Chonchón

The chonchón is a shapeshifting witch-creature from Mapuche and central-southern Chilean folklore, said to be a kalku (sorcerer or witch) who, through dark ritual, detaches their own head from their body at night, sprouting enormous ears or wings that flap to carry it flying through the darkness, sometimes leaving the rest of the body hidden until dawn. The belief was established enough to be documented by 1915, when folklorist Julio Vicuña Cifuentes catalogued the chonchón from Chilean oral tradition. It is traditionally heard before it is seen, its cry a distinctive "tue tue" call echoing over the countryside, and hearing it near a house was considered an omen of imminent death or serious illness for someone inside. Rural Chileans believed that finding and salting the witch's abandoned body while the head-creature was away flying would prevent it from reattaching, trapping the witch in monstrous form forever. The legend draws on widespread South American beliefs about flying witch-heads, paralleling creatures in Philippine folklore, and likely served to explain unexplained nighttime deaths or illnesses and to reinforce suspicion toward those accused of sorcery in tight rural communities.