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 1763 engraving of a weretiger | |
| Grouping | Therianthrope |
|---|---|
| Similar entities | Werewolf Skin-walker |
| Folklore | Legendary creature Mythological hybrid |
| Other name(s) | Vârcopisică |
A werecat (also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analog to "werewolf" for a feline therianthropic creature.
Ailuranthropy comes from the Greek root words ailouros meaning "cat", [1] and anthropos, meaning "human" [2] and refers to human/feline transformations, or to other beings that combine feline and human characteristics. Its root word ailouros is also used in ailurophilia, the most common term for a deep love of cats. [3] [4] [5]
Ailuranthrope is a lesser-known term that refers to a feline therianthrope. [6]
Depending on the story in question, the species involved can be a domestic cat, [7] a tiger, [8] a lion, [9] a leopard, [10] a lynx, or any other type, including some that are purely mythical felines. [11] Werecats are increasingly featured in popular culture, although not as often as werewolves. [12]
European folklore usually depicts werecats as people who transform into domestic cats. Some European werecats became giant domestic cats [11] or panthers. They are generally labelled witches, even though they may have no magical ability other than self-transformation. [13] During the witch trials [ which? ], all shapeshifters, including werewolves, were considered witches whether they were male or female. [14]
African legends describe werelions, werepanthers or wereleopards. In the case of leopards, this is often because the creature is really a leopard deity masquerading as a human. When these gods mate with humans, offspring can be produced, and these children sometimes grow up to be shapeshifters; those who do not transform may instead have other powers. In reference to werecats who turn into lions, the ability is often associated with royalty. Such a being may have been a king or queen in a former life. [15]
In Africa, there are folk tales that speak of the "Nunda," or the "Mngwa," a big cat of immense size that stalks villages at night. Many of these tales say it is more ferocious than a Lion and more agile than a Leopard. The Nunda are believed by some to be a variation of therianthrope that, by day, is a human, but by night becomes the werecat. No actual evidence of such a creature existing has ever been documented, but in 1938 a British administrator named William Hitchens, working in Tanzania, was told by locals that a monstrous cat had been attacking people at night. Huge paw prints were found to be much larger than any known big-cat, but Hitchens dismissed the case, believing it more likely to be a lion with gigantism. [16]
Mainland Asian werecats usually become tigers. [17] In India, the weretiger is often a dangerous sorcerer, portrayed as a menace to livestock, who might at any time turn to man-eating. These tales travelled through the rest of India and into Persia through travellers who encountered the royal Bengal tigers of India and then further west. [18] Chinese legends often describe weretigers as the victims of either a hereditary curse or a vindictive ghost. Alternatively, the ghosts of people who had been killed by tigers could become a malevolent supernatural being known as "Chang" (伥), devoting all their energy to making sure that tigers killed more humans. Some of these ghosts were responsible for transforming ordinary humans into man-eating weretigers. Also, in Japanese folklore there are creatures called bakeneko that are similar to kitsune (fox spirits) and bake-danuki (Japanese raccoon dog spirits). In Thailand a tiger that eats many humans may become a weretiger. There are also other types of weretigers, such as sorcerers with great powers who can change their form to become animals.
In both present-day Indonesia and Malaysia there is another kind of weretiger, known as Harimau jadian. Linguist and writer Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad for example has compiled oral stories of a famous weretiger named Dato' Paroi fabled to have led the flock of all tigers that roamed in his home area of Negeri Sembilan. [19] In Malaysia too,[ where? ] Bajangs[ further explanation needed ] have been described as vampiric or demonic werecats.[ citation needed ] The Kerinchi Malays of Sumatra were reputed to have the ability to transform into weretigers. [20]
In the central area of the Indonesian island of Java the power of transformation is regarded as due to inheritance, to the use of spells, to fasting and willpower, to the use of charms, etc. Save when it is hungry or has just cause for revenge it is not hostile to man; in fact, it is said to take its animal form only at night and to guard the plantations from wild pigs. Variants of this belief assert that the shapeshifter does not recognize his friends unless they call him by name, or that he goes out as a mendicant and transforms himself to take vengeance on those who refuse him alms. Somewhat similar is the belief of the Khonds; for them the tiger is friendly, and he reserves his wrath for their enemies. A man is said to take the form of a tiger in order to wreak a just vengeance. [21]
The foremost were-animal in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures was the were-jaguar. It was associated with the veneration of the jaguar, with priests and shamans among the various peoples who followed this tradition, wearing the skins of jaguars to "become" a were-jaguar. Among the Aztecs, an entire class of specialized warriors who dressed in the jaguar skins were called "jaguar warriors" or "jaguar knights". Depictions of the jaguar and the were-jaguar are among the most common motifs among the artifacts of the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations.[ citation needed ]
N. W. Thomas wrote in the 11th ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) that, according to Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), the kanaima was a human being who employed poison to carry out his function of blood avenger, and that other authorities represent the kanaima as a jaguar, which was either an avenger of blood or the familiar of a cannibalistic sorcerer. He also mentioned that in 1911 some Europeans in Brazil believed that the seventh child of the same sex in unbroken succession becomes a were-man or woman, and takes the form of a horse, goat, jaguar or pig. [21]
In the US, urban legends tell of encounters with feline bipeds; beings similar to the Bigfoot having cat heads, tails, and paws. Feline bipeds are sometimes classified as part of cryptozoology, but more often they are interpreted as werecats. [22]
Assertions that werecats truly exist and have an origin in supernatural or religious realities have been common for centuries, with these beliefs often being hard to entirely separate from folklore. In the 19th century, occultist J. C. Street asserted that material cat and dog transformations could be produced by manipulating the "ethereal fluid" that human bodies are supposedly floating in. [23] The Catholic witch-hunting manual, the Malleus Maleficarum , asserted that witches can turn into cats, but that their transformations are illusions created by demons. [24] New Age author John Perkins asserted that every person has the ability to shapeshift into "jaguars, bushes, or any other form" by using mental power. [25] Occultist Rosalyn Greene claims that werecats called "cat shifters" exist as part of a "shifter subculture" or underground New Age religion based on lycanthropy and related beliefs. [26]
The Malleus Maleficarum, usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, is the best known treatise purporting to be about witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486. Some describe it as the compendium of literature in demonology of the 15th century. Kramer blamed women for his own lust, and presented his views as the Church's position. The book was condemned by top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne for recommending unethical and illegal procedures, and for being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology.
In folklore, a werewolf, or occasionally lycanthrope is an individual who can shape-shift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction, with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon. Early sources for belief in this ability or affliction, called lycanthropy, are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228).
In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual or nahual is a human being who has the power to shapeshift into their tonal animal counterpart. Nagualism is tied to the belief one can access power and spiritual insight by connecting with the tonal animal within.
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture.
Werewolf fiction denotes the portrayal of werewolves and other shapeshifting therianthropes, in the media of literature, drama, film, games and music. Werewolf literature includes folklore, legend, saga, fairy tales, Gothic and horror fiction, fantasy fiction and poetry. Such stories may be supernatural, symbolic or allegorical. A classic cinematic example of the theme is The Wolf Man (1941) which in later films joins with the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula as one of the three famous icons of modern day horror. However, werewolf fiction is an exceptionally diverse genre, with ancient folkloric roots and manifold modern re-interpretations.
Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into, has transformed into, or is, a non-human animal. Its name is associated with the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in which humans are said to physically shapeshift into wolves.
A Congolese spotted lion, also known by the portmanteau lijagulep, is the hybrid of a male lion and female jaguar-leopard. Several lijaguleps have been bred, but only one appears to have been exhibited as a Congolese spotted lion. It was most likely given that name by a showman because the public were more interested in exotic captured animals than in captive-bred hybrids.
A Panthera hybrid is a crossbreed between individuals of any of the five species of the genus Panthera: the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. Most hybrids would not be perpetuated in the wild as the territories of the parental species do not overlap and the males are usually infertile. Mitochondrial genome research revealed that wild hybrids were also present in ancient times. The mitochondrial genomes of the snow leopard and the lion were more similar to each other than to other Panthera species, indicating that at some point in their history, the female progeny of male ancestors of modern snow leopards and female ancestors of modern lions interbred with male ancestors of modern snow leopards.
Werehyena is a neologism coined in analogy to werewolf for therianthropy involving hyenas. It is common in the folklore of the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Near East as well as some adjacent territories. Unlike werewolves and other therianthropes, which are usually portrayed as being originally human, some werehyena lore tells of how they can also be hyenas disguised as humans.
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.
Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures.
Cynanthropy is, in psychiatry, the pathological delusion of real persons that they are dogs and in anthropology and folklore, the supposed magical practice of shape-shifting alternately between dog and human form, or the possession of combined canine and human anatomical features, a form of therianthropy.
Parc des Félins is a zoological park in France dedicated to the breeding and conservation of wild members of the cat family. It is located in the commune of Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux in Seine-et-Marne, about 53.6 km (33.3 mi) southeast of Paris.
Panthera Corporation, or Panthera, is a charitable organization devoted to preserving wild cats and their ecosystems around the globe. Founded in 2006, Panthera is devoted to the conservation of the world’s 40 species of wild cats and the vast ecosystems they inhabit. Their team of biologists, data scientists, law enforcement experts and wild cat advocates studies and protects the seven species of big cats: cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, lions, pumas, snow leopards and tigers. Panthera also creates targeted conservation strategies for the world’s most threatened and overlooked small cats, such as fishing cats, ocelots and Andean cats. The organization has offices in New York City and Europe, as well as offices in Mesoamerica, South America, Africa and Asia.
In mythology and literature, a werewoman or were-woman is a woman who has taken the form of an animal through a process of lycanthropy. The use of the word "were" refers to the ability to shape-shift but is, taken literally, a contradiction in terms since in Old English the word "wer" means man. This would mean it literally translates to "man-woman".
The Black Jaguar-White Tiger Foundation is an unregistered and unlicensed non-profit 501(c)(3) wildlife facility located in Mexico. BJWT hosts big cats as well as dogs and other animals. BJWT was shut down by Mexican authorities on July 5, 2022, due to a viral video showing the cats eating themselves alive.
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