In the Chilote

Chiloé Island

Chiloé Island , also known as Greater Island of Chiloé , is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean...

 folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 and Chilote mythology of the Chiloé Island

Chiloé Island

Chiloé Island , also known as Greater Island of Chiloé , is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean...

 in southern Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, the imbunche or invunche is a legendary monster that protects the entrance to a warlock's cave.

Legend

According to legend, the Imbunche was a male child kidnapped by, or sold by his parents to a Brujo Chilote (a type of sorcerer or warlock

Warlock

The term warlock in origin means "traitor, oathbreaker".In early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of witch ....

 of Chiloé).

The Brujo chilote transformed the child into a deformed hairy monster by breaking his legs and twisting them over his back, applying a magic cream over the boy's back to cause thick hairs and, finally splitting his tongue to produce a forked, snake-like, tongue.

The travel writer, Bruce Chatwin

Bruce Chatwin

Charles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill...

, gives an interesting account of Chilote witchcraft and the imbunche in his book "In Patagonia".

British comic book writer Alan Moore

Alan Moore

Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...

 wrote a version of the Imbunche which is very similar to Chatwin's description during his run on Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...

.