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((Short description|Belief in criminals that deform growing children))
((More citations needed|date=April 2008))
[[File:L'Homme qui rit - Les comprachicos, par Daniel Vierge.jpg|thumb|Comprachicos, illustrated by [[Daniel Vierge]]]]
'''Comprachicos''' are supposed groups in [[folklore]] who were said to change the physical appearance of human beings by manipulating growing children through deliberate [[mutilation]]. The most common methods said to be used in this practice included stunting children's growth by [[physical restraint]], [[Muzzle (device)|muzzling]] their faces to deform them, slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and [[Artificial cranial deformation|causing their bones to malform]].<ref name="Hugo">((cite book|last= Hugo|first= Victor|title= The Man Who Laughs|url=|accessdate= |publisher= A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Ce|isbn= 978-2-07-041871-8|chapter=|page=|year=|orig-year= April 1869 ))</ref> The term is a compound [[Spanish language|Spanish]] [[neologism]] meaning "child-buyers", which was coined by [[Victor Hugo]] in his novel ''[[The Man Who Laughs]]''. The words '''comprapequeños''' and '''cheylas''' are also used.<ref name="Kaiser">((cite journal| last = Kaiser | first = John Boynton |date= July 1913 | title = The Comprachicos | journal = Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology | volume = 4 | issue = 2| pages = 247–264| publisher = [[Northwestern University]] | doi = 10.2307/1133105 | bibcode =| jstor = 1133105| quote = The word Comprachicos was coined by Hugo; so much is established ))</ref>  The resulting dwarfed and deformed adults made their living as [[Charlatan|mountebanks]] or were sold to lords and ladies to be used as pages or [[Jester|court fools]] or [[court dwarf]]s.

==Historical references==
[[Victor Hugo]]'s novel ''[[The Man Who Laughs]]'' is the story of a young aristocrat kidnapped and disfigured by his captors to display a permanent malicious grin. At the opening of the book, Hugo provides a description of the Comprachicos:

<blockquote>The Comprachicos worked on man as the [[Bonsai|Chinese work on trees]]. A sort of fantastic stunted thing left their hands; it was ridiculous and wonderful. They could touch up a little being with such skill that its father could not have recognized it. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the face. Children destined for [[wiktionary:tumbler#English|tumblers]] had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner; thus gymnasts were made. Not only did the Comprachicos take away his face from the child; they also took away his memory. At least, they took away all they could of it; the child had no consciousness of the mutilation to which he had been subjected. Of burnings by sulphur and incisions by the iron he remembered nothing. The Comprachicos deadened the little patient by means of a [[Anesthetic|stupefying powder]] which was thought to be magical and which suppressed all pain.<ref name="Hugo" /></blockquote>

According to John Boynton Kaiser, "Victor Hugo has given us a pretty faithful picture of many characteristic details of social England of the 17th century; but the word Comprachicos is used to describe a people whose characteristics are an unhistorical conglomeration of much that was once actual but then obsolete in the history of human society."<ref name="Kaiser" />

One of the common creations of the Comprachicos was supposed to be artificial dwarfs, formed "by anointing babies' spines with the grease of bats, moles and [[dormice]]" and using drugs such as "[[Sambucus ebulus|dwarf elder]], [[knotgrass]], and daisy juice". The conception was known to [[Shakespeare]], as Beatrice K. Otto pointed out, quoting ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'':<ref>((cite book
|last= Otto
|first= Beatrice K.
|title= Fools are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World
|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KSTK1C7LqegC&q=Comprachicos&pg=PA29
|accessdate= 2008-04-28
|publisher= [[University of Chicago Press]]
|isbn= 0-226-64091-4
|chapter= Facets of the Fool
|page= 29
|year= 2001
|orig-year= 2001-04-01
))</ref><blockquote>Get you gone, dwarf;<br>You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;</blockquote>

Other means of creating this result were conjectured to include physical stunting by breaking or dislocating bones, and forcible constraint, whereby growth was inhibited for a long enough period to create permanent deformation. ((Citation needed span|text=Because of the demand for dwarfs and other novelties in the courts of kings at this time, this could have been a profitable occupation.|date=January 2023|reason=claim of economic inventive; implies a dwarf market and a dwarf industry))

==Modern references==
((In popular culture|section|date=January 2023))
The term ''comprachico'' is very uncommonly used in modern English except in reference or allusion to the antiquated folklore,((Citation needed|date=October 2011)) but similar stories do exist in the English speaking world. For instance, a tale circulating since at least the 1980s tells of a [[Japan]]ese bride who disappears during her honeymoon in [[Europe]]; years later her husband discovers she has been abducted, mutilated, and forced to work in a freak show.<ref>((cite web |url=http://www.snopes.com/weddings/horrors/shanghai.asp |title=The Shanghai'd Bride |last=Mikkelson |first=Barbara |date=12 November 2006 |website=Snopes.com |access-date=6 March 2007))</ref> The shock documentary ''Mondo Cane'' (1962) shows apparently actual criminals arrested for crippling children to be used as beggars.  The novel ''[[Q & A (novel)|Q & A]]'' (2005) and its film adaptation ''[[Slumdog Millionaire]]'' (2008) portrays a gang that blinds children to create beggars.

"Comprachico" has been adopted as a pejorative term used for individuals and entities who manipulate the minds and attitudes of children in a way that will permanently distort their beliefs or worldview. Twentieth-century philosopher [[Ayn Rand]] referred to educators of the time as "the Comprachicos of the mind" in her article "The Comprachicos". Her criticism was targeted especially toward [[Educational progressivism|educational progressivists]], but also grade-school and high-school educators who, in her view, used psychologically harmful methods of education.<ref>Rand, Ayn: "The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution", pp. 41–95. Signet/NAL/Penguin, 1975</ref><ref>[http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr005=vqt6kzx6s2.app7a&page=NewsArticle&id=6151&news_iv_ctrl=1069 Ayn Rand and her thoughts on Rational Education] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117030726/http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr005=vqt6kzx6s2.app7a&page=NewsArticle&id=6151&news_iv_ctrl=1069 |date=2013-01-17 )) Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D.</ref>

[[James Ellroy]] refers to them and Victor Hugo's novel in ''[[The Black Dahlia (novel)|The Black Dahlia]]'', where the concept is a major motivation for the murder of Elizabeth Short.

In the 2010 album ''[[Immersion (album)|Immersion]]'' by [[Australia]]n [[Drum and Bass]] band [[Pendulum (drum and bass band)|Pendulum]], one of the songs was named "Comprachicos", where the lyrics had references to manipulation and restraint.

The 2011 DC comic Batman and Robin #26 contained a villain whose father disfigured him after reading about the "Comprachicos" in Hugo's novel.

[[SCP Foundation|SCP-2912]] refers to the Comprachicos' work (also called "child breaking") as being an outdated form of "clown breeding", used to create freaks for anomalous freak shows.<ref>((Cite web|title=SCP-2912 - SCP Foundation|url=https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2912|access-date=2022-01-24|website=The SCP Foundation|language=en))</ref>

==See also==
* [[Imbunche]]
* [[Artificial cranial deformation]]
* [[Foot binding]]
* [[Castrato]]
* [[Pizzagate conspiracy theory]]
* [[Satanic panic]]

==References==
((Reflist))

((The Man Who Laughs))

[[Category:Body modification]]
[[Category:Folklore]]

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