Topic mystical creatures

Ho Chi Minh City University of Agricultural and Forestry FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES □□ TOPIC: MYSTICAL CREATURES Class: Subject: Supervisor: DH 18AV American Studies Le Thi Tieu Phuong Group members: Vu Minh Dang Cao Vu Quoc Bao Phan Minh Dat Pham Khac Tuan Anh Nguyen Ngoc Hai July, 2022, Ho Chi Minh City Tieu luan Reason for choosing this topic: Monster and mythical creatures are always an interesting topic, for they not only provide the readers with story, myth or formation about these mystic creatures, but through them the readers will likely to know more about the culture, belief, and tradition of the people these creatures belong to Because of that, we would like to use this opportunity to introduce some of American mystic creatures in order to see some aspects of how these creatures affected and showed in America culture I Wendigo Introduce Wendigo is a mythological creature or evil spirit that originates from the folklore of Great Plains and Great Lake of United State and Canada, specifically in Algonquian legend, including the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, and so on The name ‘Wendigo’ can be roughly translated as ‘the evil spirit that devour mankind’ Name and appearance Throughout the region, the description about the Wendigo can be varied However, all of them share some factors in common claiming that Wendigo is a malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being Basil H Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a general description of a wendigo: ‘The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave What lips it had were tattered and bloody Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.’ In Native American cultures Origin Tieu luan It is strongly believed that Wendigo were evil spirit or demons, but according to Algoquian, they also can be cursed human In Legend, the first Wendigo was warriors of a tribe invaded by enemies who came to ask power from an evil god in the forest to defeat the enemy However, they soon lost their souls and forever lived the lives of bloodthirsty monsters There also tales that Wendigo was created whenever a human committed cannibalism, even if it were to survive Beside of that, humans overpowered by greed or contacted with this creature for too long can also transform into Wendigos Belief In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu religion, wendigos were evil spirit strongly related to winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation since their habitat were thought to be in the Northern area full of snow and usually appear in an extremely thin body resulted of starvation In addition, they were also seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess due to one characteristic: never satisfied, never full after killing and consuming their preys It was said that this creature has number of skills and powers that help them hunt more effective, such as voice-mimic, supernatural strength, weather control, and much more Moreover, not only be seen as the embodiment of greed, the Wendigos were also a warning about the destructive qualities of said greed For this, Wendigo was considered extremely bad luck to speak of as well as a taboo name which many native people still dislike talking it, even in the present day Among Algonquian tribes, whenever a famine which was usually seen as a work of Wendigo occurred, a ceremonial dance, called wiindigookaanzhimowin, is sometimes performed in order to reinforce the wendigo taboo This ceremony was performed by masks wearing tribe’s members while dancing backward around a drum The last Tieu luan known wendigo ceremony conducted in the United States was at Lake Windigo of Star Island of Cass Lake, located in the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota In modern era The myth of Wendigo has become an aspiration for novelist, game producer and film maker, such as The Wendigo of Algernon Blackwood, Until Dawn (2015) of Suppermassive Games, Antlers (2021) by Scott Cooper, Supernatural (Season1) by Eric Kripke, and much more In addition, Wendigo also a name of a psychosis which is a neurological disease related to a person with a desire to eat cannibals This psychosis usually occure in the winter in individuals who are isolated by cold, heavy snow for a long time with the initial symptoms are poor appetite, nausea, and vomiting Eventually, those people will begin to see delusions that they slowly transform into Wendigo, making them increasingly view others around them as edible being before committing cannibalism II Mothman Mothman is one of the most well-known cryptids in the world, and is one of the more intriguing examples of modern American folklore Description Mothman is described as a bipedal and winged humanoid, plus this creature has an appearance more like that of a large humanoid owl, and its coloration varies from black, gray, or brown Mothman is often reported to be about feet tall, with a wingspan of about 10 to 15 feet or more Some claim that this creature has the ability to fly at incredible speeds, at about 100 miles per hour Sightings Tieu luan The first Mothman sightings was reported near the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia on November 15, 1966 when gravediggers reported seeing gray figure fly over their heads The most infamous sighting of Mothman was on December 15, 1967, the day of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, shortly after the creature was spotted on the bridge, resulting in the deaths of forty-six people, the incident gave rise to the legend and people have speculated on whether the sightings connected to the tragedy Mothman has been allegedly sighted at other disastrous events since the bridge incident, with people claiming to have seen the creature before earthquakes, tsunamis, the nuclear plant at Chernobyl before the famous nuclear meltdown, and even the 9/11 terrorist attack Locals and storytellers still debate on whether Mothman should be considered an evil or benevolent creature Some say the creature is either bad luck or causing these disasters in certain ways, but others speculate Mothman have the ability to predict the future, and that the Mothman tries to warn people about the upcoming disasters Mothman has been widely covered in the popular press, some people claiming sightings linked with UFOs, and others believing that a military site was Mothman's home Some people hypothesized that toxins from the nearby TNT area has mutated the neighboring wildlife preserve, possibly affecting nearby animals Mothman’s impact on society Mothman was featured in the book The Mothman Prophecies by John A Keel and movie of the same name It brought a lot of attention to Point Pleasant Tourism skyrocketed after the film’s release Tieu luan The Mothman Festival is an annual commemoration of the visit of the Mothman, which first started in 2002 and is held on the third weekend of every September in Point Pleasant, West Virginia The average attendance of the Mothman Festival is 10– 12 thousand people per year The location is next to the Mothman Museum and Statue The festival features a wide variety of vendors, guest speakers, live music, pancake-eating contests, and hayride tours of locally notable areas People from all over the world come to experience the unique atmosphere and have further understanding about the Mothman Mothman became such an icon that in 2020 he became the main subject of an online petition, calling for the replacement of America's many Confederate monuments "with statues of celebrated American figures, primarily the Mothman." The Mothman statue was cited as "a prime representation of what is really important in American culture and history." The petition was signed by thousands of people III Bigfoot History Across the North American continent, many indigenous cultures including mysterious tales of giant hairy creatures living in forests were told and passed down to the next generations According to anthropologist David Daegling, these legends existed long before the modern discovery of "Bigfoot" (J, 2004) One of the oldest records can be traced back to the 15th centuries, which was found on petroglyphs created by a tribe of Yokuts at a site called Painted Rock on the Tule Tieu luan River Indian Reservation in Central California (Was Big Foot at the Reservation?, 2014) The ethnic group calls the black giant of the glyphs "Hairy Man" and those creatures are estimated to be more than 1000 years old The name " Bigfoot" Back in the year 1958, a set of huge, 410-millimeter human-like footprints plunged deep into the mud in the Six Rivers National Forest was discovered by Jerry Crew, a logging company bulldozer operator in Humboldt County, California (Eric, 2003) Strangely, everyone believed him, and the other workers of this company also claimed that similar odd cases on previous job sites were spotted such as an oil drum weighing 200 kg having been repositioned without explanation To address the situation easily, logging company men soon came to an agreement to call the creature who caused these mystery phenomena "Bigfoot", and they contacted reporter Andrew Genzoli of the Humboldt Times newspaper Not long after that, the story speared rapidly, and the name "Bigfoot" was used to define the local tales of the large, hairy wild creatures officially Appearance Almost all people who witnessed Bigfoot always tend to describe the same thing He is a large, muscular, and bipedal ape-like creature covered in dark brown hair The height varies in different tales; however, this creature is estimated to stand as tall as over 4.0 meters Broad shoulders, no visible neck, and long strong arms were also included in the common description Bigfoot in popular culture Tieu luan Since the mid-20th century, Bigfoot has become more and more relevant as a cultural icon in America According to a statistic made in May 2020, one out of ten adults in America believes that Bigfoot is a real creature (Becky, 2018) In addition, Smithsonian magazine, one of the most famous magazines stated "Interest in the existence of the creature is at an all-time high" In this contemporary era, "Bigfoot" and "Sasquatch" are cultural titles that have been utilized in advertising across various products and services For instance, the name of a medical company, music festival, sports mascot, monster truck, a Marvel Comics superhero, and more was also inspired by Bigfoot COVID-19, one of the deadliest pandemics also played a role that lead Bigfoot to become a Champion of social distancing in many North American social distancing promotion campaigns  Film, Literature, Television Bigfoot has been featured in a wide range of creations For the film, numerous genres including comedy films, horror films, documentary films, and animated films have Bigfoot as the main character such as Bigfoot (1970) or The Geek (1971) With regard to literature, he is a common subject and appears in many genres - The Gwaii, published by Arcana Studio - Donations to Clarity, a 2011 novel by Noah Baird With reference to television, he has been the star of various shows - Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet - (Bigfoot, n.d.) The Animal X series on the Discovery Channel  Festival Tieu luan Despite the Halloween festival, Bigfoot gets his own celebration, and it calls WNC Bigfoot Festival, which is the biggest annual festival that celebrates the legendary creature Bigfoot In fact, 2022 is the third time the WNC Big Feet Festival is held in Marion town where there were lots of sightings of Bigfoot (WNC Bigfoot Festival, Marion, 2022) IV Alien Introduction America is home to many mysterious stories of mysterious creatures and phenomena But perhaps the most prominent, mysterious of all will always be the story of the existence of aliens or not When doubts and theories become more and more obscure, historical evidence will still be the most solid mainstay Encounters with UFOs The first-time humans knew of the existence of extraterrestrial life was in 1947 when Kenneth Arnold witnessed nine crescent-shaped objects in the sky at Mount Rainier in Washington at speeds up to 2000km per hour That same year, Mac Brazel discovered a 200-foot-long debris resembling a flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico, but government vehemently the later denied this information Since that time, thousands of questions have been raised around the story of the existence of extraterrestrials, reports of sightings of UFOs increasing as well as the belief that the creatures controlling that flying object is none other than aliens Tieu luan The most prevalent description of alien- Grey According to the journalist Bryan ‘s book- “Close encounter of fourth kind” in 1996, 73% of all encounters depicted them were gray-skinned and had their own name: Grey They are often described as small, gray-skinned anthropomorphic creatures possessing external parts of the human body such as noses, ears, or sex organs that are completely missing Their bodies are frequently depicted as elongated, with small breasts, lack of muscle, and a clear skeletal structure along with an unusually large head relative to the body, no body hair, and no noticeable external ears or nose In drawings, Grays are almost always shown with very large, opaque, black eyes and a shorter body length than the average adult In popular culture Although everything has not been fully brought to light, with rich imagination as well as constant Americans curiosity, have produced many classic works about the story of alien invasion to Earth First, the famous book “Skinwalkers at the Pentagon” unmasks the massive scope of the Pentagon's landmark UFO study that ran from the Defense Intelligence Agency Washington, D.C in The Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program and other “nuts and bolts” UFO events, analyzed intrusions of UFOs onto US military bases Or the memoir "The day after Roswell"- a stunning depiction of just what happened in Roswell, New Mexico all those years ago and how the effects of this mysterious unidentified aircraft crash are still relevant today Tieu luan In terms of cinema, this is the biggest bridge to bring the culture of UFOs and aliens to the American people as well as the whole world A well-known example was the FOX television series The X-Files, which first aired in 1993 It combined the quest to find proof of the existence of Grey-like extraterrestrials with a number of UFO conspiracy theory subplots, to form its primary story arc The idea of UFOs coming to Earth has long been associated with "alien" by the public and refracted through the prism of Hollywood, for better or worse It's a standard pattern that science-fiction series directors have been exploiting to the fullest, and audiences will still happily accept it under Hollywood's hit products can be mentioned as the Transformers series, Men in Black or the naval battle in Battleship, and the most impressive is none other than Independence Day part and Not stopping there, the products such as clothing, shoes, fashion accessories as well as models of UFOs and extraterrestrials are popularly sold throughout the United States and receive great reception from residents and visitors from all over the world V Mythical creatures in Vietnam Vietnam, likewise, have various mystical creatures which are mentions in legends and folklores Vietnam has a long and unique culture and is also influenced by neighboring civilizations and countries, so we possess a rich treasure of folk stories, myths with rich diversity In those stories, mentions of mythical sacred beasts such as Qilin (have Chinese dragon-like features: similar heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse), Pixiu (have a similar appearance with Qilin in addition with a pair of wings), dragon and phoenix… All of which are thought to be the symbols of fortune and wealth Folklores also mention a variety of demonic creatures such as thuồng luồng (an aquatic monster with features similar to a giant crocodile), chằn tinh (a gigantic snake), bà chằng (a human-like tiger) All of which are vicious and dangerous Tieu luan creatures that manifest from people’s fear The creatures also reflect what our ancestors had to face in the process of living and establishing new settlements: bloodthirsty predators reside in the forest, deadly hunters lurking in the water…, along with the harsh environment and led them created the stories of the creatures in an exaggerate way to warn their children about the dangers All in all, in the long history of Vietnam, we have a fair share of legends and folklores that contain stories about some mystical creatures These creatures, both good and evil, represent our ancestors’ belief, hope and fear Through them, we can see how the people of the previous era viewed the world, the dangers as well as how they fought against the threats around them References Anglis, J (2021) The True Story Behind The Legendary Mothman Said To Terrorize West Virginia Retrieved from https://allthatsinteresting.com/mothman Arkin, D (2021, 27) How pop culture set the stage for the coming UFO report — for better or worse Retrieved from www.nbcnews.com: https://www.nbcnews.com/popculture/movies/how-pop-culture-set-stage-coming-ufo-report-better-or-n1268673 Becky, L (2018) How the Bigfoot Legend Began Retrieved from history.com: https://www.history.com/news/bigfoot-legend-newspaper Bigfoot (n.d.) Retrieved from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot#cite_note-31 Brightman, R A (2020) "The Windigo in the Material World" Ethnohistory, 337-379 (43 pages) Bryan, C (1995) Close Encounters with the fourth kinds New York: Knopf Eric, B (2003) Bigfoot's Big Feat: New Life Los Angeles Times Grayson, W (2007) Focused on Mississippi: “Bigfoot Bash” to be held in Natchez on November 4th Retrieved from wjtv.com: https://www.wjtv.com/living-local/focusedon-mississippi/focused-on-mississippi-bigfoot-bash-to-be-held-in-natchez-onnovember-4th/ Grey alien (n.d.) Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien#In_popular_culture J, D D (2004) Bigfoot exposed: an anthropologist examines America's enduring legend In Bigfoot exposed: an anthropologist examines America's enduring legend Rowman Altamira Klein, S (2021) The Legend of Mothman – Paranormal W.Va Retrieved from https://www.wboy.com/only-on-wboy-com/paranormal-w-va/the-legend-ofmothman-paranormal-w-va/ Tieu luan LONG, P (2017, 12 22) UFO - câu chuyện bí ẩn đầy mê Retrieved from tuoitre.vn: https://tuoitre.vn/ufo-cau-chuyen-bi-an-day-me-hoac-20171222174155076.htm Romain, L (2020) WHAT IS THE MOTHMAN AND WHY ARE WE SO OBSESSED? Retrieved from https://nerdist.com/article/mothman-why-we-are-so-obsessed/ SleepyMarco (2020, 04 02) Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=WujPDDI6yCA Teddy Roosevelt Wrote About A Fatal Bigfoot Encounter (2021) Retrieved from bearstatebooks.com: https://bearstatebooks.com/blog/2021/01/04/teddy-rooseveltwrote-about-a-fatal-bigfoot-encounter/ (2014) Was Big Foot at the Reservation? Porterville Recorder Weiser-Alexander, K (2021, 11) Wendigo – Flesheater of the Forests Retrieved from Legends of America: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/mn-wendigo/ WNC Bigfoot Festival, Marion (2022) Retrieved from romanticasheville.com: https://www.romanticasheville.com/bigfoot-festival?fbclid=IwAR0IP24NKMs1V5fOn_aOE_MUrffXwP_m8dJ0YRmN4mZsxQKMeOI50VYKJo Zarka, D E (2019) Windigo: The Flesh-Eating Monster of Native American Legend [Recorded by D E Zarka] Tieu luan ... for choosing this topic: Monster and mythical creatures are always an interesting topic, for they not only provide the readers with story, myth or formation about these mystic creatures, but through... people these creatures belong to Because of that, we would like to use this opportunity to introduce some of American mystic creatures in order to see some aspects of how these creatures affected... reception from residents and visitors from all over the world V Mythical creatures in Vietnam Vietnam, likewise, have various mystical creatures which are mentions in legends and folklores Vietnam has