Do you know what is teriantropia?

"In those days, when all the animals were human beings...", the Pemon, the natives of the Gran Sabana, begin their mythical stories in Venezuela.

Because humans have always been fascinated by the possibility of transforming ourselves into something that we are not, or of thinking that other beings can-or want-be like us.

Indeed, teriantropia it is the ability that a person has to become an animal, or that any being has to show human characteristics...Teriantropia, which is also known as thermorphism , is a word composed of the Greek words therion (animal, beast) and anthropos (man).Do you join the subject?

Teriantropia: They're not just werewolves

Surely it was the first thing it came to mind, the classic licantropo or werewolf of our ancient popular culture.

However, throughout the extensive and human mythology, we have many and varied cases in which We found these transformations.In fact, in our human imaginary, witches are perhaps those who have sufficient powers to take the form of any animal, being preferred above all, cats.

Asiatics

In China it was said that foxes were transformed into men, or that these animals, who had lived more than 500 years in a cemetery, became humans at will to attack people.

In Japan, on the contrary, the fox is considered an intelligent being endowed with magic and is the protector of forests and towns.They call her kitsune , and she has the ability to take the form of a young woman who often mischievous people but, in general, is rather a friend, lover, companion or wife.

Offerings are given as if it were a deity.

Of course, Egypt

Of course we must go to this ancient mythology to explain what we say.

Among mythological beings, we have Ra , the Egyptian "great god", who represented himself as a hawk-headed man.

America

Apart from the fact indicated at the beginning of the article, where in the indigenous cultures (at least the Venezuelan ones) a mythical time is established where “everything was human” and also “spoke”, there is also behind American cultures where similar footprints exist.We have, for example, a Guarani legend that speaks of lobizon , a werewolf that strikes the Central and South America region; It is a mixture of human and dog, and it smells really bad.

Among the Mexicas , the goddess of fertility, Coatlicue , is a woman with a snake skirt.The nahuales , from Mesoamerica, were sorcerers who could become the animal they wanted just by wishing it .

Coatlicue

And among some Native American peoples the idea of ​​the footwear , human beings who have mana to transform themselves into any animal and only need to have a belt with the skin of the animal they think about.Among these peoples, man (and woman) is related to animals and form part of their guardian spirits .

Similarly, among the pemon, for example, there are certain magical substances that, when taken, can turn you into a bird, a fish or in any other animal.

Greece and Rome

In general, these are the most common and well-known cases of teriantropia, so much so that we don't think about them.This is how Greek mythology is full of teriantropos, of beings that share animal and human characteristics at the same time.

This is the case of the mermaids , with a woman's torso and a fish tail.They were of great beauty and seductive voice, which hypnotized the sailors with their singing; the tritons , with a torso of a stocky man covered by some scales and a fish's tail, in addition to claws; the centaurs , beings with a horse's body and human head and torso (the word centaur comes from the Greek Κένταυρο, and means "matador de toros"); the satiros and fauns , similar but not equal, half men and half goats, related to the cult of the wine god Bacchus or Dionysus ; the Minotaur , which, as the name implies, had the body of a man and the head of a bull, and lived in his famous labyrinth .

A triton playing his horn

And we can't stop mentioning the harpies , those fabulous beings whose main mission was to enforce the punishment imposed by Zeus to Fineo , who fought against the Argonauts, and who, finally, in the mythological tradition they were transformed into evil geniuses , with bodies of birds of rapina and frightful faces of women, bear ears and sharp claws, which carried with them misfortune, pests and storms.

Perhaps, from our birth as beings with conscience, comp we surrender that we are a single being with nature, that we are part of the same group, although on the way we have lost our way and we have forgotten it.

Perhaps the totems , the spirits Guardians, mythologies from all over populated with animals, and even the very idea of ​​transformation in them is nothing more than the imprint of that vision of the human as one more of the team.What do you think?

Discover the case of a very dreaded clinical lycanthrope that you may want to discover is: Manuel Blanco Romasanta.Don't miss it!

Images: Daniel Hernandez Column, garlandcannon, Diana, Lucas, Kyle Tuinstra, cosmonautirussi, [Duncan], Nathan