Cynocephali, the Dog Headed Men

Men with the heads of dogs have been reported since ancient times. Cynocephali were supposed to be a race living in Africa, who cannibalized humans. Seeing such beings in modern times would seem incredible, yet bizarrely, there have been increasing modern reports of these creatures.

The Cynocephali have existed in the mythology of Europe, India and China. The legends of all three of these cultures originally said that the Cynocephali resided somewhere in the wild lands west of Tibet and north of Persia (modern-day Iran). The European legends later began placing Cynocephali in all unexplored regions. In Europe, they were described as dog-headed people, sometimes as dog-headed hairy giants that have something in common with hairy humanoids. In the legends from India and China, the Cynocephali were described as shapeshifters who could change from human to dog, but who always retained some animal features when they became human again.

It should be noted that in these references these are not werewolves, but animals or gods with the heads of dogs on fully human bodies.

Probably the earliest example is the Egyptian god Anubis. This god is depicted with the body of a man but with the head of a jackal. Anubis was a god of death and the underworld, and paintings of Anubis can be found throughout Egypt’s ancient sites.

Worth mentioning is that Cynocephalus is a Greek word for a sacred Egyptian baboon with the face of a dog. The name Kynokephalos means dog-headed, from “kuôn,” a dog, and “kephalos,” head.

While the Greeks may not have had dog-headed gods, they knew of places where dog-headed creatures purportedly existed. As far back as the fifth century BCE, a Greek doctor wrote about dog-headed men that could be found in India. Later, a Greek explorer described dog-headed men (kynokephaloi), also in India, who spoke to each other by barking and were primitive savages by nature. They were also referred to as the creatures that lived in “India beyond the Ganges” (which we now call Southeast Asia).

Herodotus, Histories 4. 191. 3 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.) :
“For the eastern region of Libya, which the Nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the Kunokephaloi (Cynocephali) (Dog-Headed) and the Headless Men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous.”

In the medieval mappaemundi, lurking at the edges of the world were monstrous races. The text contains the description of some of these species and most importantly included reference to the Cynocephali (Cynocephales, “Dog-heads”), one of the best-known monstrous races at the time. According to Pliny, they lived in caves, wore animal skins, hunted very succesfully, and used javelins, bows, and swords. Other sources that circulated in the middle ages picture the Cynocephali much more frighteningly, with enormous teeth and breathing fire. Several sources make them cannibals. All sources emphasize that they combine the natures of man and beast. The Pygmei seem to even include creatures with long hanging ears that droop to the ground, who evoke the earlier *Panotii*. [An inventory of these and other monstrous creatures from the *Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493*.]

Centuries later, even the elders of the Catholic Church believed such beings existed. Saint Augustine pondered in his writings if dog-headed men were held to the same moral laws as humankind and if they could be saved.

But Augustine was not Christianity’s only delving into the subject. Very bizarrely, some ancient icons of Saint Christopher depict him as having a dog’s head. The story goes that he led a sinful life in this form, but when he reformed and was baptized he was transformed into a man having a human head.

Even King Arthur gets into the picture when he and his army allegedly defeated a band of dog-headed soldiers in the mountains surrounding Edinburgh.

And although he never claimed to encounter them personally, Marco Polo reported that dog-headed men lived on an island off the coast of Myanmar.

If real Cynocephali exist, it is difficult to determine just what sort of animal they might be. Some of these legends might be garbled accounts of baboons, monkeys with dog-like snouts. Today, this explanation has been mostly dropped. Further studies have suggested that the Cynocephali tales are actually based on dog ancestor origin myths from tribes who were considered filthy barbarians by more “civilized” writers in India and China. According to these writers, whole races of people were deliberately killed because they weren’t human, they were “really” monsters. When these myths were imported to Europe, they became even further changed from the originals. The European Cynocephali is often quite different than the creature of the original legends.

But - the tales are not all ancient. Current sightings of what are claimed to be humans with dog heads have happened in Michigan, Wisconsin, and even the Shetland Islands.

Researcher and author Linda Godfrey has been reporting on sightings of an unknown upright-walking canine known as the ‘Manwolf’ or ‘Dogman’ for many years. Witnesses describe these creatures as 5 to 7 feet tall, extremely muscular, covered in fur, with large fangs, the head of a wolf or German Shepherd.

The tales of dog-headed creatures, including the Dogman of Michigan, and the wolf-like Beast of Bray Road of Wisconsin are accounted in several of Godfrey’s dogmen books and with the numerous amounts of reasonable eyewitness reports, the dogheads are very much alive in modern culture.

Obviously there have been no skeletons of dog-headed humans ever found to back up these tales and most scientists ignore the modern sightings but for the few who do pay attention to them, the Cynocephali could be viewed as either some kind of hairy humanoid or as a cryptid canine of some sort. One thing is for certain - the widespread myths do make one wonder where all these stories came from and if these tales are just remnants of an earlier long-lost global myth that later developed their own flavors within different cultures or if there really are dog-headed men that have been living with us ever since ancient times.

Sources: gods-and-monsters.com/cynocephalus.html, cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Cynocephali, historicmysteries.com/dog-headed-men, columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/munster/india/aa_india.html, newanimal.org/cyno.htm