The Worker's Cauldron
A podcast about the cultural politics of the paranormal. Where Karl Marx shakes his fist at the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot speaks to us about the legacies of colonialism. We discuss the contemporary obsession with all things supernatural through a socialist, feminist lens and ask what our strange experiences and beliefs tell us about the society we live in.
The Worker's Cauldron
Peru's Problem with Pishtacos
There is a peculiar phantom rumored to haunt the rural roads of the South American Andes. The pishtaco takes the form of a tall, well-dressed white man who steals the fat from the bodies of the region's indigenous inhabitants. We explore how this monster was born out of the horrors of colonization and how it recreates itself throughout the history of Peru as the personification of oppression.
Sources:
Mary Weismantel, Cholas and Pishtacos: Stories of Race and Sex in the Andes
Ernesto Vasquex Del Aguila, Pishtacos: Human Fat Murderers, Structural Inequalities and Resistances in Peru
Anthony Oliver-Smith, The Pishtaco: Institutionalized Fear in Highland Peru
Peter Gose, Sacrifice and the Commodity Form in the Andes
The Guardian: Gang 'killed victims to extract their fat'
Time, Peru's Fat-Stealing Gang: Crime or Cover-Up?
Democracy Now: Peruvian Police Accused of Massacring Indigenous Protesters in Amazon Jungle