Legend of Dad, Look at My Tooth

Legend has it that there was once a peasant who used to work late on his finca (farm). One day, it got later than usual, and midnight caught him halfway down the road. While riding his horse, he heard the cry of a child. This surprised him a bit, but the peasant thought it must just be his imagination, so he continued on his way.

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Further ahead, however, he heard the crying again, much more clearly. He stopped his horse and searched the area. In the gloom of the night, he found a boy of about five years old crying. Thinking the child was lost, he asked him several times what he was doing in that place. But between his tears, the boy only told the man to look at his tooth. The peasant decided to put him on the horse and take him to the town.

As he continued down the road with the crying child clinging to his back and asking him to look at his tooth, the peasant pondered. He wondered how a child of that age could have wandered so far from town. He thought about whether the boy had perhaps gotten lost, or if some unnatural mother had abandoned him.

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Then, he began to feel that the horse was walking with increasing difficulty, feeling as though it were dragging something heavy. When he looked back, he saw that the boy had grown to an enormous size. The creature brought its face close to the peasant, touched its large teeth, and said in a thunderous voice, “Dad, Look at My Tooth.” Between the fright and the adrenaline of the moment, the man managed to push the creature off the horse. He galloped away at full speed while the colossal, ever-growing child ran after him, screaming, “Dad, Look at My Tooth.” The faster it ran, the larger it became, and its face took on an increasingly hellish shape.

The terrified peasant saw the lights of the town and eagerly galloped toward them. However, the child ran even faster on its gigantic feet. Just as the peasant reached the first houses, the enormous child chasing him vanished without leaving a single trace.

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The phantom of the legend of Dad, Look at My Tooth is one of the most famous specters in the legends of Bolívar and the Colombian Caribbean coast. It usually appears to people traveling the roads past midnight. This legend is not exclusive to Colombia. In Cuba and Mexico, there are also accounts of apparitions with similar characteristics. Likewise, in Peru, there is a tale called “Taita mira mi diente” (Father, look at my tooth) that closely resembles this legend.

The similarities between Colombian myths and legends and those of other Latin American countries are due to the historical events shared by the nations in this region. The Spanish colonization brought not only European culture but also African culture, as a result of the slavery that occurred during that era. There were also many cultural exchanges in the Americas among the native Indigenous peoples before the arrival of the conquest. Because of this, people often speak of “Latin American Legends” in order to encompass these tales within a much more comprehensive social spectrum.