Non-Western Supernaturalism in Cryptozoology
Howdy, the first half-dozen or so of my posts act as mirrors for Reddit
posts and adhere largely to that style, just modifying the contents of
these posts slightly, I will eventually come back and amend these when I
decide on a cohesive format for my posting.
Supernatural is an anthropological term without an adequate definition (see Dein 2016). Anthropological disciplines survey a variety of cultures, and having terms which can be reliably applied across different cultures is incredibly useful, but a naive goal that’s often doomed to fail. “Supernatural” is a term rooted in the West, science has drawn a clear line between “natural” and “supernatural”. There are many cultures where this is simply not the case. As such, people using the term should define it within the context of the cultures being discussed, something that very rarely happens.
This issue affects cryptozoology in two ways. Cryptozoology has historically excluded Western supernatural beliefs - Heuvelmans made it clear that cryptozoology was not an “occult or arcane science”, however popular culture has slowly reintroduced these concepts into casual discourse on the discipline, which naturally creates a conflict. Furthermore, cryptozoology often deals with non-Western cultures where there is no clear-cut boundary between natural and supernatural, but by virtue of having few trained and accredited cultural anthropologists, inadequately handles these beliefs. Cryptozoology, in its goal to reject Western supernaturalism, rejects all supernaturalism. Both of these issues open multiple cans of worms which throw the entirety of cryptozoology and what it studies into question. Imprecise definitions are so fun! I care about the latter more than the former.
Classifying spirits and studying outliers
In many cultures it is difficult to inquire about animals without getting spiritual information. By virtue of inhabiting the same world as animals and environments, supernatural beings and their traits seep into descriptions of said environments and animals. In general, natural and supernatural are held in equal or parallel significance. Spirits may also be in control of animals or responsible for their creation or distribution. There are many descriptions of beings regarded as spirits which are simply culturally-bound descriptions of real animals (e.g. Forth 2022).
This is not a “primitive” way of thinking, nor are these people unable to tell fact from fiction or unable to exist in a culture outside of their own; these are just beliefs and practices that stem from a different perspective on the world founded upon different knowledge and circumstances than our own. Anthropology has had a long history of neglecting and dismissing these ways of thinking, something early cryptozoology unintentionally inherited.
In fact, these beliefs are incredibly convoluted. Supernatural beings pull from observations and behaviors of humans and animals, particularly observations of responses to traumatic events, and incorporate different aspects of their environment, leading to distinct morphological traits which allow them to be classified in taxonomies like those used for animals (see Ellen 2025). Categories are founded upon the cultural context the supernatural inhabit - are these ancestral spirits? The dead seeking revenge? Animals possessed by supernatural forces? These categories bleed into one another and evolve much more frequently than the taxonomies used for animals, as these are founded primarily on cultural beliefs and perceptions rather than an unchanging animal. Points of convergence in descriptions of spirits form the baseline for a communal consensus on appearance, one that changes and grows over time.
Cryptozoology is most interested in the outliers of these classifications (as discussed in Forth 2021) - beings which exist in the margins of supernatural and zoological folk taxonomies, or beings of one category that are grouped into another. Inhabiting the margins of classifications are various “standard” cryptids - wildmen (e.g. Bigfoot, Yeti) are often grouped in-between humans and animals or humans, animals, and spirits. There are a variety of “hybrid” animals, beings with the body of one animal and the head of another or so on which act as anomalies within zoological taxonomies. There are also many instances where zoological animals are grouped in with spirits, the bondegezou represents one such example. There’s a compelling argument to be made that cryptozoology is science’s equivalent of a spirit taxonomy, or at least a part of it.
Cryptozoology has historically been zoologically-literalist and, in the words of Heuvelmans, sought to “demythify” these supernatural beliefs. This is unfortunately rather ethnocentric and neglects the role these beings play within broader cosmologies. Although zoological discovery is objectively a significant part of cryptozoology, cultural understanding should be the ultimate goal - understanding how beings of this nature exist within different belief systems, what they can tell us about beliefs, knowledge, and classification, and what points of inspiration these beings pull from. This falls in line with critiques of the field levied by Meurger & Gagnon in Lake Monster Traditions, Darren Naish across various papers, and different points of discussion in the book Anthropology and Cryptozoology. Cryptozoology, if it exists as an academic field, is one that falls under cultural anthropology much moreso than zoology anyways.
To provide, briefly, an example of supernaturalism being neglected by zoologists, I point to the symbiotic
relationship between the okapi and blue turaco. Naturalists and collectors scoffed
at conceptions that the okapi and turaco were friends, spiritual
partners, or that by the magic of the forest's denizens the okapi could
"turn into a fish" and escape hunters. These are fanciful descriptions
of a genuine symbiotic relationship; the turaco acts as a spotter for
the okapi in return for food. This is, interestingly, the reason some dioramas, like the
one at ANSP, don't have a male okapi.
Gregory Forth's paper on dugong supernaturalism (Forth 2021) further provides a blatant hypothetical - naturalists would
undoubtedly dismiss the dugong as reported by the Lio if we did not
already have knowledge of sirenians. Indeed, the misconstruing of
similar details led ISC scientists to seek out to Ri of New Ireland as some sort of new cetacean.
Listening to fanciful supernatural descriptions at their word
contained adequate environmental and ecological information necessary to
find many primates - the kipunji's snot was said to cause
rainfall, a link made because they are very active during rainfall/the
rainy season. It's this kind of inquiry which we ought to use more often.
Citations
Ellen, Roy. “Visualizing Spirit Entities: Naming, Classification, and Pictorial Representation of Pseudo-Natural Kinds in Nuaulu Cosmography.” Folklore, vol. 136, no. 1, 2 Jan. 2025
Forth, Gregory. “Rare Animals as Cryptids and Supernaturals: The Case of Dugongs on Flores Island.” Anthrozoös, vol. 34, no. 1, 2 Jan. 2021
Forth, Gregory. “Mountain Turtles and Giant Crabs: Cosmological Implications and Supernatural Understandings of Rare Creatures on an Eastern Indonesian Island.” Anthrozoös, vol. 35, 4 Jan. 2022
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