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Mar. 30th, 2025 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anaisninjaWhat little folklore I have been able to track down about Colugos has been inconclusive without citations at best and AI generated at worst. I found one website in Malaysian that I was excited for, but when it started going on about what the colugo symbolizes in South America and Africa, I began to have doubts. If rattling this off into the void is what it takes for real colugo stories to rain down upon me like "take your white colugo-appropriating ass back to the swamp and have intimate relations with an alligator" I count it as a win.
My search for specifics on the diet of the colugo also came up short. In general they feed on leaves, buds, shoots, flowers, sap, and fruit (the Phillippines colugo also consumes insects). I was hoping to find exact species so I could reference them for separate purposes The only particular I was able to find was a reference to durian, which is notorious for its noxious scent.
That said, the following folklore is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination, and not intended to be a substitute for the indigenous cultural practices of southeastern Asia. Any similarity to the traditional folklore of any existing cultures is unintended and purely coincidental.
As far as I can imagine, the colugo is considered a messenger. They carry the intentions and dreams of the living, and they carry the messages of the living to the dead. If you ever come across a colugo during the daytime or on the ground, it is considered good luck to help it back into the forest. It's also good luck to see a colugo in the trees, but is considered poor etiquette to interfere with them, as it may interrupt any errand they might be attending. Of course, it's unspeakably bad luck to interfere with a colugo who may be en route.
How to petition a colugo to carry a message? This depends upon what you intend.
Gonna come back to this later. Gotta rattle off some other entries before I lose track of them. I will come back, though.
My search for specifics on the diet of the colugo also came up short. In general they feed on leaves, buds, shoots, flowers, sap, and fruit (the Phillippines colugo also consumes insects). I was hoping to find exact species so I could reference them for separate purposes The only particular I was able to find was a reference to durian, which is notorious for its noxious scent.
That said, the following folklore is a work of fiction, a product of the author's imagination, and not intended to be a substitute for the indigenous cultural practices of southeastern Asia. Any similarity to the traditional folklore of any existing cultures is unintended and purely coincidental.
As far as I can imagine, the colugo is considered a messenger. They carry the intentions and dreams of the living, and they carry the messages of the living to the dead. If you ever come across a colugo during the daytime or on the ground, it is considered good luck to help it back into the forest. It's also good luck to see a colugo in the trees, but is considered poor etiquette to interfere with them, as it may interrupt any errand they might be attending. Of course, it's unspeakably bad luck to interfere with a colugo who may be en route.
How to petition a colugo to carry a message? This depends upon what you intend.
Gonna come back to this later. Gotta rattle off some other entries before I lose track of them. I will come back, though.
