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==History of Therianthropy== ==History of Therianthropy==
One of the first known written and published appearances of the word "therianthropy" can be seen in "The Religious Systems of China" written by J.J.M De Groot in 1901. The usage of therianthropy can be found on page 171 of Volume IV, Book II "On the Soul and Ancestral Worship, Part 1. One of the first known written and published appearances of the word "therianthropy" can be seen in "The Religious Systems of China" written by J.J.M De Groot in 1901. The usage of therianthropy can be found on page 171 of Volume IV, Book II "On the Soul and Ancestral Worship, Part 1.

==Mythology of human shapeshifting==
{{Main|Shapeshifting}}

]" by ].]]
''Shapeshifting'' in ], mythology and ] 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 ] (transformation into a canine) and '']'' (transformation into a cat).<ref name="Greene 229">{{cite book |last=Greene |first=R. |date=2000 |title=The Magic of Shape-shifting |location=York Beach, Maine |publisher=Weiser |isbn=1-57863-171-8 |page=229}}</ref> ]s are present in the stories of several ] and ]n cultures. Ancient ] legends from Asia talk of form-changing ] known as ''kurtadams'', which translates to "wolfman".{{Citation needed |date=September 2014}} Ancient Greeks wrote of ''kynanthropy'', from κύων ''kyōn''<ref>; Woodhouse's English-Greek Dictionary; (1910)</ref> (or "canine"), which applied to mythological beings able to alternate between animal form and human form, or who possessed combined animal and human anatomical features.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}

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.<ref name="De Groot 184">{{cite book |last=De Groot |first=J. J. M. |date=1901 |title=The Religious System of China |volume=IV |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill |page=184}}</ref> 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 ]. It is described as a human-canine shapeshifter who is capable of transforming other people into animals, even against their will.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}

European folklore features ]s, who can transform into panthers or domestic cats of an enlarged size.<ref name="giant werecat">{{cite book |last=Greene |first=Rosalyn |title=The Magic of Shapeshifting |publisher=] |date=2000 |page=9}}</ref> African legends describe people who turn into ]s or ]s, while Asian werecats are typically depicted as becoming ]s.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}

===Skin-walkers and naguals===
{{Main|Skin-walker|Nagual}}

Some ] legends talk about skin-walkers—people 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 ], 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.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}

===Animal ancestors===
], the ] could transform into swans.]]

Stories of humans descending from animals are found in the oral traditions of 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 ] is of a human marrying a normal animal.

North American ] mingle the ideas of ] 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pijoan |first=T. |date=1992 |title=White Wolf Woman & Other Native American Transformation Myths |url= https://archive.org/details/whitewolfwomanna0000pijo |url-access=registration |location=Little Rock |publisher=August House |isbn=0-87483-200-4 |page=}}</ref>

P'an Hu is represented in various ] as a ] 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=White |first=D. G. |date=1991 |title=Myths of the Dog-Man |url= https://archive.org/details/mythsdogman00whit |url-access=limited |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-226-89509-2 |page=https://archive.org/details/mythsdogman00whit/page/n180 150]}}</ref>

In ], the wolf is a revered animal. The Turkic legends say the people were descendants of wolves. The legend of ] 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.<ref> Turkey Interactive CD-ROM; 2007-08-11.</ref><ref>T.C. Kultur Bakanligi; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404172049/http://www.discoverturkey.com/english/kultursanat/h-nevruz.html |date=4 April 2007}}; Ministry of Culture, Republic of Turkey; accessed 2007-08-11</ref>

===Shamanism===
Ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorized 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 ] in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts.<ref name="Steiger 1999">{{cite book |last=Steiger |first=B. |date=1999 |title=The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings |location=Farmington Hills, Michigan |publisher=Visible Ink |isbn=1-57859-078-7}}</ref> Religious historian ] has observed that beliefs regarding animal identity and transformation into animals are widespread.<ref name=Eliade>{{cite book |last=Eliade |first=Mircea |title=Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth |publisher=Harper & Row |date=1965}}</ref>

=== Animal spirits ===
]'', a painting by ].]]
In ]n cultures there exists the belief in the ''tamaniu'' or ''atai'', which describes the animal counterpart to a person.<ref name=":1" /> Specifically among the Solomon Islands in Melanesia, the term ''atai'' means "soul" in the Mota language and is closely related to the term ''ata,'' meaning a "reflected image" in Maori and "shadow" in Samoan. Terms relating to the "spirit" in these islands such as ''figona and vigona'' convey a being that has not been in human form<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ivens |first=Walter |date=January 1934 |title=The Diversity of Culture in Melanesia |journal=The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=64 |pages=45–56 |doi=10.2307/2843946 |jstor=2843946}}</ref> The animal counterpart depicted may take the form of an eel, shark, lizard, or some other creature. This creature is considered to be corporeal and can understand human speech. It shares the same soul as its master. This concept is found in similar legends which have many characteristics typical of shapeshifter tales. Among these characteristics is the theory that death or injury would affect both the human and animal form at once.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Hamel |first=F. |date=1969 |title=Human Animals, Werewolves & Other Transformations |location=New Hyde Park, New York |publisher=University Books |isbn=0-8216-0092-3 |page=21}}</ref>


==Fiction== ==Fiction==

Revision as of 00:39, 6 January 2024

Mythological ability or affliction to metamorphose into animals This article is about the mythology topic. For people who identify as not entirely human, see Otherkin.
This page is currently being merged.
After a discussion, consensus to merge this page with Shapeshifting was found. You can help implement the merge by following the instructions at Help:Merging and the resolution on the discussion. Process started in September 2023.

Therianthropy is the mythological ability or affliction of individuals to metamorphose into animals or hybrids by means of shapeshifting. It is possible that cave drawings found at Cave of the Trois-Frères, in France, depict ancient beliefs in the concept.

The best-known form of therianthropy, called lycanthropy, is found in stories of werewolves.

Etymology

The term therianthropy comes from the Greek thēríon 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. Sometimes the term zoanthropy is used instead.

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. 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.

History of Therianthropy

One of the first known written and published appearances of the word "therianthropy" can be seen in "The Religious Systems of China" written by J.J.M De Groot in 1901. The usage of therianthropy can be found on page 171 of Volume IV, Book II "On the Soul and Ancestral Worship, Part 1.

Fiction

In literary criticism, the ability of a fictional character to transform into an animal or human–animal hybrid is called animorphism. It is a common trope in the fantasy genre. In some cases, the transformation is involuntary, caused by magic, a curse, or some other supernatural force, while in other cases, the transformation is voluntary and controllable. Animorphism may be used to explore themes of identity and belonging. It has also be used to examine the relationship between humans and animals, and to drive considerations about wider issues relating to animal rights.

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. Others regard clinical lycanthropy as a delusion in the sense of the self-disorder found in affective and schizophrenic disorders, or as a symptom of other psychiatric disorders.

See also

References

  1. Cree Brown, C.; Coulter, John (2018). "Transcendence".
  2. De Groot, J. J. M. (1901). The Religious System of China. Vol. IV. Leiden: Brill. p. 171.
  3. Guiley, R. E. (2005). The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves & Other Monsters. New York: Facts on File. p. 192. ISBN 0-8160-4685-9.
  4. Brinkley, Frank; Kikuchi, Dairoku (1915). A History of the Japanese People from the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era. The Encyclopædia Britannica Co. therianthropy
  5. Ramsland, Katherine (2005). The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation. Berkley Hardcover. ISBN 0-425-20765-X.
  6. Reddleman, Claire (4 May 2015). "Vampires, Foetuses and Ventriloquism: Metaphor as a Representational Strategy in Capital Volume 1". Socialism and Democracy. 29 (2): 25–40. doi:10.1080/08854300.2015.1037604. ISSN 0885-4300. S2CID 142976229.
  7. Anderson, Nicole (2020). "Humanimal Politics". Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal. 53 (2): 125–137. ISSN 0027-1276. JSTOR 27092960.
  8. Weinstein, Jami; Colebrook, Claire, eds. (2017). Posthumous Life: Theorizing Beyond the Posthuman. Columbia University Press. doi:10.7312/wein17214. ISBN 978-0-231-17214-1. JSTOR 10.7312/wein17214.
  9. Bogna, Konior (24 January 2018). Animorphism in the anthropocene: nonhuman personhood in activist art practice (PDF) (Thesis). Hong Kong Baptist University. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  10. LeeAnn, Derdeyn (26 November 2018). "Trauma and the Anthropocene: Fear and Loathing in Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk". ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 25 (4): 767–785. doi:10.1093/isle/isy059. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
  11. Keck, P. E.; Pope, H. G.; Hudson, J. I.; McElroy, S. L.; Kulick, A. R. (February 1988). "Lycanthropy: Alive and well in the twentieth century". Psychological Medicine. 18 (1): 113–120. doi:10.1017/S003329170000194X. PMID 3363031. S2CID 27491377.
  12. Garlipp, P.; Godecke-Koch, T.; Dietrich, D. E.; Haltenhof, H. (January 2004). "Lycanthropy—psychopathological and psychodynamically aspects". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 109 (1): 19–22. doi:10.1046/j.1600-0447.2003.00243.x. PMID 14674954. S2CID 41324350.
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