One day he wanted to eat animal entrails and his father came back from hunting with empty hands, so the boy got mad, killing and gutting his father, bringing the entrails of his father to his mother to be cooked.
The second version of the legend says that the Whistle Man was a capricious boy who had everything he wanted. The legend says that the grandfather cursed him to carry a bag with the bones of his father with the dog following and biting him for all eternity. After this his grandfather tied him up to a tree, destroyed his back with lashes and cleaned up his wounds with boiling water and chili pepper as a punishment for killing his father, then untied the boy, throwing a hungry dog called “Tureco” at him who bit his ankles. The first one says that The Whistle Man was a boy who killed and gutted his father after he (his father) raped and killed his girlfriend because the father thought she was promiscuous. The versions differ at the beginning but the rest of the story is the same. There’s an uncertainty about his real origin.Īfter watching videos and reading some information online I have found three different versions of the story. Some say that The Whistle man, whose name in Venezuelan Spanish is “El Silbón”, comes from a small town called Guanarito, while others say that he was born in another town called “El Vijao”, both of which are located in Portuguesa, and that he appeared around the mid 19th century.
I have researched it and found out that this legend comes from the southern central west plains, where our folkloric music comes from, appearing around the Barinas, Portuguesa and Cojedes states magic lands full of myths, legends, and beliefs.
One of those stories, which is called The Whistle Man, caught my attention because it is one of the most popular in my country. In Venezuela, like any other part in the world, there’s a big belief in paranormal stories that have become part of our folklore, mostly among people living in country areas whose roots are very strong. Halloween is around the corner and I thought would be fun for you to read about one of the most popular Venezuelan scary stories, The Whistle Man, or as we call it in Venezuelan Spanish, El Silbon.