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At long last, we have reached the end of our series on werecats. We are rounding out the line-up with werepumas, which really only take one form: the wampus cat. It might be a bit of a stretch the call wampus cats a type of werecat, but they do have many of the common characteristics. Plus, these creatures come from my own neck of the woods, so I didn’t want to leave them out. I now present to you the (sort-of) werecat of the American south.
What is a Wampus Cat?
Wampus: An imaginary creature who lives in the deep Cape Fear River swamps.
Paul Green’s Wordbook: An Alphabet of Reminiscence, 1990
Descriptions of the wampus cat vary depending upon the location, and it has a pretty large home range. Wampus cat folklore is concentrated throughout the southern Appalachian Mountains, from Virginia to Mississippi (2, 7). The stories even crop up to the west in Missouri and Arkansas (8). Wampus cats are usually said to be part-human, part-cougar (1-3, 5, 7) but are sometimes a canine-feline hybrid instead (2, 8). Others describe them as huge, black panthers with demonic, glowing eyes (5). Typical traits include walking on two legs instead of four, luminescent yellow eyes, and a bone-chilling howl or scream (1, 2, 8).
How dangerous wampus cats are depends upon who you ask, as well. In some legends, the wampus cat can be destructive but doesn’t pose a danger to human lives. She may disturb or damage items left outside and kill or steal livestock, and she makes scary noises in the woods at night (6). Sometimes the wampus cat is said to drive people insane (8) or to portend death with its haunting cries (7).
There are those who swear wampus cats are much more dangerous than that, however, and will absolutely attack humans with intent to kill (1, 5). Yet according to a Cherokee version of the legend, the wampus cat is actually a protector of the land and its people (2, 8). The tale of the wampus cat may have originated with the Cherokee (7), although it’s hard to say for sure because the provenance of the lore has become quite muddied.
Murky Origins
Cherokee Curse
This seems to be the most common origin story for the wampus cat. It’s also the one that I remember reading in a book of spooky stories as a teenager. It begins with a beautiful Cherokee woman who wants to know what the men get up to on their hunts, which women are forbidden from participating in (1-3, 6, 7). In some versions of the tale, she is jealous, believing that her husband may be engaging in infidelity while he’s away from her (1). In others she wants to learn the magic rites that the men perform on these trips (6).
Whatever her reasons, she covered herself in a puma skin as a disguise and snuck after the men the next time they went hunting (1-3, 6, 7). They caught her spying on them, and the shaman put a curse on her as punishment (1-3, 6, 7). The woman and the cougar pelt became one, and she was turned into a half-human, half-cougar, doomed to wander the forests forever away from human companionship (1-3, 6, 7).
Although this story is about the Cherokee, it probably was not their story (6). In fact, the Cherokee have a different myth about the cat creature, which I will get to next. It’s thought that the first stories of the wampus cat–under a different name–were shared among Native Americans, especially the Cherokee, and later relayed to white settlers (2). Then, perhaps because of cultural differences or just the Telephone Game that happens with folklore, the European newcomers began to tell the story differently.
Cherokee Hero
The Cherokee legend also casts a woman in the starring role, but in a much different light. Once upon a time, a Cherokee village was under siege by a demon: Ew’ah, the Spirit of Madness (2, 8). Ew’ah ate dreams and could drive people insane with a single glance (8). The Cherokee’s strongest warrior, Standing Bear (or sometimes Great Fellow), was chosen to go out and kill the demon (8). When he finally returned weeks later, he was completely insane (2, 8).
Standing Bear’s wife, Running Deer, was heartbroken–and determined to get revenge (8). The shamans gave Running Deer a wild cat mask and a magical black paste that would hide her scent and her body (8). They told her that she must surprise the demon, or she would fare no better than her husband (8).
So Running Deer tracked Ew’ah through the forest and managed to sneak up behind it as it was drinking from a spring (8). Running Deer sprang upon Ew’ah, taking it by surprise just as she’d planned (2, 8). The spirit of the mountain cat in the mask banished the demon, and Running Deer ran home without looking back (8). The shamans and warchiefs named Running Deer “Spirit-Talker” and “Home-Protector” in honor of her courageous act (8). They say that she is still protecting her home now in the form of the wampus cat (2, 8).
Witchy Werecat
On the flip side, there is a common wampus cat tale that has European colonists written all over it. Where there are women and cats, there must be witches, right? The story claims that an Appalachian village was being terrorized by a spate of mysterious livestock thefts (3). They believed a witch was the culprit, and they had a particular woman in mind (3). Some of the townspeople followed her from her home to a farm late one night (3).
They watched as she transformed into a house cat and sneaked into the farmhouse (3). She put a sleeping spell on the family, slunk back outside, and entered the barn (3). There, she began to transform back into a human (3). The townspeople interrupted her, however, preventing her from finishing the spell (1, 3). She was able to escape capture, but was stuck halfway between a human and a cat thereafter (1, 3).
The Government Did It
This one is my favorite because it’s just so wild. There is an urban legend version of the wampus cat specific to Alabama which has it that wampus cats were created by a secret government program (2). The story goes that this World War II-era program aimed to create a fast, courageous animal that could be used as messengers in warzones (2). In a remote place in Alabama, government scientists made a creature that was part mountain lion, part gray wolf (2). How that was allegedly accomplished in the 1940s when it wouldn’t even be possible today, is anyone’s guess. According to legend, some of these hypothetical animals escaped the facility and established themselves in the environment (2). As someone with a degree in genetics, I firmly assert that this make no sense. But what a story!
Wampus Cats in Media
Wampus cats are not an especially common supernatural creature in popular culture, but that doesn’t mean they never rear their furry heads. Cormac McCarthy incorporated them in his debut novel, The Orchard Keeper (7). McCarthy’s character Uncle Arthur is plagued by dreams of wampus cats which he fears will enter his bedchamber and “suck his meager breath” (7).
In The Island of Dr. Moreau, H. G. Wells paints a truly horrifying picture of the depravity of humankind in the service of science. Wells uses an unusual word for the wampus cat, “virago,” in a scene with Dr. Moreau’s surgically-built puma woman (7). The narrator notes dispassionately that the creature’s shrieks under the torture of Dr. Moreau’s knife sound “almost exactly like that of an angry virago” (7). The puma woman immediately escapes and succeeds at exacting her revenge on her tormentor, although she loses her life as well (7).
- J. K. Rowling made Wampus Cat one of the houses in Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
- There was a string ensemble in the late 1930s called The Wampus Cats.
- Strangeways Brewing makes a Wampus Cat Triple IPA.
- Great American Craft Spirits makes a Wampus Cat Single Malt Whiskey.
- Cry of the Wampus Cat by Joel Eden is a crime thriller that uses the Cherokee curse wampus cat mythology and pits two detectives against a series of murders that may have been committed by a wampus cat.
- Several schools use the wampus cat as their mascot, including Conway High School, which depicts is as a blue-and-white mountain lion with six legs. Your guess is as good as mine.
Is the Wampus Cat Just a Cat?
With all those possible origin stories for the wampus cat, there is another we have yet to examine. Is the wampus cat just a case of mistaken identity? Most of the descriptions sound a lot like a real puma, except sometimes on two legs instead of four, which cats can’t do for very long. Puma eyes can glow at night, a phenomenon known as eyeshine. It is caused by the reflective layer at the back of their eyes which helps felines see in low light. As for the unearthly wails of the wampus cat? If you’ve never heard a mountain lion scream, I’ve included a video below. The sound is often compared to a woman screaming in fear or pain.
There are two problems with this hypothesis, however. The first is that the legend of the wampus cat likely began with the local Native Americans. They shared the forests with cougars and would have known very well what they look and sound like. Widespread misidentification seems highly improbable. The second is that cougars have been extinct in the east (except Florida) for almost 100 years. At least, that’s the official line.
There’s no one, simple answer to the first quandary, but there might be to the second. Although Fish and Wildlife Services maintain that the Eastern Cougar is extinct, people sure seem to see a lot of them for that to be the case (5). They also continue to see wampus cats and to blame them for attacking livestock (2). If people don’t expect to see pumas it might be easier to conflate the two.
In 2017, Tennessee confirmed 10 mountain lion sightings after none in the last hundred years (5). As far as I know, that’s the closest the Eastern Cougar has come to official de-extinction. Why aren’t wildlife officials interested in cougar sightings? A North Carolina fish and game official, who wished to remain anonymous, told journalist Mike Conley that wildlife officials might be afraid admitting the Eastern Cougar is back in town could lead to hunters flocking to bag the cats (5). Not many people seem interested in taking home wampus cat trophies, however. Perhaps the wampus cat is a protector of the forest after all.
Works Cited
- Bahr, J., Taylor, T., Coleman, L., Moran, M., and Sceurman, M. (2007). Weird Virginia: Your travel guide to Virginia’s local legends and best kept secrets. Sterling Publishing Company: New York.
- Conley, M. (2013, August 1). Mike Conley’s tales of the weird: legend of the wampus cat. The McDowell News. https://mcdowellnews.com/opinion/mike-conley-s-tales-of-the-weird-legend-of-the/article_3891ddce-f53e-5659-8f26-e4274c9ebe91.html
- Farley, J. T. K. (2017, March 31). Have you ever heard of Appalachia’s wampus cat legend? Appalachian Magazine. http://appalachianmagazine.com/2017/03/31/have-you-ever-heard-of-appalachias-wampus-cat-legend/
- Green, P. (1990). Wampus. In R. H. Wynn (ed.), Paul Green’s wordbook: An alphabet of reminiscence (pp. 1183). Appalachian State University: Boone, NC.
- McDowell, I. (2017, July 26). Wampus cats, panthers, and cougars, oh my! Yes! Weekly. https://www.yesweekly.com/news/wampus-cats-panthers-and-cougars-oh-my/article_49f88d47-98a5-57f9-9459-a28a0bfc139c.html
- North Carolina Ghosts. (n.d.). The wampus cat. https://northcarolinaghosts.com/mountains/wampus-cat/
- Place, E. (2017, June 27). Big cats of the Southeast (part 3): The wampus cat and other anthropomorphic depictions. The History Bandits. https://thehistorybandits.com/2017/06/27/big-cats-of-the-southeast-part-3-the-wampus-cat-and-other-anthropomorphic-depictions/
- Tabler, D. (2017, October 13). The story of the wampus cat. Appalachian History. https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2017/10/story-of-wampus-cat.html
Published April 11th, 2021
Updated May 12th, 2023
