Creature of the Week: El Duende

Dear Reader,

It's been a while, hasn’t it? I’m getting back into the column unconventionally, specifically by relying on oral narratives for this creature. The Duende is a small humanoid, sometimes youthful and sometimes wrinkled and haggard. They frequently wear brimmed hats and the colors of their outfits range from plain to eccentric. Most stories of the Duende involve them luring children into the forest and causing them to disappear. In other cases the children are able to return, sickly and bruised. Most of the time, this is romantic, as they often harass girls by scratching them at night before they take them. The majority of the time, Duendes are male, and their taking girls is seen as finding mates. In the household, Duende are disruptors who cause pranks, and often damage things around the house like ovens. Occasionally they do act to benefit households, helping out with cattle and braiding the tails of horses. Duende are, in many cases, considered morally good despite their flaws. Tata Duende, who protects the forest creatures from overhunting (while wearing clothes made from them), shows this goodness. He abducted children who walked into the forest, but if they hide their thumbs, he will sympathize with them as someone who is also thumbless (although if you have thumbs, he will cut them off and take them for himself). These creatures’ supposed moral goodness can be substantiated by their invincibility to Christian materials. In one story, prankster Duendes survived after the ground was sprinkled with holy water, and Tata Duende is not warded off by making a cross with fingers. Actual methods of warding off Duendes vary, no two stories have a similar way of causing them to leave the house. 

One thing many Duendes have in common is a love of and skill in music. Frequently these are guitars. One of the ways of causing a Duende to leave is placing a perfectly tuned tiple in your house and catching the Duende in the act of playing it, something they cannot resist. Tata Duende also has a silver guitar that he will teach thumbless people to play. One story claims that the reason for liking string instruments explains that they are fallen angels who used to play the harp. This explains why they are unperturbed by crosses, but this story is the only time I saw that idea in my research. Tata Duende can also teach a variety of instruments, and he was a competitive whistler, killing anyone who tried to imitate him. Professor Daniela Raillard Arias, who supported me through researching this, suggested that the association with music may suggest that in many stories Duendes were actually birds. I could definitely see this being the case, especially for Tata Duende, because of his whistling and the fact that he dwells deep in the woods. I also believe the idea of luring is cognate to music. Music causes people to want to move, and it makes sense that a fear would develop out of that. Many other creatures use music to lure people into dangerous territories, (recall the Nixie from the Kelpie article and, of course, sirens).  

There are many stories that contradict the blessed Duende. One story talks about how Duendes can be warded off by arranging machetes into a cross, an action very similar to using fingers to create a cross from before. Holy water is also sometimes considered an effective ward against the Duendes despite its ineffectiveness in other stories. Duendes are often conflated with demons. El Duende del Valladolid, a Duende which disguised itself as a Christian bard, affiliated itself with conquistadors and was warded off by a procession, was also called a demon. This idea contradicts the other theory of Duende being fallen angels. The many stories that constitute the mythology of the Duende, told across a wide area and across a large span of time, are bound to contain contradictions depending on the storyteller. These contradictions make the similarities more striking to me and give me a better understanding of what the Duende really is.