El Cuero

For this week's episode, we're heading over to Chile and Argentina for the Mapuche monster, El Cuero. How is this monster linked to cows, stingrays and extinct sea scorpions? How can you make sure not to get engulfed in its barbed body? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

We’re heading back into cryptozoology again this week for the first time in a little while, it’s a nice change from these super traditional myth monsters that we usually cover! Especially as this monster is so unbelievably bizarre and unknown within the cryptid world too. 

DESCRIPTION:

Yes, this week we’re covering the horrifying El Cuero from South American folklore - you probably don’t know this one, but I really hope you’re in for a wild ride today, because this one is weird. 

El Cuero is described as a living cow, goat or sheep hide that lives in the rivers and lakes of Chile and Argentina in South America. Yep - you heard me correctly, a living cowhide. This monster would have a large flat body, with cow-like spots, and would float along the surface of the water with the current, armed with a long whip-like tail. It has four large eyes on stalks like snails protruding from its head, a long proboscis that could be extended and the edges of its body are covered in razor sharp claws. It varies in length between 2-5 feet across, and weighs about 65 pounds, but importantly, only lives in freshwater. 

Apparently, El Cuero hunts exclusively in the Chilean glacial Lake Lacar, in the Andes Mountains - so unless you’re here, I think you’re okay, just as a heads up. Although I feel like no freshwater lake is safe now.

Doesn’t this sound horrifying!?! And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can’t picture this monster, it’s a really difficult one to imagine.

The Cuero eats humans or really, anything that ventures into their paths, as they would float past quite unsuspectingly then enclose their prey in their sharp claws like a duvet, sucking out their blood and organs through their proboscis. They would then release the drained body out to sea for other creatures to finish off. They would then, once done with their meal, make their way to a solitary beach and bask in the sunshine whilst it digests its dinner peacefully. Its favourite prey was of course children, as they were nice and easy to catch and small enough to fully engulf in the folds of their body.

This all sounds gross, so please say we can kill it? Yes, thankfully there is a way. You could kill a Cuero by throwing a quisco cactus into the water where it lives - the dumb skin would then try to eat it and impale itself on the barbs of the cactus, bleeding to death. There is apparently a story of a young hero who saves his town by tying cactuses to his hands and legs, then entering the water for El Cuero to eat.

ORIGIN:

Now onto etymology, the literal translation for El Cuero is the hide, or the leather, which is a little boring. It is sometimes known as Manta, which translates to mantle or cloak too.

However, the history behind this is actually pretty cool. This monster is technically a Mapuche monster, which I’ll get more into in a minute, don’t worry. The word for them in Mapuche is Trelquehuecuve which means skin huecuve. This is where it gets interesting. 

Huecuve is the Mapuche term for a demon or spirit from the word ‘wekufe’ meaning demon or outside being. We’ll definitely be covering more huecuve in the future, so get used to this term. 

Now Erin, I swear you said this was a Chilean and Argentinian monster? Yep, and I wasn’t wrong. However, this is also a Mapuche monster from Mapuche mythology, which is specific to the south-central regions of Chile and south-western Argentina. It’s a really ancient culture, but 80% of the indigenous people in Chile are still Mapuche! This amazing native culture unfortunately became a lesser amount after the Spanish colonisation of South America, but thankfully, some remained and still remain to this day. This is actually where most of the monsters from these regions originate from. 

However, because of this - we’re not entirely sure on when the El Cuero made its way into folklore, however, I can tell you that the Mapuche culture existed in Chile and Argentina from 600BC, so this monster could potentially go back this far, and makes them the rivals to the Incas, which is just so wild to think about historically in this area. 

Anyway, the Mapuche originally believed that El Cuero was  a type of huecuve, rather than an animal in its own right. However, sometimes it is considered that the huecuve possesses a normal creature, such as a very common stingray in these areas - so it could have legitimately been a stingray, to be completely fair, just one possessed by a demon. 

In terms of sightings - there have been loads throughout history, but even recently. There are two main stories associated with this monster though, one is that of a woman washing her clothes in the lake whilst her baby was asleep nearby. Then El Cuero jumped out of the water and caught the baby like a net, dragging it into the water to its death. Apparently, this all happened in a few seconds, so we can see how fast this monster acts from this one too. 

There’s also a famous Chilean folktale - it goes that a magical cow, yep legit, told its owner called Joaquin, great name, to kill it and skin it. Joaquin, being a solid fella, did exactly that and the cowhide produced was magically alive in its own special way and Joaquin used it as a boat - gross! Even worse, he kept the cow’s eyes in his pocket and used them to see through anything he needed. When he’d finished surfing around, Joaquin collected all the carcass, then placed them on a pyre to rest peacefully. When he placed all of the bits on there, the cow miraculously came back to life, and was just a normal cow again, then wandered off as if nothing had ever happened - wild 

In real life comparisons, very obviously we have stingrays which massively fit the MO for this monster with their size and looks. Although again, we know that stingrays eat clams, shrimp, small fish and molluscs, specifically creatures that are smaller than them - so we know humans are not really part of their menu. 

You also have the gross nudibranchs, which are gross undersea molluscs that look so much like our monster it's a little bit worrying. These slug boys also don’t eat anything really bigger than themselves, they tend to eat coral and plankton, but they do really look like our monster of the week. 

There’s also a sea turtle called Mata-Mata, which sometimes are mistaken for these. They’re flat shelled turtles, and they are very aggressive but again are a little small for this. 

Lastly, the most crazy idea is that they are an evolved Sea scorpion, which were around 500–250 million years ago if you can believe it. There’s one species in particular, Pterygotus buffaloensis, which were up to 9 feet in length, and was apparently the largest known arthropod. Sea scorpions were generally quite flat and wide, so might be a legitimate older mistaken identity case anyway. 

There are also some similar cryptids in the same area that have been mistaken for this monster too such as the Hueke-Hueke, which is a giant stingray monster, or the Nguruvilu which is a fox-serpent creature, and they both live around the same areas of Argentina and Chile. 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Moving nicely onto modern media - this was particularly tricky this week, I must say. Now Cuero themselves are not in modern media, but I’m going to take the wonderful trope of deadly stingrays for this one for you to find similar content. 

For art - considering this is considered a cryptid rather than a mythological monster itself, you’ll probably know what I’m going to say to you. I would recommend looking up some independent art for this one, some of them are horrifying. 

In movies, we have a few like; Aquaman, Detective Dee, The Sea Bat, The Little Mermaid 2, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland & Captain Nemo and the Underwater City.

For TV, we have; Justice League, The Little Mermaid, Spongebob Squarepants, Superjail!, The Ultraman, Doctor Who, River Monsters, Ultra Q, Denji Sentai Megaranger and One Piece.

You’ll notice I’ve mentioned a DC comic superhero here - that’s Aquaman! Aquaman’s arch nemesis in the water is Black Manta, who has a black suit with laser beams coming out of his eye holes. He doesn’t really have any powers based on his name bar the inspiration behind his aquatic based villainy - he’s just really smart at creating gadgets that make his suit better in the water. 

In video games, we have ones such as; Demon Souls, Darius, Super Mario Sunshine, Shin Megami Tensei, Mega Man X4, Monster Eye, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong’s Quest, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Bayonetta 2.

My book recommendation this week is Chasing American Monsters: Over 250 Creatures, Cryptids & Hairy Beasts by Jason Offutt, which has not only US monsters, but also covers our lovely South American ones too. 

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I fully believe that stingrays exist - I’ve had a stingray massage when I was last in the Dominican Republic when I was 15 and I’ve touched numerous ones at aquariums across the world - and we do know they’re deadly - I’m not ready to talk about Steve Irwin yet, I’m still heartbroken - but I really don’t see this one around, ya know. 

I can totally see how people could mistake stingrays for these monsters, I really can - but stingrays do not eat people, although their very rare victims can also potentially drown and never be seen again. Also I suppose the skin of stingrays can also feel like wet cow-hide, and they are kind of spotty with their camouflage - so I really do get it, but to think they have teeth and eyestalks?! Wild concept. 

In fact, if you lift up a stingray, they look so happy - they have little mouths and if you lift them out of the water, they do this little pleugh spit - obviously, they are aquatic creatures, so do not attempt this. I will say my stingray massage was a very long time ago, and I would not do this again for animal rights reasons. Do not do this. 

When I showed the picture of this to my younger brother, he just said and I quote ‘it just looks like a blanket’ - not sure what blankets he’s seen, but it did make me chuckle, so I thought I’d share.

But what do you think? Did El Cuero roam the earth? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

What a weird creature to focus on this week, it’s certainly a new one in my books - and one that is slowly becoming more and more of my favourite as I learn more about it. Although I will say that I’ve not looked at stingrays the same since my childhood hero, Steve Irwin passed away. Damn that stingray.

Speaking of down under and Oceania, next week, we’re heading over to New Zealand for the first time ever! We’re going to be looking at a technicality really - we’re going to be looking at a set of Witches with a horrible backstory. We’re looking at the creepy Three Witches of Auckland - come with your broomsticks and wands next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast, ya know if you feel like it.

Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.