River dolphins, caribou people and backwards-footed women: folklore's almost-humans
Nearly every culture imagines beings that are part human or pass for human. In the Amazon, river dolphins are said to step ashore as people. Inuit tradition tells of caribou folk living in a parallel world, glimpsed only as shadows at the edge of sight. Such figures often talk, and many guide heroes on their quests.
Water breeds some of the most enduring examples. West African lore has Mami Wata and the beautiful jengu, both mermaid-like. Among Algonquian-speaking peoples, a half-human, half-fish being can predict and control the weather and slip between the human world and the underworld through water; in one Anishinaabe story, a man who marries one becomes one himself. The Encantado of South America is a river dolphin that occasionally takes human form.
Plenty exist to keep children in line. El Cucuy, a shadowy figure prowling rooftops in Spain, Portugal and South America, takes its name from the word for head and is said to carry off misbehaving youngsters. In the Pacific Northwest, the Basket Woman sneaks up on naughty children and tosses them into the basket on her back. Inuit tradition warns of the red-eyed Ijiraq, a shapeshifter with a sideways face.
Others embody seasons, death and the moral order. The Anishinaabe winter spirit Biboon, pictured as an old man, sweeps down from Hudson Bay to blanket the land. In Lakota belief, a female spirit called Towiŋ guards the road to the afterlife and judges whether souls may pass. The Iroquois Faceless Spirit, a maiden without features, collects what remains of the living energy of anything that dies and carries it back so the Creator can make fresh life from it. The Kawaiisu of Southern California say a ghost called the Inipi begins walking once a person's death is certain, even before it happens, and can be sent away by blowing across an open palm.
Some modern figures sit alongside them. Bigfoot, the towering hairy biped of North American forests, and the red-eyed winged Mothman show that the urge to imagine not-quite-humans lives on. In the Dominican Republic's high mountains, the ciguapa is a nocturnal woman with backward-facing feet and glossy hair covering her body, best avoided.
Source: Mythic humanoids
