
Crew of the Caleuche
The Caleuche is the phantom ship of the Chiloé archipelago in southern Chile. Its crew is recruited from the drowned, who are revived to serve aboard for ever, in some tellings as contented sailors and in others as maimed and mindless slaves of the island's sorcerers. The twisted, hopping crewmen resemble the imbunche, another creature of Chilote witchcraft. It is South America's clearest folklore of the dead put back to work.1
E hlahile neng ka lekgetlo la pele?
Described by Chilean writers from the 1890s, among them Darío Cavada (1896)
Seo mehlodi e se buang
The Caleuche is a brilliantly lit ghost ship that appears at night to the sound of music1
In a common version its crew are dead, enslaved sailors1
They are deliberately kept as forgetful idiots so that they cannot betray the ship's secrets1
Their hands are said to be very cold1
The ship is also the vessel of Chiloé's sorcerers, the brujos1
The legend may go back to a Dutch ship lost in the region in the early 1600s1
Na o ka e phonyoha ka ho matha?
Sehlopha sa lebelo ho ya ka kamoo mehlodi e e hlalosang kateng (e a tlola), eseng tekanyo.
Mehlodi
Ntlha e nngwe le e nngwe leqepheng lena e tswa mehloding ena, e ngotswe ka mantswe a rona. O bone phoso? Re bolelle ho [email protected].