Cueva de Quicaví

Also Known As: the Cave of Quicaví; also the Casa Grande; the hidden underground seat of the warlocks of Chiloé and their society, the Recta Provincia
Region/Culture: South America
Mythos: Chilote Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Mythological Places
Mythical Attributes: The Cueva de Quicaví is the secret hall where the warlocks of Chiloé kept their book of magic and their seeing bowl under the watch of two monstrous guardians.
Role in Mythos: The cave is the capital of the Recta Provincia, the place its king ruled from and the store of everything that gave the society its power.
Relation to Humans: Only members of the society could enter, through a hidden door in a ravine opened with a metal key. Chilean authorities searched for it in 1880 after members described it in court, and nobody has ever found it.

A ravine outside a fishing village, wet with the rain that falls on Chiloé most days of the year. Grass, bramble, a bank of dark earth. An old man kneels at the slope, lifts away a mat of turf, and puts a metal key to something underneath.

That is how Mateo Coñuecar said the Cave of Quicaví was opened. He was a farmer of about seventy when he told it, and he told it to a Chilean court. In 1880 the authorities on the island arrested a number of Chilotes as members of a secret society called the Recta Provincia, the Righteous Province, also known as the Mayoría. The charges were modern ones, poisoning and unlawful association, since the new penal code had no place for spells. The testimony was something else. Coñuecar said he had belonged for more than twenty years, and that the society had a king, a council, and a seat below ground near the village of Quicaví on the island’s east coast.

He had been there. Around 1860 the man who was then king, José Mariman, took him down for the first time, and the errand was a plain one: there were mouths in the cave that had to be fed. Coñuecar carried the food. The chamber he described ran for more than forty yards under the hill. Island tradition adds the light, saying the torches along its walls burned human fat. No witness could confirm that, and nobody was in a position to go and look.

Two guardians lived in the dark. One was the chivato, a goat-like thing, mute, covered in bristles. The other was the invunche, and it was the one people feared. An invunche began as a human child, taken young by the warlocks and remade. Its limbs were put out of joint, its head was turned to face backward, and one arm was fixed behind it, so that it could never walk away and never be known again by the family that lost it. It was fed on flesh. It never learned to speak, but it knew the society’s business and gave its judgments in harsh cries that the members understood.

What the two of them watched over was small enough to carry. There was a book, old and bound in leather, holding the society’s magic. And there was a bowl, the challanco, which when filled with water showed whatever a warlock wished to see: a distant house, an enemy, a secret.

The book has its own story, and it explains the cave. In 1786 the Spanish navigator José de Moraleda came to Chiloé to chart the islands. The legend makes him a sorcerer as well as a pilot. He boasted of his arts, and a local machi named Chillpila answered the boast. They fought a contest of magic. She won, some say by leaving his ship stranded on dry ground, and Moraleda paid with his book of European spells. Chillpila carried it to Quicaví so that her people could learn from it, and the underground house was dug, or enlarged, to keep it. From that seat a king governed the northern and central islands, while a second king held the south from Queilén.

The cave’s power was the power of a locked room. What was inside could not be stolen, copied or questioned, and a society that could see its neighbours in a bowl and send a verdict from a place no one could find did not need many members to be obeyed. The same secrecy is its limit. The cave gives nothing to anyone outside it, and it lasts only as long as someone holds the key.

In the spring of 1880 the authorities went looking. They had a village, a ravine and a sworn description. They found nothing. No door under the turf, no chamber, no bristled thing, no child with its head turned round. The book and the bowl were never produced. The trial ran on into 1881 and the society was not heard from in that form again.

So the cave is exactly where the warlocks left it, which is to say nowhere that can be pointed to. The court had the testimony. It never had the place.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Cueva de Quicaví?

The Cueva de Quicaví is the legendary underground headquarters of the warlocks of Chiloé, an island group in southern Chile. It was said to lie near the village of Quicaví and to hold the magic book and seeing bowl of their secret society, the Recta Provincia.

Who guards the Cave of Quicaví?

Two creatures guard the Cave of Quicaví. The chivato is a mute, bristly, goat-like being, and the invunche is a human child stolen by the warlocks and deformed so that its head faces backward and it can never leave.

What was kept inside the Cave of Quicaví?

The cave held an old leather-bound book of magic and a bowl called the challanco. Filled with water, the challanco let the warlocks see distant people and hidden things.

Has the Cave of Quicaví ever been found?

No. Members of the Recta Provincia described the cave in court in 1880, and the Chilean authorities searched for it that spring, but they found no entrance, no chamber and none of the objects said to be inside.

How did the Cave of Quicaví begin?

Legend says the navigator José de Moraleda came to Chiloé in 1786 and lost a contest of magic to a machi named Chillpila. He gave her his book of spells, and she took it to Quicaví, where the underground house was made to keep it.