Ghost Stories and Unexpected Guests

Back in May, we hosted our first dinner party in our little log cabin. We had invited our fellow English department teachers, Katia and Ana Maria, as well as another friend of ours, Milka, who works as a tutor at the COAR. It was a very Peruvian affair, because they showed up an hour late, and once we had all settled down at the table, about to serve up the now-tepid food, Ana suddenly exclaims, “Oh, Melissa is here! I’ll go let her in through the gate.” Aiden and I had this moment where we looked at each other, and it was so clear we were both thinking the exact same thing: who the hell is Melissa? But Ana was already up and out the door, her trusty perrijo Cody trotting behind her. So I got up and grabbed an extra chair while Aiden laid another plate at the table, and we waited to find out who, exactly, Melissa was. Turns out she’s one of the new literature teachers at the COAR. She’s here living with her mother, but doesn’t know too many people yet, and in classic Ana fashion, she had been invited as a way to get to know us and feel more comfortable here in Chontabamba. It was lovely to get to know Melissa, and she ended up being a very welcome addition to our table, but as first-time hosts it definitely took creativity to figure out how to split five fillets of trout between 6 people. In the end, the more the merrier! 

We lit candles, because our dining room overhead light is the LED bane of my existence, and we had a lovely centerpiece of fresh flowers that Cody “brought” me from the market, since, according to Ana, I deserve them and Aiden has never brought me any. Cody is Ana’s travieso dog, who she calls her son, or perrijo. Ana has marked us as his tío Aiden and tía Chelsea. With the dripping candles stuck into makeshift beer-bottle candle-holders, the wooden walls, the wine, and the wonderful company, it felt cozy and homey. We feasted on grilled trout, mashed potatoes, and roasted broccoli, then served coffees and banana bread for dessert, which is a tad stressful when you have a maximum of four mugs, and a moka pot that only makes one cup at a time. But we made it! And that’s when the real fun began. Over the next hour, we made quick work of not one, not two, but three bottles of wine while Milka regaled us with ghost stories and urban legends turned to reality from her time teaching in an indigenous community. Milka is one of my favorite people that I’ve met so far in Chontabamba. She’s close friends with Ana, and the first time we met her I was immediately struck by her razor-sharp bob that’s dyed a dark cherry-red, and her posture, which is ramrod because she suffers from vertebral issues. That first encounter ended up with us building three pieces of furniture for her as she moved into her new apartment in Chontabamba. She is a formidable woman. She calls me her muñequita whenever she sees me, and always smiles at me with a sly, knowing look, as if she knows all of my secrets. Whenever I ask her, “what?” defensively, she smiles wider and says “ay mi Chelsea linda,” in her slow, rich voice. She has a wonderful belly laugh that’s incongruous with her sophisticated demeanor. Milka chooses when she wants to speak carefully, and because of that, she holds a sort of quietly mysterious and authoritative aura about her. But, when she does opt to talk, her stories are always fascinating and told in a way that has you clinging on to every word. 

So when Milka began to tell us stories, we all unconsciously leaned in closer, like her trusting disciples, and let the intimacy of the candlelight and wine do its work. Milka lived for about a year near Pucallpa, a region in eastern Peru that depends strongly on the Ucayali river that passes through it, and is a major tributary of the Amazon (see above image). She told us how, for one of the communities that she taught in, she made the long trek to Pucallpa, and from there was forced to hike for two hours to the town she would actually reside in, with all of her belongings strapped to her back. In one of the first towns that she lived in, people were forbidden, or at least strongly dissuaded, from venturing out after 6 PM. This town centered around a large cemetary, and it was the belief of the residents that, after 6 o’clock, the spirits of the cemetery would overtake you and you would never regain that sense of your old self. So, as she told it to us, after 6 every day the town turned into a ghost town, one way or another. Another anecdote told of a place where the locals buried their dead in their chacras, which are small plots of land where Peruvians cultivate vegetables or other crops. One haunting story Milka told was of a young woman named Mimi, who was impregnated by a gringo who wanted nothing to do with her when he found out. To rid himself of this ‘burden,’ he threw Mimi from the river of Huancabamba, killing her. A few days later, Mimi washed up on shore not too far from her town, and once identified, her family buried her in their chacra to memorialize her. 

Over the next few hours, as Milka nos brindó her stories, I caught bits and pieces, consumed by her storytelling while also desperately wanting to record everything for the blog. She spoke of places where there are serpents who are attracted to vaginal blood, the piripiri plant, which “brings love” to those who consume it, and of a demon called “el jarjacha,” who often takes the form of half-man, half-llama. El jarjacha is supposedly named for the call it makes, which sounds like “jar-jar-jar,” and in Peruvian mythology, el jarjacha has the ability to hypnotize its victims in order to attack and kill them. It’s a nocturnal creature that usually prowls around the madrugada, or around 4-5 in the morning. The jarjacha, according to most sources, is a legend that has roots in the colonial period. Since it is believed to be a beast that punishes people who commit incest in the sierra, its origination supposedly comes from an incestuous group that God cursed into the form of a beast because of the sins they had commited. To this day, there are towns that record sightings of el jarjacha, but the good news is that according to legend, you can escape the jarjacha’s grasp by insulting it, or with mirrors.

Stupefied and a little overwhelmed, we all hung on to Milka’s every word, as she wove folklore alongside her own experiences living near the voluntarily-isolated Mashcopiro indigenous community in Pucallpa. She told us of another creature based in Peruvian mythology from the selva, the chullachaqui. The chullachaqui is a figure, sometimes described as a dwarf, who haunts the Peruvian jungle in hopes of entrapping the people who journey through their territory. Apparently the chullachaqui can transform into any being, including a loved one or a family member. However, the distinguishing characteristic of the chullachaqui, and the one thing it can’t control, are its feet. While one foot will transform alongside the rest of its body, the other foot will always remain in the shape of a cloven hoof. It’s because of this disparity that the chullachaqui gets its name, from the Quechua chulla, which means, unique, unequal, or asymmetrical, and chaki, which means “foot.” So chullachaqui put together means “one footed,” or “asymmetrical foot.” Because of this, people of the selva will tell you that if you meet someone in the jungle, you should always look at their feet first, to make sure they aren’t the dreaded chullachaqui. 

Anyways, Milka told us of a time when she decided to take a walk through the jungle of Pucallpa, and followed a trail that entered into a bamboo forest. She was alone when all of the sudden, she began to hear an odd whistling noise that felt too close for comfort. Every time she would stop to look around, the jungle would be silent and empty. And then the whistle would sound again, much closer than before. Wary and nervous, Milka left the forest, passing bamboo and ceibo (lupuna) trees. As she hurried faster and faster down the path that would take her home, she heard heavy footfalls chasing after her, even though each time she looked back, there was no one and nothing behind her. Finally, fatigued and stressed, the endless bamboo forest finally faded away, and she was left on a familiar trail. The footsteps and whistles had disappeared, and she sat down with relief. Later, when she retold this experience to the people in her village, they assured her that she had had a narrow escape from a chullachaqui, who had definitely been chasing her to lure her back to its domain. As we sat with wide eyes listening to this fantastical story, Milka warned us in ominous tones what she learned that day: “Entre bambú y lupuna trabajen los chullachaquis.” In other words, between bamboo and ceibo trees are where the chullachaquis work, which is why, Milka told us, you should be careful when you find bamboo amidst the jungle. The whistles, she later found out, are attributed to another legend of a terrorized, demonized man who wanders the jungle completely invisible until he approaches near his victims. Once El Tunche, or Tunchi, as he is called, is closest to the lone traveler, he emits a loud whistle that imitates a bird call, signaling the imminent death of the victim. 

A heavy silence filled the air as Milka finished her storytelling, leaving me aghast but also immensely intrigued. We all collectively reached for more wine, and eventually other voices filled the room, telling their own histories and asking Aiden and I if we had similar experiences or tales of urban legends. And this is exactly what intrigued me so much about these stories that I wrote down the details on my notes app, wanting immediately to share them with you all. I love stories even more than I love writing. Anything that captivates or fascinates me is something that I want to capture forever, so I can remember the feeling of being pulled in so fully I forget where I am. More than that, I felt so incredibly excited to be learning the mythologies of Peru, and discovering tales of cryptids that my students probably grew up hearing. As ghastly and terrifying and brutal as some of the stories are, it speaks to a collective memory of oral histories and preserved culture that, as a historian, I yearn for. In that moment I thought about the concept of home and belonging. How solidifying it feels to recount oral histories about a place that is part of your core identity, to feel pride in your indegeneity of a place, to pass that down so that not only your town, but a part of you is preserved for as long as humans can speak and share. I can tell stories about Bigfoot or Nessie, but I have no real connection to those myths, and nor do I really know the origins of these stories. Maybe I had too much wine, or I’m a complete nerd, but it made me want to discover the urban legends and oral histories of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, to learn about the different populations and cultures that lived there throughout time and their cosmologies. Ever since that night listening to Milka tell stories around the dinner table, I’ve felt a persistent urge in the back of my mind, telling me to retain curiousity not only of these new environments I am inhabiting, but of my hometown and home state, as well. So I ended up looking for North Carolina urban legends, and went down a rabbit hole of news articles about “The Boojum,” “The Devil’s Tramping Ground,” Gimghoul Castle, and the “Beast of Bladenboro,” who sounds suspiciously similar to the chupacabra. If you’re interested, I’ve attached some links so you can read these legends for yourself. I can’t speak to how accurate or truthful they are, but they’re interesting reads! Meanwhile, I’ll keep you guys updated on what other urban legends I learn when I move to the sierra, in Chalhuanca, because I’m sure there will be many.