https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_river_dolphin
In mythology[edit]
Main article:
Encantado (mythology)
In traditional Amazon River
folklore, at night, an Amazon river dolphin becomes a handsome young man who seduces girls, impregnates them, and then returns to the river in the morning to become a dolphin again. Similarly, the female becomes a beautiful, well - dressed,wealthy - looking and young woman. She goes to the house of a married man, places him under a spell to keep him quiet, and takes him to a thatched hut and visits him every year on the same night she seduced him. On the 7th night of visiting, she changes the man into a female - baby or male, and soon transfers it into his own wife's womb. The mythology is said to be the cycle of a baby. This dolphin
shapeshifter is called an
encantado. The myth has been suggested to have arisen partly because
dolphin genitalia bear a resemblance to those of humans. Others believe the myth served (and still serves) as a way of hiding the incestuous relations which are quite common in some small, isolated communities along the river.
[45] In the area, tales relate it is bad luck to kill a dolphin. Legend also states that if a person makes eye contact with an Amazon river dolphin, he or she will have lifelong nightmares. Local legends also state that the dolphin is the guardian of the
Amazonian manatee, and that if one should wish to find a manatee, one must first make peace with the dolphin.
Associated with these legends is the use of various fetishes, such as dried eyeballs and genitalia.
[45] These may or may not be accompanied by the intervention of a
shaman. A recent study has shown, despite the claim of the seller and the belief of the buyers, none of these fetishes is derived from the
boto. They are derived from
Sotalia guianensis, are most likely harvested along the coast and the Amazon River delta, and then are traded up the Amazon River. In inland cities far from the coast, many, if not most, of the fetishes are derived from domestic animals such as sheep and pigs.
[46]