Mythical Museum Ramón Elías — the seven monsters of Guaraní myth

OVERVIEW

The Museo Mitológico Ramón Elías in Capiatá, outside Asunción, is a museum of Paraguayan mythology. Its first room holds human-sized figures of the creatures of Guaraní myth — Tau and Keraná and their children, Ao Ao, Jasy Jateré, Pombero, Kuarahy Ra'y, Mala Visión, the Luisón, Mboi Jagua, Jagua Ru, the Kurupi, Moñái, Mbói Tu'ĩ, Teju Jagua and Plata Yvyguy; the others hold Franciscan and Jesuit objects and relics of the Paraguayan and Chaco wars.

HISTORY

Ramón Elías, painter and restorer, travelled the small towns of the interior buying antiquities, and in doing so met elderly people with long memories of tales of magical beings. He set out to give them form in sculpture and is regarded as the father of the images of Paraguayan myths, which before him existed only in literature. The museum opened in 1979; he died in a road accident in 1981 and his wife Elsa carried the project on.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Guaraní tradition names seven monstrous children of Tau and Keraná. The Luisón, the seventh son, is a werewolf-like beast — and the belief ran deep enough that since the 19th century the President of Argentina has been named godparent of every seventh son, a custom that arose because superstitious families sometimes sacrificed their seventh son; the first official baptism with the president as godfather is recorded in 1907. The Kurupi is recorded as early as 1793, in the diary of the explorer Juan Francisco Aguirre. The creatures belong to the whole region rather than to one spot; this museum is where they have been gathered and given a place.

VISITING

Open to visitors in Capiatá, on the road east of Asunción.