Sacamantecas: Difference between revisions

[[Julian A. Pitt-Rivers|Julian Pitt-Rivers]] reports<ref name="Pitt-Rivers">''[https://archive.org/stream/peopleofthesierr001911mbp/peopleofthesierr001911mbp_djvu.txt The People of the Sierra]'', [[J. A. Pitt-Rivers]], page 205, 1954, [[Criterion Books]], New York.</ref> in his study of [[Alcalá de la Sierra]], the belief that village children can be stolen by an outsider, called ''el sacamantecas'', disguised as a beggar or a trader, who is hired by a rich man whose ill child can only be cured with the blood of healthy babies. The practice of [[blood donation]] lent credence to the myth.

[[Gerald Brenan]]<ref name="Brenan"/> describes the ''mantequero'' as a monster in human form who lives in deserted areas and feeds on ''manteca''<ref name="DRAEmanteca">[http://buscon.rae.es/drae/srv/search?val=manteca&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 manteca] in the DRAE</ref> ("[[human]] [[adipose tissue|fat]]"). Upon capture, he shouts in a high-pitched voice and, unless just fed, looks thin.

Brenan found the myth alive during his stays in the [[Alpujarra]] (Andalusia). In 1927 or 1928, he had sublet his [[Yegen]] home to the British writer [[Dick Strachey]], nephew of [[Lytton Strachey]]. One day, Strachey was walking on rough terrain where he saw three [[Gitanos|Romani]] men, of whom he was suspicious. Fearing that they were bandits, he ran away, but the three men chased him and drew their knives, shouting at him. They believed him to be a ''mantequero'' and wanted to kill him and to [[Blood ritual|use his blood]] for magical remedies. However, the eldest man, a convict, judged it safer to bring Strachey to the mayor. They offered to slit his throat themselves, but Strachey claimed in rudimentary Spanish to be a relative of the British [[King George V]] and convinced the mayor that he waswasn't a monster.