The countries which make up the continent of South America, are vast and varied. From the Andes, the sprawling mountain range tipped with snow which runs through seven countries, it’s route snaking from the north in Venezuela, travelling 4300 miles south to Argentina. To the Chihuahuan in Mexico, a desert bigger than the whole state of California. Its enormity is almost inconceivable, especially for someone like me, raised on an island which is 73 times smaller than South America.

But despite its incredible diversity of culture and landscape, there is one thing which runs through the heart of the continent. Folklore, and not just any lore, it shares an incredible affinity with its ghosts.

Spirits play a huge part in many South American cultures and have done since the days of indigenous groups such as the Mayans and Aztecs. Through hundreds of years of legends, there are some ghosts who have remained ever present in contemporary folklore. One of the most common, is the story of the hitchkiker. It can be traced back as far as 1870 and the accounts describe a hitch hiker who flags down a vehicle at the side of a deserted road, the hiker is nearly always a young woman. They enter the vehicle, often making small talk with the driver only to vanish whilst the car is still moving. Some versions of the story state the vanishing person leaves behind a wallet with an address and phone number, upon calling the number, the driver is informed the woman died the day before.

Another long-shared story which has been around for almost 100 years longer than the hitchhiker, is the Alley of Hands. The apparent true story dates back to the year 1780.

A priest arrived in the city of San Luis Potosi in Mexico to share his Christian teachings.

As he went about his duties he hired two teenager boys to help him. After a day’s travelling, they took his horse to the stables and left him in his house. When they teenagers returned the following day they were greeted by a horrific site. The priest lay in a pool of blood in his house, brutally murdered during the night.

The townsfolk, appalled by the murder instantly assumed they boys were responsible for the vicious crime. They were placed on trial where they maintained their innocence, desperate to prove they would never do such a thing, but the jury were unconvinced, branding them murderers and thieves. They sentenced them to hang from the neck and chopped off their hands.

As a gruesome warning to all, the boy’s hands were nailed to the wall of the alley behind the scene of the murder. There, they hung until there was nothing more than the skeletal remains and eventually, they were taken down. That night, the citizens of San Luis Potosi were shocked to discover the hands had returned to the alleyway. No matter how many times they were removed, the skeletons came back, some have even claimed to have seen them materialise in front of them. It’s certainly an alleyway to be avoided.

As well as these, there is one spirit in particularly, so infamous she is the influence for Hollywood films such as The Conjuring, countless books, and songs, which even includes one of the title songs from Disney’s Coco. She is known in countries across South America, as La Llorona.

Many years ago, a beautiful woman named Maria fell in love with a man. He was a rich, attractive man and she was besotted with him. They married and in the following years had two children. After a seemingly fairytale start to their relationship, the marriage began to break down. Her husband became distant, spending more time away and only paying attention to the children when he came home. The next part of the story varies from country to country, but most tell that Maria was walking on a bridge with her children when she spotted her husband with another woman. Wracked with fury and hurt, she hurled their children into the river below to spite him.

Upon realising what she had done, Maria ran to the river’s edge to try and save them, but it was too late. They had both drowned in the current.

Distraught at the loss of both her children and husband Maria screamed, crying out for the return of lost sons. Tormented by her actions and overwhelmed with grief Maria waded into the river and drowned, unable to live with what had happened.

The legend continues that for committing such a hideous act her spirit is doomed to roam Earth and can never pass over.

The night she died the villagers heard the cry of a woman, she wailed in the dark, screaming for her children. To this day there are records of a wailing woman heard in the dead of night, and the reason she was given the name La Llorona, which translates as The Weeping Woman.

But it isn’t just a spook in the dark you need to worry about, the legend has continued to grow and children are sat down and told the warning tales. Misbehaving children will be snatched from their beds by the demon as they sleep, and they certainly shouldn’t stray from the house at night. Other stories tell of her attacking cheating husbands, terrorising them as they travel through the dark.

In Columbia the story extends even further, the crying ghost may approach you with a babe in her arms. She is so tired and begs you to take the baby for just a minute. If you are foolish enough to take the child from her arms you will be cursed to become La Llorona until another soul takes the burden from your hands.

One thing is for certain, whether you are man, woman, or child. When you hear the cries of La Llorona, you should start running.

The spirits of South America aren’t all ghostly figures of humans. There are other creatures lurking in the forests, in the corners of rooms, and emerging from the lakes.

One ancient legend is that of the Yacumama a monstrous snake who lives in Amazon River. The name means the mother of water, and Amazonian legend believes she is the mother of all marine creatures.

The Yacumama is said to grow up 60m in length, it has horns which protrude from its giant head and will attack any who enter her waters. The Indigenous people of Peru would carry a conch horn with them to the water’s edge and blow it to let her know they would be entering the river, the snake would emerge from the water upon hearing the horn, warning the sailors of her presence. However, this was not always an assured way to avoid the serpent. Tales of small boats and sailors, sucked beneath waves never to be seen again are rife within the folklore.

To this day, mysterious disappearances in the Amazon are equated to the spiritual snake and its legend is passed from generation to generation.

Historians have begun to explore the origins of the myth and whether it could very well be based on fact.

In 2004 a group of archaeologists travelled to a Cerrejon, a coal mine in Columbia after reports of discovered fossils. An article in the Smithsonian Magazine tells us that “Fifty-eight million years ago, a few million years after the fall of the dinosaurs, Cerrejón was an immense, swampy jungle where everything was hotter, wetter and bigger than it is today.”

The team began to uncover giant vertebrae, initially wondering if belonged to prehistoric crocodiles, they investigated more closely. They realised what they were building, was the fossil of a giant snake.

Blown away by the size of what they were uncovering the team continued their search. Eventually they pulled together the fossilised remains of nearly 30 individual snakes. In 2009 the team published their first results claiming the snakes appeared to be 42 to 45 feet long. In comparison, the largest anaconda ever found was measured at 29.5 feet long.

The creature was named the Titanoboa and was the length of a school bus. Not long after the team released their research, they stumbled across the skull of the monster snake. It’s head alone was 2 feet long.

Utterly baffled by how a snake could reach such an incredible size, scientists deduced the climate it lived in must have been immensely hot. That mixed with the fossils put the Titanoboa at living 56 to 66 million years ago. Arguably an awfully long time before humans evolved, but it begged the question, could indigenous Amazonians have discovered these monstrous skeletons and created their own answer? Their answer, it has to be said, was not that far from the truth.

Not all South American legends are ancient, arguably one of the most well-known myths across the continent, even spanning into the USA, is the tale of the Chupacabra.

In 1995 in Puerto Rico, a woman named Madelyne Tolentino reported the first sighting of the creature. There had recently been several reports of livestock being attacked and killed in unusual circumstances and the attacks were almost instantly attributed to the strange animal.

Tolentino claimed it walked on 2 legs, it was about 4 feet tall and had wide, black eyes which bulged from its long face. Along its spine was feathery spikes and it had holes instead of ears.

It didn’t take long for the tale to travel and stories of a beast killing and sucking the blood of animals was rife throughout Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and even Florida. Creature reports began to take on a more dog like description, and it was officially named El Chupacabra by the media. Which roughly translates, as the goatsucker. Sheep, goats and domestic animals were supposedly being killed and drained of blood, puncture holes found in their necks. Some reports of attacks on humans even began emerging.

Within the space of 2 years, the Chupacabra was a household name, and spread fear throughout those with livestock. The vampire creature was being blamed for the killings of hundreds and animals across thousands of miles suggesting not just one animal, but an infestation of the alien like killer.

After around 5 years the hysteria began to die down and the Chupacabra began to shift from front page news to a modern myth. Despite fewer reports, speculation of the creature’s origins continued to grow. The suggestion that they were aliens, or even the pet of aliens was regularly shared whilst others claimed they were the result of government genetic testing.

One paranormal investigator named Benjamin Radford, believes he has found the answer to the origins of the legend. As more recent reports of attacks have come in, investigators have been searching for the culprit, and the most common offender, is a coyote or wild dog infected with mange.

Mange is a highly contagious skin disease, common in canines. It causes the animal to lose its hair and take on a very gaunt and strange appearance. Untreated mange can be fatal, and it’s been suggested that as the wild dog’s health declines they begin targeting domestic animals, unable to hunt their usual wild prey in their dilapidated state.

Radford also went back to the source, and he contacted Madelyne Tolentina, the Puerta Rican woman who reported the original sighting. Upon chatting to her, he established that not long before the terrifying sighting she had recently been to the cinema to see the horror film, Species.

The creatures in species have a specific appearance, an alien with wide bulging eyes, long claws and spines down their back. Uncannily similar, Radford noted, to her description of the Chupacabra. He suggested that Tolentina had seen a coyote infected with mange in the dark, and being unable to identify the bizarre looking creature, her imagination had filled in the gaps. And she had therefore inadvertently, created the myth of the Chupacabra.

This explanation has not stopped sightings, in 2021, a ranch in Mexico reported that 18 of their sheep had been slaughtered but not eaten. A local vet was called in and declared they believe the attack was carried out by an unidentifiable predator as the bite marks were not consistent with those of a coyote, bat, dog, lynx or any other hunter found in the region.

There have also supposedly been a few recent human attacks. In 2017, a 59-year-old man in Ecuador claimed to have an encountered the Chupacabra. He said he heard a noise which sent a chill down his spine. As he turned around, he was met by a creature which reached his waist.

It latched onto him and began dragging the man around. He managed to grab a rock  and hit the creature in the head, in shock it let go and dashed away into the night.

Possibly the strangest ever claim of a Chupacabra encounter, goes to the actor, Johnny Depp. In 2015 Depp was due to appear at a press conference in Tokyo for his new film. Around 200 reporters gathered for it, but the actor never showed. The following day he told reporters, “I was attacked yesterday morning by a very rarely seen or experienced animal called the Chupacabra. I fought with it for hours.” He continued to explain, “They’re very persistent, very mean. And I’m pretty sure it came in my suitcase. I threw him off the 23rd floor, so we’ll never see him again.”

I suppose we can all be glad that we’re one Chupacabra down.

Just south of Mexico City, there is a lake called Laguna de Teshuilo. In the middle of this lake is a small island, until the mid-20th century, this piece of land was unnamed. But now, it is known as La Isla de las Muñecas, which translates as the Island of the Dolls.

One of the most popular dark tourist destinations in Mexico City, you can take a boat and crawl across the lake and be greeted by the islands unnerving inhabitants. Dolls litter the trees, hanging by their arms, necks and heads. Often missing limbs or eyes, they are the guardians of the Isla de las Muñecas and there are hundreds of them. A question people have repeatedly asked over the years, is what are the guarding?

In 1921, a man named Don Julian Santanna Barrera was born in Mexico City. Over the following 30 years he developed his life as a religious man, marrying and having several children. For unknown reasons, in the 1950s he inexplicably left his family and home and moved to an uninhibited island south of the city. He lived a secluded life, living modestly on the vegetables he grew and apparently travelling to nearby towns to preach. The islands and canals which wind through the neighbourhood of Xochimilco, are some of the only remaining Aztec built areas in Mexico City. The waters there are clear and bright, and as you paddle through the canals you can clearly see down to the bed of the river.

Don Julian would travel these canals, mooring on his neighbouring islands and preach his catholic beliefs to the locals. However, at the time many believed only priests had the authority to preach and he was often met with hostility and violence. Already a reclusive man, these encounters caused him to pull back even further, hardly seeing a soul.

That was until one day, when he stumbled across a shocking sight. At the bottom of the river bed just in front of his house, lay the body of a young girl. Drowned beneath the waves. Don Julian dived in an attempt to save the girl, but his efforts were too late.

Some versions of this story tell that he witnessed the girl and her sisters playing in the water, and when one of them was carried away by the current. He dived in to save her but was unable to reach her. The next day, her body washed up on his shore, her favourite doll by her side. He hung the doll in a tree, either as a sign of respect, or to ward away the spirits.

Regardless of the truth in his interaction with the lost girl, his next experiences remain the same.

Don Julian began to hear voices; whispers surrounded him or unexplainable phenomena. One particular cause of unease was that the doll he had hung was moving trees from its original hanging place. He blamed himself for the death of the girl and believed he was being tormented by her spirit which was trapped on the island with him.

An in attempt to appease the ghost, he began to collect dolls for her. Travelling up and down the canals Don Julian searched for the toys. Diving into bins, collecting them from the street, his collection grew and grew. Every one would end up back on his island. They hung from trees, sat on the bank, were nailed to tree trunks or the side of his shed. Often missing eyes and limbs, the island was becoming a truly unnerving shrine to the mangled plastic guardians. The longer they hung, the more they decayed. Theirs clothes turning to mould in the rain and insects making their homes within. Don Julian would say they kept the spirits at bay for a short time, but eventually he would begin to hear footsteps, weeping and a girls voice, crying out her for favourite doll.

Locals who paddle their gondolas by the island claim the dolls move, their eyes follow them, their heads tilt. If you can think of something creepy a doll can do? They’ll be spotted doing it.

For half a century Don Julian collected his wardens, slowly building what has become to be known, as the Isla de las Muñecas.

In 2001, on the 50th anniversary of Don Julian Santanna Barrera discovering the body, it seems the demons he had worked for so many years to hold out, could no longer be placated by his offerings. In the exact spot he pulled the young girl from the water, Don Julian’s body was found, drowned. His mysterious death has been an ongoing point of debate. Did he succumb to his guilt and take his own life, or did the spirits finally take what they had been threatening to for most of his life.

His family have since said he would search for dolls as if he himself was possessed, but they believe his death was the result of natural causes in the spot he spent so much of his life.

Since Don Julian’s mysterious death, the island has been taken over by his nephew, Anastasio Santana Velasco. Although he hasn’t continued his uncle’s obsessive collection, he allows tourists to visit and experience the spine-tingling island, with no intention of removing the decaying guardians.

Velesco has also backed up some of his uncle’s reports, claiming that he too has heard the child’s crying and footsteps at night, but with one addition. You can also now hear the thuds, of Don Julian’s walking cane.

These stories have barely scratched the surface of the tales which flood the rich folklore of South America. With ghosts at every turn and those who avidly keep their history alive, there is so much yet to be told. And in a continent so large, we can be sure that there are many more spirits and stories yet to reveal themselves.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Folklorist which was researched, written and recorded by Alannagh Cooke. Please rate and subscribe and you can find us on Instagram @thefolkloristpodcast and on Twitter @folkloristpod.

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Thank you for listening.