“The pishtaco is a fantasy figure, a bogeyman….The pishtaco is nearly always a vampirelike white man, who roams the countryside and plunders the fat from Indian bodies…”
—Mary J. Weismantel, Cholas and Pishtacos: Stories of Race and Sex in the Andes
One of the strangest vampire species is the pishtaco of Peru, a species of vampire that was introduced by the Spanish missionaries and conquerors as the Spanish Empire started to expand its hold over the Caribbean and parts of North and South America. In Spain, this creature is known as a sacamantecas and its legend is older than that of the pishtaco. These monsters likely made the journey across the Atlantic, into the New World, where they continued their predatory ways in Peru and other South American locations. The pishtaco is so strange as, unlike other vampires, it does not seek blood but instead lives off of body fat.
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