Colo-Colo
Also called Colocolo, Basilisco.
Colo-Colo is a vampiric creature of Araucanian tradition in Chile, hatched from a rooster's egg, that hovers over sleepers and drinks their saliva, leaving a fatal fever.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Chilean folklore
- Region
- Chile (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Night-Comers
Near this figure
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Form
- Born from rooster egg incubated by toad
why
The colo-colo comes from the folklore of the Araucanian — Mapuche — peoples of Chile, and its birth is its signature: like the basilisk of European legend, to which the compendia compare it directly, it hatches from an egg laid by a rooster.
Behaviour
- Emerges at night to attack
why
The colo-colo preys on the sleeping: it hovers over a sleeper's body through the night and drinks up the saliva, and with it the body's moisture, so that the victim wakes drained, takes a high fever, and — the accounts are unanimous — dies of it.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Death carries both readings
3 citations
- Carol Rose, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons, s.v. "Colo-Colo."
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Colo-Colo."
- Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore, s.v. "Colo-Colo."