Amazonas Region - Folklore

Folklore

The folklore of Amazonas is not as varied as in other departments of Peru.

The profusion of dances, songs and clothing is not seen in here, like in Puno or Cuzco. Its folklore is nourished from legends and stories in which mystery and inexplicable things are always present. Towns, lagoons, hills, religious images, always have an origin that violates in an invariable way the rules of logic or biology.

For example, if you ask people about the lagoon of Cochaconga, they will say that it is enchanted. They say it has the "form of a neck" and that with the smallest noise provoked by an animal or the scream of a person, there will be a tremendous thunderstorm in which an enormous monster will appear in the shape of cow. This monster will become mad with the strangers. That's why, whoever passes by this remote place, does it with maximum precautions for not altering the local silence.

To give accommodation to travelers is an elementary norm of good behaviour with people. To deny it can provoke the most tremendous evil on the selfish person. An irrefutable evidence is the marsh of Mono Muerto (Dead Monkey's marsh), in the district of Huambo (Rodríguez de Mendoza). A dramatic story that people tell, with more or less details, but with the same respect.

A very rich man was living in his house. The marsh was a part of his estate, in which he was happy and lacking of nothing, until the day a traveler asked him for home and he denied it to him. A witch doctor of the surroundings, who found out about the attitude of the wealthy neighbor, entrusted that all the curses fell on him. All his goods disappeared and his grounds became a stinking marsh.

Mysterious power are also assumed to the four lagoons of Puquio, in which there are monsters that influence the crops, as well as to the lagoon of Santa Barbara, which disappears before the view of the walkers and it is destined to initiate the end of the world with the overflow of its waters.

Next to the city of Chachapoyas there is a hill called Piscohuañuna, in the way towards the forest. This name means "where birds die", because the mountain kills all the birds that approach it.

People attribute pernicious influences to certain animals like the mochuelo that "freezes the soul", or "quien-quien", that makes fun of the travelers in the roads; or the cricket, which singing in certain circumstances, like when it has sound of bells, presages big evil.

People have big respect to the antique remains. They firmly believe that there will be terrifying punishments for those who violate the graves of the "agüelos" (mummies).

Most of the population of the department of Amazonas is indigenous and mestizo, being notable the people' quantity, in some cases entire communities, in which the Spanish type predominates. Since the time of the Incas, there are legends about the existence of white people in these places. There are also versions gathered by chroniclers in which they assure that women were chosen here for the Inca, precisely because they were white.