9.
THE ‘MUDMEN’ OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA
In one of the world’s most remote jungles situated in the western highlands of Papua
New Guinea’s Waghi Valley lives the Asaro tribe, known largely to the outside world
as the “mudmen.”
The reside where roads, cars, electricity, and other modern conveniences are conspicuously
lacking, male tribe members slather thick gray mud onto their bodies and wear huge demonic-looking
masks - a custom that dates back centuries, to a time when local clans fought over women,
territory, and pigs.
Legend has it that the people who became known as the ‘mudmen’ fled from a rival tribe
and took cover in a nearby muddy river.
They emerged from the water at dusk completely covered in mud and terrified their enemies,
who thought that the mudmen were evil spirits and fled the scene.
There are variations of the story, depending on who you ask, and nobody knows for sure
when the Asaro tribe started dressing as mudmen, but researchers believe they’ve been doing
it for roughly four generations, according to the BBC.
Today, the Asaro tribe continues the tradition of covering themselves in mud, wearing fearsome
masks decorated with pigs’ teeth and shells, and wearing bamboo claws over their fingers,
and carrying bamboo spears.
Reporters have traveled deep into the jungle to catch a glimpse of the mudmen up close.
8.
LA PATASOLA
La Patasola, or “one foot,” is one of many female monsters of South American folklore
who target men in the middle of the jungle, appearing seemingly out of nowhere when a
hunter or logger thinks about women.
She’s seductive and beautiful, and often resembles someone her victim is in love with,
making it easy for her to lure an unsuspecting man away from his group.
Once that happens, La Patasola reveals her true hideous appearance, which includes bulging
eyes, one breast, and cat-like fangs.
She attacks her victim, sucking his blood and/or devouring his flesh, and can move swiftly,
despite having only one leg with a cow’s hoof at the end.
Because La Patasola is protective of nature and the animal kingdom, she is known to disrupt
the daily activities of men who work in the woods by causing them to become disoriented,
blocking their paths and shortcuts, and misleading hunting dogs by throwing them off their scent
trail.
This character, with her taste for human blood, was inspired by vampire legend and may have
been rooted in other concepts and stories.
Some say that she was a mother who was exiled to the forest as punishment for killing her
own son, and that locals chopped her leg off out of anger.
She died from her injuries and became a ghost.
Another story holds that La Patasola was a cheating wife who slept with her and her husband’s
employer.
When her husband discovered her infidelity, he murdered her, and her soul somehow ended
up inside the one-legged body it inhabits today.
7.
PHI KONG KOI
If you venture into the jungles of Thailand and Laos, legend has it that you might encounter
a one-legged phantom-like ghost who hops around on one leg yelling “Koi, koi, koi!”
Known as Phi Kong Koi, its appearance varies from one story to the next, with some tales
claiming that the creature has a fly-like tube mouth while others describe the ghost
as resembling a monkey or langur.
The Tai Dam people of northeastern Thailand believe that the Phi Kong Koi is a long-haired,
petite woman who has a backwards foot and speaks the opposite of reality.
Nearly all accounts agree on two things: that the Phi Kong Koi is hideous and cannot climb
trees.
Legend advises travelers who sleep in the jungle to lay with their feet crossed or together,
or they’re at risk of having the blood sucked out of their toes by the bizarre entity.
Buddhist monk Luang Pu Waen Suciṇṇo claimed that he fought many Phi Kong Koi at night
while traveling through the jungle in Khammouane, Laos.
He said they were the size of a 13 or 14 year-old human, and that they were thin with bulging
stomachs and dark features.
Luang also claimed that the ghosts were armed with crossbows, and that they eventually surrendered
to him and his fellow travelers and invited them into their home.
Based on this tale, some have theorized that the Phi Kong Koi are actually an ethnic group
called the Kha Ra Dae, and that they perhaps hunted and cannibalized humans.
The most recent evidence of the Phi Kong Koi is a strange footprint found inside a cave
in Thailand’s sparsely populated Loei province.
A local cultural agency director claimed that the Phi Kong Koi are a rarely-seen ethnic
group, further pointing toward the possibility that the so-called ghosts are actually people.
Do you believe in the Phi Kong Koi?
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6.
CAMBODIAN ‘JUNGLE WOMAN’
In early 2007, a naked Vietnamese woman emerged from the woods in northeastern Cambodia’s
Ratanakiri province.
She was found covered in mud and scavenging for food.
Local police chief Mao San described her as “half animal, half human,” and said that
she couldn’t speak any intelligible language, and that she slept during the day and was
awake all night.
A local family identified her as their daughter, Rochom P'ngieng, who had vanished around 19
years earlier.
While many people questioned whether this was true, the authorities seemed perfectly
happy with the explanation and sent the woman to live with the family.
She struggled to adjust to normal life and often tried to return to the jungle.
The woman also avoided wearing clothes, leading people to believe that she was feral and had
spent too many years living in the wilderness and away from humans to understand language
or social norms.
But then, in 2016, a Vietnamese man came forward and claimed that the woman was his daughter
Tak, who had disappeared just a year earlier at age 23 amid a mental breakdown.
He provided sufficient documentation to prove it, and with the support of both immigration
officials and the family who had taken Tak in, she was returned to Vietnam.
4.
MOWGLI GIRL
In early 2017, someone discovered a young girl among a troop of monkeys in India’s
Katarniyaghat wildlife sanctuary near the Nepal border.
Her hair was matted, she was wounded, walked on all fours, picked up food with her mouth,
and communicated only by screeching.
This led to the widespread belief that she was raised by monkeys and earned her the nickname
“Mowgli girl” after the feral child from The Jungle Book.
But authorities were quick to shut this idea down, noting that the territory the girl was
found in contained surveillance equipment and was patrolled enough to where she couldn’t
have spent long in the forest before someone noticed her.
Numerous people came forward saying that the girl was their lost daughter, but nobody could
substantiate their claims.
She was sent to a shelter, where staff renamed her Ehsaas.
In an update published last year in Outlook India, employees said that she has made considerable
progress from when she was first rescued.
She still can’t talk, but she walks, eats normally, and finds non-verbal ways to express
her feelings.
Officials concluded that Ehsaas was likely abandoned by her parents due to her intellectual
disabilities, rather than raised in the jungle by monkeys, even though that’s where she
somehow ended up.
They believe that she spent a few days at most with the primates she was discovered
with.
5.
JUNGLE EVOLUTION
The term “Pygmy” is used to describe hunter-gatherer groups who tend to be smaller in stature than
the average person.
Found throughout the rainforests of Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, members
of these tribes are typically less than 5 feet (1.5m) tall.
And for a long time, scientists have been trying to figure out why, with theories often
suggesting that prevalent diseases or parasites are responsible for Pygmies’ diminutive
size.
But a 2018 study veered radically off this path and instead suggested that these tribes
have evolved over thousands of years to be smaller than average because it makes them
more efficient at living and moving throughout the jungle.
Lead study author Dr. Vivek Venkataraman pointed out that the jungle’s thick vegetation and
other obstacles make it difficult to move around with ease.
This navigation takes a lot of energy, so it would make sense that a group of people
who live in that environment would evolve to become shorter and smaller, according to
Venkataraman.
The research focused on the Tsimane people, who live in Bolivia; the Batek people of Peninsular
Malaysia, and average-sized people who live near the rainforest.
It quickly became evident that taller people walk much more slowly in a jungle setting.
This is because they take longer strides than short people, and traversing the landscape
forces them to constantly adjust their movement, expending 20 to 30 percent more of their energy
than walking on open, flat ground.
Venkataraman said that the results show that in just 20,000 years or less, evolution can
cause a population to change considerably.
So there is definitely some truth to stories about little people living in the forest,
and it can be explained by science.
3.
REAL-LIFE TARZAN
During the Vietnam War in 1972, a man named Ho Van Thanh packed up his two sons and fled
civilization after losing his wife and other two children to a bomb dropped by American
forces.
For the next 40 years, the family lived in isolation and relied entirely on nature to
fulfill their needs.
They built wooden houses, drank water from a nearby river, and ate fruit and meat sourced
exclusively from their surroundings.
The group went undetected until 2013, when locals discovered them living off the grid
and alerted authorities, who forced the family to return to civilization.
Residents had long believed the family was dead and were completely shocked.
Refusing to believe that the Vietnam War ended decades ago, Thanh spent every day holed up
in the corner of his room and obsessing over his desire to return to the wilderness.
He died in 2017.
One of his children, Ho Van Lang, had lived in the jungle since he was two years old.
It was all he knew.
He had never seen a car, struggled to understand the concept of electricity, and didn’t know
what a woman was, according to filmmaker Alvaro Cerezo, who spoke with news.com.au about his
documentary showcasing Lang’s life.
Lang quickly became known for his gentle, childlike demeanor and his superb survival
skills.
He now leads a productive life and is integrated into society on some level, but struggled
to adjust well enough to completely abandon jungle life and eventually returned to living
in a hut.
Thankfully, he is no longer isolated from the world and maintains regular contact with
his older brother and other community members with more mainstream lifestyles.
2.
THE ALLURE OF UNCONTACTED TRIBES
There are entire societies who live in near-complete isolation deep in the jungle, effectively
cut off from society and all things modern.
Their traditions, customs, cultures, and lifestyles are essentially the same as those of their
ancestors.
Worldwide, there are over 100 of these groups, according to advocacy group Survival International.
Known as “uncontacted tribes,” their existence made headlines around the globe in 2018 when
a group called the Sentinelese killed an American missionary who ventured into their territory.
These indigenous islanders live on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands, an archipelago
in the Indian Ocean.
Their unwanted visit from John Chau, who traveled illegally to the island in an effort to bring
them the word of God, proves that the word “uncontacted” is a bit misleading.
For even the most remote tribes, it’s nearly impossible to avoid crossing paths with the
outside world, even when there are laws in place to protect them from it, such was the
case with the Sentinelese.
Many tribes fight to maintain their separateness and preserve their lifestyle and culture to
the point where they will readily kill an imposing outsider, as the world learned when
Chau turned up dead.
The Indian government, which has jurisdiction over the island, tightened its policy banning
outsiders from going there and used Chau’s death as an opportunity to remind the public
of why doing so is a terrible idea.
While the hostility of the Sentinelese and other tribes may seem alarming, uncontacted
tribes have far more reasons to fear us than the other way around, including their lack
of immunity and resistance to diseases of the modern world, and our tendency to destroy
the environment they live in.
It’s natural to be curious, but we also have to accept that we can only get so close
and learn so much before an uncontacted tribe makes it clear that we are unwelcome.
And it is society’s duty to accept that and respect their desired distance.
1.
EL TUNCHE
“Tunche” is both an indigenous expression, which means “fear,” and the name of a
terrifying being that is said to roam the Peruvian Amazon at night.
Like many mythical creatures, it’s a shapeshifter capable of taking on different appearances,
and will usually approach a person resembling one of their loved ones.
Some accounts claim that El Tunche is a tormented soul who moves through the jungle at night
looking to punish people, while other stories state that the creature is a man who was murdered
by his fiancé’s father.
El Tunche is recognizable based on its unique whistle, which intensifies as it gets closer.
Many people claim to have escaped its wrath, and nobody knows exactly what happens to its
victims who don’t survive.
It’s believed that El Tunche may abandon or devour its targets.
In fact, nobody has come up with a logical or solid explanation for what El Tunche even
is, and there are varying accounts (usually by region) of what it’s like to encounter
one, but the belief in its existence remains strong.
Thanks for watching!
Have you heard about any of these legends before?
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