Acre
and Matto Grosso Provinces, BRAZIL
Mapinguary Reports
December 1999 I was
in Alta Floresta, of Matto Grosso, Brazil and was able to locate three
Mapinguary witnesses. Even though their reports lack some details and
have some problems, I am sharing them with you and the rest of the group.
Report # 1:
When: Sometime before Christmas 1998;
Where: Acre state, deep in the rubber tree region;
What: He was working on a rubber tree when he heard a roar, saw something
big with the "corner of his eyes" and run away to the rubber
trees farmers camp. Next day he got two volunteer friends to go with him
to the place (4 miles from the camp) . They all had shotguns. They returned
to the place and all they could find were three deep (2 inches deep) marks
in a tree he had seen "whatever it was" slashing. The marks
were three inches apart and "could not have been done by men",
but I do not know how did he came to this conclusion. No other sightings
were reported at that camp around that time (or at least, he did not know
of any).
Report # 2:
When: In the 1980's
Where: Alta Floresta, Matto Grosso Province;
What: He was hunting when he felt an awful smell, heard some commotion
on some trees and heard a "kind of a whistle". He quickly gave
up hunting for the day, because an old Indian once had told him that would
mean "an evil spirit was displeased with him," At the time,
many people (he estimated at least a hundred) reported similar encounters,
and some even saw a red-brown ape-like creature with a foul smell. After
that he never went alone into the jungle again. Alta Florest is now a
land of Soy bean farms with almost no forest left. Mapinguary perhaps
moved north, to Northern Mato Grosso and Acre, Brazil.
Report # 3
When: April 1998;
Where: North Matto Grosso Province, Brazil
What: A friend told him he had heard and smelled "something weird"
in the jungle, close to an "iguarapé" (small creek) where
they usually went fishing and hunting. He went to check to place believing
it was a carcass being eaten by an onça (jaguar). He kills onças,
because they attack cattle. It was around noon when he felt "that
terrible smell" and saw, a few feet from him, an animal about the
same height as him (5 ft 4 inches), with red long fur and walking on its
hind legs. He knew what a gorilla was, and told me the animal did not
look like one. He had a pet sloth as a child (not unusual in the Amazon),
and laughed when I suggested it could have been a kind of sloth (even
if a Giant Sloth, that is believed extinct). His words were: "Sloths
can't walk, they have to crawl when they are not on a tree! That was no
sloth..." He was so shocked he could not move for a moment and the
animal made good his escape. Reports of bad smell, strange whistles and
a man-like ape are common at that part of Matto Grosso, Brazil.
That's it. Would it
be inappropriate to say there are two different Mapinguary in these reports?
Could it be possible, after all, there are two VERY different creatures
both being called Mapinguary? Too bad I never saw, heard or smelled anything
myself...
Thank you all,
Marcelo
marcelopmvolcato@uol.com.br
Date: Wednesday 03 Sep 2003 00:23:00 -0700
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