Mapinguari
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.
Description
[edit]There are various depictions of the mapinguari. Prior to 1933, traditional folklore describe it as a former human shaman turned into a hairy humanoid cyclops.[1]
The mapinguari has been recorded in the belief of 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.[2] The lore of the state of Acre also 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][4]
This traditional mapinguari is often said to have a gaping mouth on its abdomen,[5] with its feet turned backwards. Creatures with such feet, which confuse those trying to track it, are found in folklore around the world.[1]
A parallel can be found in the legendary Quibungo, a monster which old black men turned into,[6] which also has a strange gaping mouth running from throat to stomach,[7] from which the Mapnguari may have borrowed the trait.[8]
Cryptozoology
[edit]In the latter half of the 20th century, some cryptozoologists speculated that the mapinguari might be an unknown primate, akin to Bigfoot.[1][10]
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.[5][9] 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.[1]
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.[11]
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”.[12]
Terminology
[edit]According to Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden, its name is a combination of the Tupi-Guarani words "mbappé", "pi", and "guari", meaning "a thing that has a bent [or] crooked foot [or] paw".[13] Other names by which they are referred to include the Karitiana kida harara,[13] and the Machiguenga segamai.[5][9]
In popular culture
[edit]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.[14]
See also
[edit]- List of legendary creatures
- Capelobo - resembles Mapinguari but with snout like giant anteater (⊂Xenarthra, like giant sloth)
- Homo floresiensis – Extinct small human species found in Flores, aka "Hobbit" man
- Mylodon – Extinct genus of mylodontid ground sloths
- Quibungo - resembles Mapinguari, same mouth at (reaching to) stomach, transformed from aged black men.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Dunning, Brian. "On the Trail of the Mapinguari". Skeptoid. Skeptic Media. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
- ^ 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
- ^ 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.
- ^ Francisco Peres de Lima (1938) Folclore acreano, p. 103 apud Cascudo[3]
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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
- ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 9: "Uma característica do Quibungo é sua bocarra aberta verticalmente da garganta ao estômago"
- ^ Cascudo (1983), p. 191: "Do africano Quibungo, o Mapinguari tem a posição anômala da boca"
- ^ 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
- ^ Paleontologist Richard Cerutti (private communication to Oren).[9]
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden "Sobre caes e indios: domesticidade, classificacao zoologica e relacao humano-animal entre os Karitiana", Revista de Antropología 15 (2009) p. 125–143
- ^ "O Pergaminho Vermelho". Rodrigo Santos Escritor. 20 September 2021.
Sources
[edit]- Martin, Paul S. 2007. Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520252431
- Shepard, G. H. 2002. "Primates and the Matsigenka" in Agustín Fuentes & Linda D. Wolfe. Primates Face to Face: The Conservation Implications of Human-nonhuman Primate Interconnections. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139441476
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).