In the African wilderness, a wild beast desecrates your loved ones’ graves, and spawns disease
and blight with just a glance in your direction.
Able to wander essentially undetected among people during the day, at night it transforms
into a terrifying creature—the werehyena.
Associated with death, gluttony, and greed, this monster joins the ranks of werewolves,
selkies, and other shapeshifting monsters.
Werecreatures—humans or animals that can shapeshift from one form into another—are
common across the globe, taking different forms based on the real predators in the local
area.
Most familiar to a western audience is the werewolf, but given that there are four different
species of hyena in Africa, it’s not so surprising that the version of the monster
we find in that continent looks more like this than this.
There’s way more to these monsters than in the Buffy episode.
So let’s look at the werehyena of African folklore.
And how the Beta Israel religious group became commonly accused of taking the guise of this
monster.
[Monstrum intro.]
A werehyena is most commonly believed to be a hyena masquerading by day as a human, as
opposed to the more western figure of a werewolf, which is a human who turns into a wolf, usually
at night.
A werehyena’s human skin is the false one, and while a werehyena in human form may be
noticed by an unusually hairy body or nasally voice, more often than not they can walk among
humans unnoticed.
In the wild plains of Africa, hyenas stand out as repugnant animals.
Though often thought of merely as opportunistic scavengers, in reality their cunning tactics,
knife-like teeth, and surprising swiftness make these animals formidable foes.
Hyenas are often considered the outsiders of the animal world characterized as unnatural
and disgusting since they consume rotten flesh, and associated with greed since they steal
the kills of other animals.
While they won’t turn their nose down at rotting flesh, hyenas are intelligent hunters
capable of taking down wildebeest and antelope.
Add in a human skinsuit so it can wander among us by day and you have yourself one terrifying
monster.
In Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and some parts of Morocco and Eritrea werehyena
are associated with groups of outsiders who are accused of possessing magical abilities
and the powerful stare of an evil eye.
Called, Buda or bouda, a derogatory title, Buda are thought to control animal
spirits intentionally or unintentionally, cause illness, poison people’s food and
-- shapeshift into a hyena.
Buda and werehyenas are most often associated with artisan trades like metal working, weaving,
and pottery and their evil powers are said to be passed on from generation to generation,
much like skills of a trade.
Almost all Buda are described as “landless people.”
And the people most commonly associated with landlessness and of being smiths and potters
in eastern Africa are the Ethiopian Jews.
Self -identifying as the Beta Israel, this group is a religious and professional minority
in the largely Christian country of Ethiopia that coalesced into a more unified group by
the 15th century.
Origins of the group’s faith are hotly debated in scholarship, but what is generally agreed
upon is that the group started in one of the so called “heretic” communities in Ethiopia.
People outside of the group called the Beta Israel “Ayhud” or “Falasha,” which
at their base meaning, refers to Jews and the Jewish community but are also synonymous
with “exiles” and those who practiced “magic.”
Both terms are considered derogatory.
The derogatory name Falasha as a designator for the Beta Israel first became a widespread
term in the 16th century onward.
By then, the definition of a Falasi is a landless person, a wanderer, an exile.
So how and why did the Beta Israel become associated with werehyenas?
In the late 15th and early 16th century, the masonry and carpentry skills of the Beta Israel
were highly valued.
Their contributions to infrastructure and architecture led to a rise in their economic
and social mobility.
They were also noted soldiers in the imperial army.
Their rewards for their skills on and off the battlefield even led to the gifting of
titles and land to the Beta Israel, which if you remember, directly contradicts the
definition of Buda.
Then in 1769 Ethiopia, Emperor Iyo’as was assassinated, causing political and social
upheaval, and pushing marginalized peoples, including the Beta Israel, into other trades
like pottery and smithing.
It also placed their religious practices under attack.
These new craft professions of the Beta Israel—smithery for the men, and pottery for the women—had
one big thing in common.
Fire.
Across history fire is associated with magic, because what’s more magical than using fire
to transform a seemingly useless material—like iron or clay—into a knife or a bowl?
Christians believed Beta Israel's superior skills were supernatural.
It is an almost universal theme in African cultures that metalworkers, like the Buda,
are associated with malevolent spellcraft.
Such artisans are often “landless” moving from place to place as necessary for their
profession, leasing farming land as tenants from Christian landholders.
Their more nomadic lifestyle alienated them from permanent residents, and cast suspicion
upon their motives.
And people began to wonder, could these individuals practicing crafts with such transformative
powers be able to transform their bodies as well?
Christians of the day chose a dramatic way to “other” the community and claimed all
the Ethiopian Jews were Buda—designating them dangerous.
In fact, many Christians actually believed the Beta Israel assumed human disguises during
the day, and returned to their natural hyena form during the night.
Very different from other types of werecreatures in global lore, most famously the werewolf,
instead of a human turning into an animal, these werehyenas were animals that shapeshifted
into humans.
Another bit of anti-Semetic lore further stigmatized Beta Israel blacksmiths, claiming they descended
from the Jewish smith who crafted the nails used to crucify Jesus.
This accusation further classified the Beta Israel as Buda.
Some people even began referring to them as the “Hyena People” an association that
equated them with an animal largely seen as disgusting.
These continuing prejudices saw blood libel accusations, the allegations of the ritual
murder of Christians and the Beta Israel were charged with turning into hyenas and draining
the blood of their victims by vampiric means, or by afflicting them with an illness that
required medical blood letting.
Buda werehyena lore asserts that this blood was used for rituals, medicine, and nutrition.
In modern Ethiopia, buda is still a derogatory, alienating insult.
And nowadays it's illegal to accuse someone of being a werehyena.
Werecreature folklore exists across the globe, and in my observation, the werehyena is unique
in its direct connection to a specific religious group.
The relationship between werehyenas, Buda, and the Beta Israel gives us yet another example
of how outsider groups are demonized by people in positions of power, and who perpetuate
myths like this one as a means of social control to keep those deemed as “monstrous” oppressed.