Folklore of Puerto Rico

In the last century, a multitude of homegrown aspects have begun differentiating local folklore further away from its historical influences, fueling a new subset of myths and legends that act as a defiance of its political reality and the reflection of modern concerns.

For example, ghost stories were an important part of the Taino ontological system and were most notably represented by the Hupia, guava-eating spirits that wandered the roads at night and were only differentiated from the living due to their lack of a bellybutton.

Several of the legends that trace back to this time, such as the tragic love tale of Guanina and the supposed drowning of a Spaniard named Diego Salcedo, concern the clash of both worlds and the effects that Colonization had on the natives.

Others present more abstract concepts that intend to sell the moral of the story, such as the ideation that the rustling of the Ceiba tree's leaves is the enduring whispers of the those involved in forbidden relationships.

Carabalí escaped jail on a foggy and rainy day and took refuge in Cueva de Los Muertos, near the neighboring municipality of Utuado, while fleeing dogs set upon him by the Spanish authorities.

The reputation of El Morro and other forts that littered the coasts of Old San Juan was greatly mythified, both due its consecutive wins in naval engagements as its ability to endure an invasion led by George Clifford that was able to take over the rest of the city.

To this day, it is celebrated as the sole Spanish fort in the Caribbean that did not suffer a military loss and only falling into enemy hands once, being surrendered temporarily when resources dwindled and an epidemic erupted after successfully resisting a two-month siege by the Earl of Cumberland.

The legend of La Rogativa, based on a religious procession that took place during a blockade of San Juan Bay led by Ralph Abercrombie is also popular, as the British are depicted as mistaking the torches carried by those gathering for the arrival of reinforcements and fled.

Other stories involving pirates are not military in nature, most often dealing with purported buried treasures, such as a tale associating Portuguese corsair José Joaquim Almeida with the island of Caja de Muertos.

In 1699, William Kidd stayed at Isla de Mona for ten days while the Quedagh Merchant was loaded with about 100,000 sterling pounds worth of cargo, gold and silver.

[10] The unexpected success that a young aristocrat from Cabo Rojo named Roberto Cofresí had as a plunderer a century after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean catapulted him into legend.

Perhaps influenced in part by his own offer of 4,000 piece of eight to a prison guard shortly before his death, legends of a lost pirate treasure became widespread in places such as Cabo Rojo and Mona Island.

As the Catholic Church underwent a crisis during the later half of the 19th Century, a complimentary form of "popular Catholicism" emerged to live along it by filling the necessities left vacant by the institution.

[18] Puerto Rican folkloric espiritismo is also known as Mesa Blanca or “white table” and co-opts Catholic saints in the form of the wooden Santos de Palo, as well as other ritual elements such as prayers, holy water and incense.

The Americanization project launched by the colonial government not only intended to displace Spanish as the jurisdiction's main language, but was also accompanied by an upheaval to the monolithic Catholic establishment that had prevailed for centuries.

Carmel in specific) gained prominence in San Lorenzo after settling at Montaña Santa and adopted the epithets "De Jesús" and "Hermana", while followers began calling her "Vuestra Madre".

[38] A group of spiritists concerned with La Samaritana was part of the Club de Estudios Psicológicos Ramón Emeterio Betances, who believed that she may have been influenced and that the water she prescribed had properties of unknown consequence.

Los Desmembrados, a group of ghostly legs or otherwise incomplete specters supposedly spotted walking roadside at Lajas, were tied to the increase in fatal accidents that accompanied the popularization of cars and their irresponsible use.

[47] A consensus ultimately linked the Virgen del Pozo with the Lady of Fatima (which the local furor surpassed in attendance, reaching up to 150,000 followers) while Santía Martínez Lugo was expelled for claiming that it was La Milagrosa.

[53] Despite actively involved in a campaign against practices that it considered superstitious, the central government choose to only serve as a mediator, moderating the crowds successfully, achieving a level of order that resulted in no arrests among the devotees.

The pervasive North American legend of Bigfoot was adapted to a local public, with reported sightings of a pigmy vegetarian hominid that ate plantain buds taking place in, giving rise to a short lived trend of newspaper articles speculating about the existence of this creature, which became popularly known as Comecogollo.

[61] In another instance, charlatans at Fajardo cut a ray to create a Jenny Haniver, which received media attention in 1974 as it was dubbed with the name of Garadiabolo (Garamendi's Devil) and given a purported backstory of its appearance at Laguna Aguas Prietas.

Sensationalist tabloid El Vocero was mainly responsible for giving coverage to the purported creature, for which reporter Augusto Vale Salinas was reprimanded by the president of the Asociación de Periodistas, Tomás Stella, who considered that it promoted obscurantism.

[64] Among other questionable tactics employed was reporting that anomalous radiation levels had been detected in Héctor Vega's terrain (the property first associated with the attacks), despite other sources discrediting these claims.

[69] Once again, El Vocero would be responsible for promoting a sensationalist series on the Chupacabras, this one focusing on the antics of Canóvanas mayor José Soto and his “Chemo Jones” adventurer alter ego.

[70] This persona was born when he embraced mocking comparisons to Indiana Jones and John Rambo that were lobbied at him following eccentric claims that the creature had to be hunted down before attacking humans.

While noting the generation of "monster money" from the sale of merchandise, Reinaldo L. Román argued a sociopolitical influence behind its origin and that its narratives serve as a reflection of local excesses by the United States government.

However, a host of new modern myths involving winged creatures that look like gargoyles and smell of sulphur has emerged during the early 21st Century in parallel to the Chupacabras, joining its predecessors in the fringes of society and finding a place to flourish in rural areas where belief in folkloric magic is still prevalent.

The Vejigante comes in two variations, those of Loíza are depicted as colorful horned monsters with crooked teeth and they represent a demonization of the Moors by the ancestors of the people involved in the Reconquista as part of the traditional Santiago Feast.

The other variant, whose masks depict more reptilian-looking albeit equally colorful monsters with forked tongues, are a personification of mischief and their role is to play pranks on the populace during the Ponce Festival.