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Chonchons

July 19th, 2016 · 2 Comments

Speaking of ears, here are some sketches of chonchons, those peculiar creatures from Chilean folklore. Borges described them at some length in his Book of Imaginary Beings; here’s a shorter account, from the Dizionario dei Mostri (ed. Massimo Izzi, L’Airone, Roma, 1997), in my translation:

Vampire composed of an isolated human head with enormous ears, which function as wings for its nocturnal flights in search of victims. It is invisible except to witches, and they can only detect its presence from the strange cry that it emits: tué tué tué. If it is rendered powerless with the proper magical rites, it falls to earth, and can no longer fly unless another chonchon comes to its assistance.

CHONCHON1A

CHONCHON2

Tags: *Sketchbook · C

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 mamie // Jul 20, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    Am I the model for that figure?

  • 2 Doug // Jul 22, 2016 at 8:09 am

    No.