COUNTRY FILE · SOUTH AMERICA
Cryptids of Venezuela
What cryptids are in Venezuela? The best-known are El Silbón and La Llorona.
Venezuela’s monster lore is rich in espantos – frights, apparitions and lost souls – rather than unknown animals. Many of the best-known come from Los Llanos, the immense tropical plains shared with Colombia, where cattle ranches lie hours apart, the dry season burns the grass and the wet season turns it into an inland sea. Around campfires and in ranch kitchens, llaneros pass on stories meant to scare, warn and entertain in equal measure.
Cryptids reported in Venezuela
SPECTRAL · Mid-19th century
El Silbón
Los Llanos of Venezuela and Colombia
A towering, cursed phantom of the Llanos who carries his father’s bones in a sack – and whose whistle is most dangerous when it sounds far away.
FOLKLORE
SPECTRAL · 16th century
La Llorona
Canals of Xochimilco, Mexico City
A weeping ghost in white who wanders rivers and canals at night crying for the children she lost – Mexico’s most famous and most widely told legend.
FOLKLOREThe legends of Venezuela
The most feared of them is El Silbón, “the Whistler,” said to have taken shape on the plains of Guanarito in Portuguesa state in the mid-19th century. A son cursed for murdering his father, he wanders the plains forever with a sack of bones on his back, whistling a rising scale – and, by the famous rule, he is closest when his whistle sounds far away. Drunkards and womanizers are said to be his favourite victims, and only a dog’s bark, a whip or hot chili will drive him off. Venezuela also shares in the pan-Latin American legend of La Llorona, the weeping woman of the rivers.
These stories remain part of everyday Venezuelan culture, retold to children, set to music and adapted for film – Gisberg Bermúdez’s horror film El Silbón: Orígenes (2018) reached audiences in the United States as The Whistler. Visitors interested in the legend should head to the Llanos states of Portuguesa, Barinas and Apure, where the plains themselves set the scene.
Hotspots
The plains town traditionally named as the birthplace of the El Silbón legend.
Vast savannas and gallery forests where llanero storytelling about the Whistler is strongest.
Sightings timeline
- Mid-19th centuryThe legend takes shape El Silbón
Folklorists generally place the origin of the story on the plains of Guanarito in the mid-1800s, from where it spread across the Venezuelan Llanos and into Colombia’s eastern plains. The date is approximate, as the tale circulated orally.
- 2018<em>El Silbón: Orígenes</em> reaches cinemas El Silbón
Director Gisberg Bermúdez’s horror film built on the legend premiered in Venezuela and won Best Ibero-American Feature at Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre. It was released in the United States in 2019 as The Whistler.
Latest from Venezuela
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Videos
ARCHIVE.ORG3:04
La Llorona
Pikes Peak Library DistrictA short 2010 storytelling segment from a Colorado public library’s community TV channel – a good example of how the legend is told in the US Southwest.
▶ VIDEO
The Legend of La Llorona
Monstrum | PBS StoriedFolklorist Emily Zarka explains the legend’s Nahua and colonial roots and its many regional versions.