Story of the werewolf of Coita, Chiapas

In a faraway town called Coita, located on the top of a hill in south Mexico, a mysterious creature decides to appear in the streets to cause panic and terror to its inhabitants. 3 meters tall, with excessive fur and a unique howl, the story just begins…

In this article we will talk about the legend of “The Coita Werewolf”, a series of successes that became famous in 2020 during the pandemic, among its causes, theories, facts and testimonies. Read on to find out all about this interesting story:

Beginnings

Late 2019, rumors about a werewolf in Coita begin to spread. Citizens were saying that they had seen it in a town nearby and that it had attacked a woman walking alone on the road.

In 2020, this data reaches Facebook, where Jose Maria, administrator of the page “Coita Milenario” publishes a question asking his followers what was happening, going viral. As a consequence of the high response, he decides to investigate further to see if it was real. He spent several nights without sleep, going out into the street and captured the following information:

Testimonies

The descriptions of the witnesses were always the same: a large body that can jump three meters, has a specific rotten smell and the dogs start barking and trying to run away with its presence.

In addition, a witness states that she was with 7 friends at a campfire when they suddenly heard something approaching, and they saw it in the fumes. The group of friends tried to defend themselves with guns until the creature escapes, leaving marks.

“We’re talking about a foot that looks like a size ten shoe more or less, a very big foot. And the prints are not continuous like it was walking, rather there’s a footprint at one point and three meters away there’s another one. Left foot, right foot, but with that difference.”

Lastly, while Jose Maria was broadcasting in the main square, the police found him and told him “Everything is true”. They describe it as a subject that was more than two meters tall, covered in hair and without clothes and that gets up and lifts its hands to the moon and makes a kind of howling noise.

Impressive, right? How true must it be for the police to confirm its existence and spend time investigating it?

What were the consequences?

As expected, the city became more active in finding the werewolf. Fear increases and live streams recorded by other citizens begin. Groups of people go out with weapons to hunt the werewolf. Everything turned into a chaos of panic, fear and danger.

¿Is everything true or just a simple joke? The reality was, there was no proof and nobody could confirm the facts. And as well mentioned:

“It’s just a legend until there are photos and recordings and reliable witness accounts, then we can get started and put faith and legitimacy in what’s going on”

The image of the werewolf was never recorded, because it was rumored that cameras and cellphones started to fail as he got closer. With the days passing, more evidence came to light. Fake or not, they existed… Footprints, blood marks, videos, pictures. Proof that gave birth to theories.

*Real images taken by Coita's citizens.

So, which were the theories?

The first was that there was a logical explanation for the events that occured. Hearing noises at home was normal in Coita as they lived close to ecological reserves with bats, owls, jaguars, pumas, spider monkeys and ocelots. They also said that the stress of the confinement was manifesting a collective paranoia, which makes sense, when we’re locked down we can imagine things and when something is repeated a lot, we start to believe it.

The second was that it was either a bad joke or a distracting trap. In this case it could be about a construction in process in the ecological park so that no one would pay attention or ask questions.

Last and most interesting, there was a theory that claimed that a young apprenticeship of nahualism tried to transform into an animal and was unable to return to his original human figure so he was now walking through the streets looking for help.

The first theories are somewhat reasonable, trying to find meaningful and testable explanation. But the last one caught the attention the most.

Nahualism?

That's right. Nahuales come from an ancient tradition, they appear in different indigenous cultures in the region. The Nahual is a person who has the ability to transcend human nature and become an animal.

An interviewed comments that to transform into a nahual, who has this ability, has to do it at night and has to look for a corner at the four winds. He mentions that nahuales are very important because they’re figures that maintain order in the community and are also associated with respect for the environment, they only attack people that deserve it.

And for the people of Coita, the figure of the nahual is very familiar. Legends of nahuales are always told to the children: the witch who years ago turn into a pig in order to go eat at the market or the lieutenant who transformed into a donkey because he liked scaring neighbors. The region has a very strong tradition of witches and nahuales.

What happened at the end? Was this theory confirmed?

The more information, the more confusion. Jose Maria was warned that he was attracting the werewolf by looking for it so insistently, and in order to help the nahual to return to its human form, he would have to sacrifice himself. Jose Maria was exhausting himself physically and emotionally and decided to leave the investigation.

The last thing heard was that some loggers had seen a very thin, hairy man one morning in June by a hill on the outskirts of Coita. Rumors say the nahual went to die in one of the caves of that hill. Or maybe not, and it’s still out there, wandering…

And that was the story of the Coita Werewolf, that’s how a new legend was born in the middle of the 21^st century.

Interesting right? What can we say about this?

Here is reflected the importance of oral traditions and cultural context. The legends of a city are determined by its beliefs and relies on the citizens if they transmit them or not. And even if there’s no evidence, something being repeated can open our perspective.

What happened in Coita also represents nowadays problems. An anecdote is commented on social media, gets viral and exaggerated until in a manner of days, it becomes real enough to motivate people to look for answers.