Marzita the Pishtaco feeding on a client in “The Purge”
The Pishtaco is a South American anthropophage who hunts people in order to eat or steal their body fat. Tales of the Pishtaco began in the Andes during the Spanish conquest of Peru in the 16th century, perhaps when conquistadores were seen to make use of human body fat for unusual purposes, such as dressing battle wounds. This, in combination with the important place of body fat in Andean culture as representative of strength and vitality (the pre-Incan creator deity Viracocha is closely associated with body fat), contributed to the idea of the Pishtaco. Continue reading
The Supernatural Fox Sisters 