Spanish name for a bogeyman or criminal that kills for human fat
Sacamantecas ("Fat extractor" in Spanish) or mantequero[1] ("Fat seller/maker") is the Spanish name for a kind of
bogeyman[2] or criminal[2] characterized by killing for
human fat.
Anthropology
Julian Pitt-Rivers reports[3] in his study of
Alcalá de la Sierra the belief that village children can be stolen by an outsider, called el sacamantecas, disguised as a beggar or a trader, who is hired by a rich man whose ill child can only be cured with the blood of healthy babies.
The practice of
blood donation lent credence to the myth.
Gerald Brenan[1] describes the mantequero as a monster in human form who lives in deserted areas and feeds on manteca[4] ("
humanfat").
Upon capture, he shouts in a high-pitched voice and, unless just fed, looks thin.
Brenan found the myth alive during his stays in the
Alpujarra (Andalusia):
In 1927 or 1928, he had sublet his
Yegen home to the British writer
Dick Strachey, nephew of
Lytton Strachey.
One day, Strachey was walking on rough terrain where he saw three suspicious men.
Fearing of
bandoleros, he ran away, but the three
Gipsies chased him and drew their knives shouting at him as a mantequero.
The first impulse of the Gipsies was to kill the mantequero and
use his blood for magical remedies.
However the eldest Gipsy, a convict, judged safer to bring Strachey to the mayor.
They offered to slit his throat themselves, but the British man claimed in his rudimentary Spanish to be a relative of King
George V of the United Kingdom, convincing the mayor that he was not dealing with a monster.
A friend of Brenan found that in
Torremolinos all the girls believed in mantequeros.
In the urban version of the legend,[1] an old evil marquis needs baby
blood transfusions to rejuvenate.
Real sacamantecas
Charcoal drawing from Romasanta's medical report
Juan Díaz de Garayo
Francisco Leona
c. 1910
Manuel Blanco Romasanta (1809-1863) was the first serial killer documented in Spain. He operated in
Galicia. With the fat of his victims he
made soap for sale. During his trial, he alleged to be cursed with
lycanthropy.
Juan Díaz de Garayo (1821-1881) was a Spanish serial killer operating in Northern Spain. He was nicknamed el Sacamantecas, which became used to scare children into behaving.[5]
In 1910
Francisco Leona and Julio Tonto Hernández kidnapped and killed a boy of seven years for his blood and fat to treat the tuberculosis of Francisco Ortega, a wealthy farmer who hired the men for that purpose in what is known as the
Crime of Gádor.[6]
Similar beliefs
The Peruvian tradition of the
pishtaco has many similarities being understood as monsters or
foreigners who collect human fat from their victims.
Urban legends about
organ trafficking show similar fears in modern contexts.
Vampires in European folklore draw blood from humans.
^Ayala Sörense, Federico (September 25, 2014). Expósiot, Ángel (ed.).
"El verdadero "Hombre del Saco"". ABC (in Spanish). Diario ABC, S.L. Archived from
the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved March 27, 2018.