A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Bogotá’s public cultural retelling associates Patetarro with mining regions in Antioquia, Chocó, and Cundinamarca. He is enormous and hairy, with a hollow length of guadua replacing the lower part of one leg. When he empties its filthy contents on cultivated ground, pests appear and the crop fails. His cries or laughter in wet, dark weather announce a threatening presence.
The same retelling supplies a comic origin episode: farmers suspect an animal is stealing chickens, lie in wait, and discover a fleeing man who steps into a manure bucket. His subsequent destruction becomes revenge. Carrasquilla’s La marquesa de Yolombó also gives Patetarro a bamboo leg and ruined fields, but introduces him through the fears surrounding woodland and mining. The chicken-thief episode belongs to the inspected modern retelling and is not silently inserted into the novel.
Origins & earliest records
The figure is present in Carrasquilla’s novel, which the National Library dates to serial publication beginning in 1926. The Bogotá cultural portal preserves a later public retelling without identifying an original storyteller or collection date. The two witnesses document circulation and differing narrative treatment rather than establishing a unique place or moment of invention.
Records & interpretation
The municipal cultural page supports the regional attribution, bodily description, crop-damaging action, and chicken-thief episode. Carrasquilla supplies an independent literary witness for the bamboo leg and devastated vegetation. They disagree in emphasis and scope; the apparition’s alleged effects on crops are story motifs, not an explanation of actual plant disease.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
La marquesa de Yolombó
Initial serial publication date; Patetarro appears in the novel’s catalogue of forest fears, preserved in the National Library’s digital edition.
- 02
El Patetarro
Institutional public retelling, including the chicken-thief and manure-bucket episode; original narrator and collection date not supplied.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- ReferenceEl Patetarro — Secretaría de Cultura, Recreación y DeporteResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Primary textLa marquesa de Yolombó — Biblioteca Nacional de ColombiaResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.