The Great Shapeshifter

The name of the Chiloé Islands’ legendary ghost ship, the Caleuche, literally means “shapeshifter.” It derives from the Huilliche words, caleutún, meaning “to change condition,” and che, “people.” Possibly chosen because of the ship’s many transformations, the name could also refer to the changes in its crew from dead to alive, from torment to bliss, from scenes of disaster to visions of rapture.

The mythical “shapeshifter” remains a popular theme and character in modern literature. Witness movie phenomena such as the vampires, werewolves, and even all the superheroes. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man. Twilight and the Transformers.

“Transformation literally means going beyond your form.” –Wayne Dyer

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the topic of transformation in the context of a story’s character arc. Learning to change is so important that I return to the theme again. Are you a transformer? Have you encountered the Great Shapeshifter?

Because He can change everything. He can shift the shape of your life’s craft from storm-buffeted to blessed.

What can we discover about transformation from the shapeshifter ship Caleuche of Chilote mythology?

Once Upon a Foggy Night

Some logical mythographers link the Caleuche with the Dutch pirate ship El Calanche, captained by Vincent Vaneucht, which once wandered about the myriad island waterways and finally disappeared without a trace. The lost ship’s treasure lies buried on some forgotten Chilote coast.

BUT most islanders believe the Caleuche is a magic ship, a phantom ship sometimes said to be skippered by El Millalobo himself, the golden sealion King of the Seas. It navigates the ocean depths as well as the surface, appearing with relative frequency in the channels of Chiloé.

But never, oh no, never in the full light of day.

Beware the tranquil nights, when the Caleuche materializes out of the swirling mist. From a distance, it looks like a great galleon of old, its sails shredded and draping from the masts like ragged reeds. A profusion of multicolored illumination creates a brilliant glow that highlights the ghost ship as it moves toward you at great speed.

Closer up… You may never glimpse the crew. The wooden deck’s clear, but the ship rocks and shakes. You’ll realize they’re enjoying a rollicking good party below decks. It’s said the Caleuche has a ballroom and an orchestra of flutes, horns, whistles, and many other mysterious instruments aboard. Music of extraordinary beauty and harmony floats from the interior on trails of mist.

And then… As unexpectedly as it appeared, the shapeshifter ship vanishes, erased by the dense fog flowing from the coasts. Almost instantly invisible. All that’s left of this impressive “vision of rapture” is the echo of a captivating melody.

And perhaps the strange and hair-raising clank of anchor chains hauled up and dragged across the deck.

The Salvation of Shipwrecked Sailors

You can attempt to chase the Caleuche, of course, but you’ll never catch her. Pursuit—whether motivated by curiosity, greed, or revenge—only causes the Shapeshifter to transform into a dolphin or a great trunk of cypress drifting on the waves. The crew may turn into slippery sea lions reclining along the shore.

Not that Captain Millalobo’s craft avoids human contact, necessarily. But it’s on his terms. During her voyages around the channels and islands, the Caleuche helps many friendly ships to survive the fierce storms, conducting them to safe ports or even towing them… at speeds which, according to the storytellers, cannot be explained any other way.

But take care not to get too close without an invitation, no matter how alluring the call of the boisterous band music. You might end up misled into foundering on a rocky reef.

Because the Caleuche “recruits” crew members from two main classes of sailors. Some are the blessed, those shipwreck victims rescued and transported (“shanghaied,” some might suggest) by El Millalobo’s favorite daughter, La Pincoya, and her siblings. The moment their cadavers land on the deck of the Caleuche, they revive to a new life of eternal happiness in the great ever-after.

The Rendezvous of the “Righteous”

Or not. Last year I shared a couple of posts about the Righteous Province, Chiloé’s guild of witches’ covens. Whether their existence is a complete tall tale or has some basis in truth, they comprise the second class of crew in Caleuche mythology .

Destiny at Dolphin Bay (soon to be released) focuses on this version of the myth. A mysterious marine mirage. A fearful apparition piloted by the ghosts of pirates and conquistadores. The spectacle inspires awe, for sure. But also provokes terror in its victims.

Is it real? Good sense tells you no, of course not. Yet… who listens to logic alone in the fog after dark?

Chilote witches are said to possess the ability to fly, either through shapeshifting into a bird or by wearing a macuñ, a sort of magic flight jacket (yeah, I know, sounds like sci-fi ?). But they can only travel out to the Caleuche mounted on the bouncy flank of a Caballo Marino. This is no ordinary seahorse but a mythological creature kept to serve the machi.

The witches sometimes maintain service agreements of their own, contracts called pautos, with ambitious shopkeepers who’ve become greedy enough to make a pact with the devil. In Chiloé, if you meet a man who’s fast-tracked to the top of his profession, become rich within a short time, or started out with just a few articles of stock and now owns a grand commercial establishment… Well, all the neighbors will swear that the Caleuche frequently anchors in the cove in front of his house or below his palafito (shack-on-stilts) because they’ve heard the resounding thud of chains just before dawn.

The Longing for Everlasting Life

People claim that the shapeshifter ship and her crew of magic-artists supply these businesspeople with an abundance of goods. In return for…? Next post I’ll talk about the price of this sudden, amazing prosperity.

Returning to the lucky sailors transported to an eternal cruise through the seas of Chiloé, you have to wonder at the practical appeal of such an endless “undead” existence. Even the fabulous wealth and beauty wouldn’t lift “halfway home” to the level of “visions of rapture” in my book.

Once a year, the story goes, Caleuche crew members can obtain leave from their skipper for a brief “furlough” to visit their grieving families. Thus, they have the opportunity to bring them comfort and even economic aid. Sounds good, unless the families are freaked out by the appearance of spooks from the phantom ship?

Sometimes, these ghostly visitations continue year after year. In other cases, they never happen again—this most frequently, when the deceased returns to soothe his supposedly inconsolable widow, only to find her solaced in the arms of another husband!

This aspect of the intriguing and complex legend of the Caleuche relates to the beliefs of almost every people group on earth in a future destination where, when we arrive beyond the portals of death, we find a home and live happily forever, instead of simply disappearing, digested by worms and barnacles.

Perhaps, then, this part of (pagan) Chilote mythology corresponds to the sacred lake of the Egyptians, the nirvana of the Buddhists, and the paradise of the Muslims and Jews, etc. It seems appropriate that a marine people such as the Chilotes might imagine the deck of a ship as the ideal eternal resting place beyond the grave.

The Hope of a Happy Hereafter

So the innate fear of death, more or less constant for those who work in or near deep and treacherous waters, is transposed into a great consolation. The “promise” of ultimate rescue by the Caleuche, with the guarantee of material spoils and a superior life, bolsters the seamen. Their families are encouraged with the hope of seeing lost loved ones again, even as elusive spirit beings.

Folklorists trace the origin of the Caleuche myth to common mirage phenomena which lends itself to multiple interpretations in the different cultural contexts of the world. Here, for me, lies life’s fundamental yearning: For meaning which death cannot destroy.

We long to pass from this place of toil and trouble, misunderstanding and miscarried justice, to the land where happiness and wholeness are no hallucination. Where only those who wear the true robes of Jesus’s righteousness will win rewards.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed…and this mortal will have put on immortality.” –St. Paul, I Corinthians 15:51-53

The heaven we Christians anticipate is no myth, but a blessed assurance. Most of us will gain it through the transformation of death (rather than rapture) into never-ending life by the transcendent power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast” (Heb. 6:19, NASB).

However, the central theme of the Christian gospel is life, not death. Love, not luck—grace, not gold. It’s as much about a transformed today as it is about a transformed tomorrow.

The Truth About Transformation

Like the translation through death to eternity, we cannot be transmuted to a better life without changing form. And without Jesus, the Great Shapeshifter, we seldom change.

Now, I realize that the Almighty God-who-became-Flesh hardly resembles the typical storybook shapeshifting character, pack-oriented and fantastical if not downright diabolical. Jesus is always good, and He is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Unlike the Caleuche, Jesus never changes.

But like the Caleuche, He changes others. He shape-shifts US.

We need the changing. And honestly, we want transformation into something more and better. But we want it to happen like magic. We don’t want it to cost or to hurt. No painful valleys or frightening storms.

I admit I don’t want to suffer the tearing off of my old dragon skin. (See The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis.) I dread giving up my cherished self and letting Him shape me into His image. But I’ve discovered you have to die before you can live.

“Information does not equal transformation.” –Ian Cron

 Mere learning, wishing, and desiring won’t transform you and me… But shaping ourselves around the Truth will. Here are some ways to help to shift our thinking:

• “Don’t just learn, experience.
• Don’t just read, absorb…
• And don’t just relate, advocate.
• Don’t just promise, prove.
• Don’t just criticize, encourage.
• And don’t just think, ponder.
• Don’t just take, give.
• Don’t just see, feel.
• And don’t just dream, do.
• Don’t just hear, listen.
• Don’t just talk, act.
• And don’t just tell, show.
• Don’t just exist, live.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Someday, the myth of change will become reality. The tale of the Great Shapeshifter of our souls will turn out to be the truest story ever told.