Kushtaka – the Land-Otter People of Thomas Bay

When

since c. 1900 date reconstructed from later accounts · first known record: 1953

Where

Thomas Bay near Petersburg, Alaska, United States

Verdict

Legend

The Tlingit tell of half-human, half-otter beings that lure the shipwrecked with the voices of loved ones. Prospectors at Thomas Bay claimed to have met “devils.”

What happened

In the beliefs of the Tlingit and Haida of Southeast Alaska, the kushtaka (kóoshdaa káa, “land-otter man”) is a shape-shifter: half human, half otter, able to take on human form. Kushtaka haunt the drowning and those lost in the forest – they impersonate relatives and friends, mimic a baby’s cry or a woman’s scream to lure their victims to the water. Anyone they take becomes a land-otter person and loses their soul; in some stories they rescue people from freezing, but this transformation is the price. Copper, fire and dogs protect against kushtaka, and shamans fought them for the souls of the dying. The best-known story from outside Tlingit tradition comes from Thomas Bay near Petersburg, known as the “Devil’s Country”: settler Harry D. Colp wrote down the account of prospectors who in the early 20th century found a rich vein of quartz there but fled from a pack of hideous, half-human creatures – and afterwards could never find the spot again. His story was published in 1953 as The Strangest Story Ever Told.

Witnesses

Tlingit and Haida oral tradition; the prospectors whose adventures were written down by Harry D. Colp (published 1953).

Explanations and hypotheses

Kushtaka belong to the traditional beliefs of the coast’s Indigenous peoples, in which the land otter was an animal with dangerous power; the stories also warned children away from cold water and explained disappearances at sea. Folklorist Mary Giraudo Beck collected them in Shamans and Kushtakas (1991). Colp’s story was passed around among white settlers, written down years later and cannot be checked; there is no evidence that such creatures exist, and modern TV “kushtaka hunts” mix Tlingit folklore with the vogue for cryptozoology.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

More: Wikipedia (en)