The Indigenous Isidoro Calderon

Isidoro Calderón lived in San Pedro de Turrubares, in the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. At that time, Turrubares was a small agricultural town, known for its mountains, animals, and rivers.

Isidoro was the son of Santiago Calderón and Margarita Quirós. He had a very simple life: he was a lonely man, with no studies, that could not read or write, did not wear any type of shoes, never got married, did not drink or smoke, and never worked for anyone.

When he was hungry, he would go cut bijagua (leafs that can be dried to wrap meat and other types of food). In Turrubares, there were many bijaguales, thus he would cut them and sell them to buy himself food. Otherwise, he would visit family members willing to feed him.

Isidro was famous because he had a very special power, the power to transform himself into any animal he wished. He would only do it for fun, and not with the purpose of hurting anyone. His ability was completely natural, without the need of prayer or magic. It is said, that he would transform himself into a cat, deer, jaguar, pizote, and any other animal he wished.

In one occasion, Isidoro found a man planting corn. The man had a shotgun next to him, on the root of a tree. At 8 in the morning, the man saw a deer running by, and he immediately shot it and killed it. He was very happy with his hunt, so he took the deer to his house, and put it on a bench in his porch. When his wife came out she was also very happy, and she asked her husband to cut the animal’s testicles to prepare them for lunch. Back then, people used to have lunch early in the morning, so the hungry man told his wife that he did not want to wait, that he wanted to start eating then, and leave the deer outside for now. To their surprise, when they came out after lunch, the deer was gone.

That same afternoon, the man went to town and found Isidoro, who teased him: "Why didn’t you kill the deer? That was not very smart of you?" It was him all the time.

Another one of Isidoro's pranks was to a gentleman called Osvaldo Marín Castro, who was a professional monteador. Don Osvaldo used to go hunting every week and would always catch something. Isidoro would always tell him where to hunt. Until one day, Don Osvaldo got angry at Isidoro. He called him an ignorant old man amongst other insults.

Since that day, Don Osvaldo could not hunt anything. After some time, he decided to go back to his friend Isidoro, and ask him for help. He took some candy, food, and other things to make him happy, and ask him to recommend good places for hunting again.

It is also said, that during his life Isidoro met the ex president of Costa Rica Don Teodoro Picado. The Picado’s family had a farm in San Pedro of Turrubares, where they would always go for vacations. Isidoro met them because he liked to play with children very much, and at that time Don Teodoro was only a child. Isidoro would get fruit from the trees for the child to eat, and would also take him horse back riding.

Isidoro continued his life of fun and pranks until he died at approximately 65 years old.