388 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



ful note. This was the "cuyeo" {Nyctidromus albicollis), 

 whose bones, dried and ground to a fine powder, are used 

 by the Indians as a charm against their enemies. The 

 powdered bone is mixed with tobacco in a cigarette which 

 when smoked causes certain death, according to the popular 

 belief.^ Another strange mournful sound, like a woman's cry, 

 is said to be the voice of the "woman of the river" — the 

 Llorona. Every river has its Llorona, who is always moan- 

 ing and crying for her little son, drowned in the river. Still 

 another story is that at midnight on some nights there can 

 be heard the rattle and rumble of a cart around the plaza, 

 but always "una carreta sin bueyes." If a man stays too 

 late and spends too much at the pulperia (saloon) he is very 

 apt to see the "cegua" on the way home. This is a beauti- 

 ful girl sitting by the roadside, who asks him to take her up 

 on his horse as she is weary. When they have ridden a little 

 way he speaks to her and she turns to him a mare's face, 

 with flaming eyes, huge and horrible. Or he may be fol- 

 lowed by the black "cadejos" whose claws rattle on the 

 stones as he runs. 



Education and government oversight are changing the 

 outward face of things rapidly. Until fifteen years ago there 

 were many of the Indian superstitions represented in the 

 Fiestas Civitas, but at the time of our residence in Costa 

 Rica there were but few. One which always appeared was 

 the "dueiio del monte" or owner of the forest, a man who 

 had wandered ofl^ into the forest and was lost. As his clothes 

 wore out he covered himself with mosses, lichens and ferns 

 so that he was always green and leafy, and he became the 

 owner or spirit of the forest. 



Professor Tristan, to whom we are indebted for these tales, 

 said that in Escazii and other less accessible parts of the 



' Some other superstitions concerning the cuyeo are given by Cherrie in The Auk, 

 IX, p. 324, 1892. 



