Cynocephalus

The myth of the people of dog-men is present in all Indo-European cultures of classical age, from northern Africa to Greece, from Persia to India, where the Cynocephali are always indicated by names concerning the canine attribute. People of dog-men are described by various Latin and Greek authors with different names and placed in the most remote places.

They are described as truly existing monstrous creatures, sometimes borrowing stories or myths from other countries, as is probably done by Ctesia di Cnido (IV century BC) describing, in its history of India, the Calystrien. The creatures of Ctesias coincide with the Indian Swamukha (literally face of dog) cited in the Purāṇas.

The oldest Greek source (VIII century BC/VII century B.C.), Exodus, distinguishes between Hemikynes (in ancient Greek ἡμίκυνες, means dog) described as dog-bodied humanoids and kynokephaloi, with the head of a dog and a human body, but places them both on the coasts of the Black Sea, treating them as a single population. Peoples of dog-men are also created ex novo, as Lucian of Samosata does, in the composition of the satirical work History Vera, introducing the fictional race of Cinobalanos (in ancient Greek Κυνοβάλανοι, Canine acorns, referring to the winged acorns - with the probable meaning of penises - ridden by these beings).

Later classical authors do not make variations to the myth, except for the place (always very distant) and the name. For Strabo and Pliny the Elder are called Cynamolgi and dwell in Ethiopia, while Tertullian describes the Cynopennae and places them in Persia.

The Cynocephali are, subsequently, catalogued (as the same classical authors already did, in part, but now much more extensively), in treatises such as the Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus (8th century), together with multiple monstrous creatures, living in the distant and unknown eastern lands believed to be contiguous to the Garden of Eden.

Real, unnoticed or hostile people are also identified by Western medieval authors, more or less directly, with these fantastic beings. For example, Paolo Diacono in his Historia Langobardorum claims that the Longobards, to intimidate their opponents, fed the rumor of having among themselves wounded Cynocephali. The French miniaturist Ademaro of Chabannes writes in Historia Francorum - referring to some Saracens captured by the Franks at Limoges - which they did not express themselves in their language, but they wore and barking like dogs.

The cleric Hyon de Narbonne (Ivo di Narbona), in a letter addressed to Gerardus de Malemort, archbishop of Bordeaux, bears witness to the siege of the Tartars at Wiener Neustadt, a town of the Austrian dukedom on the border with Hungary. In describing the atrocities made by the besiegers, Hyon states that the Tartarian leaders have Cynocephalics among their files, to which they feed the sected bodies of prisoners. The Franciscan friar Giovanni da Pian del Carpine in Historia Mongalorum, attributes canine characteristics to the face of Samoyeds.

Facing the Cynocephali, from a "teratological" point of view having the same features, are also the Egyptian gods Anubi and Upuaut. In this case, however, the dog-man assumes a different symbolic meaning, as through the world of living and that of the dead, in which the deceased reborn to new life.

The holy Christian Christopher is depicted in many Byzantine icons and frescoes with the features of Cinocephalus. In the Passio sancti Christophori martyris, a text present in various patristic works and which was widely disseminated in medieval times, tells the legend of the saint, who is said to be a Cynocephalus who converted to Christianity.

St. Christopher Cynocephalus presents common characters both to the Egyptian god (San Cristoforo traghetta Jesus child, carrying him on his shoulders, from one bank to another of a river, as well as Anubi "traghetta" souls between the kingdom of the living and that of the dead) both to the multiple stories of Cinocefali (sometimes San Cristoforo is represented as a giant giant, an attribute shared by different populations of dog-men).

The figure of San Cristoforo, although it acquires some traits of the myth of Cinocephali (the gigantism, the abruptness before conversion), completely reverses its moral status, in its holiness. An early medieval author (IX century), the Benedictine monk Ratramno di Corbie (Ratramnus), in the letter Epistle of Cynocephalis states that the Cynocephali should be considered as human beings. This document expresses a twofold and more complex attitude towards monstrous people that develops over time, which sees, beyond the prevailing hostility, also acceptance as part of God's creation.

As reported by Massimo Izzi, A. H. Krappe and Ph. Walter, the figure of San Cristoforo would also be a legacy of pagan cults linked to the astronomical motion of Sirio, a star belonging to the constellation of Cane Maggiore. The feast of the saint falls on 25 July and the astronomical reference would concern the period of "canicola", that in which the rising and tramontare of Sirio coincide with those of the Sun.

• Land (or Country) of the Dogs

A significant variant that describes populations in which females (sometimes referred to as amazons) are always completely human, while males are Cinocephali or dogs. The progeny of these women, depending on the sex of the unborn child, perpetuates this dimorphism. The myth has the same wide spread as that of the Cynocephali peoples. German medieval chronicler Adamo da Brema in his Descriptio Insularum Aquiloni, in which he describes the geography, people and customs of Scandinavia, places this land on the coasts of the Baltic Sea.