Perhaps it is nothing more than a legend, as skeptics say. Or maybe it is real, as those who claim to have seen it avow.But the mere mention of the Mapinguary, the giant slothlike monster of the Amazon, is enough to send shivers down the spines of almost all who dwell in the world’s largest rain forest.
The folklore in South America is full of tales of encounters with the creature, and nearly every Indian tribe in the Amazon, including those that have had no contact with one another, have a word for the Mapinguary (pronounced ma-ping-wahr-EE). The name is usually translated as “the roaring animal” or “the fetid beast.”
So widespread and so consistent are these accounts that, in recent years, a few scientists have organized expeditions to try and find the creature. They have not succeeded – but some of the scientists claim they have gathered evidence that explain the beast and its origins.
Believers claim that it is quite clear that the legend of the Mapinguary is based on human contact with the last of the ground sloths thousands of years ago. Extinct species can survive as legends for hundreds of years – but whether such an animal (or “beast”) still exists is the big debate.
Scientists investigating the Mapinguary say they have talked to several hundred people who had said they had seen the Mapinguary in the most remote parts of the Amazon – including a handful who had said they had had direct contact.
In some areas, the creature is said to have two eyes, while in other accounts it has only one, like the Cyclops of Greek mythology. Some tell of a gaping, stinking mouth in the monster’s belly through which it consumes humans unfortunate enough to cross its path.
But all accounts agree that the creature is tall, 7 feet or more, when it stands on two legs, that it emits a strong, extremely disagreeable odour, and that it has thick, matted fur, which covers a carapace that makes it all but impervious to bullets and arrows.
Members of the Karitiana tribe claim to have seen one as less than three years ago, in the jungles, near an area that the tribe calls “the cave of the Mapinguary.”
All these claims only fuel the debate further. Will we ever know the truth? Only time will tell!
