Colombian Vampires

In South America exists the most known of all mammals, the « vampire bat ». That creature created a lot of myths. Let’s see the case of the Aztecs and of the Mayan.

The Aztecs vampires are the « Civatateos ». They are servants of lunar Gods according to the mythology and they are almost gods. A Civatateo is created when a woman and her child die during the childbirth. They eat people during the night. They prefer children as victims and they leave them died or paralyzed. We can prevent that : people put food on graves. As a consequence, if Civatateos stay so long, they are destroy by rays of sunshine.
Physical appearance : they are very ugly and they wear dress decorated by crosses and bones.

The Mayan vampire are in their mythology. « Camatzotz » means « bat of the death » : it’s the name of servant of the death and the master of the night. We often can see it on jars and sculptures from Mexico to Copan(Honduras).Camatzotz is also the caves god, it is a huge bat and people avoided places where they believed that he lived.
Physical appearance : It has a sharp nose and big theeth and claws. A lot of people imagine it like the huge bat, subject of research by some cryptozoologists.

What kind of view do you must own for approaching a myth?
Legends and tradition are linker that we often think.
Those legends aren't full of happiness but they were an exterior sign of way of thinking and they shaped behaviours. So those stories have a certain clout in a country's culture. People recognize themself in their culture because legends can be a way of understanding, explaining a question, a mystery without obvious answers.
Pierre-David