So I'm in a bit of a bind with my story about immortal mythical creatures who live among humanity in secret. Since it takes place in America, supernatural creatures that originated from Native American culture are going to play a noticeable part in the story, because there are still a ton of them in the story's mostly-modern setting. See, it just recently occurred to me while brainstorming that when 90% of the Native American population was wiped out by the diseases inadvertently brought over by European explorers, none of the immortals would have been killed by this, and consequently they'd become a much larger percentage of the remaining Native American population and have a huge role in the history that came after. The problem is that I've been looking up Native American mythical creatures, but most of the ones I've been able to find don't really suit my purposes. I need a creature that, after taking as few creative liberties as possible: 1: can successfully pass for human. 2: is not necessarily hostile to the human race (IE, they don't need to kill humans to survive, like, say, a wendigo does). Bonus points if it: 3: can transform humans into more of itself, like vampires and werewolves traditionally can (as that's such a survival advantage that the vast majority of the immortals seen in the story are the species that have that trait). From what I've seen, it doesn't look like Native American mythology has creatures who can satisfy all three. The closest I've seen are Wendigos, who in some legends satisfy 1 and due to the nature of them all once being human could arguably satisfy 3 with a little reinterpretation. But we obviously hit a snag with 2, which is a problem because I'd rather the dominant immortal species originating from Native American mythology not be a race of cannibalistic predatory monsters who need to be exterminated for the safety of the human race by the heroic vampires and werewolves of my setting because... I mean I trust the optics of that don't need explaining. I'd be happy to have them in the story, but not if that's 90% of what the immortals from Native American culture were. Can anyone give me a hand and point me in the direction of an interesting Native American mythical creature that I might be able to turn into an interesting immortal race that suits the purposes of my story?
Then make up your own, maybe even set it in a similar but different world. An alternate reality perhaps.
Ah yes, that did occur to me, but the issue is that it would feel weird having the dominant Native-American mythological creature in my story... not actually be a Native-American mythological creature. It feels like it would be better to find a real one that comes close and massage the concept a bit like every writer does whenever they introduce a creature from mythology, rather than make something up entirely and have something wholly detached from Native American culture be the primary Native American immortal species.
It would take too long to type out but Google some of these: 1. The Lechuza 2.Flying Head 3. The Flathead Lake Monster 4. The Teihiihan as just a few. Hoped it helps somewhat!
Oooh! This one looks promising from what I've found so far. I'll watch a documentary about it and see what I can do with it!
If you're having heroic vampires and werewolves, I'm not sure I see why you can't have heroic wendigos too. They're all based off of irresistible cannibalistic urges.
The Deer Woman/Taxti Wau may fit what you're looking for. Being shapeshifting spirits, they can pass as humans with ease and they're usually only dangerous to men who display specific behaviors. http://www.native-languages.org/deer-woman.htm https://endicottstudio.typepad.com/articleslist/deer-woman-and-the-living-myth-of-dreamtime-by-carolyn-dunn.html The third condition doesn't quite fit, but there are versions of the myth where the original spirit may transform a murdered woman into another Deer Woman.
I remember watching a documentary about the thunderbirds. The documentary said that the birds might've been teratorns.
