It’s the most wonderful time of year. That is if you’re into all things terrifying, horrifying, and downright haunting. It’s Halloween y Dia de Muertos season! So, today we are honoring the veil between the lifting of the spirits while talking about some of the most popular, chill-inducing, terrifying legends of Latin America.
Top Terrifying Legends of Latin America
The following is a list of our seven top terrifying legends of Latin America.
La Llorona – Mexico
In the famous Greek play, Medea, Euripedes wrote “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
And, when it comes to some of the legends and lore that permeates Latino culture, there is definitely a theme of a woman scorned. It’s a dangerous theme that attempts to demonize women for feeling emotions or expressing any kind of anger. And there are fewer legends that follow that theme that is as infamous as La Llorona, aka “The Weeping Woman.” While the story has different variations, the core components remain the same.
There was a woman named Maria, a beautiful woman, who had a husband and two children. All of whom she loved. One day, Maria finds her husband with another woman. Fraught with rage towards her husband, Maria takes her children to the water and drowns them to spite her husband. Realizing what she’s done, she kills herself but is unable to move on to the afterlife until she finds her children. Her wails and cries for her children are said to have lasted for an eternity, and her spirit, often dressed in white, is still found roaming the waters, crying out for her children.
Peuchen – Chile
Coming from the lore of the Mapuche peoples, indigenous to Chile, The Peuchen is a shape-shifting creature, almost vampiric in nature, said to most often take the form of a flying snake. The Peuchen has the ability to hypnotize its victims by gazing into their eyes, which they use as a means to paralyze before draining the person of their blood. Sheepherders in the area would often attribute the loss of their flock to the Peuchen, who was known to suck the blood of sheep in the dead of night when it was unable to find a human victim.
According to legend, The Peuchen can only be defeated by a Machi, a Mapueche medicine woman, who must use a specific mixture of herbs to combat the Peuchen’s gaze.
Read more: El Árbol del Vampiro: The Haunting Legend of Belen Cemetery
Acalica – Bolivia
Honestly, the Alcalica are probably the least dangerous of this bunch. They’re really more like faeries than evil spirits or creepy crawling shapeshifters. They live in underground caves and generally try to avoid human contact (can’t really blame them), and their claim to fame is that they are able to control the weather.
In fact, the Alcalica are said to be somewhat docile creatures who only become vengeful or aggressive when someone attempts to harm the delicate balance of nature. They are protectors more than they are dangerous. Unless of course, you try to hurt the Earth. Then all bets are off.
El Sombreron – Guatemala
El Sombreron, also known as Tzipito or Tzizimite, is like a supernatural-level stalker. He has a deep love of women, one that can grow into a dangerous obsession. It is said that El Sombreron is known for being well-dressed, short, and mysterious. That he will spend his days searching until he finds a woman, decides she is his and begins the process of marking her as his territory.
Which never goes well. He begins his strange, haunting courtship by following the woman to her home and tying a pack of mules around her house. From there, he takes out his silver guitar and begins to serenade her until she accepts his love, and comes back to his home. There he feeds her, but according to legend, he puts the soil in her food which prevents her from sleeping. She is then forced to spend every waking moment with him.
The Yucumama – Ecuador
Don’t go in the water. The fear of water, and the unknown that lies beneath its murky depths, has always been a preternatural fear utilized in a variety of lore and legends. The Yucumama is probably one of the most terrifying. Described as a nearly 200-foot-long water snake with horns that can swallow a human whole.
Making the Yucumama an even bigger threat, legend has it that the monstrous snake could shapeshift into the form of a docile old woman, who would lure people, especially young people and children, to the water where she would shift back into a snake and eat them. The tribes in the area, fearing the Yucumama, would blow large horns before entering the water in the hopes of warding off the predator.
The Chupacabra - Puerto Rico
The Chupacabra, also known as the Goat Sucker, is a veritable boogeyman, said to be a mixture of a minx, lizard, and vampire, who feeds off the blood of goats and sheep in the area it resides. While many of these legends on the list have existed for decades upon decades, El Chupacabra has only been on record for the last 30 years.
Legend has it that a farmer in Puerto Rico woke up to 8 of his sheep dead, completely drained of blood, with three sharp puncture wounds. Within months, hundreds of livestock had been killed in the same way. The stories of a red-eyed, straggly dog with claws and sharp fangs began spreading and by the end of the year, El Chupacabra had been blamed for nearly 1000 livestock deaths.
El Pishtaco - Peru and Bolivia
El Pishtaco is a nightwalker, a pale-skinned vampire said to roam the Andes mountains, searching for peasants to drain them of their body fat. Which is certainly a bit of an offshoot from the normal vampire-blood-sucking lore we’re familiar with. The origins of the Pishtaco are what make it the most fascinating.
The legend of El Pishtaco was based on the real-life terrors experienced by Indigenous tribes of Bolivia and Peru during the Spanish colonization of the 15th century. The first written history of El Pishtaco came from an Incan priest, Cristobal de Molina, who wrote the story of Spaniards who ran rampant along the land, murdering the indigenous, and feeding off them. The story continued to evolve over the years, but all reflected pale-skinned invaders who came to deplete the people of their resources.
Honorable Mention - La Chancla
Okay okay, we know that La Chancla isn’t really a legend – but that’s what makes it all the more terrifying. La Chancla is a well-known weapon of mamás around the world, aimed with deadly accuracy, and thrown at will whenever the need for discipline arises. Children around the world fear La Chancla.
What is your favorite top terrifying legend?
