Pollo Maligno

Also Known As: Spanish, “the evil chicken”; also El Pollo Malo, “the bad chicken,” and Medio Pollo, “the half chicken”
Region/Culture: South America
Mythos: Colombian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: An evil forest spirit in the shape of a bird, most often invisible, whose chick-like cry foretells death and lures hunters and night travelers deep into the bush.
Role in Mythos: It serves at once as an omen of coming death and misfortune and as a punishing predator of the night forest and the lonely road.
Relation to Humans: It preys on those who travel, gamble, and drink after dark, drawing hunters into the deepest forest and turning on anyone who mocks its cry. Parents invoke it to keep children off the roads at night, and a novena to Saint Michael the Archangel is said to silence it and drive it away.

On the back roads of Huila, where the last house has fallen behind and the cane gives way to black bush, the sound comes first. A thin pío, pío, the peep of a lost chick, somewhere off to the left. Then off to the right. Anyone raised in those valleys knows the rule and knows it cold. When the cry seems far away, the thing making it is close. When it seems to be at the shoulder, it is already deep in the trees, waiting to be followed. Travelers learn to keep walking and not to answer.

The Pollo Maligno, the evil chicken, is one of the most feared voices in the folklore of the Colombian interior, told across Huila, Tolima, the Valle del Cauca, Cundinamarca, and the forests of Caquetá. Most who speak of it have never seen it. It is a spirit far more than a bird, usually invisible, announced only by that peeping carried out of the dark. The cry is the whole of the encounter, and the cry is an omen. To hear it is to be told that death is on its way to the house, to a relative or a neighbour, and country wisdom even reads the pitch: a high, sharp peep marks the death of a child, a low and heavy one the death of a grown man.

It keeps to certain hours. The Pollo Maligno comes out late, when men are gathered over cards and aguardiente, telling coarse jokes and doing the small ugly things people do when they think the night belongs to them. Into that warmth drifts the peeping, and the game goes quiet.

There is one thing no one in those valleys will do. Whoever mocks the cry, whoever whistles it back to be clever in front of the others, has marked himself, and the spirit turns on the mocker and comes for him before long. Nobody imitates the Pollo Maligno. The safe thing, the only thing, is to fall silent and let the sound move off into the dark.

In the older telling, the one that reaches back past the roadside omen, it is a creature of the deep forest and it hunts the hunters. A man tracking game hears a chick in distress and follows the small sound the way any decent person would, and the sound leads him on, always a little further, always just past the next stand of trees, until the trail he knew is gone and the canopy has closed over him. Those who follow it to the end are said not to come back. The forest keeps them.

Ask what it looks like and most people will say there is nothing to see, only the voice. The few accounts that do put a shape to it assemble something that was never really a chicken: a bat’s flat head, the red combs of a rooster, the broad tattered wings of a vulture. Some call it the Medio Pollo, the half chicken, as though it were only ever glimpsed in part. The vagueness does its own work. A thing that cannot be seen, that throws its voice, that is nearest when it sounds farthest, cannot be aimed at or fled from in a straight line.

Where it came from is a braided thing. The legend grew in the same ground as the rubber camps and the mission chapels and the streams of colonos who came down from the Tolima highlands into the Amazon foothills, and it carries all of them at once: an indigenous forest that punishes trespass, a Catholic world in which sounds in the night are the work of evil spirits, and the plain settler dread of the road after dark. Different valleys tell it differently. In some it is purely an omen, a voice and nothing more. In others it is a predator with a mouth. The stories do not agree, and no one has felt any need to make them.

Its power is almost all in the voice. It needs no body to do harm. It can be in two places, or seem to be, and its cry alone can pull a grown man off a safe path and into ground he will not walk out of. It reads the household’s future and says it aloud whether or not anyone wants to hear. Against children it hardly has to try, because their parents do the work for it, warning them that if they wander the roads at night the Pollo Malo will find them, and a child raised on that warning carries it a long way.

For all that, it can be turned. The oldest defence is a Catholic one: a novena to Saint Michael the Archangel, the same warrior who casts down devils, is said to make the Pollo Maligno fall silent and go. Short of prayer, knowledge is a kind of armour. Anyone who understands that the cry lies about distance, that near means far and far means near, is harder to lead astray, and anyone who keeps his mouth shut and refuses to answer gives the spirit nothing to fasten on. It rewards the reckless, the drunk, and the cruel, and passes over the quiet.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Pollo Maligno?

The Pollo Maligno, whose name is Spanish for “the evil chicken,” is a malevolent forest spirit from Colombian folklore, usually invisible and known by its chick-like “pío, pío” cry. It is told across the departments of Huila, Tolima, Valle del Cauca, Cundinamarca, and Caquetá. In its most common form it is an omen of death, and in older versions it lures hunters deep into the forest to devour them.

What does it mean to hear the Pollo Maligno?

Hearing the Pollo Maligno’s cry is taken as a warning that death or misfortune is coming, most often to a relative or a neighbour. In parts of Huila the pitch of the cry is read as a sign: a high, sharp peep foretells the death of a child, while a deep, heavy one foretells the death of an adult.

How do you protect yourself from the Pollo Maligno?

The traditional defence against the Pollo Maligno is to pray a novena to Saint Michael the Archangel, which is said to silence the spirit and drive it away. People also stay quiet and never mock or imitate its cry, because whoever mimics the Pollo Maligno is believed to be attacked by it soon after.

Why does the Pollo Maligno sound far away when it is near?

In the legend the Pollo Maligno’s cry deceives listeners about distance: when it sounds far off the creature is actually close, and when it sounds close it is far away. This reversal is how the spirit leads travelers and hunters off safe paths and into the forest.

Is the Pollo Maligno a real chicken?

No. Despite its name, the Pollo Maligno is a spirit rather than an animal, and it is almost always invisible. The rare accounts that give it a body describe a bat’s head, a rooster’s red combs, and a vulture’s wings, and some call it the “Medio Pollo,” or half chicken.