Tales of the Dog Headed Man

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The legend of Cynocephaly or the Dog headed man is maybe less common than that of his more famous cousin the werewolf. However the stories of these people go back thousands of years and stretch entire continents. Described by both Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo and written about by Greek scholars are they truly just myth and legend or the musings of a traveller seeing a Baboon for the first time while visiting Africa? Or is there something more to this legend?

Although sometimes there are seen as interchangeable 'monsters' of legend the Cynocephaly are quite distinct from those suffering from werewolfism or Lycanthropy. Where are werewolves are people that change in to a wolf form be it through a curse, magic or misfortune the dog headed man was simply a man in all respects apart from the face he had a dog head. They did not change using magic or herbs or other such rituals but were a distinct species that live in tribes as families often separate but sometimes along side there human cousins. 

There are descriptions of them rearing cattle and farming, trading with close by towns and it was said that there may have been communities that were 120,000 strong once living in India. They were described as fierce warriors who lived in caves and slept on the ground on a bed of leaves rather than houses and beds with pillows. They were said to understand language but due to there canine head were unable to communicate back apart from growls and barks. They were thought to live up to 200 years old and were just one of many similar creatures said to inhabit the lands the world over.

The most famous and recognisable dog headed man is probably that of the Jackal headed god of the ancient Egyptians Anubis although not alone as there are many pictures of Christianity's Saint Christopher depicted with a dog head. So if there were large tribes of dog headed men in parts of Africa and India 2,000 years ago what ever happened to them? Did they simply disappear or get killed off as man expanded thought the modern world. Why don't we see them now. Well fortunately we don't just have to rely on the writings of two millennia ago there are far more modern reports of dog headed men and they are not just restricted to Africa and India.

Modern day reports of dog headed men although not as common as bigfoot or large flying winged humanoids do still happen and to the people that see them are just as strange and bizarre as those more well known cryptids.  Allegedly first reported in 1887 The Michigan Dogman there were similar sightings reported in the 1930, 50s and 60s. The creature was described by two lumberjacks as having the body of a man but the head of a dog and a fearsome howl. It has many similarities with another possible cryptid known as the Beast of Bray Road which was described as a human like wolf or dog. Closer to home the 'Werewolf of Camberwell' has been reported on two separate occasions 8 years apart in 1996 and 2004 is said to stalk Camberwell Old Cemetery (sounds like the start of a horror movie) the beast is described as half man half wolf/dog with the head of a German Shepherd, and even more recently A strange upright walking wolf was caught on a camera reportedly at Amarillo Zoo in Texas, now throwing all rational explanations out the window for just a minute and assuming this picture is exactly what is purports to be whether this is a true dog headed man is up for debate as this looks much closer to a bipedal werewolf type cryptid but still I digress. The point is that the dog headed men seem to be steadfast in their refusal to be consigned to history as misidentification or a myth and though they my be smaller in number they show no signs of leaving us just yet. 

So who knows maybe you'll get lucky next time your out at night and you hear the howl of a dog listen for the foot steps of a man and you might just get to meet a legend nose to muzzle.

You can read more about these dog headed men here, here and here

Thanks for stopping by

Until next time

Stay safe

RTI

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