Brazil is the largest state in South America, home to the world's largest jungle and the deepest river, the Amazon. Match the huge country in which they speak 188 languages and dialects, and its monsters, which Brazilians try not to remember in vain.
A creature with two mouths
Scholars who heard the Aboriginal stories about the Mapinguari considered them to be a model of local folklore. No one believed in the existence of a red-haired monster with dagger-like claws, whose feet were turned backwards and had a second mouth on its belly. According to the Indians, under the fur he has a skin, hard as armor, arrows and spears bounce off it. The only vulnerable spot is the stomach. The monster smells disgusting and roars deafeningly.
The mapinguari would have remained an exotic legend if not for Dr. David Oren, who drew attention to the fact that the appearance of the monster, as described by the Indians, coincides with the appearance of the milodon, which became extinct ten thousand years ago. The milodons had huge crooked claws, and the fossilized paw prints really look like they were inverted. Their skin with bone plaques resembled modern body armor: the only place without "armor" was the belly. For the "second mouth" the natives, apparently, took the glands on the belly - the source of the disgusting smell. David himself heard the screams of this creature, similar to the roar of a motor. It turns out that the mapinguari is a descendant of the prehistoric milodon?..
Giant snakes
However, in Brazil miracles are told about quite ordinary, not mythical creatures. For example, the green anaconda is the largest snake in the world. It reaches nine meters in length and is capable of swallowing a person. However, zoologists do not exclude that anacondas can reach 20 meters in length. This is all right! But what about the stories about a giant boa constrictor, which supposedly reaches a length of 50 meters or more ?!
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The famous German zoologist Lorenz Hagenbeck, who caught wild animals for zoos in the world, was sure that such a boa constrictor exists. Among those who saw them and told Hagenbeck about it were priests who worked in Brazil - Victor Heinz and Protesius Frikel.
Heinz saw a 24 meter long snake during a flood in May 1922, and in October 1929, a giant boa constrictor was attracted by the lanterns of his boat at the mouth of the Piaba River. Victor noticed that the reptile has glowing eyes. The priest got off with a slight fright. But in 1930, a huge snake almost overturned the boat of the merchant Reimondo Zima. Lorenz Hagenbeck suggested that the creature could take the boat lights for the eyes of another snake and decided to get to know each other better.
Father Frikel saw a huge reptile in the jungle and was brave enough - or foolish enough to come within a few steps of it. Fortunately, the snake did not honor the unwary priest.
One of these giant snakes has made a lair in the ruins of Fort Tarabinga on the Oyapok River. In 1949, she attacked soldiers who responded with automatic fire. It took 500 rounds of ammunition to kill the 35-meter giant. His photograph was published in the newspapers, but from such a strange angle that the thought of a fake involuntarily comes to mind.
Werewolves and ghouls
Having become acquainted with real monsters, scientists began to treat the local legends about mysterious creatures with much less skepticism. As an example, we can cite a certain mule sem kabeka. This is a woman punished by God for a sinful relationship with a priest. It's only strange that it was she who was punished, and not the clergyman … Every Thursday after sunset the unfortunate woman turns into a headless mule. Despite the absence of a head, the mule groans, hums, and fire erupts from the stump of his neck.
If the mule sem kabek has no head, the other werewolf, the kurakanga, has no body. His head flies completely independently at night, somehow setting fire to everything around.
Lobison is the seventh son born out of wedlock. He transforms from time to time into a giant black dog with fiery red eyes. Lobison walks through cemeteries, and also looks into pigsties and chicken coops. His favorite treats are corpses, unbaptized children, and just excrement. Lobison can be driven away if you draw a cross in your own language with mud, and kill - only with a bullet with a cross inscribed on it. But there is a very simple way to protect yourself from this werewolf: if you stick an ax into the door jamb, the lobison will not be able to enter the house.
Unlike these characters, kupelobo - a creature with a human body and an anteater's head - does not turn into anyone. Instead of eating ants, he hunts humans. With its long and unusually hard tongue, this monster pierces the head of the victim and sucks the brain out of it.
Another monster is a corpseco, or a person who has lived his whole life doing nothing, just cursing everyone, even his own mother. After the death of such a person, neither God nor Satan want to take him to themselves, and the earth itself spews out his hideous flesh from the grave. He wanders at night, withered like a skeleton covered with wrinkled skin, and frightens the living. His name is translated as a dry corpse.
Deadly temptation
Some mythical characters are too sexy to be a product of Catholic traditions. This is the alamoa - a female spirit that at first glance seems like a beautiful naked blonde. Alamoa lives in the rocks and seduces passing men. Having enjoyed the closeness, the alamoa, to the horror of the lover, turns into a skeleton and drags its victim into some crack in the rock.
They say that on the shores of the Amazon there are villages (people-seals). It is also rumored that the Amazonian river dolphin boto from time to time turns into a man and seduces women. Taking the form of a human, he wears a hat, hiding the airway on the top of his head, and plays the saxophone well. Women who become pregnant outside of marriage are often accused of this insidious bot.
The same cunning is attributed to macaws - small frogs that appear in areas reclaimed by people from the jungle. They can "gather" into a wonderful young man and lure women who then give birth … a lot of frogs!
Another sexy hunter is Kotaluna, a mermaid from the Gramama River, near Paraíba, a state in eastern Brazil. She seduces men, and then turns them into zombies - creatures without will and memory. Her marine "colleague" - the Ipupiara, or the fish-man - does not resort to any tricks and simply strangles the fishermen, and then devours their eyes, fingers and genitals.
God knows what
In an area so rich in folklore, it is difficult to distinguish legends from reality. It is still unclear whether the labatuta actually exists, a monster allegedly living in the region of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte. It is covered with needles like a porcupine, has one eye in its forehead and tusks like an elephant. The Indians believe that he goes from house to house and overhears what is happening outside the door. If the labatuta hears the voices of people, it breaks down the door and devours everyone in turn, preferring to start with tender baby meat.
Dwarfs with green teeth
In Brazil, they also talk about forest dwarfs, or kurupira. But it is still unclear whether we are talking about a real dwarf tribe like pygmies or folkloric creatures like gnomes. The dwarfs are rumored to look like boys covered in red hair. Their teeth are green, and their feet, like those of a Mapinguari, are inverted. Dwarfs protect the forest, but they tolerate hunters who hunt game for food. Those who kill living things "for the sake of sports", they drive crazy. When a storm is approaching, kurupira run through the jungle and knock on tree trunks, checking if they can withstand the elements. People leave alcohol and tobacco for the dwarfs in the forest.
Can't believe it? But "red hair" can actually be just a skin draped over the shoulders, teeth can turn green from some vegetable chewing gum, and "inverted feet" can turn out to be a method of masking traces when people walk backwards, thereby hiding the direction of movement.
The future will show which stories about monsters and unknown tribes will turn out to be reality, and which ones - a reflection of fears of the jungle or simply a product of the human subconscious.
Mikhail Gershtein. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 29 2010