Bipedal Creatures Case File 1 -The Ciguapa

Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Damian Bravo, a researcher of the unexplained. Check out this teaser for his new podcast, Fantastical Universe The Podcast.

The stories of mermaids have in 2013 created a buzz in the cryptic community generating TV shows and even having people call government agencies looking for answers on their existence. Like in many legends and folklores some undiscovered creatures at times have been proven to be flesh and blood and are no longer myths or legends. Mermaids or sirens as they are called by some have been abducting, hypnotizing and even men killing in the many fantastical stories related in many legends. Yet have you ever of a type of land Mermaid in a sense called the Ciguapa, found deeply rooted in the folklore and mythology of the Dominican Republic, located in the Caribbean.

These land Mermaids are to some a type of forest nymphs which have beautiful appearances, but have abnormal feet which have grown backwards so as to confuse those that would dare to pursue them. They are believed to only come out at night to steal corn from the crops found in the lowlands of the Mountains in the Dominican Republic and have time’s bewitched men and lure them into their caves never to be seen again. If they are discovered the Ciguapa will take whomever looks them in their eyes away forever.

Artist; Jaime Colson. 1949. Baquiní The Ciguapa from Camú (Museo Bellapart) Dominican Republic

Others believe the Ciguapa is a supernatural being which lives in mountain caves and in the river shallows under the full moon. Just like some stories depict them as beautiful sirens of the forest, others describe them as hideous hags with green scaled, blue or hairy skin which kill their male victims like a black widow spider. The Ciguapa has being related with the aboriginal Taino Caribbean culture which was decimated by the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the new world.

The legends speak of a shy to being and at times account for horror stories which have been passed down from one generation of Dominicans to another. In one story related to me by my great grandmother when I was a small child, a man was bewitched by the Cigupa’s song and taken to her cave dwelling were she force him to make love to her. The creature in order to keep him from escaping scrape the skin of the bottom of the man’s feet with a primitive stone tool and only communicated with some types of guttural sounds.

There is no known recorded evidence the Caribbean Taino aboriginals passed down the current legend of the Ciguapa. Some Dominican historians believe the Ciguapa legend to be attributed to Africans brought to the Americas as slaves  but a reference of a similar being related in Taino aboriginal folklore, of a woman spirit that would usher the dead to the next life could be a possible origin of the actual lore. Although no physical evidence exist of the Ciguapa many locals have reported to have seen the creature still roaming the mountain regions of the Dominican Republic. The accessibility of the internet has help to create a larger interest on the legend and local artist and musicians in the Dominican Republic have created works of art, music and even a local movie about the magical Ciguapa is under production.