Creature of the Week: Cynocephali

Name: Conopeni, Dog-Head, Kalustiroi 

Further Reading: Myths of the Dog-Men by David Gordon White, “The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle” in Pride and Prodigies: Study in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript , “City of Dog” by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby in Journal of Urban History 47 no. 5.

Dear Reader,

When I started researching the Cynocephali, I was worried about it being too similar to the Gold-Digging Ant, since both are frequently lumped together as “weird monsters of India” and appear in the same texts. However, as I was researching, and the differences kept piling up, I realized how different the two really are. Cynocephali are creatures with human bodies and canine heads that eat humans and are typically associated with India, although as we will see, they exist across different places, typically on a periphery. Now, you may be thinking that this casts a bit of a wide net that could capture anyone from Anubis to Grendel, however the Cynocephali have been proven to be adapted into countless mythologies. Despite these changes, the core essence of the monster was the same: it represents the out-group, thus viewing the Cynocephali as creatures disregarded by society is an excellent way to understand how different cultures approached what they feared. 

 The origins of Cynocephali are warped by the mirage of time. The book I’m using to trace them, Myths of the Dog-Man by David Gordon White, connects them to India and China. In India, they are traced to a group called the Śvapacas, translated as Dog-Cookers, Dog-People, or Dog-Milkers. White also argues that Vrātyas, a forest group closely associated with dogs, may be another possible origin of Dog-People as well as other dog traditions. The Vrātyas are closely associated with Indra, who appears in many myths about dogs, and they are also both accused of human sacrifice, which may explain the Cynocephali’s anthrophagy. There is a mythological precedent for Cynocephalic monsters in Indian mythology, some Asuras and Gaṇa Hordes have dog-headed monsters in them. White does not consider them to be the true originators, however their existence may explain the ancient world’s Cynocephali later on. For example, Pliny the Elder states that the Cynocephali are milked, which may tie to their title as “Dog-Milkers.”

White chases the myth farther back to the Quanrong (spelled “Jung” by White) group in northwestern China, who believed themselves to be descended from a double-headed white dog. He cites a trope from across cultures describing a group of dogs or dog-like humans near a group of warrior women. All of these stories are located relative to the cultures outside of their walls and in around the same place. White believes the Quanrong may be the root of other dog origin myths in Turkic, Mongolian, and Tibetan cultures. The Chinese also called the Quanrong “dogs” despite the fact that they considered themselves human. We’ve seen this pattern before, as the Śvapacas were considered below human and existed on the periphery of the city, while also being associated with dogs, and never treated individually. 

The Cynocephali, while they may have potentially appeared in Hesiod (described as half-dogs) or Herodotus, Ctesias’ Indika, based on his journey in India, was what defined them and set their place in other travel logs (or periegesis) of India. The Indika and other Orientalist tales of the time were often based on Indian myths, so there is bound to be some linguistic confusion, thus the Dog-Cookers became the Cynocephali. Most of what is known about Indika are fragments from various other works, which both shows its popularity and adds another layer of doubt. Notably, Ctesias describes them as just and intelligent, and they are able to bark between each other and communicate through gesturing. Monstrosity in Ancient Greece was typically associated with places to venture out and slay monsters that were half-human, filled with human rage and who ate humans. With this description of the Cynocephali, the only aspect that would need to be added in order to fit the Greek definition of monstrosity is wrath. 

The Alexander Romances and particularly the apocryphal Letter of Alexander to Aristotle added that wrathful aspect. This supposed letter from Alexander the Great to his tutor Aristotle describing his journey and attempt to conquer India, a journey which he knows he will never return from. As they travel through India, Alexander’s group is hounded by monsters, both real and fake. One of these are the Cynocephali: “We saw amongst the wooded groves and trees a great multitude of Cynocephali who came because they wished to wound us and we shot them with arrows.” Here the Cynocephali are painted as entirely hateful, wishing to harm Alexander’s army for no reason. Both the Alexander Romance and the Letter of Alexander were incredibly popular in medieval Europe and Christians at the time were well suited to receiving the Cynocephali. In Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, there were already exiled criminals which existed in the forests around cities and were individually called “Wolf’s Head[s].” However, the Christian conception of the other has a few key differences from the Greek idea, which lead to a different association with the Cynocephali. To Christians, the monstrous other was still something to combat, but the monsters themselves were creations of G-d transformed by their immorality. The Cynocephali offered an interesting dilemma to medieval Christians, since they aren’t fully humans, and they aren’t fully demons. The most popular answer to this dilemma was given by Augustine of Hippo: “What shall I say of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like head and barking proclaim them beasts rather than men?... Whoever is anywhere born a man that is, a rational mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he presents… no Christian can doubt that he springs from [Adam].” 

While there were still some disputes over whether the Cynocephali could be considered rational humans with a linguistic system, Cynocephali were able to speak (albeit interrupted by barking) and many were described living in cities. They were seen as rational men, and rational men could be converted. From this idea, two similar stories emerge: the story of a man (?) named Christian and the story of St. Christopher. In both stories, a Cynocephali communicates with G-d, who gives them a mission of conversion. This mission results in the Cynocephali getting a new name and a new appearance. The beast inside Christian is taken away and St. Christopher’s skin whitens (at least in one version). However, there is one notable difference: while St. Christopher converts the people of the town peacefully, Christian renounces G-d, reverts to a beast, and converts the town through blood and fear. The differences in these stories reflect the debate about the Cynocephali. The story of St. Christopher shows that Cynocephali are capable of rationality, while the story of Christian shows that they can only be cured of beastliness by the Lord. Both St. Christopher and Christian move from a full demon to a full man but only one stays that way. They show that the reason and knowledge needed to be human can be given by G-d, but this can also be taken away, reverting you into a beast. 

There is little to be said about the modern Cynocephali. We stopped talking about the Wolf-Man decades ago and now we only really have werewolves. In a world under satellites there is no terra incognita, no undiscovered corners of the world, and thus no need for Cynocephali. However, even if the Cynocephali have left this world, their form remains. The idea of a group of people on the periphery of society that can be brought in and “civilized” still exists today in many ways. Monsters reflect the eyes of the people who see them and the Cynocephali, who have passed through many eyes, show that otherness, and how people try to reconcile it, is a concept both historical and geographical.