Need shapeshifter myths, know any?

[booley]

doing research for a story and I am trying to find shapeshifter myths through out different parts of history and cultures.

Not just your traditional werewolves but other kinds as well, the nagas of India, Thunderbirds and were coyotes of America,..evewn the were rats that supposedly roamed Penslyvania..

I want to know kind so fshapeshifters, attitudes towards them, how they changed, stuff like that...

Anybody know a good book or two that researches this?

Any help i sappreciated...

[XemaSab]

1. The first thing that comes to mind

is the Wendigo...

do a google search, and be afraid...

[mzteris]

2. some refs

http://www.answers.com/topic/shapeshifting

http://www.irishdruidry.org/publish/shapeshifting-in-celtic-myth/

http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-011-v

http://www.answers.com/topic/aztec-mythology

Books:

The Magic of Shapeshifting
Rosalyn Greene
Weiser Books
ISBN: 1-57863-171-8


Myths of the Dog-Man by David Gordon White "This is a book about monsters, which Isidore of Seville identified as monstrations (monere) or warnings (monare) of divine will..." (more)
SIPs: canine ancestry, dog ancestry, shu version, chaos vessel, ancestry myths (more) CAPs: Dog Jung, Kingdom of Women, Ephthalite Huns, The Cynocephalic Hordes, The Vortex of Cynanthropy (more)

[Lisa]

3. Japan -- the "were fox"

I suppose the larger predators, like wolves, had already disappeared from most parts of Japan by the time the folk stories originated, because the fox (kitsune) shows up quite a bit in supernatural tales. My grandma used to tell some of these tales ... the one that sticks in my memory is that foxes would disguise themselves as pretty young maidens in order to beg for food from humans (they were particularly fond of a deep-fried tofu dish).

I was born with unusually prominent canine teeth, so my family suspects that we might have were-fox ancestry!

http://academia.issendai.com/fox-japanese.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune



p.s. if you want an example of a shapeshifter in English literature, try Shakespeare's Macbeth. The witch threatens to sneak into a boat "like a rat without a tail" in order to sabotage it -- I'd heard elsewhere that it was possible to spot someone masquerading in the likeness of an animal by the fact that it might be missing a tail, or have other unusual characteristics.

[malmapus]

4. There is something about dolphins that change into women in the Amazon

I swear I've heard it somewhere long time ago. Been googling but can't find anything.

[Astarho]

5. naguals

in Mesoamerica. The information about them is somewhat ambiguous, from Spirit guide/animal spirit in some myths to evil sorcerers on others. The evil sorcerer part may be the result of the coming of Christianity.

Some believe the nagual derived from the old aztec myth of the tlacatecolotl a kind of were-owl.

Also there are many Olmec sculptures of men and babies with jaguarine features.

[intheflow]

6. Many gods are shapeshifters.

In Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna grants Arjuna divine vision so that Arjuna can see Krishna's many forms.
http://www.bhagavad-gita.us/bhagavad-gita-chapter-eleven.htm

In the Bible, God appears to Moses as a burning bush (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible). For that matter, the Christian Trinity is a form of shape-shifting, in that one God is represented by three facets: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Interesting subject. Thanks for posting good food for thought.