Creature Feature Friday: The Pugot
It’s not here for your soul - it’s here for your underwear. Meet the Pugot, today’s Creature Feature excerpted from our blog 9 Cryptids That Are (Probably) Too Absurd To Be Real:
The Pugot is a ghastly figure out of Philippine mythology that has been spotted in multiple cities throughout the Philippines. There is no shortage of demonic cryptids and ghostly ghouls in the world’s folklore, but what pushes the Pugot toward the side of absurd is that it has just so much going on. For one thing, this frightful creature can shapeshift, often appearing under the guise of dogs, hogs, and humans. But if it had to pick a favorite form to assume, it would probably be its popular appearance as a big black humanoid with no head - pugot literally translates to “decapitated one.”
Along with its shapeshifting abilities, the Pugot can also move at high speeds, and likes to make its home in dark places, empty houses, and even in trees. It finds its meal among those trees, where it feeds on bugs and snakes by thrusting them through its neck stump. (Why? Why not just shapeshift into a head for yourself? Come on, pugot! Use your h- ….Oh. Nevermind.)
As scary as it looks, though, this ghoulish cryptid is supposedly not harmful… except for its predatory tendency to steal women’s underwear off of clotheslines. Yeah… did I mention this guy has a lot going on? Though this confusing being comes from myth, the Pugot has been sighted in Philippine cities like Manila and Baguio City, but in yet a different form - in these cases, in the likeness of a headless priest.
Is the Pugot a flesh-and-blood creature? A shapeshifting spirit? Some chilling combination of the two? Whatever the case, the Pugot seems to be several versions of the same absurdly strange, underwear-stealing entity.
