Sacamantecas

thumb|Apothecary containers for Axungia hominis (human fat), 17th-18th centuries. Sacamantecas ("Fat extractor" in Spanish) or mantequero ("Fat seller/maker") is the Spanish name for a kind of bogeyman or criminal characterized by killing for human fat.

==Anthropology== Julian Pitt-Rivers reports in his study of Alcalá de la Sierra, the belief that village children can be stolen by an outsider, called el sacamantecas, disguised as a beggar or a trader, who is hired by a rich man whose ill child can only be cured with the blood of healthy babies. The practice of blood donation lent credence to the myth.