In Dominican culture, exist a lot of myth and beliefs that has been passed by generations after generations, although as time has passed they are slowly being forgotten, but still the elder tell the stories as fact and the actual generation as colorful stories of our folklore.
The majority of these beliefs have their origin from the small cities and rural communities on this half of this island.
Dominicans have many taboos & beliefs, but this time I will only talk about The Ciguapa, I hope it is of your entire pleasure.
The Ciguapa are mythical characters, they are wild women with great agility, that lives in the mountainous region of the island, they are of tanned to dark skinned, black eyes, really long soft and shiny hair that covers almost her entire body
Note: this is all hair from her head only.
What really make these mythical women peculiar is that fact that they have their feet backwards.
There are many version of her physical appearance, but these description is the most popular of having backwards feet and very long straight hair covering almost their entire body.
The Ciguapa usually appears in the night by riverbanks, according to the legend they come out at night to pick fruits, fish or birds. It is said that they attract men with a strange spell like scream or moan similar to those of birds, being this the only sound that the Ciguapa could emit, since no one has ever heard one speak.
After attracting a man with it's sound, she will seduce, make love to him and then killing him.
A Ciguapa can only be trapped at night on a full moon with the help of a dog with it's fur being white and black and cinqueño meaning that the dog has 6 toes on its paws. But when the Ciguapas are in captivity they quickly die of sadness.
The woman of inverted feet has two faces, the one of a sorceress that devours men and the other of a contrasting woman, beautiful, timid, inoffensive and fearful of the same man it devours. Some think she is a woman with magic powers and some think she is simply a woman with a deformity incapable of talking and just wants to capture the man she likes.
The origin of the legend it's unknown, yet not antique because it does not appears on myth and legends of the native India of the island Los Tainos or in their art, or in this novel written by
Francisco Javier Angulo Guridi,
on the year 1866, it is unknown where he got his source for the story or if it's out of his own imagination or heard the tales of the Ciguapa. He does notes that it wasn't part of the Taino tradition.
One of many theories says that the Ciguapa is just a confusion with an extinct species of sloth (Acratocnus), Oso perezoso de la Hispaniola unique to the three large islands of the Caribbean Hispaniola, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Due to these sloth having long claws that pointed towards the back.
Also The Ciguapa exist in other countries, like Cuba, but it is said that they were brought by the Dominicans that went to fight for the Cuban independence. If one day you decide to visit the mountains of Dominican Republic and you see a Ciguapa I strongly recommend that you do not look into their eyes so you don't get the spell on you, or maybe film it with your mobile and post it here on Steemit.
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