Therianthropy

Valkyries, having shed their swan skins, appear as swan maidens

Therianthropy is the mythological ability of human beings to metamorphose into other animals by means of shapeshifting. It is possible that cave drawings found at Les Trois Frères, in France, depict ancient beliefs in the concept. The most well known form of therianthropy is found in stories concerning werewolves.

Etymology

The term "therianthropy" comes from the Greek theríon [θηρίον], meaning "wild animal" or "beast" (implicitly mammalian); and anthrōpos [ἄνθρωπος], meaning "human being." It was used to refer to animal transformation folklore of Europe as early as 1901.^[1] Sometimes the term "zoanthropy" is used instead.^[2] Therianthropy was used to describe spiritual beliefs in animal transformation in a 1915 Japanese publication, "A History of the Japanese People from the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era."^[3] One source, "The Human Predator," raises the possibility the term may have been used as early as the 16th century in criminal trials of suspected werewolves.^[4]

History of therianthropy and theriocephaly

Therianthropy refers to the fantastical, or mythological, ability of some humans to change into animals.^[5] Therianthropes are said to change forms via shapeshifting. Therianthropy has long existed in mythology, and seems to be depicted in ancient cave drawings^[6] such as The Sorcerer, a pictograph executed at the neolithic cave drawings found in the Pyrénées at the Les Trois Frères, France, archeological site.

Theriocephaly refers to beings which simultaneously share human and non-human animal traits. For example, the animal-headed humanoid forms of gods depicted in ancient Egyptian religion (such as Ra, Sobek, Anubis). Mythological creatures such as centaurs and mermaids exhibit theriocephaly.

The mythology of human shapeshifting

A frog changes into a princess in the painting Tsarevna Frog ("The Frog Princess") by Viktor Vasnetsov

Shapeshifting in folklore, mythology and anthropology, generally refers to the alteration of physical appearance from that of a human to that of another species. Lycanthropy, the transformation of a human into a wolf (or werewolf), is probably the best known form of therianthropy, followed by cynanthropy (transformation into a dog) and ailuranthropy (transformation into a cat).^[7] Werehyenas are present in the stories of several African and Eurasian cultures. Ancient Turkic legends from Asia talk of form changing shamans known as "Kurtadams," which translates to "wolfman". Ancient Greeks wrote of "kynanthropy," from Kyon^[8] (or "dog"), which applied to mythological beings able to alternate between dog form and human form, or who possessed combined dog and human anatomical features.

The term existed by at least 1901, when it was applied to stories from China about humans turning into dogs, dogs becoming people, and sexual relations between humans and canines.^[9] Anthropologist David Gordon White called Central Asia the "vortex of cynanthropy" because races of dog-men were habitually placed there by ancient writers. The weredog or cynanthrope is also known in Timor. It is described as a human-canine shapeshifter who is capable of transforming other people into animals, even against their will.

European folklore feature werecats, who can transform into panthers or domestic cats of an enlarged size.^[10] African legends describe people who turn into lions or leopards, while Asian werecats are typically depicted as becoming tigers.

Skin-walkers and naguals

Some Native American and First Nation legends talk about skin-walkers—persons with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal they desire. To do so, however, they first must be wearing a pelt of the specific animal. In the folk religion of Mesoamerica, a Nagual (or Nahual) is a human being who has the power to magically turn themselves into animal forms—most commonly donkeys, turkeys, and dogs—but can also transform into more powerful jaguars and pumas.

Animal ancestors

In the Irish Mythological Cycle, the Children of Lir could transform into swans

Stories of humans descending from animals are found in the oral traditions for many tribal and clan origins. Sometimes the original animals had assumed human form in order to ensure their descendants retained their human shapes; other times the origin story is of a human marrying a normal animal.

North American indigenous traditions mingle the ideas of bear ancestors and ursine shapeshifters, with bears often being able to shed their skins to assume human form, marrying human women in this guise. The offspring may be creatures with combined anatomy, they may be very beautiful children with uncanny strength, or they may be shapeshifters themselves.^[11]

P'an Hu is represented in various Chinese legends as a supernatural dog, a dog-headed man, or a canine shapeshifter that married an emperor's daughter and founded at least one race. When he is depicted as a shapeshifter, all of him can become human except for his head. The race(s) descended from P'an Hu were often characterized by Chinese writers as monsters who combined human and dog anatomy.^[12]

In Turkic mythology, the wolf is a revered animal. The Turkic legends say the people were descendants of wolves. The legend of Asena is an old Turkic myth that tells of how the Turkic people were created. In the legend, a small Turkic village in northern China is raided by Chinese soldiers, with one baby left behind. An old she-wolf with a sky-blue mane named Asena finds the baby and nurses him. She later gives birth to half-wolf, half-human cubs who are the ancestors of the Turkic people.^[13][14]

Shamanism

Ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorised that cave paintings of beings with human and non-human animal features were not physical representations of mythical shapeshifters, but were instead attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts.^[15] Religious historian Mircea Eliade has observed that beliefs regarding animal identity and transformation into animals are widespread.^[16]

Animal spirits

In North and Central America, and to some extent in west Africa, Australia and other parts of the world, tribal males acquire at puberty a tutelary spirit. In some Native American tribes the youth kills the animal of which he dreams in his initiation fast; its claw, skin or feathers are put into a little bag, and become his "medicine." This "medicine" must be carefully retained, for once lost, it can never be replaced. In west Africa this relation is said to be entered into by means of the blood bond, and it is so close that the death of the animal causes the man to die and vice versa. Elsewhere the possession of a tutelary spirit in animal form is the privilege of the magician. The inuit candidate for magical powers has to leave the abodes of men; the chief of the gods sends an otter to meet him, which he kills by saying "O" four times; he then cuts out its tongue and thereby secures the powers which he seeks.

A man transforms into a werewolf in this 1722 German woodcut

The people of Banana area of the Congo are said to change themselves by use of magic potions composed of human embryos and other ingredients, but in their leopard form they may do no harm to mankind under pain of retaining forever the beast's shape. In some other cultures the change may be made for the purposes of evil magic and human victims are not prohibited. The Zulu belief is that the magician's familiar is really a transformed human being; when he finds a dead body on which he can work his spells without fear of discovery, the shaman breathes a sort of life into it, which enables it to move and speak. Further spells have the effect of changing the revivified body into the form of some animal, usually a hyena, owl or wildcat (with the latter being most favored). This creature then becomes the shaman's servant and obeys him in all things; its chief use is, however, to inflict sickness and death upon persons who are disliked by its master.

The Malays believe that the office of pawang (or "priest") is only hereditary if the soul of the dead priest, in the form of a tiger, passes into the body of his son. While the familiar is often regarded as the alternative form of the magician, the nagual (bush-soul) is commonly regarded as wholly distinct from the human being. Beliefs are also found in which the power of transformation is attributed to the whole of the population of certain areas, especially in Africa.

A water spirit takes on a human form in The Kelpie, a painting by Herbert James Draper

In Melanesia there is a belief in the tamaniu or atai, which is an animal counterpart to a person. It may be an eel, a shark, a lizard, or some other creature. This creature is corporeal, can understand human speech, and shares the same soul as its master, leading to legends which have many characteristics typical of shapeshifter tales, such as any death or injury affecting both forms at once.^[17]

Psychiatric aspects

Among a sampled set of psychiatric patients, the belief of being part animal, or clinical lycanthropy, is generally associated with severe psychosis, but not always with any specific psychiatric diagnosis or neurological findings.^[18] Others regard clinical lycanthropy as a delusion in the sense of the self-identity disorder found in affective and schizophrenic disorders, or as a symptom of other psychiatric disorders.^[19]

"Therians" are individuals who believe or feel, on an internal level, that they are non-human animals in a spiritual sense.^[20][21] There are also others who claim to have a psychological or neuro-biological connection—rather than a spiritual one—to their creature of identification. Both often use the term "species dysphoria" to describe their feelings of disconnect from their human bodies and their underlying desire to live as their stated creature.

References in popular culture

Although the werewolf is the best known animal transformation figure in popular western culture, the plots of several novels in the fantasy and mythic fiction fields revolve around other kinds of therianthropic characters. Swim the Moon, by Paul Brandon, is set in contemporary Australia and explores Scottish selkie legends. The Antelope Wife, by Louise Erdrich, set in modern-day Minnesota, draws on Ojibwe myths of women who can shift between human and antelope shape. The Fox Woman, by Kij Johnson, set in historic Japan, re-tells a kitsune legend in novel form. Coyote Blue, by Christopher Moore, is a contemporary comic novel about a Native American trickster who can shift between human and coyote forms. Hannah's Garden, by Midori Snyder, set in the rural American Midwest, draws on Anglo-Irish legends of shape-changing hares to tell a story about death, family dynamics, and the power of creativity. The Wood Wife, by Terri Windling, set in Tucson, Arizona, and most of the novels of Charles de Lint, set in Canada, blend the shape-shifting legends of European folklore, the therianthropic lore of tricksters and shamans, and animal-human hybrid characters drawn from various Native American mythologies. Alice Hoffman draws on the folklore of therianthropy and lycanthropy in her contemporary novel, Second Nature, although in this case the protagonist shiftshapes metaphorically rather than literally, having been raised by wolves in the wild.^[22][23]

See also

• Boanthropy
• List of shapeshifters in myth and fiction
• Otherkin
• Zoanthropy

Notes and references