When I was a little girl, I loved to watch old horror movies. Each October, the local television station would run old Universal pictures from the 1930's. From the first scratchy 78 rpm strains of Swan Lake, I knew I'd be enjoying a visit from one of cinema's classic monsters! I had several favorites, Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi's Dracula and The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr.
The later two were special favorites as they were "monsters" who were once human beings. Through intimate contact with a magical creature--in these cases a bite--the people transform into magical creatures themselves. Furthermore, in their new form, these people could transform into animals such as bats and wolves.
The idea that someone could shape-shift into a fearsome beast is one that has been recycled over the years many times and has its roots in ancient mythic stories. Those old movie tales are purported to be of an Eastern European origin and indeed Romanian folklore has several examples of these kinds of magical man-beasts.
The Romanian vârcolac is a wolf demon. As a spirit it had the power to devour the Moon or Sun like the Norse Fenris and create an eclipse. Certain magical/sorcerer people had the power to assume the form of a wolf as a kind of magical camouflage. These people who were feared, and therefore demonized by the populace were termed vârcolac. In some versions, the vârcolac is also given vampire-like attributes. This is the case in the Bulgarian version of the creature known as a vǎrkolak.
Different variations on this theme are seen in folklore across eastern Europe and indeed Romanian folklore has them terrorizing the countryside under several different names, the pricolici which is always in the form of a large wolf or dog and the strigoi which literally translates into "witch" or "barn owl."
I would argue that the prevalence of this character in Eastern European folklore has its origins in far older traditions. In fact, such tales of human/animal monsters are told across the Northern Hemisphere. In Asia we have the example of the Japanese kitsune or werefox. In North America we have the Algonquian windigo who is a hairy man-beast that preys on human flesh. (Interestingly, the Algonquin word has its language roots in the older term wi·nteko·wa, which probably meant "owl" in another reference to "creatures of the night!") Many Egyptian deities, such as the jackal-headed Anubis, have human/animal forms and Icelandic sagas have stories of especially powerful berserkers who not only wore animal skins into battle but could literally transform themselves into wolves or bears.
This widespread imagery lends credence to the thought that early humans carried this story line from place to place as they spread across the globe. Therefore, we can imagine that it is an even older idea that underlies these tales.
Our Monsters' Shamanic Roots
Shamanism is humankind's oldest spiritual practice. A shaman is one who works with the beings in the invisible realms on behalf of their community who is uniquely characterized by her/his ability to attain trace states for the purpose of taking soul flight to journey through the spirit world. Our word "shaman" comes to us from the Tungus-speaking peoples of Siberia. Their word saman refers to someone "who is excited, moved, raised" referring to the act of being in the ecstatic trance.(1)
While in the trance, the shaman seeks to interact with the spirits to gain insight or guidance on any number of subjects that are necessary for an individual's or the community's survival. These can include finding food sources, diagnosing and healing illness, and negotiating with the spirits of nature to look favorably upon the people. During this spiritual work, the shaman may transform into an animal spirit helper to augment her/his own personal power.
In an uncanny understanding of the underlying relationships proved through modern studies of DNA, native peoples have always perceived animals as relatives or ancestral sprits. Among the Northwest Coastal First Peoples of North America, descent from a progenitor animal is a much-repeated, clan origin story.
Since human beings are related to the animals, it is easy to see how a shaman could intermingle her or himself with the animal spirit and become a shape shifter -- that is neither fully human nor animal but an amalgam of both. Stories of human/animal hybrids abound in cultures that have retained threads of their shamanic cultural roots. Often, these hybridized beings have extraordinary powers and some cultures see these beings as the first humans of their tribe.
When a shaman combined her or his power with that of an animal or revered animal ancestral spirit, the shaman could gain the strength, or cunning, or wisdom that was attributed to that being. In essence, the shaman would become more than was possible in only human form -- that is, transcending her/his ordinary nature and therefore becoming a supernatural being.
In his 1961 book, Man, God and Magic, ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorized that cave paintings of beings with human and nonhuman 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. The enigmatic cave painting of the sorcerer of Trois Freres is an excellent example. Found in a cavern known as "The Sanctuary" in Ariege France, the image depicts a half-human, half-stag figure. The painting has been dated to approximately 13,000 BCE. In Lissner's mind, the figure is a still representation--a kind of Paleolithic "snapshot"--of the process of a shaman's merging/shapeshifting. (See the Footprints Of The Ancestors section of this issue of Spirit Living for images of the Sorcerer of Trois Freres.)
The power of these beings that blended the spirits of human and animal was considered so great that a shaman could come to potential harm if the interaction wasn't handled correctly. Indeed, among the Algonquin, Kwakiutl and Danezaa-speaking Athabaskan people of North America, the merger of a person with the animal-spirit helper produces a being with two natures. In her book, Divine Hunger, Peggy Reeves Sanday suggests that, "If humans do not respect the other-than-human power of their compatriots, the latter are in danger of being dominated by their animal-spirit power and cannibalizing other humans." The suggestion is that an animal spirit's power has the potential to completely overwhelm the human being. This certainly reflects forward to the archetype of the werewolf and reinforces the need to attend to these relationships with great care.
Perhaps the scary folk tales of werewolves and their kin that we remember this time of year are actually remnants of cautionary tales from our older shamanic cultures. Rather than simple myths or scary stories, these tutelary tales remind us of our need to be impeccable in our relationships with other beings and especially with those spirits or forces in Nature that are greater than ourselves. I would argue that it is a lesson that human kind still needs to learn.
- Evelyn
© 2008 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Evelyn C. Rysdyk, author of Modern Shamanic Living is a nationally recognized presenter. Included in the book Traveling Between the Worlds she is among the world’s most influential writers and teachers of shamanism.
Originally trained in core shamanism, she has integrated practices taught to her by elders from North and South America, Central Asia, Nepal and Siberia. She is also a Medicine for the Earth Teacher--teaching ways that transfigured human energy can heal our planet.
With her partner C. Allie Knowlton, MSW, LCSW, DCSW she presents
eco-spiritually focused training programs--which include advanced shamanism and shamanic healing---across the USA and Canada. In addition, as a founding member of True North, a unique, integrated medical center in Falmouth, Maine--she collaborates with physicians, nurses, a psychiatrist, a naturopath and several other complementary healthcare practitioners to provide a new model of health care that includes the spirit.
www.spiritpassages.org
www.spiritliving.org
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