El Caleuche or The Caleuche (), Alternately it may derive from "human body" and che "people".

There is also the hypothesis that the legend originates from an early 17th century Dutch ship Kalache or El Calanche, lost at sea The ship captures sailors aboard other sailed boats, by attracting them with alluring orchestral music. Allegedly ordinary people who board it fall into a kind of stupor, preventing them from divulging any secrets about the ship (lore of Puerto Varas). Or anyone fallen victim, even in a slight way, turns mad, with his face always turning backwards.

The Caleuche can disappear instantly; it can also take on the appearance of other things to escape notice, e.g., turn into a tree trunk (especially cypress) and even come ashore that way,

Some have even claimed to have attended parties held aboard the ship. A legend tells that a man named Pancho Calhuante in the village of Matao took a (lobo) cub from its mother and slaughtered it to extract oil. The crew of the Caleuche arrived and exacted penalty by killing the man's eldest son.

In a different account El Caleuche itself had taken a sea lioness for a wife, which was killed by fishermen of Tenglo, opposite Puerto Montt. The enraged El Caleuche sent evils (eruptions of the Calbuco volcano) there, and also abducted the prettiest girls from the port. In another telling, the ship itself simply collects the drowned and recruit them as crew.

A 1911 testimony of a luminous ship passing by was given by the guard officer and lantern-lighter aboard the ship Copiapó, documented in the port authority archives of Valparaíso. The ship "passed near them without stopping, without making noise, without stopping or responding to their signals".

There are some who classify it as a phenomenon of OSNI (abbreviation of , i.e., unidentified submerged object) The exoplanet HD 164604 b is also formally named Caleuche.

See also

  • Mapuche mythology
  • Chilean mythology
  • Chiloé
  • Magellan
  • Marlborough (1876 ship)#Ghost ship - allegedly spotted in the Strait of Magellan

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • Cárdenas Tabies, Antonio. El Triángulo del Pacífico Sur. Imprenta ARCA. 1996. 74 p. (Spanish)
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  • Mancilla Pérez, Juan. Magia y brujería en Chiloé. Secretos de Mitología. Medicina Popular. 2006. 74 p. (Spanish)
  • Conte, Jeanne (1999). "Tapestry of Horrors". World & I. Volume 14:192-200-Via MasterFILE Complete
  • Torres, Sergio Mansilla (2009). "Mutaciones culturales de Chiloé: los mitos y las leyendas en la modernidad neoliberal isleña" Convergencia: Revista de Ciencias Sociales, volume 17, issue 51, starting on page 271-VIa Fuente Académica Premier.