The Fat Stealers (Andean Legends; Pishtaco, etc.)

[FrKadash]

The Pishtaco: Fat-stealing Ghoul of the Andes
Known by many names, this legendary fat-stealer stalks indigenous communities in the rural Andean highlands.

In the Peruvian Andes, they say he wanders the roads agt night. He may look like a gringo (someone not Hispanic or Latino): hairy and bearded, wearing boots, a hat, and leather jacket. He may be on horseback, or in more modern times, in a car. He may look like a priest, walking along the side of the road. With his long knife, he attacks solitary travelers and dismembers them for food and for their fat.

folklorethursday.com/regional-folklore/the-pishtaco-fat-stealing-ghoul-of-the-andes/

 

[Dr_Baltar]

folklorethursday.com/regional-folklore/the-pishtaco-fat-stealing-ghoul-of-the-andes/

I've had a crap kebab, but never a pish taco.

 

[EnolaGaia]

folklorethursday.com/regional-folklore/the-pishtaco-fat-stealing-ghoul-of-the-andes/

Here are some additional excerpts from the linked article, providing more background information about this Andean folklore.

In central Peru, he is the pishtaku, from the Quechua pishtay (meaning “to cut into pieces; to slaughter”). In southern Peru and Quechua-speaking parts of Bolivia, they call him the ñakaq (from the Quechua “to butcher”). To Aymara speakers of Bolivia, he is the kharisiri (from the Aymara “to cut with a knife or razor”), and in southern Bolivia, liki’chiri (“fat-remover”). I will call him pishtaco, the Spanish-speaking Peruvian term, the name which I first heard him called.

The earliest account of the pishtaco legend comes from 1574. According to the priest Cristobal de Molina, the indigenous Andeans believed that the Spanish killed the indigenous Andeans for their fat, as it was the only cure for a certain disease. Because of this, indigenous Andeans avoided the Spaniards, refusing to enter their homes. There are in fact accounts of the Spanish using native fat to treat wounds after battles; European traditional medicine ascribed healing powers to human fat until the 19th century. ...

In Andalucía, there is a legend of the sacamanteca (“fat stealer”), who kills children and uses their fat (or blood) to cure disease. Sacamanteca stories did not appear in Spain before the beginning of the 19th century, which suggests that the legend derives from the Andean pishtaco.

In modern times, potential pishtacos include wealthy landowners, priests, foreigners, and those involved in industrial or development projects. Since one of the uses of the fat is for lubricating machinery, engineers and technicians are suspect. Aid workers, tourists, and even anthropologists sometimes must flee villages because of rumors that they are pishtacos. ...

Whatever its origins, the legend persists. In 1987, the rumor swept through Peru’s Ayacucho region (stronghold of the Shining Path) that the President had dispatched five thousand pishtacos to the region, to pay off Peru’s foreign debt with human fat. In 2009, the director of Peru’s criminal investigations unit, General Eusebio Félix Murga, claimed that a pishtaco gang had murdered at least sixty victims in Huánuco. ...

 

[EnolaGaia]

A 2000 Fortean Times article - once hosted on the now-defunct FT articles archive - focused on the Bolivian version of the fat stealer legend (the lik’ichiri). The MIA article can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine.

Andean Fat Stealers
Benjamin Radford(?)

The contemporary urban legends of organ theft may tap into some very modern fears, but in South America tales of supernatural creatures that steal fat from their sleeping victims have circulated for centuries.

Central and South America have other explanations for missing body parts, such as the supernatural creatures that swipe body fat. The lik’ichiri are said to haunt the altiplano (highlands) of the Andes mountains; the word means ‘fat stealer’ in the language of the Aymara, one of the indigenous groups of the Andes and it is well known among the Quechua, Aymara, and other native Andean cultures. ...

September 2000 FT 138

https://web.archive.org/web/20011209085909/http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/138_liki.shtml

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Wouldn't he be better off heading north to the US?