Chullachaqui

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The Chullachaqui, the mysterious guardian and shape shifter of the Amazon Rainforest

The name refers to the Amazonian folktale about a gnome which lives in the jungle. Your friend is out of sight for a moment and reappears but, unknown to you, he is in fact the mischievous Chullachaqui. He leads you deep into the forest until you are lost and there you stay! He can be recognised however by the fact that one foot is larger that the other or one foot is twisted back on itself.

He is the guardian of the Chullachaquicaspi tree, which can be used directly on the wound to heal deep cuts and haemorrhages – and internally too – because it contains a resin. Heals strains from lifting heavy weights can damage nerves. Good for joints.

It is also a powerful teacher plant which helps you get close to the spirit of the forest and guides you if you ‘diet’ with it. It owns you and protects you at the same time. The tree has large buttress roots because it grows in sandy soils where roots cannot grow deep. There are white and red varieties - both grow in damp low lying areas. It can teach the apprentice to recognise what plants can heal, and it can cleanse the mind of psychosis. Chulla in Quechua, means twisted foot and Chaqui is the plant. It is better prepared in water than alcohol.

For bad skin, the bark is grated and boiled up with water and the body is given a steam bath while covered with a blanket. It is important to remove the bark without killing the tree which can have serious mystic consequences. It is a grounding plant which puts you in touch with the inaudible vibration of the earth.

The resin can be extracted from the tree trunk, as with the rubber tree and reduced and used in emplasts for painful wounds. Oil can also be extracted by boiling all day, this can be made into capsules.

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Chullachaqui, in Spanish el Chullachaqui or Shapishico, is a legendary devil of the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazonian jungle.

Some say he appears disguised as prey to hunters and tricks them deep in the jungle where even experienced trackers can not find a way back. Others say that the Chullachaqui takes the physical form of a family member or a loved one long not seen, and persuades his victim to follow him to unknown places in the jungle where they are led into traps or left at the edge of cliffs with no way out. Others say that he appears in the shape of a very short man dressed in rags waving his closed fists in the air looking for a fight. In this case, natives believe a man must accept his challenge and beat him until he uncovers all the richness he has hidden in the jungle. He who declines this challenge is cursed with the inability to hunt and foul luck: family and friends turn into enemies, wife leaves with another man, etc.

The most common Chullachaqui tales are accounts of him impersonating someone familiar to his victim. Folks claim that his uncanny ability to replicate others makes him impossible to tell apart but for a limping on his left leg which he can not change from its original state: that of a goat's leg.

Chullachaqui is said to have an ability to turn into any animal of the rainforest. Chullachaqui is a kind of a forest spirit who guards the lands and the animals and punishes a man if he breaks a taboo or otherwise acts unwisely in the forest. According to a local legend, Chullachaqui is a member of an older species, a species that lived there long before humans. Most of the time they remain quite uninterested in humans. They inhabit forestspots far from human inhabitance where they supposedly have their own gardens and fields to tend. If a human being dwells too close to those gardens, they might attack and put a spell on the unlucky human. Sometimes a Chullachaqui might also steal a human child and rase it as its own, or lure humans into its trap for mating purposes. A human thus stolen by the Chullachaqui becomes one of them.