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Paraguayan (Very) Strange Reputed Creatures

amyasleigh

Abominable Snowman
Joined
Nov 3, 2009
Messages
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I would seem to be at a bit of a loose end: am submitting thus, an item which I’ve found intriguing, since first coming upon it some years ago.

This is a thing which I feel definitely classes as Fortean: am submitting it first to “Cryptozoology – general”, largely because of my having spent a good deal of time on the FT Cryptozoology section, in recent years. If mods were to judge that it more properly belongs elsewhere on the site: please move.

A passage in the book, published 2004, At The Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette, about the author’s travels in the strangeness-filled country of Paraguay. (Fascinating subject-matter, rather spoiled for me, by the author’s regrettable in my perception, extreme tabloid-journalist-like propensity to wild generalisations, and overall up-himself-ness. He has written further books about travel by him, to potentially interesting places; but his style and attitude grate on me, to the point of my having renounced his writings.)

In one episode in At The Tomb..., the author finds himself – through unfortunate circumstances – alighting from a bus in the east of Paraguay, very late at night, eleven kilometres from his destination for the day -- accommodation guaranteed there, he just has to reach the village: walking through the dead of night, is his only option. He walks along the country road in the pitch-darkness, accompanied by mildly disquieting sounds made by (mundane) wildlife. He gets to thinking about encounterable real nasty creatures of assorted species, including homo sapiens. I quote from here on: “Paraguayan mythology contributed some unnecessary embellishments. This was not the time to be thinking of the mboya-jagwa, the huge dog-snake that eats travellers, ravishes women and yelps like a puppy. Or the carbunculo, a revolting carnivorous hog that disguises itself as a trough to engulf the unwary drinker. To the [late-19th-century, here] settlers, these creatures all seemed real enough. [ Others such]: a bird that shone in the dark, a giant bisexual ant-bear and a sabre-toothed sheep of uncommon ferocity named – a little ineptly perhaps – the ow-ow.

There was heavy breathing in my face. The thought of ending my days savaged by a sheep or violated by a giant ant-bear was more than dignity could bear. I untangled a flashlight from the soppy dishcloth of my shirt and shone it in the monster’s face. In confronting my fears, I’d confronted a cow...”

Spookily interesting lore, I feel – even if totally and completely the product of people’s vivid imaginations.
 
excellent stuff, to be able to compare with our own Black Dogs and WhiteDogs with Red Ears for example.

I am especially taken with the ow ow. But that book title is fortean all on its own!

Are these corroborated anywhere else? I'm not doubting you, just that the picture of the author makes me flinch :lol:

There's a poem that I 5% remember that I can't find. I'm pretty sure it has "met on the road" in it and it's about a man walking a road at night and not daring to turn around.

There's an excellent descripton of this situation in Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen (I think rather than the Moon of Gomrath) where Colin has to walk back home with what turns out to be the horned leader of the Wild Hunt behind him. :shock:

It seems likely that this is a universal experience - night, the walk, the Things following or waiting.... IF it is possible to create a tulpa (I'd say yes from personal experience but YMMV) then have we as a species populated the night with reality?
 
I don't actually know of any corroboration elsewhere, of these ghoulies-and-ghosties. The author gives at the end of the book, a further-reading list about Paraguay; but nothing included obviously in there, in which this stuff may feature. I'm taking it that the author didn't have the barefaced cheek to make it all up out of his own head !

The title -- if I have things rightly -- was inspired by a craze which the Paraguayans had when the author was there, for going around holding, on strings, helium-filled balloons in the shapes of various creatures -- pink pigs being especially favoured. Grown-ups did this in large numbers, not just kids. By a bit of literary whimsy, the author carried this oddity over (IIRC) into a visit which he made to the tomb of some deceased tyrannical ruler of Paraguay. My great dislike of the author perhaps makes me less than fair to him: but I find it an annoyingly contrived, florid, "look-at-me" title.

The verse you mention -- could it be this stanza of Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"?

Like one that on a lonesome road,
Doth walk with fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

For sure, it's a pretty universal experience for people, in the dark of night, to get the creeps over being beset / menaced by envisaged monsters -- children have always done that in plenty, and not only children. Interesting to ponder on, as per your words -- purely the product of imagination, in an unnerving setting; or maybe something more than just that?
 
That's it! How on earth did you ID it from me getting so much of it wrong? I've been after that for at least 10 years :D

I think now that the journey itself is part of the set up - diffferent to Things Under the Bed for example - that feeling of being in a transitory state with no chance of "home" within a reasonable time frame.

And the remote possibility that every time we give ourself the grues we contribute to the development of something that is out there and is waiting for us :shock:

It's an odd thought that we might be making our own predators!

Really enjoyed your post amyasleigh.
 
Thanks ! I'm no big literature scholar, and find most of old Sam T.'s "Ancient Mariner", a load of wordy, hyper-inflated babble; but that particular stanza has always given me the creeps big-time, and stayed with me.

Humans are weird, no doubt about it: making our own predators, being one strange -- and to the totally-logical-and-rational, incomprehensible -- trait, among many such.
 
It does have its moments but I think I've only managed to get all the way throught once. I had measles at the time and

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

gave me nightmares of the screaming variety :shock:
 
I once came across an IMO rather splendid "TL / DR" condensing of the "Ancient Mariner", into half a dozen stanzas, in "prole-speak". Have tried to Google it, but drew a blank. One stanza thereof, which I remember:

"Wot wiv that bird around my neck,
And spirits wivout water,
And 'eavenly 'osts about the deck --
I felt I never ought'a."
 
As good as place as any....

Strange Creature Found in Paraguay

According to many local reports, the body was found on October 21 near the shore of the Parana River in Carmen del Paraná, Itapúa. It’s not clear whether they discovered it, but a group of volunteer firefighters were among the first to examine the body. Their initial speculation was that the creature was part human or possibly an ape not from the local area. A medical examiner who examined the photos was unable to determine what it might be.

Yup that's what I'm thinking.

alien-mysterious-creature-paraguay-585x306.jpg
 
It looks like it's lost its fur or top layer of skin through being in the water so long...whatever it is.
 
It does have its moments but I think I've only managed to get all the way throught once. I had measles at the time and

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

gave me nightmares of the screaming variety :shock:
I've got a Richard Burton recording of the Poem, it's rather good (but a big big to email, sorry).
 
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