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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lammon. This is the Monster Fact,

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Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 2: focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. We've

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Speaker 2: been talking about manta rays on Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 2: Mind recently, so I thought it was high time to

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Speaker 2: discuss a selection of creatures that captivated me many years

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Speaker 2: ago when I first picked up a copy of Carol

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Speaker 2: Rose's Giants, Monsters and Dragons and Encyclopedia of Folklore, legend

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Speaker 2: in myth If you've listened to the show for any

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Speaker 2: amount of time, you've heard me champion this book a lot.

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Speaker 2: My copy is well worn. Rose compiles an exhaustive, if

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Speaker 2: inevitably incomplete, encyclopedia of mythic, folkloric, legendary and literary creatures,

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Speaker 2: and early on I was captivated by some of the

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Speaker 2: Chilean creatures listed in its pages, several of which relate

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Speaker 2: to hides and bladders. Not only are some of these

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Speaker 2: possibly connected to observations of mantas and other rays, manta

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Speaker 2: even has its own listing. She describes the manta as

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Speaker 2: a giant sea going monster. From the folklore of ch Chile.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps she means Chiloe island. It's just the creatures described

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Speaker 2: as quote a flat, extended skin like a cow's hide,

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Speaker 2: with eyes around the perimeter, four more on top where

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Speaker 2: a head would have been, and tentacles and tail with cloths.

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Speaker 2: So this creature is said to attack swimmers, folding around

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Speaker 2: their bodies and pulling them into the depths to consume them.

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Speaker 2: Rose shares that some have speculated that the tail might

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Speaker 2: actually refer to some manner of cephalopod, like an octopus.

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Speaker 2: The folkloric salt water manta, which as a reminder, means

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Speaker 2: blanket in Spanish, would also connected to the freshwater quero

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Speaker 2: Spanish for hide, which has the same mo in appearance

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Speaker 2: and is said to be derived from the hide of

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Speaker 2: a donkey that quote fell into the river, unfolded, came alive,

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Speaker 2: and then engulfed every other living thing that came its way.

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Speaker 2: Both are also said to cause storms when they return

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Speaker 2: to the water after basking on the rocks. So once

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Speaker 2: more we have a flattened or amorphous entity that could

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Speaker 2: easily be compared to various octopi and certainly rays. There

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Speaker 2: are no known freshwater cephalopods. However, there are freshwater rays

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Speaker 2: native to South America, if not actually to Chile itself.

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Speaker 2: She also mentions the trel Kawikov from the folklore of

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Speaker 2: the Arocanian people of Chile, which also matches the description

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Speaker 2: of the quiro and the folkloric manta, but with the

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Speaker 2: added detail that it is the minion of the dreaded

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Speaker 2: Imvunche or Imbunche, a great bladder like vampire creature that

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Speaker 2: lives deep in an underground lake, and it depends on

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Speaker 2: the trel quukure to deliver its human prey. Rose also

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Speaker 2: profiles another Chilean monster said to be part of this

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Speaker 2: horrific community of creatures, the Shivato, also part of Arocanian traditions,

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Speaker 2: said to be a monstrous cannibal humanoid created by witches

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Speaker 2: from the body of a kidnapped child, a horrifying process

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Speaker 2: said to take many years, also known as enserados in Spanish,

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Speaker 2: Rose describes how the witches were said to sow up

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Speaker 2: the orifices of the abducted child and feed them only

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Speaker 2: goat and human flesh, gradually transforming them into hairy, gray

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Speaker 2: savages beings which might also eventually transform into an invunce

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Speaker 2: or Embunche, or even a shivato. Other accounts list other

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Speaker 2: horrifying mutilations that are part of the transformation process quite

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Speaker 2: a horrific, monstrous life cycle. Rose's main source for these

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Speaker 2: creatures would seem to be the nineteen eighty eight or

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Speaker 2: eighty nine book Lake Monster Traditions by Mirger and Gagnon,

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Speaker 2: which is rather hard to come by these days. The

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Speaker 2: Invunce or Embunche in particular, has found its way into

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Speaker 2: various popular works of modern fiction, including Chilean author Jose

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Speaker 2: Donoso's magical realist novel The Obscene Bird of Night from

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy, as well as Alan Moore's terrific run on

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Speaker 2: DC comics Swamp Thing. I've had a hard time finding

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Speaker 2: additional materials on these various creatures, at least in English,

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Speaker 2: which is a shame, because I'd love to know more

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Speaker 2: about where these accounts come from, how they're interconnected, and

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Speaker 2: what they meant to the people who hold or held

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Speaker 2: these traditions. Certainly, if you, the listener, know of any

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Speaker 2: good resources on these creatures these topics, please send them

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Speaker 2: my way and we can follow up in the future.

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Speaker 2: But in the absence of such resources, we can only

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Speaker 2: speculate to what extent some of these traditions may have

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Speaker 2: been based on the observation of salt water or even

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Speaker 2: freshwater rays, as well as octopi. Most such creatures are

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Speaker 2: of little thread. Of course, even steamrays result in no

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Speaker 2: more than I believe one or two human deaths per year.

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Speaker 2: But just as many human traditions have identified something otherworldly

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Speaker 2: and even divine in the movements of rays, others have

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Speaker 2: cast them as potentially dangerous predators. Tune in for additional

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Speaker 2: episodes of The Monster, Fact, the Artifact, or anomiliustipendium each week.

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Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff

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Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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