The Colo Colo or Colocolo is an evil rat-like creature from Mapuche mythology. The marsupial monito del monte is sometimes called "colocolo" due to its similarity with the mythical beast.
The Colo Colo or Colocolo is an evil rat-like creature from Mapuche mythology. The marsupial monito del monte is sometimes called "colocolo" due to its similarity with the mythical beast.
The appearance of the Colo Colo varies depending on the region where the myth is told. Sometimes it is described as a feathered rat, sometimes as a snake or lizard with a rat's head, and occasionally it is just depicted as a huge rat. The Colo Colo falls under the mythical category of "Pillans".
According to Mapuche legend, the Colo Colo is a bloodthirsty animal which begins its life first as a hen's egg (or a rooster's egg by popular belief), and then as a snake or lizard that hatches out when the baking sun's heat is sufficient during incubation. Then after some while, it metamorphoses into this creature, like a feathered rat. [2] The suspicious egg would be stunted or be small to come from a hen, so both the indigenous people and locals believe it must have been laid by a rooster. [5]
The Colocolo dwells in caves near people's houses, and invading the home (alternative myth: it hides in a house as a newborn hatchling), feeds on the saliva of the residents, also licking their used utensils. Due to this the family will contract pulmonary tuberculosis [7] and eventually die. Some sort of sympathetic magic is said to be at work. [2] Whenever a suspected rooster egg is found, the people are wont to destroy it by burning. [2]
The Colo Colo can be detected if someone of the house is feeling tired for no reason, or because of its cry, which is similar to an infant wailing. When it is suspected that a Colo Colo is in the house, a Machi must be contacted to exorcise the premises. Sometimes the only remedy is burning the building in order to kill the Colo Colo.
a) Colocolo sucks blood from people asleep. (lore of La Serena); b) Colocolo nests near rooms, and repeatedly drinks saliva from the same person, who will suffer worsening weakness and disfigurement unto death, unless this is interrupted by eradicating the pest (Santiago. Talagante); c) Colocolo, a black bird the size of a chercán (Northern house wren) whose saliva-drinking is immediately fatal (Malloco , Santiago Metropolitan Region); d) Colocolo, a small bird similar to a bat, enters rooms at night and brings saliva-sucking death (Quella); e) Colocolo, a little mouse either its saliva-drinking or leftover-eating will make person fatally ill. (Coihueco de Chillán); f) Colocolo, evil animal though unseen, and its crying call sounds like "colo-colo". Its drinking a person's saliva, causes death by fever (tuberculosis) (Coelemu). [3]
This last version f) is the most common. There were 27 other testimonies from Valparaíso to Concepción, and 5 were identical, 22 were the same except lacking the reference to its call. Some gave quantitative measurements, mostly in the range of a small mouse. [3]
Rodolfo Lenz 's dictionary (1904) lists it as a mountain cat, i.e. Felis colocolo , commonly called "colocolo". [9]