Re: Naming Mythical creatures

Barry Garcia wrote:

> I'm a little curious on how those of you who've gotten far enough for
> your cultures' mythologies on naming various deities, spirit types,
> monsters, and mythical creatures?
Wot a coincidence! I also read Geoff Horswood's post, which is fantastic!

I've just begun finding names for the various spirits (çehama) of the Kash
world. So far, we have this classification:

çehamala prahañurak-- the Greater Spirits: Sun, Earth, Sky, Sea, Wind/Storm,
the larger moon Vuruna, the Cousins; perhaps also Forest/Jungle, and in
northerly areas, Snow/Cold/Ice (=North Wind??).  The only name so far is
Kinda, the (f.) Earth Spirit, the result of a translation exercise from
around 2001 (I still have the text if anyone would like to see it). There
will be other specific words, probably changes of the basic words for sun,
sky etc.

çehamala prahañumik-- the Lesser Spirits: trees/wood, rocks, metals,
non-Cousin animals, tools, the eccentric moon Lalap, etc etc, basically
almost every natural object. No specific names yet; they may end up being
simply _ çeham xxx_.

The modifier prahañu- (-rak 'big', -mik 'small') is from _prahaniyu_
(HON.+soul/mind) which refers to the essence of The Creator ~divinity that
inhabits all things. I believe there's an Engl. phrase "There is that of God
within all things".........
>
> I've been trying to figure out how to go about it for the Saalangal,
> and I've looked to Tagalog for inspiration, but not much luck. I
> assume originally creature names would usually have some sort of
> meaning behind them (such as the recent example here - werewolf)...
You may recall recent discussions on Alibata of aswang and patianak. My
Pilipino dict. gives:

aswang: evil creature capable of assuming diverse forms, but esp. human form
with horsefeet. (Cross refs to tigbalang-- similar, with horse's legs-- iki,
manananggal, manlalabas (not found), and multó 'ghost' < Sp. muerto, and
duwende 'elf, hobgoblin' < Sp. duende. From the discussion at Alibata, I
gathered it means sorcerer in modern usage (???)

patianak ~tianak: goblin

Both have apparent cognates in Indonesian:
suangi ~suanggi 'nocturnal ghost'; some other langs. have a term, possibly
related, with the form asu(w)ain vel sim. approx. 'hero', refers to one who
has taken an enemy's head in battle-- folk etymologized (somehow) to contain
asu 'dog' (???)

puntianak-- an evil spirit of some sort, I gather of a woman who died in
childbirth, who goes about stealing babies. Presumably contains anak
'child', but punti- is unclear; Tag. pati- is also unclear, perhaps a
corruption of patay 'die ~kill??'

Then there's the Hispanic/Mexican? chupacabras and La Llorona which we hear
about from time to time.

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