Page 78 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

58 Mysterious Creatures

continued to fashion human-animal deities of
Introduction
great power, such as the gods of ancient Egypt,
ome psychologists have suggested that which included the cat goddess Bast, the
there is something within the human canine-headed Anubis, the hawkman Horus,
Spsyche that craves monsters and mysteri- and so on. From such were-beings, it was a
ous creatures. For some individuals, the very natural progression to fashion other mystical
idea that vampires, werewolves, and chu- creatures, such as the minotaur (half-human,
pacabras are out there, lurking in the shad- half-horse), the satyr (half-human, half-goat),
ows, makes the adrenaline surge in an other- the harpy (half-woman, half-bird), and a host
wise humdrum and dull workaday world. Oth- of other hybrid entities—the vast majority
ers may find that the notion of long-necked unfavorably disposed toward humankind. And
monsters swimming in the world’s lakes, ape- somewhere along the way, certain people
like giants prowling the forests and prehistoric developed a genetic disorder known as por-
behemoths trampling down remote jungles phyria, which often brought about psychosis
ignites their creative fires. Creatures that defy and an extreme hypersensitivity to sunlight,
science, reason, and logic can thrive well in thereby suggesting that they were truly vam-
the human imagination. pires. Others succumbed to the mental illness
called lycanthropy (from the Greek, lykan,
Other researchers see some people’s fear of wolf, and thrope, man; literally, “wolf man”) in
monsters as a kind of psychic residue of primi- which people believed themselves to become
tive fears when early humankind dreaded night- actual werewolves.
fall and the predators that stalked the darkness
While many psychologists and anthropol-
for victims. Dr. Christopher Chippindale of
ogists perceive the origin of humankind’s fear
Cambridge University’s museum of archaeology
of vampires, werewolves, and other blood-
and anthropology has observed that such half-
sucking monsters to lie in the ancient night-
human, half-animal monsters as the werewolf
mares of Stone Age peoples, other researchers
and other were-creatures were painted by Stone
called cryptozoologists (from kryptos, Greek
Age artists more than 10,000 years ago. Some of
for hidden) seek to prove that such creatures
the world’s oldest art found at ancient sites in
as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and sea
Europe, Africa, and Australia depict animal-
serpents really exist. Such determined indi-
human hybrids. “In other words,” Chippindale
viduals point out that the mountain gorilla
told the Guardian newspaper, “werewolves and
was considered a superstition of the native
vampires are as old as art.” Composite beings
people of Africa until 1902 when Oscar van
from a world between animals and humans, he
Beringe, a German explorer, shot two of them
said, are a common theme to be found in the
while climbing a volcano in the eastern
earliest of cave and rock art. Such “theri-
Congo. Cryptozoologists argue that such phys-
anthropes,” or hybrid beings, are, in fact, the
ical evidence as hair samples, feces, and casts
only common denominator in primitive art
of footprints indicate that unknown species of
around the planet. These werewolves, were-
apes or apemen unrecognized by science may
lions, and were-bats belonged to an imagined
exist in the Himalayan mountains, the remote
world that early humans saw as powerful, dan-
forests of northern California and Canada,
gerous, and frightening.
and other parts of the world.
Chippindale commented that these Some cryptozoologists claim that the Loch
ancient depictions of were-animals remain Ness Monster and sea serpents could be sur-
among the most potent images that vivors from the age of the dinosaurs. The
humankind has ever created. When modern coelacanth, a bizarre fish older than the great
anthropologists or archaeologists enter the reptiles by millions of years, was thought to
caves with electric lights, he said, the paint- have been extinct for 65 million years until
ings “are still frightening.”
one was caught off the coast of South Africa
Once humankind’s psyche had absorbed in 1938. Since that time, more than 200 have
such hybrid monsters from the Stone Age, it turned up in fishnets from Indonesia to Kenya.
The Gale Enc y clopedia of the Unusu al and Unexplained