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Parents have been inventing stories about monsters to scare their children into obedience for centuries. It make sense, short of being held at gunpoint, a bloodthirsty demon is just about the only thing that's going to convince a six-year-old to brush his teeth and go to bed before midnight. Some cultures, however, took this idea a bit too far and invented creatures that would make any grown man shit his pants. Like... #7.
The Australian Furry Frog Tentacle Demon
We all know that Australia is home to the vast majority of Earth's deadliest creatures. Seriously, it's like the headquarters for the Justice League of Poisonous Animals. Even the goddamn snails can kill you. Had most of us lived here before Steve Irwin tamed the fuck out of it, we would have been petrified to even look out the window for fear of some horrible cyanide butterfly gunning right for our eyeballs.
Not so for indigenous Aboriginal children. After growing up in the nightmare kingdom that is the Land Down Under, these kids had such big-ass balls of steel that their parents had to invent something utterly insane just to keep them from wandering off into the outback. Enter the Yara-ma-yha-who, a child-sized, frog-man covered in red fur with octopus arms and a gaping, toothless mouth. This Seussian demon lived in the branches of fig trees--presumably because that's the last place anyone would expect to see it--and would swoop down on unsuspecting children, using its sucker-laden arms to drain their blood until they were too weak to move. For reasons the legend chooses not to explain, the creature would then leave for a while, possibly to help a friend move a desk. Before the poor kid can recuperate and run home, though, the monster would return and swallow them whole, puking them back up as a shorter version of themselves covered in red hair.
The idea is that bad children or ones that ran away too often would be caught by the Yara-ma-yha-who over and over again until they eventually turned into a little, red, fig tree haunting monster themselves. For some reason this is viewed as worse than staying at home and growing up to land a job in the paint department of the Brisbane Home Depot. #6.
Namahage (a.k.a. Japanese Home Invasion Demons)
Most parents find that terrifying stories are usually enough to keep their kids in line.
But some Japanese villages really get into the spirit of childhood trauma and take boogeymannery to a whole new level with the Namahage festival. On the night of December 31 (while the western world gets drunk off its ass without any productive purpose), a band of adult volunteers--parents, teachers, clowns, whoever may be craving the sweet taste of a child's fear--dress themselves as shaggy, knife-wielding ogres and visit families door to door. It's sort of like grown-up trick-or-treating, except instead of yelling "trick or treat!" they're threatening the lives of little kids for all their disobedience over the past year.
Anything goes, really, so long as it strikes terror into gullible little hearts. During each visit, parents get to gleefully play along as far as they're willing to go, stopping the devils just short of dragging the kids away by mercifully promising (wink, wink) that the kids will behave themselves and offering the monsters free alcohol instead (so it is like trick-or-treating, only child endangerment is the point). We like to think that the worst kids are visited later in the night, since by that point there stands an increasingly greater chance of them being vomited and/or urinated upon. If that doesn't squeeze a solid year of angelic behavior out of the snot-nosed punks, we don't know what will. #5.
Cuco the Child Eater
Most famous in Hispanic countries, the Cuco is a mysterious being name-dropped in various traditional lullabies as a horrible, unknowable whatsit with an appetite for the restless. A Latino version of "Rock-a-Bye Baby," for instance, can be translated as "sleep little child, sleep now, or the Cuco will come and eat you." You know, because nothing soothes a baby like threats of cannibalistic murder.
Though best known for his appearance in lullabies, El Cuco's usefulness is really only limited by a parent's sadism. You're already threatening your child to sleep using a hideous monster, so why stop there? Kid won't eat? Send in the Cuco. Flunked a math test? It's Cuco time. We're betting the Cuco is also a prominent figure in discouraging teenage pregnancy.
By the time you kick them out at 30, you'll have molded yourself a successful, productive, serial killing member of society. And really, that's what parenting is all about. #4.
Black Annis, Baba Yaga and Other Creepy Old People
Few things made us more uncomfortable as children than being introduced to old people. They offered us candy and jokes left over from Reconstruction, and their houses smelled like outlawed insulation materials. Twist these unsettling undertones into the most godawful horror stories imaginable and you have the perfect boogeymen, because getting gummed to death is the slowest and most nauseating fate we can imagine.
In England they have Black Annis, who lived in a cave dug out with her own iron claws and wore the tanned hides of naughty children as a goddamn skirt. The Slavic Baba Yaga lived in a dancing chicken-leg hut and rode a magic cauldron when she ventured out to go hunting for kids. There was also that cookie-house witch from Germany's Hanzel and Gretel, though she might not really count since she got her ass kicked into a fucking oven (the last thing we want to do here is empower little children). All of these monsters have two things in common: they're ugly, old, women and they love the sweet taste of child flesh. Evidently the inventors of these stories were looking for an ironclad way to avoid having their kids come bugging them for money later in life, and we have to admit the "cannibal granny" seems like a pretty solid deterrent.
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You have it wrong. Its "El Coco" and not "Cuco". If you want the full name, "Coco Pirulo"
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I live in Uruguay, and both here and in Argentina is called "El Cuco". It's called "Coco" in Mexico (I know that from the Mexican translation of The Simpsons). There's also "El viejo de la bolsa" ("The old man with the bag", you are right about old people used to scare), who is supposed to take the children away in his bag if they don't behave as their parents tell them to. Basically they do the same (kidnap naugty kids, and apparently their parents are comfortable with it), only el Cuco is a monster that lives underground and shows up in children's bedrooms, and El Viejo de la Bolsa is just a man... with a bag... usually old. Not as scary, but easier to use, parents just have to point to some hobo and kids will pee themselves and cry.
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Ah, the Namahage...they slice the skin off the bottom of children's feet if they're bad. Truly wonderful Youkai...
Wait, so the Yara-ma-yha-who is a small, furry thing that jumps out of trees? Sounds like a Koala. Yeah, I know, they don't jump out, but all it takes is one tired Koala to screw up and fall out of the tree. The fact that the tree is a fig tree? If they said Eucalyptus, well, they would be laughed at as the moron who got scared of the pathetic little bear. As such, they made up a demon and picked a different tree. Oh, like you wouldn't do the same thing if a fuzzy animal scared you, Cracked!
The whipfather is called "Black Pete" in Belgium and Holland. Originally he was Santa's african slave, but for some reason they changed that into a spanish guy who is black because he enters houses through the chimney all the time. He will make you look inside his magical bag: If the bag is full, you were a good kid and you'll get whatever is in it (candy, toy's...). If it's empty, it means you have to go into the bag and he'll drag you onto his steam boat to rape you. Yes, people are insane and retared over here.
@Cindell: Let's face it, your version of the monster is boring. Why the hell would you call a monster "coconut"? It's not scary at all.
You could have used or at least mentionned the original French name for the whipfather:Pere Fouettard
That last line was gold.
Props for including Cuco! (For those who say that’s not its name, yes it is in some places. I always knew it with that name, never as Coco) . Believe it or not, in my family we actually have a boogeyman of our own, somewhat based upon it. We call it “Puruchucu” and like Cuco, we haven’t given it any definite form. I only remember it being used once or twice during my childhood, and in fact none of us remembers where or when did the “legend” originate, but it certainly made and impression on me. Anyway, Puruchucu became really memorable to us because of a funny incident. Once during our vacations, we were staying at an apart-hotel, and the owner’s young son would come to our window and chatter with my mother during siesta, not letting her sleep. One day, my mother hid and talked to him in a deep, ominous voice. The following exchange then took place: Kid: Who are you? Mom: I’m the Puruchuuucu… K: Where are you? M: I’m under a stooone… K: I’ll better go with my mom. The kid left immediately and didn't visit us again. At least this gave us a new element for the myth: the Puruchucu now officially lives under rocks. If I ever have kids, I definitely plan to tell them about this creature… see if I can make it into a family tradition!
Props for including Cuco! (For those who say that’s not its name, yes it is in some places. I always knew it with that name, never as Coco) . Believe it or not, in my family we actually have a boogeyman of our own, somewhat based upon it. We call it “Puruchucu” and like Cuco, we haven’t given it any definite form. I only remember it being used once or twice during my childhood, and in fact none of us remembers where or when did the “legend” originate, but it certainly made and impression on me. Anyway, Puruchucu became really memorable to us because of a funny incident. Once during our vacations, we were staying at an apart-hotel, and the owner’s young son would come to our window and chatter with my mother during siesta, not letting her sleep. One day, my mother hid and talked to him in a deep, ominous voice. The following exchange then took place: Kid: Who are you? Mom: I’m the Puruchuuucu… K: Where are you? M: I’m under a stooone… K: I’ll better go with my mom. The kid left immediately and didn't visit us again. At least this gave us a new element for the myth: the Puruchucu now officially lives under rocks. If I ever have kids, I definitely plan to tell them about this creature… see if I can make it into a family tradition!
When I was little I imagined the bogeyman to look like Grimace from McDonalds, except green. Not as graphic as these bad guys, but it was pretty terrifying for me.
You left out (the very real) Richard the Lion Hearted. Apparently he made such an impression on the Arabs that, for several centuries, he was known as "The Red Maned Lion-Man" who would kidnap small children if they misbehaved.
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Spelling uncertainty and Australian retail outlets are probably the best things I could have hoped for in terms of criticisms. I LOVE hearing people describe their personal childhood interpretations of different monsters. If there was a single website devoted to just posting those, I'd get lost in it forever. The flying coconut and square bird are probably my favorites from the comments thus far.
Spelling uncertainty and Australian retail outlets are probably the best things I could have hoped for in terms of criticisms. I LOVE hearing people describe their personal childhood interpretations of different monsters. If there was a single website devoted to just posting those, I'd get lost in it forever. The flying coconut and square bird are probably my favorites from the comments thus far.
Where'd you guys get the header pictures? Those things are awesome. The kappa having a hole in its head is a common misconception, though. They've got plates on their heads like an exposed part of the skull that they need to keep moist or it becomes easy to crack. But after being animated with a concave bowl-for-a-head in that cartoon Hellboy movie, that translation fudge is probably permanent at this point.
Also, there are other more defined and efficient threats: "the kid stealer" aka "the guy with the bag" that steals kids that wander outside home alone, the policeman (any policeman) "I will call the policeman so he stops you from whining" perfect strangers that just pass by "HEY STOP IT OR THAT LADY THERE WILL COME AND SCOLD AND HIT YOU, YOU HEAR?"
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