El Silbón in Venezuelan and Colombian Llanos tradition

Record summary

El Silbón is a llanero ghost story about a wandering, whistling figure, often explained through a parricide or other violent family crime and associated with death, drinkers and nighttime roads. Accounts circulated orally and entered Venezuelan folklore writing during the twentieth century. The tradition offers comparison with auditory omens, punitive revenants and frontier landscape legends. Its exact age is uncertain: some narratives claim nineteenth-century origins, but researchers should locate period-specific documentation and avoid assuming that the familiar skeleton-bearing image was present in every early version.