El Sombrerón

Also Known As: Spanish for the man in the big hat; also called Tzipitío, Tzipe, Tzitzimite and simply el Duende in Guatemala, and Sombrerudo in parts of southern Mexico
Region/Culture: Mesoamerica and the Caribbean
Mythos: Latin American Folklore
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: A tiny night-walking goblin under an enormous hat who serenades long-haired young women, braids their hair while they sleep and spoils their food with soil.
Role in Mythos: He is one of the best-known figures in the legends of Guatemala City and Antigua, the supernatural suitor whose attention makes a girl waste away.
Relation to Humans: A young woman he chooses can neither eat nor sleep, and in the oldest city telling she dies of it. Families answer by cutting off the girl’s hair and having it blessed, after which he loses interest.

At eight in the evening, in the old quarters of Guatemala City, the first sign is the sound of hooves. They are slow, unhurried, the tread of loaded mules on cobbles. Then the dogs start. They bark for a moment and then the barking breaks down into whimpering, and the street goes quiet enough to hear a guitar string being tuned.

What comes round the corner is a charcoal seller, or something dressed as one. He leads four mules with nets of charcoal slung across their backs, as if he had walked in from the hill country to sell fuel door to door. He is extremely small. Some tellers make him the height of a child, others say he would not stand taller than a finger, and the most obvious thing about him is the hat, a black wide-brimmed thing so large that it swallows him and leaves his face in permanent shadow. Under it there is a belt that catches the light, a pair of polished boots with heels that click and silver spurs that glint, and a guitar hung over one shoulder.

He has several names. Guatemalans call him El Sombrerón, the man in the big hat, and also Tzipitío, Tzipe, Tzitzimite, or just the Duende, the goblin. Nobody agrees where he came from. One account makes him a son of the Siguanaba, which would make him kin to the Salvadoran Cipitío. Another says he is a spirit out of hell. A third says he was once an ordinary man whose own mother cursed him. The legend carries on comfortably without choosing.

Most nights he does small mischief. He gets into a stable, rides a horse or a mule until it is lathered and shaking, and leaves its mane and tail worked into tight little braids that the owner finds at dawn. If there are no horses he will braid a dog. The animal is jumpy all the next day and nobody needs to be told why.

His real interest is in young women with long hair and large eyes. When he finds one he likes, he ties his mules to a post outside her house, unslings the guitar and sings under her window. After that he does not leave her alone. He comes into the house at night and plaits her hair while she sleeps. He drops soil into her plate, so that every mouthful is grit. She stops eating. She stops sleeping. She gets thin.

The fullest version was gathered from the oral tradition of Guatemala City by the folklorist Celso Lara Figueroa. In it the girl is Nina Candiales, grey-green eyes and hair the colour of honey, who lives with her mother Rosario in the Candelaria quarter. Rosario has a respectable marriage in mind for her daughter. The little charcoal man sings in the alley night after night, and one night Nina opens the window. A neighbour sees him climb in. Rosario packs the girl off to the convent of Santa Catarina, behind walls and a locked gate, and it makes no difference at all. He sings outside the convent too.

Nina died there on a November night, during the feast of Saint Cecilia. People heard his voice that evening, and it was a lament. In the morning there was a trail of tears along the streets. Afterwards, the story goes, four mules with their charcoal nets were seen each night standing in the cemetery, and each dawn a wild rose wet with dew lay on her grave.

A gentler telling, set in the Recolección neighbourhood, ends better. There the girl is called Susana, and when the soil appears in her food her parents cut her hair short, carry the cut hair to church and have the priest bless it with holy water. Within a few days the singing stops.

That is the whole of his power and the whole of his weakness. He can pass a bolted door and a convent wall. He can ruin a meal, keep a household awake and wear a healthy girl down to nothing without ever laying a hand on her. But he wants the hair. Take the hair away and bless it, and he has no reason to stay. He is also, for all the harm he does, a suitor who means it, which is why the saddest version has him weeping at a grave.

Guatemalan historians read him as a lesson with a hat on. Aníbal Chajón has pointed out that the hidden face is the Devil’s, come for the souls of girls who sit combing their hair at the window, and that the mules and the charcoal point at the mixed-race working men of the colonial city. Fernando Urquizú reads the story as a warning to well-born daughters against accepting just any admirer. It is a story told by mothers, in other words.

Writers have borrowed him freely. Miguel Ángel Asturias put a Sombrerón of his own in his 1930 book of Guatemalan legends, where a bouncing ball that torments a monk turns out to be the Devil’s hat. A feature film about him was shot in Guatemala in 1950. And in Colombia the same name belongs to someone else entirely: a tall rider in black, with two black dogs on chains, who runs down drunks and late walkers on country roads. The two share a hat and nothing more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is El Sombrerón?

El Sombrerón is a goblin from Guatemalan folklore who falls in love with young women who have long hair and large eyes. He is a very small man dressed in black with a huge wide-brimmed hat, a guitar and a string of mules. He is also called Tzipitío, Tzitzimite or el Duende.

What does El Sombrerón do to the women he chooses?

El Sombrerón serenades the woman under her window, then enters her house at night to braid her hair. He also puts soil in her food, so she cannot eat, and he keeps her from sleeping. In the story of Nina Candiales the girl wastes away and dies.

How do you get rid of El Sombrerón?

The traditional remedy is to cut the girl’s hair short and take the cut hair to a priest to be blessed with holy water. In the story of Susana from the Recolección neighbourhood, El Sombrerón stops visiting a few days after this is done. Sending the girl to a convent does not work, because he follows her there.

Why does El Sombrerón braid horses’ manes?

El Sombrerón rides horses and mules at night until they are exhausted and leaves their manes and tails tied in small braids. Owners take the braids found in the morning as proof that he was in the stable. When no horses are available he is said to braid the hair of dogs.

Is the Colombian Sombrerón the same as the Guatemalan one?

No. The Colombian Sombrerón is a tall horseman in black who rides with two chained black dogs and chases drunks and people out late at night. The Guatemalan El Sombrerón is a tiny goblin with a guitar who courts young women. They share a name and a big hat, but they are different figures.