Mystical places in Venezuela
2 legends · 2 cities
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Apure State1
Zulia State1
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De Loys's Ape
In 1920 the Swiss geologist François de Loys, prospecting for oil on the Venezuela–Colombia border, shot what he described as a large tailless ape that came at his party by the Tarra river. The single photograph — the animal propped on a crate with a stick — was published in 1929 by George Montandon as Ameranthropoides loysi, the missing link of American man; Montandon used it in a racist theory of the separate origin of races. The picture shows an ordinary white-fronted spider monkey, common in those forests: the crate gives a true height of about a metre, and the tail is hidden behind the body. De Loys's companion later said the whole thing had been a joke at Montandon's expense.
El Silbón, the Whistler
A tall figure with a sack of bones on its back, wandering the plains of Venezuela and Colombia. The rule is known to everyone in the llanos and works the wrong way round: if the whistle sounds close, he is far away; if it is barely audible, he is already beside you. The legend works as a warning and as an explanation — for people lost in the savannah, and for the sounds that carry for miles across open grassland at night and deceive the ear.