar to those of cows. Critica, 1935

This is the link to Ameghino's bovid publication, which he die not publish with Muñiz, but with Gervais (Mamíferos Fósiles de América del Sur. Henri Gervais, F. Ameghino, 1880). The text reads:

"1ANTILOPE ARGENTINA - H Gerv and Amegh SYN.
Bos pampaeus - Amegh
We establish this species on the extremity of a horn belonging without a doubt to an antelope. It has been collected in the province of Buenos Aires.
LXX GEN. PLATATHERIUM - H Gerv and Amegh
We propose to create this generic name for a large ruminant found in fossil form in the province of Buenos Aires and represented in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of Paris by a left half of the lower jaw, some limb bones, and a portion of the hip.
PLATATHERIUM MAGNUM - H Gerv and Amegh We will call the only species of this genus Platatherium magnum and give an idea of the size of this animal by saying that the space occupied by the molars of the second dentition must be at least 0.164 m The lower half of the jaw is provided with all the teeth of the first dentition. These teeth are close to falling out and the permanent molars are already visible underneath, ready to replace them. The molars of the P magnum are very compressed, very different in shape from those of deer, but on the contrary, they seem to resemble those of antelopes. The true molars are composed of two yokes or columns and present in the external groove that divides the two parts a column quite similar to that which occupies the inner part of the upper molars of cattle. The false molars, at least of the first dentition, differ in shape from those of antelopes, resembling in their characteristics those of cervines and bovines."

Fig 4 in Torricelli's Obras Completas Vol. 9 (Complete Works of Ameghino), shown below is the "tip of one of the horns of the Platatherium pampaeum.

---

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

Ending the year with three Jokes! Happy New Year

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and my best wishes for the new year. May it be a year full of new discoveries, fantastic revelations about our origins, and even more important, let us all have a peaceful, successful, lucky, joyful and healthy year. With love, prosperity and success in all our endeavours, personal or professional. And, as a closure for this great 2015, a silly joke!

Religious Cowboy
The devout cowboy lost his favorite Bible while he was mending fences out on the range. Three weeks later, a unicorn walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth.
The cowboy couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the unicorn's mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!"
"Not really," said the unicorn. "Your name is written inside the cover."

Why was the Narwahl depressed?

Because it had no porpoise

Enough for today! Happy new year

---

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

The Patagonian unicorns - Part 2

 

Camahueto a mythical Patagonian unicorn

We have elusive proof of close contact between men and unicorns in a legendary Mapuche beast, the Camahueto, which in Mapudungun means “very bad” (cadme = very and hueto = bad).

According to the Huilliche natives of Chiloé it is a very powerful unicorn the size of a yearling calf with a single silver horn on its head. Its color is “mari”, the blue-green color of the sea.[1][2] See its image in our previous post on Camahueto.

A one year old calf is a big critter and it can weigh between 300 and 500 kg (660 – 1,100 lb.) and have a shoulder height of 122 cm (50 in.).

Camahueto is born in rivers, where its bones are sometimes found, and although at first it is the quite small, it quickly grows stronger and bigger. Once it reaches adulthood it rushes towards the sea where with its strong claws and sharp teeth it destroys ships and feeds not only on fish, but also on human flesh.[3][4]

Their riverine habitat is similar to that of the Toxodontidae. However its sea-going habits do not fit in correctly with what we know about these animals. Its carnivorous diet and claws are also very different from that of the calm grazer toxodonts.

According to Latcham the Camahueto was also known as a “sea horse”; a creature that neighed strongly, foamed at its mouth and being very large, could fit up to twelve native wizards on its back.[3]

In his opinion, this creature was the native’s distorted view of a sea elephant (Macrorhinus leoninus) which was once abundant in Chile but had been hunted to extinction. The largest member of the seal family, its long snout -40 cm (16 in.) in length- could have seemed like a horn to Huilliche; its imposing size -up to 5 m (16,4 ft.) long and 4.000 kg (8,800 lb.)- and aggressive behavior in males also resemble the fierceness and enormity of the Camahueto.

Piri Reis map and the one horned oxen

There is evidence of unicorns in an early map of Patagonia dating to six years before Magellan’s official discovery; it was drawn in 1513 by Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis who compiled it based on information garnered from Portuguese sailors.[5][6]

See my other posts on Piri Reis' map Dog Headed PatagonsMap and Giant snakes.

The South American coast though distorted is shown to a latitude beyond 50°S; a fact that, though disputed by some scholars, is taken as proof that Magellan was not the first European to sail along the Patagonian coast and that a covert Portuguese expedition had been there before him.

Detail of Piri Reis World Map (1513) showing: South America.
From: [7]. Piri Reis. The World Map. Library of Topkapi Palace Museum.

Detail of Piri Reis World Map (1513) showing: Unicorn (top center), and puma (right). Unknown animal bottom center.
From: [7]. Piri Reis. The World Map. Library of Topkapi Palace Museum.

Note: The map also shows to man-like beings, a “wild man” and an “ape” (bottom left); but we are not sure if they belong to the Patagonian region or further north. If Patagonian, is the ape a Fuegian monkey? and the “wild man” (a Hanush, Hashi, Mwono or Chilludo?) (see my post on Patagonian bigfoot and Fuegian monkey).

There is a long necked puma (see above). Beside it is the caption “Bu canaavara Sami derler” which Argentine author, Federico Kirbus in his book Enigmas, Misterios y Secretos De América translates as “They call this beast Sami” and then states that Sami is the phonetical equivalent of the animal’s current name: llama.[8]

This llama (Lama glama) is a South American cud-chewing camelid, a mammal related to camels, but smaller and without humps on its back. We believe that Kirbus is mistaken because there are no llamas in Patagonia, only a distant ancestor, the guanaco; furthermore their short stubby tails are very different from Sami’s long flexible feline-looking tail. It is very likely that Sami is a puma.

Another part of the map shows some well known Patagonian animals such as deer -maybe the Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus) or the huemul- that are described as “six-horned oxen” (See the image below), a many pointed stag perhaps.

Detail of Piri Reis World Map (1513).
From: [7]. Piri Reis. The World Map. Library of Topkapi Palace Museum.

What is most interesting is a “one horned” bull-shaped unicorn that is described in a marginal note as “oxen with one horn”. Though it closely resembles the Camahueto it cannot be based on this myth because the map was drawn forty five years before the Spaniards’ first contact with the Huilliche at Chiloé. However not all agree with this interpretation; some authors believe it to be a “Bonnacon”; a mythical Asian being that resembled a bison and emitted murderously foul vapors through its rear; they could sear up to 1,5 hectares (3 acres) with their farts. It also had harmless curled horns that pointed backward.

Yet the beast on Piri Reis’ map has only one horn, not two like the Bonnacon, and it curves forward.

There are two other strange animals drawn on the map, which do not correspond to any known Patagonian beasts.

One which has a spotted hide with two long horns above its short ears, a fox-like tail, and two tusks like those of a wild boar.

Some have identified it with a llama, which is very unlikely since llamas lack both horns, tusks, spots or fox tails. Others believe that it is a mediaeval European mythical being, the Yale.

The other unknown animal, next to the six-horned beast, is described as “white-haired monsters [sic]” and drawn with a long tail, deer-like head and body, slender legs, and two long curved horns. We do not know what it is. Perhaps they are the strange horned beast that the Selk’nam described to Lucas Bridges and which we will discuss in a future post.

This map clearly places unicorns close to the Patagonian Andes in the early 1500s.

Over a century later (1630) an engraving by Matthaeus Merian,[9]the New World Landscape, depicts several animals unique to South America and it shows a weird single-horned creature that resembles a giraffe or a long-necked guanaco. Whether it was a Patagonian unicorn, we do not know. Since then the beast was not reported by any other explorers; it simply vanished.

Detail of a New World landscape showing a unicorn.
From: [9]. De Bry, J., (1630). Les grands voyages. Hanau. Part xiv, 55.

Perhaps Piri Reis’ informants had seen unicorns in Patagonia, maybe the last of a relictual group of gradually vanishing Toxodontidae, which have since become extinct.
However, the true answer may lie in a genetic quirk of deer.

Unicorns do exist

Contrary to what most believe, deer with one single antler despite being rare are not unheard of; in June 2008 a unicorn deer was spotted in a nature preserve area in Italy. A genetic defect causes only one instead of two antlers to grow centered on the creature’s head, giving it the appearance of a true unicorn. See for yourself:

One horned deer found in Italy.© AP. From: [10]

This makes it possible that an anomalous one-antlered Patagonian deer may have inspired the unicorn myth.[10]

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. Interestingly they escape persistent pursuers by swimming into lakes. They can swim with ease and are indeed an “amphibious” creature like the Camahueto.

Its habitat ranged from 34°S to the Strait of Magellan and 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.

Nowadays they are not seen by the sea nor on the steppe yet they may have at one time frequented the coast where they could have been seen by Piri Reis’ Portuguese sources: Prichard said that they were once spotted at the mouth of Deseado River on the Atlantic sea coast (47°45’ S, 65°53’ W).

Though there have not been any reports of “one horned” huemul, it is quite understandable due to the creature’s small population and endangered status. In the past, being more abundant, they could have inspired the formidable Camahueto and, must surely be the most reasonable explanation to the Patagonian unicorn myth.

The unicorn depicted in the rock-art at Cueva de las Manos, seems to uphold this idea, because the animal could be a Huemul with only one horn.

Go back to Part 1 of Patagonian Unicorns.

Bibliography.

[1] Pérez Tello, S., (2004). Chiloé: Una isla de inmigración. El Carrete de la Sera; Periódico de la Comunidad Chilena. N° 19. 03-2004. Online.
[2] Schwarzenberg, J., and Mutizábal, A., (1926). Monografía geográfica e histórica del Archipiélago de Chiloé. Santiago. Ed. Nascimiento. pp. 87.
[3] Latcham, R., (1924). La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los antiguos araucanos. Santiago: Cervantes. pp. 611+
[4] Keller, C., (1972). Mitos y leyendas de Chile. Santiago: Jerónimo de Vivar. pp. 38.
[5] Leman Yolaç, Ayşe Afetinan, (1954). Life and Works of the Turkish Admiral Piri Reis: The Oldest Map of America. Ankara. pp. 28-34
[6] Dutch, S., (1997). The Piri Reis Map.
[7] Piri Reis. The World Map (1513) [Map]. Library of Topkapi Palace Museum. No. H. 1824.
[8] Kirbus, F., (1976). Enigmas, misterios y secretos de América… B. Aires: Editorial La Barca Gráfica.
[9] De Bry, T., (1630). [Engraving] Les grands voyages. Hanau. Part xiv, 55.
[10] Falconi, M., (2008). AP Single-horned 'Unicorn' deer found in Italy.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

The Patagonian Unicorns - Part 1

 

Camahueto a Patagonian unicorn, by Austin Whittall. Copyright © 2008 by Austin Whittall

«Now I will believe / That there are unicorns (…) »
William Shakespeare - The Tempest

English travel writer Bruce Chatwin had his fictional Father Palacios assert that there had been unicorns in Patagonia and that they had been hunted to death by the natives eight thousand years ago. He also added, mixing fact and fiction that there was proof of this at Lake Posadas, where “you will find two paintings of unicorns. One holds it horn erect […] the other is about to impale a hunter”.[1]

Chatwin was actually expressing the ideas of the heterodox Salesian priest Manuel Jesús Molina (we mentioned him in our post on Yosi), who was sure that the Paleo-Indians had hunted unicorns for several thousand years and painted them in their rock-art.

He mentions one painting that shows some men apparently hunting a unicorn, which he dated to 9,000 years BP at Arroyo Lechuza, a stream that flows into Santa Cruz River.[2]

He also documented another painting with a “Unicornium patagonicum at Cerro del indio, lago Posadas”, which is precisely the one mentioned by Chatwin. Below is a photograph of this unicorn:

Unicornio. Copyright © 2008 by Alejandro Aguado. From: [3]

These paintings located in the basin of lakes Posadas and Pueyrredón, where the arid steppe meets the Andes (47°35’ S, 71°43’ W), have been dated to some 3,850 years ago.

The unicorn according to a Patagonian travelogue is “rather faded” and in our opinion it either represents a stocky creature with a very long horn or a slender necked guanaco decapitated by weathering. The interpretation lies in the eyes of the beholder. I am skeptical.

Close by is the Cueva de las manos (Cave of Hands - 47°09’ S, 70°39’ W). A World Heritage Site of the UNESCO. It got its name from the hundreds of negative impressions of hands painted on the walls of the Rio Pinturas canyon. These red, white and black imprints date back between 9,000 and 13,500 years and are interspersed with renderings of guanaco and men hunting them, as well as later abstract designs and, monster-like matuastos.

The place is impressive. I visited it in February 2007 and took the photograph which I reproduce below. The painting seems to depict a fat guanaco-like animal with a sharp pointed horn on its head (perhaps it is a one-horned Huemul? We will get back to this in the second part of this post).

Unicorn at Cueva de las Manos. Copyright © 2007 by Austin Whittall

Unicorns existed

Molina described his “unicornium” as a toxodontid that had a:

long curved frontal horn, prominent thorax and the character and behavior of the rhinoceros. In Indian paintings they can be seen running to attack […] they had an amphibian life with a body adapted to an aquatic and marshy environment. The head carried a small nasal horn.[4]

However strange it may seem, Molina was right. Patagonia was once home to “one-horned” beasts belonging to the Toxodontidae family (named after its most recent member the toxodon).

Toxodon was a large hippo-like South American mammal that belonged to the now totally extinct order Notoungulata, hoofed mammals endemic to the American continent. They disappeared quite recently, some 10,000 years BP, with all the other megafauna; they co-existed with humans and are pictured on rock art in Brazil.

Among these Toxodontidae, was the paratrigodon, unearthed in the 1930s close to northern Patagonia and its relative, the trigodon; both of which had a strong frontal horn: they were unicorns! Below is a reproduction of the one-horned trigodon:

Trigodon. Copyright by The Natural History Museum, London © 2008. Michael Long. From: [6]

There were two other “unicorn” Toxodontidae; one was the small 1,5 m long (5 ft.) Adinotherium ovinum which looked like tiny rhino, and had a small dermal horn on its forehead.[7]

The other was the larger nesodon (Nesodontinae cornutus) that also had a dermal horn and whose habitat in Patagonia reached well beyond 47°S.

However, the time frame would not have allowed modern men to see either of them because they became extinct between 2 and 15 Ma. years ago. If these creatures are the ones that were painted by Paleo-Indians, this means that some of these “unicorn” Toxodontidae must have managed to survive at least until men hunted and painted them; not earlier than some 35.000 years ago.

On Monday we will continue with the second post on Patagonian unicorns.

Bibliography.

[1] Chatwin, B., (2006). In Patagonia. B. Aires: Gráfica MPS. pp. 103.
[2] Molina, M., (1976). Op. Cit. pp. 54 and 193.
[3] Aguado Alejandro, (2009), “unicornio.100.jpg”.Bitácoras Fotográficas de Otras Patagonias. “Variados”, 13.03.2009
[5] Molina, M., (1976). Op. Cit. pp. 22.
[6] The Natural History Museum, London. Trigodon
[7] Prothero, D., et al., (2002). Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals. Baltimore: JHU Press. pp. 15.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters