Where did these mysterious pink dolphins come from? A strong legend persists deep in the Cuyabeno jungle in Ecuador, where the Aguarico River flows through Ecuador before it joins to the Amazon...

1. The Pink Dolphins of the Amazon
A strong legend persists deep in the Cuyabeno jungle in Ecuador, where the Aguarico
River flows through Ecuador before it joins to the Amazon and snakes its way through Peru and
Brazil. So strong, in fact, is this legend, that it has permeated the sector of documentation and
records. Myth, legend and reality have entwined themselves in the history of the strange aquatic
creatures of that river and the people who live in the nearby communities.
They say there’s a reason why the river dolphins inhabiting that part of the river are not
only the biggest freshwater dolphins in the world, but also pink in colour. The reason is that the
first one ever born was not born a dolphin.
The story begins with a young man, a strong and successful young warrior, who was
loved by all his community because he kept it safe from wild animals and raids from other
communities. He was a skilled hunter and often brought back immense hunks of meat for his
parents and siblings, and often they couldn’t manage to eat all that he brought home, so full were
their bellies, and so the food was shared amongst many.
But this young man did have one enemy and it was an enemy he did not care to have. A
spirit-god looked down from on high and envied the man his arrogant strength and cocky
skilfulness. A rage set deeply in the spirit-god’s heart, poisoning every second of his existence.
He decided that he would act out revenge upon that mere mortal who thought himself to be
invincible.
The spirit-god waited until the man was alone. It took a few days for this to happen, for
his popularity meant that he was always surrounded by other men who wished to learn from him
and women who fought over who he would choose as his wife. But at last the day arrived when,
watched closely by the spirit-god, he decided to go down to the river by himself to relax and
bathe. That was when the spirit-god chose to act out his revenge.
As soon as the warrior touched the water with the tip of his toe, he started to transform
into a pink-coloured dolphin. He fell to the ground, as he no longer had any legs, and thrashed
about, in a panic as to what was happening. His eyes dashed about him and finally he caught a
glimpse of his arm, only it wasn't an arm any more, but a fin, and then he realised that when he
breathed, it wasn't from his mouth, but from a hole in his head, and when he tried to move his

2. toes, a flipper moved instead, and when he tried to speak, only strange noises came out. He had
been turned into... a dolphin! Only he wasn't blue in colour, he was pink. Then he realised that it
must have been a power from above who had cursed him like this, and so, deeply distraught, he
shifted his body around. For lack of any other option, he slipped into the deep waters of the river.
Less than an hour later, people from the village came looking for him. They had known
which part of the river he had gone to and when they found only his torn clothes on the banks of
the river, a rising fear pounded in their hearts. The women clutched the rags to their chests and
wept that some sea monster had eaten him and taken him from them forever. One man, the
hunter’s best friend, thought it wise to sit on a branch on the river beach and wait patiently for the
man to return. There could be a very reasonable motive for his sudden disappearance. Perhaps
he had wanted to fish by diving deep down into the water and shed his clothes to make himself
lighter and they had torn in his haste. Maybe he had just wanted to go for a swim and so had left
his clothes behind and some wild animal had come along and torn them. It could be that the
scorching sun had made him sweat and rip off his clothes to cool down before jumping into the
water.
But the day wore on and still there was no sign of him.
The Dolphin
One by one, the others dejectedly retreated back to the community to pray to
Pachamama, mother nature, to keep the hunter safe from harm. Yet the hunter’s friend remained
on the beach, his lance leaning on the branch on which he sat, his hands idle or else blowing the
leaves on the tree to call out to his friend. Sometimes he even whistled to see if he would get a
reply.
By now the sun was steadily falling from the sky and even he had to admit that if his
friend were still alive, he would not be sleeping in the village that night. So, he climbed down from
the branch and crept back to his hut, hoping that everybody would have gone to sleep and would
not hear his approach.
He was wrong of course- the whole village, even the tiny children, were all keeping a vigil
with a huge fire roaring in the middle of the clearing. They all stood up when he arrived but a

3. small shake of his head made them turn away and back into insular sorrow. Without saying a
word, he took a place by the fire and looked intently into its bright flames as if staring into it would
give him a fresh idea as to the whereabouts of the mighty hunter.
Meanwhile, the man-dolphin swam around miserably in those waters. Whenever
somebody from the community came down to the river, he swam towards them in the vain hope
that he would somehow be able to communicate with them. But the women screamed and ran
away as soon as they saw him and the men jabbed their spears towards him and shouted
aggressively. Then he tried to just be near them without being spotted so as just to hear a
woman's song or listen to the village's news. But it is not easy to camouflage oneself when one is
pink and one's river is murky blue. In the end, he gave up such ideas and resigned himself to a
life of solitude and despair.
He stayed that way for many months, depressed and bored with a life condemned to the
rivers and lakes of the region. He searched far and wide for other mammals similar to himself for
company, but there were none. He had contact only with tilapia fish, catfish, shrimps, bocachica
fish, and other minuscule lifeforms. It is difficult to claim to have companions when the only
contact between the two is a few seconds before the smaller one gets killed and eaten,
sometimes eaten by him, for he soon realised he was a carnivore.
The man-dolphin's sadness was obvious to the powers on high. So, another spirit-god,
who had not approved of his counterpart's cruelty, took pity on the former warrior and created a
female pink dolphin to keep him company and so that he might have offspring, even if they were
aquatic instead of human.
The warrior did indeed cheer up when his female companion was created and to thank
the powers on high for creating her, he vowed to populate all the river with his offspring. And so it
was that the first pink Amazon dolphins came into being.
But, his male offspring still desired female humans and the first pink dolphin also wanted
to act out revenge against his condition and produce human children also. That is why so every
June, in the month of the fiestas of dancing, fire-work displays and music, when the indigenous
people celebrate saint days, and the men are busy having fun, the male pink dolphins come out
of the river to seduce young women. And for that month only, they emerged from the water as

4. attractive young men. Having inherited all the charm and light-footedness of their father, they
knew that they would be very successful.
With all female eyes on them, they danced magnificently with all the flexible grace that
their bodies had in the water. They took the hypnotised women by the hand and led them to the
middle of the dance. The women fluttered their eyelashes, silently accepted the man-dolphins
attentions and began to move their bodies in time with their partners.
The men watched from the sidelines in shock. They were at first filled with jealousy that
even their most proficient dancers could not match the dolphins. Dancers as elegant as these
strangers had not been seen since their famous warrior had mysteriously vanished. Then, they
let hatred boil inside them, watching their wives, fiancées, friends, mothers and daughters be
sashayed about the place by those smug intruders.
But then the same man who had waited all day for the warrior to return suddenly caught
a glimpse of something strange on the top of one of the strangers' heads, half-hidden by his
straw hat. You see, the only distinguishable feature left on the man-dolphins' bodies was the
blow-hole that could be found on the top of their heads. But the dolphins could hide this with
those straw hats that are wrong labelled as Panama hats when their true origin is Ecuadorian.
For that reason, whenever a man wearing a hat comes to a fiesta in the month of June, the
inhabitants of the Amazon jungle ask that he take off that hat to make sure that he is not a
dolphin!
At the time, though, the man thought nothing of the strange shadow that could easily
have been a birth mark.
According to the legend, nowadays the dolphins do not wait for the month of June, but
are ready and able to seduce once a month. It is said that when young women menstruate on a
night with a full moon and go down to the banks of the Amazon River, or they pass through the
river in a canoe, they will always be visited by pink dolphins who come to try and get them
pregnant. They are said to be insatiable, skilled and gentle lovers. They make women forget who
they are, forget past and future, and even in some cases, forget to whom they are engaged.
They entice single and married women into their arms, and create a sphere of enchantment
around the women. Upon seeing the man-dolphins, the women’s only thought is to give in to pure

5. pleasure and succumb to those mesmerising eyes and be seduced by the magnetic pull of the
dolphins’ allure. The man-dolphins need only smile to put women under their spell.
That is why in that region, all children born to single mothers are said to be offspring of
the pink dolphins.
For this reason, the indigenous men of the region are always intent on finishing off these
animals so that they cannot impregnate the women any more. The hatred that they felt at the first
dance only heightened with time and as the legend was passed down so too was the anger
against the dolphins' seductive ways. Having been close friends with the first pink dolphin, there
is now a fierce battle between man and man-dolphin, one striving to annihilate the other, and one
attempting to reproduce himself with the women and thus eliminating the other by replacing them
as fathers.
On the other hand, there is many a woman who looks forward to the arrival of the elusive
man-dolphin who will take her in his arms and make passionate love to her. For her, the dolphin
is an outlaw, a handsome stranger, her knight in shining armour who will whisk her away to a
land of fantasies and dreams.
The Real Pink Dolphins
The pink river dolphin’s lifespan is only around thirty or forty years of age, and this
legend, along with others, has unfortunately put the species' continuation at risk. Other ethnic
groups believe that the teeth and eyes of the pink dolphins have magical powers and so have
hunted them.
However, whatever risk these legends have caused is nothing in comparison to what the
modern world has done to the aquatic mammals. They having been affected by large-scale
fishing, the oil industry, deforestation, gold mining and waste disposal.
Once, pink dolphins were amongst some of the least threatened dolphin species in the
world, but with the onset of industry in the Amazon region, they have now become one of the
most threatened.
Curiously, female pink dolphins can give birth without the need of a mate by a process known as

6. parthenogenesis, Greek for 'virgin birth', whereby the female sex cell gets fertilised without the
need of sperm. They can reproduce sexually or asexually according to the availability of male
dolphins. Perhaps knowledge of that sparked the legend.