Colombian folklore
Encyclopedia
Colombian folklore
are beliefs, customs and cultural traditions
in Colombia
.
has many traditional folk tales and stories about legendary creatures which are transmitted orally and kept for next generation
s to come. Some of them are common with other Latin American countries. The Colombian folklore has strong influences from Spanish culture, with elements of African and native American cultures
.
countrywide. The “Desfiles de Mitos y Leyendas” (myths and legend
s parade
s) are important part in these events in most of the Colombian cities and municipalities. Examples of these parades are the Barranquilla's Carnival
, Cali Fair
and Festival of the Flowers
, where the legendary creatures parade take place in the Medellín
´s Pueblito Paisa, at the top of Nutibara hill. Legendary creatures have also been accepted into many facets of popular culture
and the collective memory
. There are those who believe in their existence, claiming to have heard or even encountered them.
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
are beliefs, customs and cultural traditions
Culture of Colombia
Many aspects of Colombian culture can be traced back to the early culture of Spain of the 16th century and its collision with Colombia's native civilizations . The Spanish brought Catholicism, African slaves, the feudal encomienda system, and a caste system that favored European-born whites...
in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
.
Cultural influences
ColombiaColombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
has many traditional folk tales and stories about legendary creatures which are transmitted orally and kept for next generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
s to come. Some of them are common with other Latin American countries. The Colombian folklore has strong influences from Spanish culture, with elements of African and native American cultures
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
.
Relevancy
This folkloric entities are present in the carnivals and festivalsFestivals in Colombia
- Major Colombian Carnivals and Festivals :*Barranquilla's Carnival , it holds the second largest carnival parades in the world after Rio de Janeiro's...
countrywide. The “Desfiles de Mitos y Leyendas” (myths and legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s parade
Parade
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
s) are important part in these events in most of the Colombian cities and municipalities. Examples of these parades are the Barranquilla's Carnival
Barranquilla's Carnival
Barranquilla's Carnaval is Colombia's most important folklore celebration, one of the biggest carnivals in the world. The carnival has traditions that date back to the 19th century...
, Cali Fair
Cali Fair
The Cali's Fair is the most important cultural event in Cali, Colombia. It is a celebration of the region's cultural identity, famous for the Salsa marathon, horse riding parades and dance parties....
and Festival of the Flowers
Festival of the Flowers
Festival of the Flowers is a festival that takes place in Medellín, Colombia. The festival is the most important social event for the city and there is a pageant, automobiles, a Paso Fino horse parade and many musical concerts.-History:...
, where the legendary creatures parade take place in the Medellín
Medellín
Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...
´s Pueblito Paisa, at the top of Nutibara hill. Legendary creatures have also been accepted into many facets of popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
and the collective memory
Collective memory
Collective memory refers to the shared pool of information held in the memories of two or more members of a group, and was coined by the philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Collective memory can be shared, passed on and constructed by groups both small and large...
. There are those who believe in their existence, claiming to have heard or even encountered them.
Legendary creatures
- The TundaTundaThe Tunda is a myth of the Colombian Pacific region, and particularly in the afro-American community, about a vampire-like monster woman that lures people into the forests and keeps them there...
(La Tunda) is a myth of the Pacific Region of ColombiaPacific Region of ColombiaThe Pacific Region is one of the five major natural regions of the Colombian geography. The Pacific region covers the area near the Pacific Ocean in Colombia that contains certain endemic species and ecosystems accompanied by Colombian cultural influence....
, and particularly popular in the Afro-ColombianAfro-ColombianAfro Colombians refers to Colombians of African ancestry, and the great impact they have had on Colombian culture. Notable Afro-Colombians include Colombian scientists like Raul Cuero, writers like Manuel Zapata Olivella and politicians:...
community, about a vampireVampireVampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
-like doppelgangerDoppelgängerIn fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
monster woman - The PatasolaPatasolaThe Patasola or "one foot" is one of many myths in South American folklore about female monsters from the jungle, appearing to male hunters or loggers in the middle of the wilderness when they think about women...
or "one foot" is one of many myths in Latin American folklore about woman monsters from the jungle. - The MoanMohan (legendary)The Muan, Moan or Mohan , sometimes also known as Poira is a name applied to several mythological or otherwise supernatural creatures in South and Central American folklore. The most common and widespread use of the term is to refer to the souls of the dead and the indigenous ancestors of old...
is a forest and river creature that protects the forests, steals women and disturbs fishing and hunting activities. - The Llorona or the Weeping Woman is the ghostGhostIn traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
of a woman crying for her dead children that she drowned. Her appearances are sometimes held to presage deathDeathDeath is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. - The Madremonte (Mother of the forest) or MarimondaMarimondaIn zoology, marimonda is the vernacular name given to the white-fronted spider monkey in Colombia.In cryptozoology, the term can also refer to:*The Mono Grande*A being similar to the Patasola, that inhabits Colombia....
is usually regarded as protective of nature and the forestForestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
animals and unforgiving when humans enter their domains to alter or destroy them. She can be identified with Mother NatureMother NatureMother Nature is a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it in the form of the mother. Images of women representing mother earth, and mother nature, are timeless...
and Mistress of the Animals - The Hombre Caiman, or Alligatorman, is a legendary creature that possesses both AlligatorAlligatorAn alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
and human features. This South American folk tale is particularly popular in Plato, MagdalenaPlato, MagdalenaPlato is a town and municipality in Magdalena Department in Colombia.* Area: 1,501 km².* Elevation: 20 meters* Population: 66,362** Rural: 18,625** Urban: 47,737* Agricultural products: livestock, corn, beans, tomatoes, yuca, tobacco-External links:...
, especially in rural and less populated areas. He is said to have been a fishermanFishermanA fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers. The term can also be applied to recreational fishermen and may be used to describe both men...
converted by the spirit of the Magdalena riverMagdalena RiverThe Magdalena River is the principal river of Colombia, flowing northward about through the western half of the country. It takes its name from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene. It is navigable through much of its lower reaches, in spite of the shifting sand bars at the mouth of its delta, as...
into an alligator, that returns every year on St. Sebastian´s day to hunt human victims, much like the werewolfWerewolfA werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...
.
- The Mohana (La Mojana) Mother of water or Mami WataMami WataMami Wata is venerated in West, Central, Southern Africa, and in the African diaspora in the Caribbean and parts of North and South America. Mami Wata spirits are usually female, but are sometimes male.-Appearance:...
is a shapeshiftingShapeshiftingShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
waterWaterWater is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
spirit who usually appear in human form to seduce and take away the humans. In the Amazon basinAmazon BasinThe Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
this features are applied to the Pink DolphinPink dolphinPink dolphin is the common name of two different species of dolphins:* The Chinese white dolphin of the Pearl River Delta that live in and around Hong Kong...
s representing the spirit of Amazon riverAmazon RiverThe Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
. The discography of Colombian folkloric singer Totó la MomposinaTotó la MomposinaSonia Bazanta Vides, better known as Totó la Momposina, is a Colombian singer of traditional mixed indigenous Colombian and Afro-Latin music. She was born in the northern Colombian town of Talaigua Nuevo near Mompox in the Bolívar Department...
includes works about the Mohana. - The evil chicken ("pollo maligno") is an evil spirit of the forest in the form of a bird that haunts the hunters, attracting them to the deepest forest in order to devour them.
- The Candileja is said to be the spirit of a vicious old woman, who was in charge of her grandchildren but neglected to teach then any moral principles, so they grew up as murderers and thieves. In the afterlifeAfterlifeThe afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
she was damned to travel around the world surrounded by flames. It is related to the Will-o'-the-wispWill-o'-the-wispA will-o'-the-wisp or ignis fatuus , also called a "will-o'-wisp", "jack-o'-lantern" , "hinkypunk", "corpse candle", "ghost-light", "spook-light", "fairy light", "friar's lantern", "hobby lantern", "ghost orb", or simply "wisp", is a ghostly light or lights sometimes seen at night or twilight over...
phenomenon. - The dark muleMuleA mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
or Mula Retinta is an evil spirit that appears before arrieroArrierothumb|250px|right|An arriero loading a [[pack horse]] in [[Zona Sur|southern Chile]]An arriero is a person who transports goods using pack animals.In South America, arrieros transport coffee, maize, cork, wheat, and myriad other items...
s as a pack animalPack animalA pack animal or beast of burden is a working animal used by humans as means of transporting materials by attaching them so their weight bears on the animal's back; the term may be applied to either an individual animal or a species so employed...
, causing violent winds and storms that make people fall off the precipices at the side of the pathways. - The Viruñas or Mandingas (the Evil One), is considered a representation of SatanSatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, and appears as a handsome man who steals the souls of the people.