Mapinguari, The Bigfoot of Brazil and Bolivia

Mapinguari The Bigfoot of Brazil

Today MSNBC reposted a story from Life's Little Mysteries about the cultural variations of Bigfoot.

More than a quarter of Americans believe in Bigfoot, a recent poll found. They claim this legendary bipedal ape, a "long lost relative" of humans, evades detection in remote woodland areas. Although it may seem strange to think a 7-foot-tall land mammal could go unnoticed for so long, the notion is actually widespread.

Along with that sizable minority of Americans, an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll found that 21 percent of Canadians also believe in an undiscovered hairy humanoid, which they prefer to call Sasquatch. In Russia, belief in a similar creature, called the Yeti, is so common that local branches of the Russian government have funded Yeti expeditions, and the country has even considered founding an entire institute devoted to the study of Yetis.

The Yeti is also said to roam the Himalayas, sometimes going by the name of Meh-Teh, or the "Abominable Snowman." Not to be outdone, Australia has the Yowie, and South America, a mythical beast called Mapinguari. Malaysians, meanwhile, fear the orang minyak, or "oily man" monster.

We checked our a/k/a Bigfoot World Map and noticed the Mapinguari was absent for out list of variants and decided to update our map with an entry for the South American Mapinguari.


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Wikipedia offers this brief description of the Mapinguari.

The mapinguari or mapinguary (Spanish pronunciation: [mapiŋɡwaˈɾi]), also known as the Isnashi [isˈnaʃi], is a legendary cryptid said to resemble a ground sloth–like creature with red fur living in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia. The name is usually translated as “the roaring animal” or “the fetid beast”.

Appearance:

According to native folklore the creature has a series of unnatural characteristics related to other fantastic beings of Brazilian mythology. These include the creature only having one eye, long claws, caiman skin, backward feet and a second mouth on its belly. In more recent eyewitness accounts it has consistently been described as resembling either an ape or giant ground-dwelling sloth and having long arms, powerful claws that could tear apart palm trees, a sloping back, reaching heights of 7 feet when standing on its hind legs and is covered in thick, matted fur.

Back in 2005 Craig Woolheater of Cryptomundo wrote a post about the Mapinguari and brought our attention to a Discovery article's description of the Mapinguari.

As a matter of fact, the descriptions of the creature in question sounded more like a bipedal primate than a giant ground sloth to me.

“Covered in long red hair, standing more than 6 feet on its hind legs, emanating a stench so foul it disorients everyone in sniffing distance, the mapinguari is reputed to be the wildest, rarest, most mysterious and terrifying denizen of the rain forest..." 

If you haven't visited the a/k/a Bigfoot World Map it is great way to get lost in the global Bigfoot phenomenon. Plus you get to learn rich details of the Bigfoot Variants from around the world. If you have any suggestion for us to add, pleas submit them to feedback@BigfootLunchClub.com