Cynocephaly: A Latinized version of the Greek work kynokephaloi (combining the words for dog+head).
As bizarre and fantastical as it sounds to our modern ears, there is a long history of recorded accounts of a race of creatures known as the dog-headed men. Everyone is probably familiar with the Egyptian depiction of Anubis, the jackal or dog-headed deity. Anubis is a Greek translation of the ancient Egyptian word, Anpu, meaning "royal child". (Anubis, btw, was not the only Egyptian dog-headed deity). Being rational human beings, most people assume these depictions show a man wearing some sort of ceremonial mask and that may well be the case. When we get past our assumptions and public educational indoctrination and look at the evidence of multitudes of documentation describing these creatures in ancient texts and by a variety of different witnesses we begin to venture into the bizarre and fantastical realms of our reality. Did such creatures really exist. Is it even possible? Before you say this thread has gone to the dogs, let's look at the evidence.
There is a story of a battle between the Argonauts and the Cynocephali which was fought around the area of North Serbia, or South Hungary. In his book, The City of God, Book XVI, Chapter 8, Augustine of Hippo muses on the origin of the cynocephali and if they even really existed and, if they did, would they be considered mortal, rational, ie: human animals. He concludes his ponderings by deciding that if they are indeed human, they must be descendants of Adam.
The RCC doesn't like to admit in this day and age but their Eastern Orthodox iconography depicts their most venerable St. Christopher as a dog-headed convert to Catholicism. The backstory to St. Christopher starts during Roman Emperor Diocletian's 3rd century reign, "when a man named Reprebus, Rebrebus or Reprobus (the "reprobate" or "scoundrel") was captured in combat against tribes dwelling to the west of Egypt in Cyrenaica. To the unit of soldiers, according to the hagiographic narrative, was assigned the name numerus Marmaritarum or "Unit of the Marmaritae", which suggests an otherwise-unidentified "Marmaritae" (perhaps the same as the Marmaricae Berber tribe of Cyrenaica). He was reported to be of enormous size, with the head of a dog instead of a man, apparently a characteristic of the Marmaritae". (wiki)
Related: Cynocephalus Saint Christopher - what was he in reality?
Stone sculpture on cathedral in Veselay
and another
On an island somewhere between India and Sumatra, Ibn Battuta, a 14th century Muslim scholar and explorer, found a dog-mouthed people which he described as follows:
"The Nowell Codex, perhaps more commonly known as the manuscript containing the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, also contains references to Cynocephali. One such reference can be found in the part of the manuscript known as The Wonders of the East, in which they are called "healfhundingas" or "half-dogs." Also, in Anglo-Saxon England, the Old English word wulfes heafod ("wolf's head") was a technical term for an outlaw, who could be killed as if he were a wolf. The so-called Leges Edwardi Confessoris, written around 1140, however, offered a somewhat literal interpretation: “[6.2a] For from the day of his outlawry he bears a wolf's head, which is called wluesheued by the English. [6.2b] And this sentence is the same for all outlaws.” Cynocephali appear in the Old Welsh poem Pa Gur? as cinbin (dogheads). Here they are enemies of King Arthur's retinue; Arthur's men fight them in the mountains of Edinburgh, and hundreds of them fall at the hand of Arthur's warrior known as Bedivere. The next lines of the poem also mention a fight with a character named Garwlwyd (Rough-Gray); a Gwrgi Garwlwyd (Man-Dog Rough-Gray) appears in one of the Welsh Triads, where he is described in such a way that scholars have discussed him as a werewolf." (I find it amusing that "scholars" are willing to consider the possibility of a werewolf but not of a cynocephali).
Medieval travelers Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Marco Polo both mention cynocephali. Giovanni writes of the armies of Ogedei Khan who encounter a race of dogheads who live north of Lake Baikal. Polo's Travels mentions the dog-headed barbarians on the island of Angamanain, or the Andaman Islands. For Polo, although these people grow spices, they are nonetheless cruel and "are all just like big mastiff dogs".Additionally, in the Chinese record History of the Liang Dynasty (Liang Shu), the Buddhist missionary Huisheng describes an island of dog-headed men to the east of Fusang, a nation he visited variously identified as Japan or the Americas. The History of Northern Dynasties of Li Yanshou, a Tang dynasty historian, also mentions the 'dog kingdom'.
The explorer, Marco Polo, described the cynocephali as eaters of people and each other during his encounter with them.
The 3rd century Roman philosopher and writer, Claudius Aelianus, confirms other accounts of the cynocephali living in India as being peaceful. He too, confirms that they ate sun-dried meat and raised cattle (sheep and goats). In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great invaded India and he also wrote to his teacher, Aristotle, that he had seen dog-headed men and even captured several in battle with them. He describes them as "fierce and vicious, barking and snarling beasts". The 5th century Greek historian, Herodotus, gave a lengthy and detailed account of the cynocephali (may have been a second-hand report from Libyans) saying that ancient Libyans believed the creatures lived east of Libya. His account is as follows:
Porderone
Not limited to letters and literature of their times,
cartographers also pictured the cynocephali on
maps indicating their habitat. (Ebstorph, et al).
Mappa Mundi
Descalier's 1550 map
For much of our recorded history there have been numerous cynocephali witnesses. Explorers, missionaries, warriors, and nomads have encountered these creatures and written of them-most of their reports uncannily similar. Until fairly recent times (20th century) there were actual cases of feral children raised by wolves. These case studies always struck me as odd since wolves are not known for their humanitarian behavior and children are usually considered scooby snacks to actual wolves.
In modern times, Bernard Heuvelmans speculated in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals that such stories of Cynocephali, especially in Africa, might have sprung from sightings of a type of lemur known as the indri lemur, which stands at around 3 feet in height.
All other accounts describe them as big mastiff looking dog-faces.
Mastiffs and lemurs look nothing alike and lemurs are not ones to corral and tend to animals, wear clothes, bark, or go to war. Nice try Bernard Heuvelman but no cigar. He also thought it might be one of these:
But since macaques have no other characteristics/traits identified by everyone who encountered the cynocephelia, I think we can safely dismiss Heuvelman's excuses as his way of saying, "I don't know what they were but they couldn't have been actual dog-faced people". While these macaques are omnivorous, they do not use bow and arrows to hunt as described by several witnesses of the cynocephels. Nor do they sit and listen patiently to the gospel being preached to them, submit to baptism, or go to work for the Catholic Church.
Lemurs or macaques skewing knights with their lances.
Cannanite god Baal
Cynocephali, the inventors of bikini briefs?
Books written about or mentioning these mysterious creatures.
Bestiary, MS M.500 fol. 55r - Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts - The Morgan Library & Museum
Ratramnus & the Dog-headed People (Cynocephali | Monsters | Natural Law
With so much historical references and documentation regarding these creatures, can we say for certain they did not exist? Are they descendants of Adam? Did they get on Noah's ark as beasts or men? Are they genetic experiments of alien overlords? Were they just regular men who wore carved dog masks at all times fooling those they encountered? Are they still around?
As bizarre and fantastical as it sounds to our modern ears, there is a long history of recorded accounts of a race of creatures known as the dog-headed men. Everyone is probably familiar with the Egyptian depiction of Anubis, the jackal or dog-headed deity. Anubis is a Greek translation of the ancient Egyptian word, Anpu, meaning "royal child". (Anubis, btw, was not the only Egyptian dog-headed deity). Being rational human beings, most people assume these depictions show a man wearing some sort of ceremonial mask and that may well be the case. When we get past our assumptions and public educational indoctrination and look at the evidence of multitudes of documentation describing these creatures in ancient texts and by a variety of different witnesses we begin to venture into the bizarre and fantastical realms of our reality. Did such creatures really exist. Is it even possible? Before you say this thread has gone to the dogs, let's look at the evidence.
Anubis
The fifth century BC Greek physician Ctesias wrote a book entitled Indica, in which he reports the particulars of the dog-headed people living in India. Megasthenes, a Greek explorer, also claimed there were a race of dog-headed people living in India's mountains, saying that they wore animal hides, hunted for their subsistence and communicated with barking sounds. Herodotus, writing a second-hand report from ancient Libyans, relates that the cynocephali lived in lands east of the Libyans.There is a story of a battle between the Argonauts and the Cynocephali which was fought around the area of North Serbia, or South Hungary. In his book, The City of God, Book XVI, Chapter 8, Augustine of Hippo muses on the origin of the cynocephali and if they even really existed and, if they did, would they be considered mortal, rational, ie: human animals. He concludes his ponderings by deciding that if they are indeed human, they must be descendants of Adam.
The RCC doesn't like to admit in this day and age but their Eastern Orthodox iconography depicts their most venerable St. Christopher as a dog-headed convert to Catholicism. The backstory to St. Christopher starts during Roman Emperor Diocletian's 3rd century reign, "when a man named Reprebus, Rebrebus or Reprobus (the "reprobate" or "scoundrel") was captured in combat against tribes dwelling to the west of Egypt in Cyrenaica. To the unit of soldiers, according to the hagiographic narrative, was assigned the name numerus Marmaritarum or "Unit of the Marmaritae", which suggests an otherwise-unidentified "Marmaritae" (perhaps the same as the Marmaricae Berber tribe of Cyrenaica). He was reported to be of enormous size, with the head of a dog instead of a man, apparently a characteristic of the Marmaritae". (wiki)
Related: Cynocephalus Saint Christopher - what was he in reality?
Stone sculpture on cathedral in Veselay
and another
On an island somewhere between India and Sumatra, Ibn Battuta, a 14th century Muslim scholar and explorer, found a dog-mouthed people which he described as follows:
Ratramnus, A Frankish theologian of the 9th century, in his Epistola de Cynocephalis, wrote to his superior asking whether these creatures should be recognized as belonging to the human race or to a race of animals. (Ratramnus favored a human designation but wanted confirmation)[14] What I found compelling about the Ratramnus letter is not his description of the creatures but his more practically believable concern for his religious duty of converting them to Christianity. He was baffled as to whether he was even obligated to preach the gospel to them since, if they were animals, he would consider it pointless. Not wanting to be amiss in his duties, he needed affirmations that they were human creatures and therefore able to receive the gospel and conversion. Thomas of Cantimpre', appealing to authority, quoted St. Jerome when verifying that Cynocephali were actual beings. He wrote of them in Liber de Monstruosis Hominibus Orientis, xiv, ("Book of Monstrous men of the Orient"). Vincent of Beauvais, a 13th century encyclopedist, wrote back home to France to alert his patron, Saint Louis IX, of a creature that had the head of a dog but otherwise looked human in its form and behaved like a man, being peaceful when not provoked and vicious and retaliatory when provoked.
"The Nowell Codex, perhaps more commonly known as the manuscript containing the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, also contains references to Cynocephali. One such reference can be found in the part of the manuscript known as The Wonders of the East, in which they are called "healfhundingas" or "half-dogs." Also, in Anglo-Saxon England, the Old English word wulfes heafod ("wolf's head") was a technical term for an outlaw, who could be killed as if he were a wolf. The so-called Leges Edwardi Confessoris, written around 1140, however, offered a somewhat literal interpretation: “[6.2a] For from the day of his outlawry he bears a wolf's head, which is called wluesheued by the English. [6.2b] And this sentence is the same for all outlaws.” Cynocephali appear in the Old Welsh poem Pa Gur? as cinbin (dogheads). Here they are enemies of King Arthur's retinue; Arthur's men fight them in the mountains of Edinburgh, and hundreds of them fall at the hand of Arthur's warrior known as Bedivere. The next lines of the poem also mention a fight with a character named Garwlwyd (Rough-Gray); a Gwrgi Garwlwyd (Man-Dog Rough-Gray) appears in one of the Welsh Triads, where he is described in such a way that scholars have discussed him as a werewolf." (I find it amusing that "scholars" are willing to consider the possibility of a werewolf but not of a cynocephali).
Medieval travelers Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Marco Polo both mention cynocephali. Giovanni writes of the armies of Ogedei Khan who encounter a race of dogheads who live north of Lake Baikal. Polo's Travels mentions the dog-headed barbarians on the island of Angamanain, or the Andaman Islands. For Polo, although these people grow spices, they are nonetheless cruel and "are all just like big mastiff dogs".Additionally, in the Chinese record History of the Liang Dynasty (Liang Shu), the Buddhist missionary Huisheng describes an island of dog-headed men to the east of Fusang, a nation he visited variously identified as Japan or the Americas. The History of Northern Dynasties of Li Yanshou, a Tang dynasty historian, also mentions the 'dog kingdom'.
Mihr & Mushtari fighting against the cynocephali
(Gives a whole new meaning to "Let loose the dogs of war")
(Gives a whole new meaning to "Let loose the dogs of war")
- In the United States there are tales of dog-headed creatures, including the Michigan Dogman, and the wolf-like Beast of Bray Road of Wisconsin. Serbian, Turkish, Scottish and Chinese all also have legends of dog-headed people.
- Anthony Weir, "A holy dog and a dog-headed saint": St Guinefort and St Christopher Cynephoros or Cynocephalus
- The Cryptid Zoo: Cynocephali in Cryptozoology
- Christopher Columbus & the Monstrous Races
The explorer, Marco Polo, described the cynocephali as eaters of people and each other during his encounter with them.
The 3rd century Roman philosopher and writer, Claudius Aelianus, confirms other accounts of the cynocephali living in India as being peaceful. He too, confirms that they ate sun-dried meat and raised cattle (sheep and goats). In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great invaded India and he also wrote to his teacher, Aristotle, that he had seen dog-headed men and even captured several in battle with them. He describes them as "fierce and vicious, barking and snarling beasts". The 5th century Greek historian, Herodotus, gave a lengthy and detailed account of the cynocephali (may have been a second-hand report from Libyans) saying that ancient Libyans believed the creatures lived east of Libya. His account is as follows:
As recently as the 14th century, an Italian monk by the name of Odoric of Pordenone, a traveling missionary, claimed to have encountered the cynocephali on his visit to the Nicoveran island. He described them as "being somewhat brutish, but displaying a form of organized religion, worshiping oxen and wearing various gold and silver religious charms". French inquisitor Cardinal Pierre d’Ailley, a 15th century French inquisitor, admitted to the existence of a dog-headed race of humans living in India but added that there was a one-eyed version of the creatures as well, known as the Carismaspi. Christopher Columbus, writing to Queen Isabella, says he was told of but never personally witnessed dog-people called "Canina". Cortez, having heard the stories wasn't taking any chances when he showed up and just killed everybody.
Porderone
Not limited to letters and literature of their times,
cartographers also pictured the cynocephali on
maps indicating their habitat. (Ebstorph, et al).
Mappa Mundi
Descalier's 1550 map
For much of our recorded history there have been numerous cynocephali witnesses. Explorers, missionaries, warriors, and nomads have encountered these creatures and written of them-most of their reports uncannily similar. Until fairly recent times (20th century) there were actual cases of feral children raised by wolves. These case studies always struck me as odd since wolves are not known for their humanitarian behavior and children are usually considered scooby snacks to actual wolves.
In modern times, Bernard Heuvelmans speculated in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals that such stories of Cynocephali, especially in Africa, might have sprung from sightings of a type of lemur known as the indri lemur, which stands at around 3 feet in height.
All other accounts describe them as big mastiff looking dog-faces.
Mastiffs and lemurs look nothing alike and lemurs are not ones to corral and tend to animals, wear clothes, bark, or go to war. Nice try Bernard Heuvelman but no cigar. He also thought it might be one of these:
But since macaques have no other characteristics/traits identified by everyone who encountered the cynocephelia, I think we can safely dismiss Heuvelman's excuses as his way of saying, "I don't know what they were but they couldn't have been actual dog-faced people". While these macaques are omnivorous, they do not use bow and arrows to hunt as described by several witnesses of the cynocephels. Nor do they sit and listen patiently to the gospel being preached to them, submit to baptism, or go to work for the Catholic Church.
Lemurs or macaques skewing knights with their lances.
Cannanite god Baal
Cynocephali, the inventors of bikini briefs?
Books written about or mentioning these mysterious creatures.
Bestiary, MS M.500 fol. 55r - Images from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts - The Morgan Library & Museum
Ratramnus & the Dog-headed People (Cynocephali | Monsters | Natural Law
With so much historical references and documentation regarding these creatures, can we say for certain they did not exist? Are they descendants of Adam? Did they get on Noah's ark as beasts or men? Are they genetic experiments of alien overlords? Were they just regular men who wore carved dog masks at all times fooling those they encountered? Are they still around?
