Episode Transcript

During his historic journey aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin spent over a month on a small island off the coast of Chilé known as Chiloé. It wasn’t his final destination, but he still managed to work and collect information and specimens, including a small endangered fox now known as Darwin’s Zorro.

He also witnesses the aftereffects of an earthquake, and made note of a rainbow that transitioned from the typical semi-circle to a full circle right before his eyes. But it was the people he encountered that seemed to impact him the most.

He later wrote¹, "They are a humble, quiet, industrious set of men. Although with plenty to eat, the people are very poor…and…the lower orders cannot scrape together money sufficient to purchase even the smallest luxuries."

He also noted seeing a pair of black-necked swans, but thankfully Darwin didn’t have the same view of birds that the local people did. And still do, actually. One local historian recalls how, when he was a boy, a hunchbacked heron flew low over his fishing boat. When he told his father, the older man grabbed his shotgun and waited for the bird to return.

Why? Because for as long as anyone could remember, the people of Chiloe have believed that some birds are more than they appear. Some people, it seems, believe they are warlocks. Seeing one was a bad omen, hinting that someone close to you would soon die.

All of us are ruled by authority to some degree, whether it’s through our government, our religion, or our family ties. Often it’s all three. But there’s another governing body, one that’s as old as time itself, and on Chiloé, it controlled people for centuries.

Beyond the Edge of the World

The Incas called it the Place of the Seagulls. They stayed away from the area, believing it was the border between their empire of prosperity and safety, and the cold, dark wilderness to the south. 

Chiloé isn’t a large island — perhaps less than 100 miles from north to south — but it’s certainly the largest in the collection of small islands there off the cost of Chilé. And to visit it is to go back in time. Green hills, mountains in the distance, the dark waves of the south Pacific lapping on the shore where colorful houses are built on stilts to stay above the mud and rocks.

Darwin described it as beautiful in 1835. He wrote² of the mixture of evergreen trees and tropical vegetation, of the rolling hills and thick forests. And all of that green, Darwin postulated, was due to the enormous amount of rainfall. Gray skies and wet soil are a constant of life in Chiloé, then as it is now.

And while most people have never heard of the place, the unique churches there have an architectural style that has earned them classification as UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are churches, of course, because Jesuit missionaries built them shortly after arriving at the beginning of the 17th-Century. But don’t let these European artifact fool you; the culture the Jesuits encountered when they arrived was far outside their realm of experience.

The Chiloé of old was home to a vast collection of myths and legends that informed almost every aspect of everyday life. And because much of the economy and culture of the island was built around the fishing industry, just as it is today, many of those stories have elements of the sea in them.

One example is the legend of the ghost ship known as the Caleuche. According to the stories, the Caleuche patrols the waters off the coast of the island, moving both above the water and below. The ship itself is a sentient being, and has the ability to sense when someone from the island has drowned.

After they die, these people are brought onto the ship by two sisters and a brother, where their new life can begin. That life consisted of both an eternal party aboard the ship, and working as sailors in the transport and unloading of illegal cargo for the island’s merchants. Even today, there are many in Chiloé who claim to have seen the ship, still patrolling the cold waters off shore.

There are other legends that haunt the island. Stories speak of the Trauco, a sort of forest troll or little person who lives in hollow trees deep in the forest. Their task is to protect the trees, but they have also become a convenient scapegoat for unwed mothers. The Trauco, they say, is irresistible to virgins who wander into the forest, and those women frequently return home pregnant.

La Pincoya is said to be a woman who appears to fishermen along the coast. She is described as young and beautiful, but her hair is covered in wet kelp. And the locals consider her to be an omen, although the outcome depends on the circumstances.

If she appears facing the sea, your fishing nets will overflow. If she’s facing you, though, those nets will be empty. And in the rare instances when she appears right in front of a person, the legend says it is best to close your eyes and run as fast as you can, lest she seduce you and lead you down into the sea.

One more legend is that of the basilisk, a creature that appears elsewhere around the globe. In Chiloé, though, the basilisk is more than just an enormous snake. Here it also has the head of a rooster and hatches from an egg. Some stories tell of how the basilisk will nest beneath a person’s house. During the night it will slither out and suck the air from the lungs of the people sleeping inside.

For as frightening as some of these creatures and stories might be, though, none of them compares to the legends of the Brujo de Chiloé, the warlocks of the island. They have struck fear into the hearts of the locals for centuries. They have shaped many aspects of their culture. They have been blamed for tragedy, for loss, and even for illness and death.

Most frightening of all is the simple fact that, unlike all the other legends found on the island, the Brujo were real.

The Dark Mafia

We know the Brujo were real because they were brought to trial in 1880. Almost overnight, what was once little more than a whispered legend, a sort of Chilean boogieman if you will, took on flesh and bone. And what the investigation uncovered was truly shocking.

Let’s step back, though. It’s important to understand where the warlocks came from. And the short answer is that we don’t really know. But there are ideas, and many of them hold promise and truth. The most common theory is that something powerful was formed as a result of the collision between the indigenous culture and the Catholic faith of the Spanish when they first arrived.

The ingredients for this new breed of legend had been there for a very, very long time, though. On one side, we have the Machi. These were the traditional shaman of the Chilean culture, the healers and wise people. Their realm was that of revelations, interpretation of dreams, and serving as the oracle of the community.

On the other side, there was the Kalku. These were the practitioners of black magic, considered to be witches and warlocks by most people. Unlike the Machi who sat at the center of their society and were documented religious figures, the Kalku were more mythical, spoken of in stories and whispered about at night.

The Kalku are described as Machi-gone-bad, those who become more interested in selfish gain than serving the community. I know this will be a gross oversimplification, but think of the Machi as the Jedi, and the Kalku as the Sith. The light side and the dark. And as Han Solo recently said, “It’s true. All of it.”

Enter the Spanish Conquistadors. They arrived in 1567 and brought countless stories with them of European witches. But the culture in Chiloé has always been very male-driven, and so the idea of the female witch was converted to the male warlock in the public narrative. This melding of religions has actually happened in many countries across the centuries, where the Catholic faith would meet ancient beliefs, and rather than wipe it out, it would blend with it, unintentionally becoming something new.

And that’s how the Brujo were born. Maybe. Some scholars make reference to a story from the 17th-Century, of a Spaniard named José de Moraleda who met the Machi and wanted desperately to impress them. He challenged them to a magical duel, and after they brought in one of their best Machi, Moraleda was defeated. As a prize, the Spaniard handed over to them a book of spells that he claimed had been gathered from around the world.

It was with that book of spells, the legend goes, that the Brujo built their cult. Some still refer to it by the original name, the Recta Provincia — the Righteous Province —and according to them, this secret group manipulated the culture on the island for two centuries.

Initiation into the group was complex and drenched with the occult. The first step was to wash away any remnant of Christian baptism, and they did this by bathing in one of the local rivers for fifteen nights in a row. Some were instructed to murder a relative or a close friend, and then when all of that was completed, they had to run around the island naked while invoking the Devil’s name.

The Brujo maintained their power over the people of Chiloé through an odd mixture of supernatural rumor and mafia-like control. They would most commonly force local farmers to give them produce or money, but they were also known to bribe local authorities and even created a shadow government that ruled in the places where the Spanish didn’t reach. And rather than use violence or traditional weapons to enforce their policies, they used the threat of a curse.

Ultimately, it was this game of blackmail and protection rackets that brought an end to their reign over the people of Chiloé. And so in 1880, over 100 members of the cult were arrested and interrogated. Many were released when they turned out to be nothing more than Machi looking for a community to belong to, but some were held for trial on the charge of murder.

The darkest revelations from the trials, though, were never believed. The supernatural creatures. The book of spells. The secret, hidden cave where the cult maintained their seat of power. All of this was passed off as folklore and superstition.

However, eye witness testimony says otherwise.

Warlocks Gone Wild

The trials revealed many new details about the Brujo and their beliefs, practices, and inner-workings. Some almost sound like there were pulled right out of a children’s book, they’re so simple and benign, while others are down-right chilling.

For example, one of the men on trial in 1880 revealed that each warlock carried a pet lizard with him. This lizard, according to the man, would be tied to the warlock’s forehead, and because it was magical, it gifted him with powers.

These warlocks were even said to communicate, and interact, with the ghost sailors aboard the Caleuche, using seahorses as aquatic carrier pigeons to pass messages back and forth. Seahorses.

Other stories spoke of how the warlocks recruited new spies for their sect. According to the legend, these warlocks would kidnap young women who would be given a special elixir to drink. Once ingested, these girls would vomit until their stomachs and intestines lay on the ground at their feet. Then they would transform into birds and do the bidding of their master.

None of this, though, compares to what the Brujo were said to have kept in their cave. One of the men on trial in 1880, an elderly man named Mateo, claimed that in the 1860s he had been asked to visit the cave to feed the creatures kept there. And although his testimony was rejected by the court as fantasy, some have been left wondering.

The cave, it is said, was difficult to locate, and rightly so. It contained multiple magical items, including the book of spells the group had received from the Spaniard Moraleda, as well as a bowl that was said to show the future to those who looked into it. And because these were objects of power for the warlocks, they needed to be carefully guarded.

The entrance was a door hidden beneath the grass and soil in a rocky canyon near the coast, and with it, a metal key. Mateo told the court that he opened the entrance to the cave, only to find two creatures inside that nearly defied description.

One was called a chivato, a humanoid creature that was briefly described as goat-like and walking on four legs. But it was the other thing in the cave that Mateo had no trouble describing. Because at first glance, it seemed to be nothing more than a bearded man.

This man, though, was deformed. Not mildly or by birth, but intentionally and drastically twisted. He called it the Imbunche³, and although the one that Mateo witnessed appeared old, he said that they typically begin as infants.

Now, this next part isn’t for the faint of heart. But it’s necessary to understand the level of cruelty and barbarism that this cult practiced. According to writer Bruce Chatwin, who visited the island in 1975, the locals still maintain a good amount of folklore around the creation of the imbunche.

The warlocks would kidnap a male 6-month-old child, Chatwin recorded⁴, and then deliver it to the one known as the “Deformer”, who lived inside the cave. This man’s job was to shape and disfigure the infant’s body. The head would be twisted daily until, after many months, it faced backwards.

Limbs and fingers are disjointed, and even its ears and mouth are malformed by the Deformer. The final characteristic, according to Chatwin, is the right arm. It would be bent backwards, and the hand slipped into an incision made on the right shoulder blade. Then the wound would be sewn up, leaving the arm permanently affixed to the child’s back.

Why this was done is something that history has forgotten over the years, but the impact is just as powerful today. Left to guard and inhabit the secret cave of the warlocks, the imbunche was seen less as an act of torture and more as the creation of an essential part of the cult’s society. When one imbunche died, another was created to take its place.

This is the level of darkness these real-life warlocks were capable of. This is what powered the fear they used to enslave and control the people of the island. And this is what many of them confessed to on the stand that spring in 1880.

And as a result, many of the accused were sentenced to long prison terms. These were men who had killed, who had cursed their neighbors, and blackmailed businesses for protection money. And yet the courts couldn’t make the ruling stick. Just one year later, nearly all of the warlocks were released.

The reason? It was impossible to prove they had belonged to a secret society of black magic, as horrible as the stories sounded. No one, they thought, could be that evil. Could they?

The Power of Fear

In a world where authority often falls to those with the most wealth, the most weapons, or the most connections, it’s unusual to find cases where some other power allows people to rule. But if the story of Chiloé teaches us anything, it’s that fear can be just as powerful as any government official.

Fear of death. Fear of poverty. Fear of the unknown.

Those who called themselves part of the Brujo in 1880 were card-carrying members of a cult that wielded fear like a weapon. Thankfully, the trial helped put real faces to the shadows that had plagued the people of Chioé for centuries. Whether or not they received punishment for their crimes was secondary; the warlocks had been exposed, shattering their illusion of fear.

But while many saw the trial as the end to that nightmare, there are some who aren’t so sure.

In 2006, the local court there in Chiloé issued a restraining order against Manuel Cárdenas and his brother-in-law. Due to a physical altercation they had with a 66-year-old farmer named José Márquez, they were prohibited from coming within 10 meters of the old man.

When asked why he attacked the farmer, Cárdenas said that it was because of an illness his father had been suffering through. Pain had become a constant part of the man’s life, and it had gone on long enough.

Cárdenas claimed that his father’s illness had begun after an encounter with the farmer — all the way back in 1992. The pain hadn’t stopped since, and after consulting with a local shaman, they were told why.

According to the shaman, the farmer had cursed their father with black magic. Which begs the question: did the trial of 1880 really wipe out the cult of warlocks? Or did some of them slip through the government’s net, living on to spread and grow their sect into the 20th-Century and beyond?

After all, neither the cave nor its occupants were ever found.

1 Charles Darwin, Works of Charles Darwin, (D. Appleton, 1915), p.268-270.
2 Darwin, Works of Charles Darwin, p.269.
3 Shafik Meghji, Anna Kaminski, Rosalba O’Brien, The Rough Guide to Chile, (Penguin, 2015).
4 Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (Penguin Classics, 2003), p. 109.