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Mapinguari

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For the orchid genus, see Mapinguari (plant).
Mapinguari statue, Parque Ambiental Chico Mendes, Rio Branco, Brazil

Mapinguari, or mapinguary (also called the juma), are mythical monstrous jungle-dwelling spirits from Brazilian folklore, said to protect the Amazon rainforest and its animals. It is considered a man-eater, which old humans were thought to transform into.

It has a gaping mouth on the stomach, or a mouth split open from throat to belly. The dense hair makes it impenetrable to bullets, except around the navel.

Terminology

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Casudo and later commentators speculate the name to mapinguari be a compound mbaé-pi-guari (Guarani : mbae "that, the thing"[1] + pĭ "foot"[2] + guarî "crooked, twisted"[3]) meaning "the thing that has a clubbed, twisted, or backwards-turned foot" (Tupi-Guarani[4][6]

Other names by which they are referred to include the Karitiana kida harara,[5] and the Machiguenga segamai.[7][8]

Description

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There are various depictions of the mapinguari. It is a man-eater,[9] and may eat the victim head-first, plunging the victim's head in the long gaping oral cavity (that runs from nose to stomach, cf. § Mouth in abdomen) and chewing slowly.[10][11] While legend says it only devours the head,[13] one documented rubber tapper witness has seen the creature devour the entire body piecemeal: the head, limbs, entrails, and torso.[14][16]

It was still believed to haunt the forests of Pará, Amazonas and Acre into the 20th century.[9]

The lore of the anthropophagous giant mapinguari may well be a composite, taking on the characteristics of the Gorjala (a giant or gigantes[17]), the Pé de Garrafa ("bottle footed"[18]), the invulnerability, the inverted feet of the Curupira and Matutiú, etc.[19][9] Its giant stature is cloaked by long black hair, it has long arms and clawed hand.[20]

It is not nocturnal like other monsters, but lies in wait in the dim light of the depth of the forest by daylight, and lunges to attack. It also announces itself with heavy screaming, frightening the humans into terrified flight.[21] Cascudo suspects this to be relatively young lore, found in the narrative of the rubber tappers, since the old chroniclers of the colonial period do not mention it.[10]

The mapinguari (mapinguary) in the Purus River basin of Amazonas is described as a gigantic monkey, as hairy as a coatá (spider monkey), with donkey hooves for feet that are turned backwards (like the Curupira),[22][11] This description was by a witness who was a seringueiro at a rubber plantation. The rubber tapper saw his tent companion devoured by such a mapinguari, which had jaguar-like claws and a huge flap of a mouth that slit open at its stomach (or from the facial area down to its stomach).[14]

Transformations of old men

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The lore of the state of Acre tells that Indians who attain an advanced age transform into this monster, and describes it as having an alligator-like hard-shelled skin, with identical feet like the (ends of) a pestle or Brazil nut capsules.[a][24]

The mapinguari has been recorded in the belief among the Macuna as a man-eater, greatly feared. It was supposed that men who grow too old turned into these. The custom existed among the Indians of the Yotahy (Jotahy) River of killing the superannuated for fear they will turn into Mapinguaris.[25] One informant has told it to be an "ancient king of the region".[26]

Folklore pre-1933 also describe it as a former human shaman turned into a hairy humanoid cyclops.[27]

Cf. also Quibungo (aged black Brazilians turned monster) described below.

Mouth in abdomen

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This traditional mapinguari is often said to have a gaping mouth on its abdomen,[7] with its feet turned backwards, as already testified by the rubber-tapper of the Purus River basin, Amazonas.[14] Creatures with such feet, which confuse those trying to track it, are found in folklore around the world.[27]

A parallel can be found in the legendary Quibungo, a monster which old black men turned into,[28] which also has a strange gaping mouth running from nose to stomach[10] (or throat to stomach,[29]) from which the Mapinguari may have borrowed the trait.[30][31]

Thus the alternative description is not a mouth at the stomach, but an oral cavity that slits vertically from face/throat to navel, as already touched upon in the rubber-tapper's testimony above.[14]

Also, the spot around its navel is the only place where a gunshot would penetrate, and elsewhere his dense hair makes him invulnerable to bullets.[9]

Cryptozoology

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Even the Brazilian Cascudo commented there was close similarity between the Mapinguari and the Mongolian "wild man" or kümün görügesü (cf. Almas).[b][9]

In the latter half of the 20th century, some cryptozoologists speculated that the mapinguari might be an unknown primate, akin to Bigfoot.[27][33]

Others suggest it might be a modern-day sighting of a giant ground sloth, an animal estimated to have gone extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene.[7][8] These later descriptions may be attributed to David C. Oren, an ornithologist, who during his research (1970s–1990s in the Tapajós River basin) heard stories about recent huntings of this creature (including anecdotes that some hunters kept the hair and claws but were discarded due to the stench), and hypothesized they might be the extinct sloths. This was met by criticism by scientists at the time, but an article Oren published in 1993 was picked up by major news papers despite no evidence.[27]

Skeptical geobiologist Paul S. Martin has argued against any credible possibility of such survival, pointing out that there have not been any ground sloth remains found in any of the modern (Holocene) fossil records spanning many thousands of years.[34]

A 2023 academic study of the 1995 discovery of giant sloth bones “modified into primordial pendants” suggested that humans lived in the Americas contemporaneously with the giant sloth, specifically that “it may have served as inspiration for the Mapinguari, a mythical beast that, in Amazonian legend, had the nasty habit of twisting off the heads of humans and devouring them”.[35]

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A reference to Mapinguari occurs in the 2020 animated film The Red Scroll, during the final scene when the character Wupa transforms into a giant sloth monster.[36]

See also

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Explanatory notes

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  1. ^ ouriço de castanha is literally "chestnut burr" but "castanha-do-acre" or Brazil nut must be meant here.
  2. ^ Cascudo gives "Khoun-gouraissou" (without hyphenation) which is the French transliteration in Przhevalsky, Nikolay (1880) Mongolie et pays des Tangoutes, p. 304. But an English translation "kung-gurresu" as 'man-beast' occurs in Przhevalsky (1876) Mongolia, the Tangut Country 2: 249. The orthography is taken from Rinčen (1964).[32]

References

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  1. ^ Ramiz Galvão, Benjamim Franklin de (1879). "mbaê". Vocabulario das Palavras Guaranis usadas pelo traductor da «Conquista Espritual» do Padre A. Ruiz de Montoya. Anais da Biblioteca nacional do Rio de Janeiro 7 (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: Typographia Nacional. p. 223.
  2. ^ Vocabulario s.v. pî s. "pé, pés, assento, base"
  3. ^ Vocabulario s.v. guarî adj. "torto, contorto, retorcido"
  4. ^ a b c Cascudo (1983), p. 191.
  5. ^ a b Velden, Felipe Ferreira Vander (2009) "Sobre caes e indios: domesticidade, classificacao zoologica e relacao humano-animal entre os Karitiana", Revista de Antropología 15: 25–143
  6. ^ According to Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden, its name is a combination of the Tupi-Guarani mbappé", "pi", and "guari").[5]
  7. ^ a b c Rohter, Larry (2007-07-08). "A Huge Amazon Monster Is Only a Myth. Or Is It?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2020-04-12.
  8. ^ a b c Oren, David C. (2001). "Does the Endangered Xenarthran Fauna of Amazonia Include Remnant Ground Sloths?". Edentata: A Newsletter of the IUCN Edentate Specialist Group (4): 3; fulltext @scribd
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cascudo, Luís da Câmara (1962) [1954]. "Mapinguari". Dicionário do folclore brasileiro (in Portuguese). Vol. 2 (J–Z) (2 ed.). Brasília: Instituto Nacional do Livro. p. 456–457.
  10. ^ a b c d Cascudo (1976a), p. 18.
  11. ^ a b An independent informant, Genésio Xavier Torres, court clerk formerly rubber-tapper gives a more succinct but description similar to the tale edited by Silva Campo, that Mapinguari is a monkey larger than man with hooves turned in reverse direction, that its mouth was split from nose to stomach, and it chewed the victim's head like chewing tobacco.[23]
  12. ^ Cascudo (2002), p. 224.
  13. ^ Cascudo: "Mas devora somente a cabeça"[4][12][9]
  14. ^ a b c d e f Magalhães, Basílio de [in Portuguese]; Silva Campos, João da (1928). "LXXVI O Mapinguary". Ditados Populares: a verdade que o povo consagrou (in Portuguese). Editora Dialética. pp. 321–322; --; -- (1960) LXXVI O mapinguari p. 335
  15. ^ Cascudo (2002), p. 223: "No conto de J. da Silva Campos, o Mapinguari arranca a carne de sua vítima em largos pedaços".
  16. ^ Cascudo too noted it can tear the flesh in many pieces, as described in this tale (edited by Silva Campos[14]).[15]
  17. ^ Cascudo (1962) 1: 353 "Gorjala"
  18. ^ Cascudo (1962) 2: 583 ""de%20Garrafa" Pé de Garrafa"
  19. ^ Matutiú as described by Father Cristóvão de Acunha.[10]
  20. ^ Cascudo (1976a), p. 17; Cascudo (1983), p. 189
  21. ^ Cascudo (1976a), p. 17.
  22. ^ Silva Campos (1928) Brasil, pp. 321–322,[14] apud Cascudo.[4][9]
  23. ^ Cascudo, Luís da Câmara (1976b). "Mapinguari". Geografia dos mitos brasileiros (in Portuguese). Livraria J. Olympio Editora. p. 192.
  24. ^ Francisco Peres de Lima (1938) Folclore acreano, p. 103 apud Cascudo[9]
  25. ^ Deleyto, José María (September 1966). "Mundo de la Amazonia". Revista Española de Indigenismo (in Spanish) (8): 17. Los Macuna también creen en monstruos , de los cuales va- rios pasaron al al folklore . Mui temido es el Mapinguari , un ser gigantesco y cabelludo que come gente. Se dice que gente demasiado vieja se transforma en Mapinguaris. Esta creencia parece venir de los indios del río Yotahy , donde se mata a los viejos para que no alcancen edad avanzada y no se conviertan en Mapinguaris
  26. ^ Cascudo's dictionary[9] and Cascudo (1983), p. 191: "o Mapinguari era o “antigo rei da região' [the Mapinguari is the 'ancient king of the region']”according to an old tuixaua (indigenous chief) who was already semi-civilized, reported by Guedes, Mário (1920) [1914] Os Seringais, pp. 221-222.
  27. ^ a b c d Dunning, Brian. "On the Trail of the Mapinguari". Skeptoid. Skeptic Media. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  28. ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 205: "Quibungo, Negro africano, quando fica muito velho, vira Quibungo. É um macacão todo peludo, que come crianças. (Recôncavo da Bahia)" citing da Silva Campos, João (1928) “Contos e Fábulas populares da Bahia”, in O Folclore no Brasil, p. 219
  29. ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 9: "Uma característica do Quibungo é sua bocarra aberta verticalmente da garganta ao estômago"
  30. ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 189.
  31. ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 191: "Do africano Quibungo, o Mapinguari tem a posição anômala da boca"
  32. ^ Rinčen, P. R. (1964). "Almas still exists in Mongolia". Genus. 20 (1/4): 187–189. ISSN 0016-6987. JSTOR 29787582.
  33. ^ Paleontologist Richard Cerutti (private communication to Oren).[8]
  34. ^ Martin, Paul S. (2005). Twilight of the mammoths: ice age extinctions and the rewilding of America. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 978-0-520-94110-6. OCLC 62860983.
  35. ^ Lidz, Franz (July 18, 2023). "When Were We Here? Ask the Sloth Bones.: A discovery revives a longtime debate about the arrival of the earliest Americans". The New York Times. p. D3. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  36. ^ "O Pergaminho Vermelho". Rodrigo Santos Escritor. 20 September 2021.

Bibliography

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