CYNOCEPHALI AND OTHER DOG-HEADED DENIZENS OF LEGEND AND LORE

A cynocephalus, as depicted on p. 22 of Monstrorum Historia (1642), written by Italian naturalist Ulisse Androvandi (public domain)

In medieval times, scholars firmly believed in the reality of all manner of extraordinary semi-human entities, supposedly inhabiting exotic lands far beyond the well-explored terrain of Europe. Prominent among these tribes of 'half-men' were the cynocephali or dog-headed people, popularly referred to by travellers and chroniclers. Their domain's precise locality, conversely, depended to a large extent upon the opinion of the specific traveller or chronicler in question, as few seemed to share the same view.

CYNOCEPHALI FROM FAR-DISTANT SHORES

Among the many legendary feats romantically attributed to Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), was his successful battle against a 40,000-strong army of cannibalistic cynocephali after he had invaded India, sending them fleeing and howling in terror in his wake. Some, however, were not swift enough and therefore fortunate enough to escape Alexander's merciless wrath, and were duly captured by him, their dismal fate being to be walled up alive beyond the mountain peaks at the furthest reach of the world.

Alexander the Great fighting cynocephali, painted by an unknown Flemish artist and dating from the late 15th Century (public domain)

A century earlier, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (c.484-c.425 BC) had claimed that a race of Ethiopian dog-heads termed the kynokephaloi not only barked instead of speaking, but also could spew forth flames of fire from their mouths! Another Greek historian from this same time period, Ctesias, claimed that cynocephali existed in India.

According to the Roman naturalist and scholar Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), the mysterious country of Ethiopia, which he mistakenly assumed was one and the same as India, was home both to the cynocephali and to the similarly dog-headed cynamolgi. Numbering 120,000 in total, the cynamolgi wore the skins of wild animals, conversed only via canine barks and yelps, and obtained milk, of which they were very fond, not from cows but by milking female dogs.

Cynocephali from the Andaman Islands, in a 15^th-Century Book of Wonders (public domain)

Later authors also often stated that India and/or certain Asian island groups were populated by cynocephali. The 13^th-Century Venetian traveller Marco Polo, who could never be accused of letting a good story slip by unpublicised, soberly announced that the Andaman Islands off Burma (now Myanmar) were home to a race of milk-drinking, fruit-eating (and occasionally human-devouring) dog-heads who engaged in peaceful trade with India.

During the early 15^th Century,, a travelling Italian missionary monk named Friar Odoric of Pordenone, writing in his Itinerarium (produced c.1410-1412),  relocated these entities to the nearby Nicobar Islands. In the previous century, conversely, the writings of Catalonian Dominican missionary/explorer Friar Jordanus had deposited them rather unkindly in the ocean between Africa and India.

Cynocephali of the Nicobar Islands, in the Itinerarium of Odoric of Pordenone (public domain)

Cynocephali living in India itself were also reported by 17^th-Century English theologian and geographer Peter Heylyn. He travelled widely and write extensively during the reign of Charles I, the Interregnum, and the Restoration of Charles II.

Nor should we forget Sir John Mandeville, even though his (in)famous supposed journeys to incredible faraway lands in Africa and Asia during the 14^th Century owe considerably more to imagination than to peregrination. In his tome Travels, he averred that a tribe of hound-headed people inhabited a mysterious island of undetermined location called Macumeran. Here, curiously, they venerated an ox, and were ruled by a mighty but pious king, who was identified by a huge ruby around his neck and also wore a string of 300 precious oriental pearls.

Cynocephalus in Mandeville's tome The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (public domain)

There are even reports of cynocephali being seen, and shown, in Europe. For example, according to an entry and picture in the Tractatus de Signis, Prodigiis et Portentis Antiquis et Novis, Cod. 4417, folio 9v (1503), which was an illustrated script dealing with signs and miracles reported up to 1503, and produced by Austrian historian Jakob Mennel (c.1460-c.1525), a living captured cynocephalus had been brought before Louis the Pious (778-840 AD), King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father Charlemagne.

In addition, the Kiev or Spiridon Psalter, a very famous East Slavic illuminated manuscript produced in 1397 by Archdeacon Spiridon in Kiev, included among its more than 300 miniature illustrations a very striking, brightly-coloured depiction on folio 28r of two pairs of aggressive-looking cynocephali armed with spears and swords flanking at the centre of the picture a haloed human figure (Jesus?). This illustration can be seen at the end of the present ShukerNature blog article. Although Spiridon definitely wrote the text of the Kiev Psalter, at least some of its miniatures may have been added by others at later dates.

Louis the Pious witnessing the living cynocephalus brought before him, as pictured in Jakob Mennel's Tractatus de Signis, Prodigiis et Portentis Antiquis et Novis (public domain)

CYNOCEPHALI OF THE CELTIC KIND

Less well known than the above-mentioned examples is the fact that dog-headed entities also feature in Celtic lore and mythology. As pointed out by Professor David Gordon White in his definitive book, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991), Irish legends tell of several cynocephalic people.

Perhaps the most notable of these legends concerns a great invasion of Ireland from across the western sea by a race of dog-headed marauders known as the Coinceann or Conchind, who were ultimately vanquished by the demi-god warrior Cúchulainn. Moreover, a tribe of dog-heads opposed King Arthur, and were duly fought by him (or by Sir Kay in some versions of this tale).

Myths of the Dog-Man, by Prof. David Gordon White (© Prof. David Gordon White/University of Chicago Press - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Irish legends also claim that St Christopher, a Canaanite who became the patron saint of travellers, was originally a giant cynocephalus, standing 5 cubits (7.5 ft) tall, who could only bark and howl, but prayed to God to grant him the power of speech so that he could defend Christians and spread the Christian word. God answered his prayer, and St Christopher later carried the infant Jesus safely across a swiftly-flowing river, possibly his most famous deed.

Interestingly, certain Byzantine iconography also depicts St Christopher as a cynocephalus. However, in his book Medieval Art: A Topical Dictionary (1996), Leslie Ross speculated that this perhaps resulted from confusion between the Latin words 'cananeus' (meaning 'Canaanite') and 'canineus' (meaning 'canine').

17^th-Century depiction of St Christopher as a cynocephalus, at Kermira (Germir), in Cappadocia, Turkey (public domain)

Shetland folklore tells of a supernatural entity known as the wulver, which has the body of a man but is covered in short brown hair and has the head of a wolf. According to tradition, this semi-human being lives in a cave dug out of a steep mound halfway up a hill, and enjoys fishing in deep water. Despite its frightening appearance, however, the wulver is harmless if left alone, and will sometimes even leave a few fishes on the windowsill of poor folk. A similar wolf-man entity is also said to exist in Exmoor's famous Valley of the Doones. Click here for further information on ShukerNature concerning British dogmen.

DOG-HEADED DEITIES AND RULERS

Cynocephalic deities are not infrequent in mythology, but the most familiar example must surely be Anubis – ancient Egypt's traditionally jackal-headed god of the dead, but now needing a taxonomic makeover, as the Egyptian jackal has lately been revealed to be a species of wolf, not a jackal at all. Originally, Anubis was the much-dreaded god of putrefaction, but in later tellings he became transformed into a guardian deity, protecting the dead against robbers, and overseeing the embalming process. His head's form was derived from the canine scavengers in Egyptian burial graves during the far-distant age preceding the pyramids when graves were shallow and hence readily opened.

Statue of Anubis (© Dr Karl Shuker)

The Furies or Erinnyes – the terrifying trio of avenging goddesses from Greek mythology – were the three hideous daughters of the Greek sky god Uranus and Gaia (Mother Earth), consisting of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. Although they are more commonly depicted wholly as women, in early traditions they were described as possessing canine heads, as well as leathery bat-wings, fiery bloodshot eyes, foul breath, and hair composed of living serpents (like the trio of gorgons). Their allotted task was to harangue and punish evil-doers, especially parent-killers and oath-breakers, but eventually they were transformed into the kinder Eumenides.

Another figure in Greek mythology who underwent a canine transformation, although this time in reverse, was Lycaon. This wicked, foolhardy king of Arcadia served up the roasted flesh of his own son, Nyctimus, to Zeus, in order to test whether the supreme Greek deity would recognise it. Needless to say, Zeus did, and as a punishment he changed Lycaon into a wolf. Interestingly, however, Lycaon is often portrayed not as a complete wolf, but rather as a wolf-headed man.

16^th-Century engraving of Lycaon depicted as a cynocephalus (public domain)

REAL-LIFE CYNOCEPHALI

Zoologists seeking to nominate real animals as the inspiration for the legends of cynocephali generally offer two principal candidates. The first of these is the baboon, of which there are several species. The heads of these large monkeys are certainly dog-like.

Indeed, the yellow baboon is actually known scientifically as Papio cynocephalus. Moreover, the sacred baboon P. hamadryas is native to Ethiopia – source of the earliest cynocephalus myths. An alternative name for a third species, the olive baboon, is the anubis baboon, and it has the taxonomic name P. anubis.

A beautiful 19^th-Century engraving depicting the olive or anubis baboon (public domain)

The second candidate is the indri Indri indri [once Indri brevicaudatus] – one of the largest modern-day species of lemur, and indigenous to Madagascar. Measuring over 3 ft, but only possessing a very short, inconspicuous tail (hence brevicaudatus), and often spied sitting upright in trees, this highly distinctive creature does look remarkably like a short dog-headed human.

The indri did not formally become known to science until 1768, when French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat arrived in Madagascar. Even so, when other, earlier travellers visiting this exotic island returned home to Europe and regaled their listeners with much-embellished accounts of their journeys, these may well have included exaggerated tales about the indri.

Indri illustration by Pierre Sonnerat, in Johann von Schreber's series of tomes Die Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen (1775-92) (public domain)

Certainly, it would not take a sizeable stretch of the imagination to convert a dog-headed lemur into a fully-fledged cynocephalus – thus breathing life into a being that never existed in reality, yet which would be faithfully chronicled by a succession of relatively uncritical scholars for many centuries.Of such, indeed, are legends all too often born.

This ShukerNature blog article is expanded and updated from my book The Beasts That Hide From Man.

Cynocephali depicted in a miniature illustration on folio 28r of the Kiev Psalter, a medieval illuminated manuscript dating from 1397  - in close-up on left, in situ on right (public domain)

MONKEYING AROUND WITH THE MIMICK DOG

Woodcut of the mimick dog, from Edward Topsell's bestiary, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes and Serpents (1658)

European and Middle Eastern medieval mythology is populated not only by such famous examples of fabulous beasts as the dragon, griffin, basilisk, centaur, unicorn, and minotaur, but also by many lesser-known yet no less fascinating fauna, including a small furry mystery beast called the mimick dog.

It was also known as the Getulian dog, because it was said to originate in the Libyan province of Getulia as well as occurring elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly Egypt. A third name for it is Canis Lucernarius (Lucernarius is Latin for watch-dog). However, to discover the origin of its principal name, 'mimick dog', we need to consult the accounts of this intriguing little creature that can be found in two of the most famous European bestiaries. Namely, Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner's five-volume Historiae Animalium (1551-1558) and English cleric Edward Topsell's The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes and Serpents (1658).

According to their commentaries, the mimick dog is capable of imitating anything that it sees, leading some observers to assume that it must have been conceived by a monkey (which were often termed apes in these bestiaries but were clearly monkeys rather than anthropoids). Moreover, it supposedly resembles a monkey in both wit and disposition, but differs markedly in morphology. Its face is described as being sharp and black like a hedgehog's, with a short recurved body, very long legs, shaggy fur, and a short tail. It is sometimes reared with monkeys, and while doing so it learns to perform all manner of very pleasing and unusual feats. During the time of the Graeco-Egyptian writer-scientist Ptolemy (90-c.168 AD), there were apparently plenty of mimick dogs in Egypt. According to his documentation of them in his scientific treatise Geography, they had been taught to leap, play, and dance when music was played, and they even functioned as servants in the homes of many poor people, where they performed a wide range of tasks for their masters.

Conrad Gesner, as portrayed in Vol. 1 of his Historiae Animalium

Any dog whose muddled morphology combined the face of a hedgehog with the body of a monkey would be a wonder to behold, but its talent for mimicry set the mimick dog even further apart from the typical canine creed. Consequently, they were much sought-after by travelling players and puppeteers, who would train them to participate in their performances.

One such performance took place during a public spectacle at Rome, attended by the emperor Vespasian (ruled 69-79 AD) and the famous Greek biographer Plutarch (46-120 AD) who became a Roman citizen. It featured an extremely versatile mimick dog that effortlessly imitated the behaviour and cries of a diverse range of different types of dog and other animals too. Its pi­èce de resistance, however, was its own tragic death, after eating some poisoned bread. During this act, it reeled and staggered to and fro like a drunken man before falling down to the ground and lying motionless for quite some time, as if dead. This was followed by its enthusiastic resurrection from the dead at the end of the play, which it executed with great verve, opening its eyes, then raising its head and looking around as if waking from sleep, before standing up and running to its master, its unexpected revival duly delighting the emperor and the other members of the audience.

Despite its onetime popularity, however, the mimick dog is largely forgotten today, and even among those few zoologists aware of its history there is no consensus regarding this strange animal's precise identity. Indeed, there is no guarantee that it was actually a dog at all.

A colour illustration of the mimick dog from Fabulous Beasts - written by Alison Lurie, illustrated by Monika Beisner, and published in 1981 by Jonathan Cape (© Monika Beisner/Jonathan Cape)

In his book Curious Creatures in Zoology (1890), John Ashton proposed that it was a poodle, but the animal depicted in a woodcut of the mimick dog appearing in Topsell's bestiary (in turn copied from Gesner's) looks nothing like this familiar breed, nor even like some early form of it. In any case, even the cleverest poodle would experience major difficulties in adequately carrying out the diversity of tasks habitually performed by human servants. And needless to say, the suggestion made by some early authorities that mimick dogs were the product of illicit liaisons between dogs and monkeys is untenable for basic genetic and taxonomic reasons.

A far more likely explanation for this furry caricaturist is that the mimick dog was not of the canine persuasion at all. Certainly, its gift for accurate impersonation and mimicry readily recalls a monkey. More specifically, its body, long limbs, dense fur, short tail, and slender muzzle are all consistent with baboons.

19^th-Century engraving of an olive baboon Papio anubis

By the time of Egypt's New Kingdom (16^th-11^th Centuries BC), both the sacred baboon Papio hamadryas and the anubis or olive baboon P. anubis were being imported into Egypt (there was even a baboon-headed Egyptian deity, Babi – the attendant of Thoth).

19^th-Century engraving of some sacred baboons Papio hamadryas

So too was the Barbary ape Macaca sylvanus - not an ape but a near-tailless species of macaque monkey, native to North Africa (including Libya long ago) but renowned for the colony on Gibraltar, thus making it Europe's only present-day species of monkey (it is also the only macaque species outside Asia).

A Barbary ape (public domain)

Furthermore, not only were they sometimes kept in Egypt as pets, these primates were also retained in colonies by temples, and buried in necropolises. There are also various depictions of these monkeys acting as servants to humans here, though some portray them carrying out various unrealistic tasks (for monkeys), so may not be reliable sources of evidence. Notwithstanding this, trained baboons accompanying travelling performers journeying northwesterly from Egypt could have reached Greece, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe (even England, as mimick dogs were indeed present here, according to Topsell).

Such an identity may also explain the strange idea that the mimick dog was a simian-canine crossbreed, because baboons have monkey-like bodies but very dog-like heads. Exemplifying this latter characteristic are the yellow baboon, referred to scientifically as Papio cynocephalus (which translates as 'dog-headed baboon'), and the anubis baboon, named after Anubis, ancient Egypt's wolf-headed god of embalmers and death. (Incidentally: Anubis was traditionally deemed to be jackal-headed – but in recent times, Egypt's supposed jackals were revealed to be wolves – a remarkable zoological discovery documented in my very first ShukerNature post, click here.)

A statue of Anubis (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Baboons are easily trained to perform tricks, they are often kept as intelligent pets, and sometimes have even been taught to carry out tasks normally reserved for humans. Perhaps the most famous example was a chacma baboon P. ursinus from the late 19th Century called Jack (died 1890), who worked for most of his life as a signalman, assisting his crippled human master, James Edwin Wide, to operate the railway line signals at a small train station in Uitenhage, South Africa. Throughout his amazing career, which spanned nine years, Jack never made a single mistake; moreover, after passing with ease a stringent series of tests set by the authorities in Cape Town, he was actually given an official employment number by the South African government!

During the 1970s, another baboon was fulfilling the same role at a railway station near Pretoria, and there was a baboon elsewhere in South Africa whose farmer owner had trained him as a shepherd!

James Edwin Wide with Jack, the amazing baboon signalman (public domain)

Having said that, however, the creature depicted in the bestiaries of Gesner and Topsell bears no resemblance to a baboon. True, medieval illustrations of animals were often notoriously inaccurate, but it just so happens that Topsell's bestiary also includes a woodcut of what is instantly recognisable as a baboon, accurately depicting its dog-like muzzle, short tail, and even its ischial callosities (rough spots on its protruding buttocks). This provides good reason for believing that the mimick dog woodcut is not a poor representation of a baboon. Nor does it look like the Barbary ape. In fact, the bestiaries' mimick dog woodcut does not recall any type of monkey.

At present, therefore, verification of the mimick dog as a baboon remains unproven, but perhaps this is fitting. After all, it would be nothing if not ironic if science quite literally made a monkey out of a creature best known for apeing around!

This ShukerNature blog post is expanded and updated from my book The Beasts That Hide From Man.