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Tom Powell, an artist in his seventh year of helping to build the boogeyman El Kookooee, playfully chases a child with teeth that will be placed on the 20-foot effigy. The burning of El Kookooee and the Festival de Otoño will be held Sunday in the South Valley.

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Tom Powell laid his fears on the table: a leg here, an arm there, a large triangular head split open at the jaw.

This symbol of fear is the 20-foot El Kookooee, a boogeyman made of wood and other materials. Powell and his friends plan to put the pieces together to breathe life into the New Mexican folklore legend only to see it waste away in flames.

Fears will be put to rest as El Kookooee burns in the South Valley on Sunday night during the Festival de Otoño, a celebration of fall that draws hundreds to thousands of people.

Powell, one of the artists building El Kookooee in his backyard, said the burning of the effigy is important and very different from Santa Fe's Zozobra, an effigy in which people burn their worries.

"I think fear is much more profound emotionally than worry," Powell said. "Fear and love are the dominant emotions."

People drop their fears in El Kookooee's sack, then they watch them burn along with the 20-foot structure.

Rudolfo Anaya, a New Mexico author, said he came up with the idea in 1990.

"I called some artists together and said, `Why don't we build an effigy of the Kookooee?' " he said.

He said El Kookooee, spelled El Cucui in Spanish, is an oral folk tradition in New Mexico, much like the story of La Llorona, the weeping woman.

"It's been used by parents many years to make children behave," he said. " `If you stay out late at night the Kookooee will get you.' "

The reason he started it was because he wanted people to be more aware of New Mexico's tradition of storytelling.

"This is very much in keeping with the customs people have," he said. "Part of that oral tradition is dying. This kind of brings it to the forefront."

Constructing the effigy was one way to keep the tradition alive.

"By building the effigy, we bring a visual representation of this creature that's created in this folklore and make it real," he said.

Anaya said this was the perfect season to burn El Kookooee.

"It's appropriate in October, which is the harvest season, to burn this effigy," he said. "It's the end of a farming cycle."

Organizers say the Festival de Otoño is more than just about burning fear. It's a festival to build and celebrate the community.

Robert Lucero, board member of the Rio Grande Community Development Corp., volunteers with the art and literature component for the festival.

Through the art project, the schools in the Rio Grande cluster compete to write poetry and essays.

Students submit essays or poetry based on their feelings or memories of the South Valley, Lucero said.

The essays can also relate to the burning of El Kookooee.

This year, Harrison Middle School and Adobe Acres Elementary students are competing in the contest.

The students also compete to design El Kookooee. The winning student sees his or her creation become the 20-foot effigy for that year.

At least 50 people are involved in organizing the event and about eight are involved in the building of the structure.

One of the strangest Kookooees was a half-Santa Claus, half-devil effigy, whose head swiveled around, Powell said.

This year the effigy is a dragonlike Kookooee with large teeth and turquoise wings.

The whole event welcomes community participation, organizers say.

"The importance is to get a community connection, to see the South Valley as a community," said Lucero.

Anaya said he has strong ties to the South Valley, and that's why he chose it for the burning of El Kookooee.

"I taught school in the South Valley long ago when I started teaching, and I always had a connection to the South Valley," he said. "The South Valley has a history of being an agricultural valley, and it seemed like the place to go and people accepted what we were doing."

Powell said the burning of El Kookooee is a much smaller event than the burning of Zozobra, and it is more focused on the fellowship of its citizens.

"Zozobra has become a rather commercial event, and the community has been excluded," he said. "Every year, Zozobra looks the same, and this one (El Kookooee) is constantly evolving."

Before the event at 3:30 p.m. will be the dedication of the El Kookooee Archive, which comprises photos of past Kookooees. The archive will be on display in the Special Collections Library, 423 Central Ave. The models students made of each year's winning Kookooee will be displayed at the South Valley Library.

As Sunday approaches, organizers of the event will be prepared for anything.

When people come to face their fears, who knows what can happen.

Last year, as El Kookooee was in flames, the image of the face came out from the smoke and started to glow.

"That's what makes it worthwhile; things happen fortuitously," Powell said.