Denizens of the Uncanny Valley - Part II
Remaining Thoughts On Our Fear of the 'Nearly Human'
People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.
- Charles Fort
In the first article in this two-part series we discussed how many of the humanoid cryptids and characters from folklore could be put into the category of ‘other’: strangers, “barbarian” invaders, those with physical or mental disabilities (if you haven’t read it, it can be found here).
We continue with some of those themes in this article, but we’ll also expand on the ideas. We’ll also look beyond the anthropological/psychological domain, seeking a more real explanation for this strangest of universal human fears.
There is no particular order in this article: I’ve compiled the remaining, sporadic pieces I’d written on this phenomenon, and have simply presented them below. I aim to reflect the messy nature of this sort of thing; “people conjure monsters” is a simple observation, sure, but we struggle to explain even the most rudimentary natural phenomena. The ragged edges of our perception must remain so, lest we dull the magic of living, and stunt our ability to wonder. Still, we (and in writing this, I) cannot help but wonder aloud, settling on explanations, if fleetingly.
Just know, as you read this, that I am uncertain. Anybody presenting themselves as certain on subjects like this one should not be. In fact, maybe they are the ones who get eaten first…
Who’d Dare Look Out a Window at Night?
Nature had played a hellish jest on them - as it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter dig up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar waste - and this was their tragic homecoming.
- H.P. Lovecraft, from ‘At the Mountains of Madness’
We may fear a lot of things, both as individuals and as a species, but we also love a lot of things in these ways too. Property, or one’s own patch we feel we own, is one such universal love. With each love comes a concurrent fear - in this instance it’s rather obvious: to lose ones land/home: when the fear that reflects something we hold dear comes about, it is often a compounded fear, sitting atop the shoulders of the valued thing, becoming a GIANT monster.
Another, subtler fear is that of an interloper. A burglar, a stalker, or some other sort of unwelcome presence on/in the place that you should feel most safe.
Add a supernatural element and we’re off to the (worst ever) races! Not a giant monster, as we’ll learn.
One such home-invading monster is to be found stalking the Philipinnes. It’s called the Manananggal. Here’s a great description, and a brief allusion to the kind of tales the monster inspires:
(Excerpt from an article by Canadian-Filipina writer Angela Cruz for UncannyMagazine.com, 2017)
“I learned of the aswang and manananggal as many Filipino children do, through the memories of my mother. “Like vampires,” she said on a summer afternoon, “they drink blood, human blood, and take flight after the sun has set.”
My eyes widened as she continued her story. “Unlike vampires, the manananggal can separate itself into two halves, and it leaves its lower half to fly through towns, hunting for its prey: the fetus curled up in its mother’s belly.” She would go on to tell me of the night she was hunted by an aswang in Davao, and the distant relative who brandished a stingray’s tail in the darkness as a warning to the creature. “His eyes all red,” the aswang had watched her earlier that day, and the insistent tik–tik surrounded the nipa hut my mother slept in that night.
She would tell me of the warning her relatives gave her: “‘Wag kang aalis sa paningin ko at ‘wag kang aalis mag–isa. Kilala siyang aswang dito.”
Don’t leave our sight, don’t walk by yourself. We know the aswang here.
She can still hear the piercing scratches of the aswang’s talons on the bamboo slats beneath her back.”
Firstly, a brief departure from the discussion at hand: I have recently become quite obsessed with Filipino folklore and mythology. It really is beautiful, terrifying, hilarious, and meaningful, all the things you need to enjoy a trip down to the Aswang’s lair, so to speak. Join me. You won’t be disappointed. You may get very sleep-deprived, however…
Back to business: a funny sort of feeling may have just struck you on reading Ms. Cruz’s account: these traditions can seem strikingly modern to those who hear about them; one could be forgiven for saying “what difference between this and modern American cryptids”. Fair enough; is there a difference between this fanciful bogey man/bogey woman and, say, Florida’s ‘Skunk Ape’, a creature that often finds its way into the dense bushes of Everglades-backing properties? All these beasties may be a symptom of overactive imaginations in the wake of seeing a ‘creature feature’ horror movie (a subject I’ll cover later)! I mean, they have movies in Asia too. Maybe this is all just a symptom of modern media?
Well, we do have older records, though. A related set of monsters, the Berbalang(s), are believed to prey upon the people from small towns and villages of Mindanao:
(Taken from an 1896 article by a Mr. E. F. Skertchly, found in The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal)
“At the center of the island is a small village, the inhabitants of which owe allegiance to neither of the two chiefs. These people are called 'Berbalangs', and the Cagayans live in great fear of them. These Berbalangs are a kind of ghouls, and feed on human flesh occasionally to survive. You can always identify them, because the pupils of their eyes are not round, but just narrow slits like those of a cat. They dig open the graves and eat the entrails of the corpses; but in Cagayan the supply is limited. So when they feel the craving for a feed of human flesh they go away into the grasslands, and, having carefully hidden themselves, hold their breaths and fall into a trance. Their astral bodies are then liberated.... They fly away, and entering a house make their way into the body of one of the occupants and feed on their entrails..... The arrival of the Berbalangs may be heard from afar, as they make a moaning noise which is loud from a distance but dies away into a feeble moan as they approach. When they are near you the sound of their wings may be heard and the flashing lights of their eyes can be seen like dancing fire-flies in the dark. Should you be the happy possessor of a cocoa-nut pearl you are safe, but otherwise the only way to beat them off is to jab at them with a kris, the blade of which has been rubbed with the juice of a lime. If you see the lights and hear the moaning in front of you, wheel fast and make a cut in the opposite direction. Berbalangs always go by contraries and are never where they appear to be.”
Both the Berbalangs and the Manananggal are considered a form of Aswang, the umbrella term for vampire-like creatures and witches in Filipino culture. The idea that a human-like creature can come to you where you should feel safe, exposing your vulnerability, is a deep-seated fear - it conjures up images of our ancient ancestors defending themselves from night-time raids by lions; solitary, killer big cats, dragging children away, screaming.
But what of the nearly-human aspect? Baboons? Chimps? Lemurs… ok probably not lemurs. Although, they may be an explanation for the Roman concept of cynocephaly - ‘dog headed men’ - as opposed to the traditional explanation of baboons. In fact, the Colugos, a species also called ‘flying lemurs’, actually carry the taxonomical name Cynocephalidae.
Jus’ sayin’.
I think it is more likely that these tales simply harken to a time where other, unencountered nomadic peoples were effectively viewed as monsters. If you’ve never met a group that, say, paints their faces with a chalky mixture, wears feathers in their hair, and sharpens their teeth, who could blame our ancestors from believing that human-like monsters have just invaded their camp? These strangers may also engage in activities deemed culturally taboo by your tribe - cannibalism, wife stealing, even the consumption of animal blood (our American cousins must see us as vampires over on these black pudding-eating Isles…); when your only frame of reference for ‘human’ is your own tribe/kin group, is it any wonder that other people get considered as being a species apart?
Over time, these memories get converted to tales, blurring the details just enough that the sharpening focus of narrative must be employed.
Thus, a monster is born. A monster that seems all too human for us to bear.
Monkey See
Media is a reflection of our imagination consigned to stage or celluloid. The fascinating thing with a reflection is that, if you stare at it long enough, it seems to take on a life of its own. We know the characters aren’t real, the story is written and not a document of events, but still there are many of us who succumb to living in the mirror world.
The film ‘The Matrix’ has been hugely influential in culture. So much so that some people believe that it chronicles the very basis of a reality that is kept from us. The result? One of the serial murderers responsible for the ‘D.C. Sniper Killings’, Lee Boyd Malvo, is reported to have shouted “free yourself from the Matrix” during his arrest, and suggested that staff at his prison watch the film in order for them to get him. This work of art, a reflection of (rather poorly rendered) post-structuralist philosophy wrapped in CGI and well-executed martial arts stunts, has leapt back from the screen into human minds. It inspires action, seldom good in this case, in the way art does.
So, how does this effect the issue at hand? Which humanoid monsters have we seen clamber out of the pages of books or burst from the silver screen into our psyches?
(Due to the vast amount of incredibly detailed work on the cases I allude to next, I’ve linked articles and resources - this article would be too long to cover detail completely. I urge you to find good media on these cases. Fascinating stuff!)
This beast, for instance: back in the 1970s, a group of boys claimed they saw a creature near Thetis Lake, British Colombia, Canada. It was very, very similar to the ‘Gill Man’ from the horror B-movie ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’, a mainstay from the Golden Era of monster movies. Turns out, they made it all up. With this case, it’s rather obvious that they did, and should have been considered so from the beginning.
Another fascinating phenomenon along these lines was the 2016 ‘Killer Clown’ epidemic.
Sometimes, a creature does leave its mark beyond fiction, it would seem. I mean, Bram Stoker’s creation has inspired sightings of ‘vampires’ far away from Transylvania (or Whitby, England), in places like South America and Sudan, cape and all!
Fiction is a very powerful medium for forming thought, and can even guide action (or, at least, be a peripheral influence). When the most terrifying creations leap forth into our reality, it can be scarier than any suggestion of a ‘real’ monster lurking at the back door. These monsters come with the power of the author’s/screenwriter’s pen.
Dripping with blood and ink.
Controlling the Mind, or Controlled by the Mind?
So, it may not only have been a fear of the other that is at play here (as I covered in the first article). It would seem that phantoms are just as eaily brought into being by our own minds. Now, a case like the one listed below will appear that way, but there is more to be explored. Perhaps the result of cognitive or neurological impairment, rather than simply a fear of such things?
Firstly, let’s focus in on another seemingly clear example of fearing the other: there are creatures conjured to represent famine, disease, ageing, previously unknown ‘barbarian’ tribes that may raid your village one night. We’ve discussed before on this Substack how many tales are a manifestation of societal anxieties and traumas; sometimes they serve to explain phenomena so difficult to parse, that only narrative can provide any sense of clarity. This seems to have been the case with the pan-European tradition and Werewolves.
The phenomenon? Pre-Christian traditions enduring, living on the fringes of society (or outside of society), and wanton criminality.
(Excerpt taken from the translated transcript of the trial of ‘Old Theiss’ of Kaltenbrun, 1691)
“Accordingly, as the accused has made clear by his own testimony, for many years he showed himself to be a werewolf. He ran about with others, was also in hell, and in such groups he stole livestock from others and helped commit more acts of the same sort. It is not only in this case that one should regard all this as a diabolical delusion, since 32 Chapter One such an opinion is also accepted before this court. Neither through the court’s pronouncements, nor the moving speech by the Herr Pastor of Jürgensburg, did the accused let himself be led away from these deeds, nor did he uphold the vow he previously swore to the local Herr Pastor, nor did he listen to the Holy Word, nor did he present himself to take the Holy Sacrament. Rather, since he pronounced all sorts of prophecies and blessings strongly forbidden by the highest divine and lay authorities, thereby powerfully sinning against himself and the others whom he led into superstition, it is fair to consider this and punish him according to the severity of the law due to his truly weighty and vexatious offenses, to subject him to a well- deserved punishment, and to change him into an object of noteworthy aversion by public flogging. However, in view of his advanced age, only twenty pairs of blows will be administered by the hand of the Scharftrichter of Lemburg before a public gathering of the peasantry in the parish, whose Herr Pastor will explain the terms of the sentence to demonstrate the offense of this malefactor to the bystanders to warn others against the same vexatious and punishable conduct and to warn them against superstitions. Thereafter, the accused will be condemned to banishment from the land forever, subject to ratification by the illustrious and most august court of Tartu
[salva tamen illustris et augustissimi dicasterii Dorpatensis leuteratione].”
…so they didn’t kill werewolves? Not always, it would appear. It goes to show that the notion, in and of itself, was common enough that a “KILL IT WITH FIRE IMMEDIATELY” approach wasn’t always warranted. More of a “send ‘em two towns over” approach to werewolves (!).
A pest, rather than impending doom.
There are, of course, many physiological explanations put forward for the presence of “nearly-human” creatures that stalk the landscape of our folk imagination: hypertrichosis for werewolves and wild men, porphyria for vampires (and werewolves, again), blowfish venom in the Caribbean for zombies, the presence of certain sound frequencies for ghosts, any number of mental illnesses for any number of other cryptids; it was once common for individuals that we can now surmise as having been schizophrenic to imagine witches persecuting them during paranoid delusions, as opposed to the government, aliens, etc.
You’ll note that the latter two examples are seen within the impaired person, rather than a folk explanation for such people. Let’s explore this a little.
A recent case from Tennessee offers a fascinating suggestion as to the age-old (but recently popular online) class of ‘otherworldly’ humanoid entities - faeries, elves, shadow people, ‘Men in Black’, etc - and how instances of seeing such beings may come about:
(From an NBC News article on the matter, linked above)
Victor Sharrah had always had sharp vision. But one life-altering day in November 2020, he noticed out of the blue that people’s faces around him looked demonic.
Their ears, noses and mouths were stretched back, and there were deep grooves in their foreheads, cheeks and chins.
“My first thought was I woke up in a demon world,” said Sharrah, 59, of Clarksville, Tennessee. “You can’t imagine how scary it was.”
Someone he knew taught visually impaired people and suggested he might have prosopometamorphopsia, or PMO. The extremely rare neurological disorder of perception causes faces to appear distorted in shape, size, texture or color. Sharrah felt the symptoms were a match, and he was formally diagnosed last year.
The distortions appear only when he sees people in person — not in photographs or through computer screens.
Whether it be an overactive imagination, or a misfiring part of our brain, some charactersfrom the folk tradition could be the result of vivid descriptions offered around the bonfire by people with conditions such as Mr. Sharrah.
I mean, look at these mock-ups! You tell me that doesn’t look like an elf…
And so, we must come to some sort of conclusion.
Let us consider, for a moment, our best Medieval-era friend, dear old William of Ockham. His ever-sharp razor have been a handy tool for many centuries, allowing us to avoid looking like hairy weirdos with equally hairy conjectures.
Let’s apply it to this phenomenon.
Many of the explanations for the ubiquity of the nearly human monsters that stalk the periphery of our oral tradition seem a bit off to me. Don’t get me wrong, I think the psychological or anthropological insights shared thus far have a lot of merit, but I have a little acronym laser-cut into my personal Occam’s razor - KISS (no, not the band… ‘Keep it simple, stupid’!).
It has been suggested, quite simply and elegantly, that the motif of a ‘dragon’ is born from our ancestors having to contend with titanic (by today’s standards) reptiles. Nobody baulks at this. That seems plausible.
When it has been suggested that there may be a erstwhile unidentified predator/’enemy’ species that preyed on early humans that looked quite a bit like us, however, the dismissive hand-waving starts, especially when starting from a position of belief in ‘monsters’.
You may have formed an opinion as to my position on this phenomenon throughout the course of reading both these articles: “Ceri doesn’t believe that there is an explanation beyond the psychological/empirical for this phenomenon”. That isn’t correct, although I can fully understand how one would arrive at such a conclusion - save for this section, that’s (pretty much) all I have covered. But airing arguments, or conjectures, is not an endorsment.
Ultimately, I don’t know. Truth be told, I’d prefer one of the myriad ‘scientific’ explanations to cover this. But they don’t. So I have to leave room for a preternatural, and even a supernatural, explanation.
And I do.
As tempting as it may be to sort out the messy edges of our understanding, it is an unending task. Indeed, it is un-endable. We cannot know everything, because we are finite, limited, imperfect, and that goes for the sum total of mankind too. It is in this borderland between what can be known and what is unknowable that this phenomenon resides, stalking around, seeking fresh victims. The only way I’ve found to protect against this is to stay away from that dangerous place as best as I can, and to only study it from a distance. Nobody likes being eaten alive, least of all by something that looks like us, but is not quite the same.
Sweet dreams…