Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Behavior: Adorns lips and nostrils with
nuggets of gold.
Distribution: Brazil.
Source: Simão de Vasconcellos, Noticias
curiosas, y necessarias das cousas do Brasil
(Lisbon: I. da Costa, 1668).
Curupira
Little P eop le of South America.
Etymology: From the Guaraní (Tupí) curumim
(“boy”) + pira (“body”). Kuru in Aché
means “short” or “small.”
Variant names: Caá-porá (“mountain lord”),
Caiçara (for the female), Caipora, Cayporé,
Coropira, Corubira (Bakairí/Carib), Kaaguerre,
Kaapore, Korupira (Tupí/Guaraní), Kurupi
(Guaraní), Kurú-piré (Guaraní), Yurupari (Tucano/Tucanoan).
Physical description: Height, 3–4 feet. Covered
with hair. Red or yellow skin. Large head
like a chimpanzee. Red head-hair. Shaggy mane
around the neck. Flattened nose. Large mouth.
Green or blue teeth. Large feet, said to point
backwards. Crooked toes.
Behavior: Arboreal. Poor swimmer. Emits a
birdlike whistle. Eats bananas. Said to smoke a
pipe. Lives in hollow trees. Said to abduct children
and rape women. Can shape-shift. Protects
trees, forests, and game. Rides a pig or deer.
Tracks: Apelike prints.
Habitat: Forests, hills, ravines, mountains.
Distribution: Pará, Amazonas, and Pernambuco
States in northern Brazil; Paraná, Rio
Grande do Sul, and Goiás States in southern
Brazil; Misiones Department in Paraguay;
Chaco Province, Argentina.
Present status: Caipora has become a minor
god in the Candomblé religion.
Possible explanation: Surviving Protopithecus, a
Late Pleistocene spider monkey known from
fossils in eastern Brazil.
Sources: Charles Carter Blake, “Note on
Stone Celts, from Chiriqui,” Transactions of the
Ethnological Society of London, new ser., 2
(1863): 166–170; Herbert H. Smith, Brazil:
The Amazons and the Coast (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1879), pp. 560–569;
Daniel G. Brinton, “The Dwarf Tribe of the
118 CURUPIRA
Upper Amazon,” American Anthropologist 11
(1898): 277–279; Juan B. Ambrosetti,
Supersticiones y leyendas (Buenos Aires: La
Cultura Argentina, 1917), pp. 89–92; Luís da
Câmara Cascudo, Dicionário do folclore
Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional
do Livro, 1962), vol. 1, pp. 166–168,
261–262; Napoleão Figueiredo and Anaíza
Vergolino e Silva, Festas de santo e encantados
(Belém, Brazil: Academia Paraense de Letras,
1972); Maria Thereza Cunha de Giacomo,
Curupira: Lenda indigena (São Paulo, Brazil:
Melhoramentos, 1975); Karl Shuker, “On the
Trail of the Curupira,” Fortean Times, no. 102
(September 1997): 17; John E. Roth, American
Elves (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997), pp.
50–54, 83–89, 94–95, 107.
Cyclops
One-eyed Giant Hominidof Southern Europe.
Etymology: Greek, “round eye.”
Variant names: Arimaspean (Scythian/Indo-
European), Kyklops, Monopthalmos (“oneeyed
person”), Polyphemus, Triamates.
Physical description: Giant. One eye in the
center of the forehead.
Behavior: Eats humans.
Distribution: Sicily; Crete; India; Africa.
Present status: While investigating the ancient
voyage of Odysseus, Tim Severin discovered
that there was a modern tradition of giants that
once lived on Crete.
Possible explanation: Inspired by observations
of fossil elephant skulls in the Mediterranean,
where the nasal opening is mistaken for an eye
socket.
Sources: Homer, Odyssey, i. 69; Hesiod,
Theogony 139–146, 501–506; Euripides, The
Cyclops; Herodotus, The Histories, ed. John
Marincola (New York: Penguin, 1996), pp.
198, 221–222, 225 (iii. 116, iv. 13–15, 27);
Othenio Abel, Der Tiere der Vorwelt (Berlin:
Teubner, 1914); Othenio Abel, Das Reich der
Tiere: Tiere der Vorzeit in ihrem Lebensraum
(Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1939); Willy Ley,
The Lungfish, the Dodo, and the Unicorn (New
York: Viking, 1948), pp. 47–51; William Elgin
Swinton, Giants Past and Present (London: