El Pombero: The Whistling Night Goblin of Guaraní Folklore
In Paraguay, in the Argentine northeast, in the Guaraní-speaking country of red earth, maize fields and monte, the night has a proprietor, and every household knows his tariff. He is El Pombero — Pomberito , the affectionate-wary diminutive; Karaí Pyhare in Guaraní, a title that translates with full feudal weight: Lord of the Night . He is short and powerfully built, covered in dark hair, with hands and feet—in many tellings— woolly , so that he moves in total silence; he walks the paths, the patios, and the maize rows from dusk to first light; he can make himself invisible, slip through keyholes, walk between the raindrops of a storm; and his voice is a whistle —a soft, directionless whistling in the dark that is the sign of his rounds and that must never, on any account, be imitated . For whistling back at the Pombero is a summons, and he answers summonses. The whole culture of his territory carries, to this day, a body of etiquette about him as detailed as traffic law: what to lea...