Urban Myths of Costa Rica (La mona)
The legends of Costa Rica are a set of stories and folkloric traditions, referring to some wonderful unreal event, but with traces of reality.
Costa Rican legends are mostly made up of stories of lost souls, magic or indigenous culture, animals of nature, united by the constant presence of religiosity that characterizes the Costa Rican people, mostly Catholic.
La Mona (Witch Monkey)
Also known as Mona Bruja (Witch Monkey) or Bruja enana (Dwarf Monkey), is a character from Chorotega Indigenous origin.
According to this legend, some monkeys were witches who, through ancestral indigenous prayers, shed their skin and grew their hair, and their hands and feet lengthened, transforming them into a being similar to a large monstrous ape.
Speechless
It is said that many years ago, in colonial times, a beautiful woman was transformed into a monkey by a witch. Many people say that the horrible conversion was due to the envy that the witch had towards the extreme beauty of that woman…
The Witch Monkey could move at high speed through the trees, usually to hurt their enemies in a surprising way. They did it amidst chilling laughter and terrifying screams that chilled the blood of their victims, leaving them stunned or speechless for several days.
The violent Witch Monkey undertakes its attacks with great intensity along the roads towards the towns and even enters the towns, walking on the roofs and trees that surround them, and scaring people with its terrified screams.
Ways to confront La Mona (Witch Monkey):
Learn to control the fear of it and repeat prayers with faith Christian prayers.
Turn her shirt inside out and tell her to go to the salt tomorrow.
Stick a crosshead (a cross-shaped machete) into the ground.
Cut a sour lemon into 4 parts, placing them at the 4 ends of the house
Throwing a fistful of corn (mustard seeds or salt) and immediately throwing the hat upside down, so that Mona had to wake up collecting the watered grains, without being able to leave until she swore not to bother him again. no one in the neighborhood
Nahual Myth
The myth of witches who transform into monkeys is related to the Mexican tradition of the nahuales, a type of shaman from Mesoamerican cultures who had, among other powers, the ability to metamorphose into animals, sometimes for malevolent purposes.
Large Birds
During the colony, there was a variant of the legend of the monkey in the so-called «flyers», women who could assume the form of large birds that soared through the air.