Los duendes are spirits that mix European beliefs in fairies with spirits of indigenous American beliefs. They are usually said to be small, mostly humanoid creatures who can appear as humans or animals. They “live in the mountains, in caves near rivers, which they build in large rocks and in the roots of fig trees.”16 They can be evil, neutral tricksters, or benevolent helpers. They confuse people who walk into the mountains by changing the paths, and they sometimes kidnap children to play with them, and usually return them unharmed. They can “pursue girls of marriage age, making them sick, and provoke storms, protect or destroy villages, play tricks on men and frighten them when they are unaware.”17 Like the fairies of European mythology, los duendes are tricksters who follow their own moral codes that humans cannot fully understand and act in ways we cannot predict.
