Ucumar and Duende

I always say that in Cryptozoology when you are working with traditions, you have the different component parts of Folklore and then again the actual reports to work with. Following are two popular secions of Folklore about some common Latin-American Cryptids, published many times in many internet Folklore sites. In this case the legends come from Northern Argentina. Very few aspects of the reports come through in the Folklore, but it is more important to remember that the Native informants will always have the Folklore in mind when they are making reports.

[Babel Fish Translation]

The ucumar also called "UKUMAN". The word comes from the Quechua and means "body, material part of a living being." That's what it was just a body. A body without a soul apparently awful. The ugly things are forbidden to roam the range of feelings. And he was a human, covered with black hair, long, dirty, hard, but elastic. The lines of his face only included two small eyes, intense, dark and sunken. The hairs that fell were born on the forehead over the nose and mouth, separated only by snorts and jowls on either side. The mouth was a huge, slimy pit, and protruding teeth, isolated from each other, each with its own angle. If senas had breasts or was not a matter of controversy among the villagers half jungle half walk. When he was born, his father wanted to drown him. The mother protected his in her arms and never abandoned. She had more love for the little monster for his five beautiful children before. By his zeal and his sentence was being alone and sick. As she lay dying, more strongly than ever hugged and looked at the strange body that she had given birth. tore his body rigid and the monster that roared and howled. As luck would be thrown into a corner of the big hut, until the funeral rites were met with the mother. When they returned the brothers and the father not knowing what to do, between the sounds of other people, found curled up and released the strange sounds, like crying. It was not mercy that saved his life. There was fear in the hut. As you could see no genitals, but his legs were stained with red each moon, was the "ucumara." It was huge, sullen and grumpy and apparently fearful. One of the men of the village , of the same time, between twilight and solitude stealth approached the village-hut with increasing frequency. Undeterred he feared neither the grunts and jumps with that ostentatious "ucumara" repaid their visits were brief, but tense. One day he threw fruit and another day a piece of flesh man. The tribe devoured the prisoners of war and the owner of enemy dead was the owner of the banquet. The "ucumara" ate and left no remains. It was understood then that he appreciated the gift and therefore man repeated as often as he could, receiving payments more suspirados grunts, jumps less aggressive. One day in the middle of the village walked to the distant river, to meet the annual ceremony of worship the growing tumultuous and thunderous bringing the melting of the white peaks. The man returned, choosing places to be seen and not after a fierce struggle, raped the "ucumara." Since then his surliness was total and his anger increased. Hated men and the world around them. The stones of her hut disappeared, thrown with great force against every living creature that was approaching. When he had no stones, fled. returned a stormy afternoon and kidnapped her rapist and no one dared to stop it, let alone the victim, overcome its resistance to shock and dragged one leg by rocks and mudslides to the stone den where, we imagine, arrived more dead than alive. There had to choose between life and marriage: she chose love, and for a time the pace was the pace of "ucumara" that, and pregnant and confused, with swollen abdomen, breathing, thinking more of themselves, which in complacent prisoner. One day she seemed to find opportunity, when the monster was groaning with labor pains. fled from the cave, fast and frightening, but the "ucumara" between roars and pain hit him. He grabbed her head and dragged the body of his love to the cave. Between tears and convulsions ate it. Poso after another UCUMARA born, all covered with hair, black, hard, but elastic, head to toe. Nursed her daughter, taught her to eat meat red and when the shoot and hunt with his hands, with a roar of soul, died easily death and went to heaven of the monsters in the peace of the mountain. The legend bifurcates from the birth of ucumar. One side says the monster crying for the death of his mother, was so strong and torn that it reached the ears of Wiracocha - seafoam-white-bearded god who ruled Cuzco blondes and soothe his pain, he promised immortality. Another argues that mythological venerate Wiracocha was presented to ucumar and to punish him for his crimes and licentiousness, given eternal life roaming the hills and jungles. So too stoned rapists who hung on the permanent threat of being devoured by the ucumar. The legend, of Peruvian origin, is widespread in Salta and Jujuy. In our province lies the monster in the departments of San Pedro and Ledesma hovering around sugar mills. The popular imagination made ​​him prisoner or shareholder of one of them.

 El Duende They call it "dobente" in Puna. It is the universal trickster in its Puna. They believe in him and fear him. are nature spirits who wander in the wilderness all farmers of the world and probably has its origins with the arrival of Spanish. They are the chimerical beings born in the popular fantasies of all countries, which have in common with each other Lilliputian size, natural genius, restless and playful and constant penchant for torturing men, boys and maidens, in a thousand different ways. In the highlands is identified naked and no more than 50 centimeters [18 inches] in height, with an iron hand and a wool hat and a huge wide brim that covers entirely from above his little body. There are good Duendes and evil Duendes; neither side is very good nor very bad. Always mischievous. In Jujuy they lurk behind the lonely rock of the Puna and in the depths of the spring. In the jungle they are known very little and in the plains they are ignored. According to tradition it is always good to carry a rosary or a tie, which serves to keep them away. The people with guns go away, the magic does not get past the sombrero. They have some countrymen, who, at times have heard him play music in the hills, in a sad way, and sing like weeping.

Duendis: at right artist's conception for Sanderson's version