Tailed Men

: Curious Myths Of The Middle Ages

I well remember having it impressed upon me by a Devonshire nurse, as

a little child, that all Cornishmen were born with tails; and it was

long before I could overcome the prejudice thus early implanted in my

breast against my Cornubian neighbors. I looked upon those who dwelt

across the Tamar as "uncanny," as being scarcely to be classed with

Christian people, and certainly not to be freely associated with by

tailless Devonians. I think my eyes were first opened to the fact that

I had been deceived by a worthy bookseller of L----, with whom I had

contracted a warm friendship, he having at sundry times contributed

pictures to my scrapbook. I remember one day resolving to broach the

delicate subject with my tailed friend, whom I liked, notwithstanding

his caudal appendage.



"Mr. X----, is it true that you are a Cornishman?"



"Yes, my little man; born and bred in the West country."



"I like you very much; but--have you really got a tail?"



When the bookseller had recovered from the astonishment which I had

produced by my question, he stoutly repudiated the charge.



"But you are a Cornishman?"



"To be sure I am."



"And all Cornishmen have tails."



I believe I satisfied my own mind that the good man had sat his off,

and my nurse assured me that such was the case with those of sedentary

habits.



It is curious that Devonshire superstition should attribute the tail

to Cornishmen, for it was asserted of certain men of Kent in olden

times, and was referred to Divine vengeance upon them for having

insulted St. Thomas A Becket, if we may believe Polydore Vergil.

"There were some," he says, "to whom it seemed that the king's secret

wish was, that Thomas should be got rid of. He, indeed, as one

accounted to be an enemy of the king's person, was already regarded

with so little respect, nay, was treated with so much contempt, that

when he came to Strood, which village is situated on the Medway, the

river that washes Rochester, the inhabitants of the place, being eager

to show some mark of contumely to the prelate in his disgrace, did not

scruple to cut off the tail of the horse on which he was riding; but

by this profane and inhospitable act they covered themselves with

eternal reproach; for it so happened after this, by the will of God,

that all the offspring born from the men who had done this thing, were

born with tails, like brute animals. But this mark of infamy, which

formerly was everywhere notorious, has disappeared with the extinction

of the race whose fathers perpetrated this deed."



John Bale, the zealous reformer, and Bishop of Ossory in Edward VI.'s

time, refers to this story, and also mentions a variation of the scene

and cause of this ignoble punishment. He writes, quoting his

authorities, "John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby sayth, that for

castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augustyne, Dorsettshyre men had

tayles ever after. But Polydorus applieth it unto Kentish men at

Stroud, by Rochester, for cuttinge off Thomas Becket's horse's tail.

Thus hath England in all other land a perpetual infamy of tayles by

theye wrytten legendes of lyes, yet can they not well tell where to

bestowe them truely." Bale, a fierce and unsparing reformer, and one

who stinted not hard words, applying to the inventors of these legends

an epithet more strong than elegant, says, "In the legends of their

sanctified sorcerers they have diffamed the English posterity with

tails, as has been showed afore. That an Englyshman now cannot

travayle in another land by way of marchandyse or any other honest

occupyinge, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his tethe that all

Englyshmen have tails. That uncomely note and report have the nation

gotten, without recover, by these laisy and idle lubbers, the monkes

and the priestes, which could find no matters to advance their

canonized gains by, or their saintes, as they call them, but manifest

lies and knaveries."[27]



Andrew Marvel also makes mention of this strange judgment in his

Loyal Scot:--



"But who considers right will find, indeed,

'Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.

Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,

No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud.

All Litanys in this have wanted faith,

There's no--Deliver us from a Bishop's wrath.

Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales,

Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales;

For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tails."



It may be remembered that Lord Monboddo, a Scotch judge of last

century, and a philosopher of some repute, though of great

eccentricity, stoutly maintained the theory that man ought to have a

tail, that the tail is a desideratum, and that the abrupt

termination of the spine without caudal elongation is a sad blemish in

the origination of man. The tail, the point in which man is inferior

to the brute, what a delicate index of the mind it is! how it

expresses the passions of love and hate! how nicely it gives token of

the feelings of joy or fear which animate the soul! But Lord Monboddo

did not consider that what the tail is to the brute, that the eye is

to man; the lack of one member is supplied by the other. I can tell a

proud man by his eye just as truly as if he stalked past one with

erect tail; and anger is as plainly depicted in the human eye as in

the bottle-brush tail of a cat. I know a sneak by his cowering glance,

though he has not a tail between his legs; and pleasure is evident in

the laughing eye, without there being any necessity for a wagging

brush to express it.



Dr. Johnson paid a visit to the judge, and knocked on the head his

theory that men ought to have tails, and actually were born with them

occasionally; for said he, "Of a standing fact, sir, there ought to be

no controversy; if there are men with tails, catch a homo caudatus."

And, "It is a pity to see Lord Monboddo publish such notions as he has

done--a man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. There would be

little in a fool doing it; we should only laugh; but, when a wise man

does it, we are sorry. Other people have strange notions, but they

conceal them. If they have tails they hide them; but Monboddo is as

jealous of his tail as a squirrel." And yet Johnson seems to have been

tickled with the idea, and to have been amused with the notion of an

appendage like a tail being regarded as the complement of human

perfection. It may be remembered how Johnson made the acquaintance of

the young Laird of Col, during his Highland tour, and how pleased he

was with him. "Col," says he, "is a noble animal. He is as complete an

islander as the mind can figure. He is a farmer, a sailor, a hunter,

a fisher: he will run you down a dog; if any man has a tail, it is

Col." And notwithstanding all his aversion to puns, the great Doctor

was fain to yield to human weakness on one occasion, under the

influence of the mirth which Monboddo's name seems to have excited.

Johnson writes to Mrs. Thrale of a party he had met one night, which

he thus enumerates: "There were Smelt, and the Bishop of St. Asaph,

who comes to every place; and Sir Joshua, and Lord Monboddo, and

ladies out of tale."



There is a Polish story of a witch who made a girdle of human skin and

laid it across the threshold of a door where a marriage-feast was

being held. On the bridal pair stepping across the girdle they were

transformed into wolves. Three years after the witch sought them out,

and cast over them dresses of fur with the hair turned outward,

whereupon they recovered their human forms, but, unfortunately, the

dress cast over the bridegroom was too scanty, and did not extend over

his tail, so that, when he was restored to his former condition, he

retained his lupine caudal appendage, and this became hereditary in

his family; so that all Poles with tails are lineal descendants of

the ancestor to whom this little misfortune happened. John Struys, a

Dutch traveller, who visited the Isle of Formosa in 1677, gives a

curious story, which is worth transcribing.



"Before I visited this island," he writes, "I had often heard tell

that there were men who had long tails, like brute beasts; but I had

never been able to believe it, and I regarded it as a thing so alien

to our nature, that I should now have difficulty in accepting it, if

my own senses had not removed from me every pretence for doubting the

fact, by the following strange adventure: The inhabitants of Formosa,

being used to see us, were in the habit of receiving us on terms which

left nothing to apprehend on either side; so that, although mere

foreigners, we always believed ourselves in safety, and had grown

familiar enough to ramble at large without an escort, when grave

experience taught us that, in so doing, we were hazarding too much. As

some of our party were one day taking a stroll, one of them had

occasion to withdraw about a stone's throw from the rest, who, being

at the moment engaged in an eager conversation, proceeded without

heeding the disappearance of their companion. After a while, however,

his absence was observed, and the party paused, thinking he would

rejoin them. They waited some time; but at last, tired of the delay,

they returned in the direction of the spot where they remembered to

have seen him last. Arriving there, they were horrified to find his

mangled body lying on the ground, though the nature of the lacerations

showed that he had not had to suffer long ere death released him.

Whilst some remained to watch the dead body, others went off in search

of the murderer; and these had not gone far, when they came upon a man

of peculiar appearance, who, finding himself enclosed by the exploring

party, so as to make escape from them impossible, began to foam with

rage, and by cries and wild gesticulations to intimate that he would

make any one repent the attempt who should venture to meddle with him.

The fierceness of his desperation for a time kept our people at bay;

but as his fury gradually subsided, they gathered more closely round

him, and at length seized him. He then soon made them understand that

it was he who had killed their comrade, but they could not learn from

him any cause for this conduct. As the crime was so atrocious, and, if

allowed to pass with impunity, might entail even more serious

consequences, it was determined to burn the man. He was tied up to a

stake, where he was kept for some hours before the time of execution

arrived. It was then that I beheld what I had never thought to see. He

had a tail more than a foot long, covered with red hair, and very like

that of a cow. When he saw the surprise that this discovery created

among the European spectators, he informed us that his tail was the

effect of climate, for that all the inhabitants of the southern side

of the island, where they then were, were provided with like

appendages."[28]



After Struys, Hornemann reported that, between the Gulf of Benin and

Abyssinia, were tailed anthropophagi, named by the natives

Niam-niams; and in 1849, M. Descouret, on his return from Mecca,

affirmed that such was a common report, and added that they had long

arms, low and narrow foreheads, long and erect ears, and slim legs.



Mr. Harrison, in his "Highlands of Ethiopia," alludes to the common

belief among the Abyssinians, in a pygmy race of this nature.



MM. Arnault and VayssiA"re, travellers in the same country, in 1850,

brought the subject before the Academy of Sciences.



In 1851, M. de Castelnau gave additional details relative to an

expedition against these tailed men. "The Niam-niams," he says, "were

sleeping in the sun: the Haoussas approached, and, falling on them,

massacred them to the last man. They had all of them tails forty

centimetres long, and from two to three in diameter. This organ is

smooth. Among the corpses were those of several women, who were

deformed in the same manner. In all other particulars, the men were

precisely like all other negroes. They are of a deep black, their

teeth are polished, their bodies not tattooed. They are armed with

clubs and javelins; in war they utter piercing cries. They cultivate

rice, maize, and other grain. They are fine looking men, and their

hair is not frizzled."



M. d'Abbadie, another Abyssinian traveller, writing in 1852, gives the

following account from the lips of an Abyssinian priest: "At the

distance of fifteen days' journey south of Herrar is a place where all

the men have tails, the length of a palm, covered with hair, and

situated at the extremity of the spine. The females of that country

are very beautiful and are tailless. I have seen some fifteen of these

people at Besberah, and I am positive that the tail is natural."



It will be observed that there is a discrepancy between the accounts

of M. de Castelnau and M. d'Abbadie. The former accords tails to the

ladies, whilst the latter denies it. According to the former, the tail

is smooth; according to the latter, it is covered with hair.



Dr. Wolf has improved on this in his "Travels and Adventures," vol.

ii. 1861. "There are men and women in Abyssinia with tails like dogs

and horses." Wolf heard also from a great many Abyssinians and

Armenians (and Wolf is convinced of the truth of it), that "there are

near Narea, in Abyssinia, people--men and women--with large tails,

with which they are able to knock down a horse; and there are also

such people near China." And in a note, "In the College of Surgeons

at Dublin may still be seen a human skeleton, with a tail seven inches

long! There are many known instances of this elongation of the caudal

vertebra, as in the Poonangs in Borneo."



But the most interesting and circumstantial account of the Niam-niams

is that given by Dr. Hubsch, physician to the hospitals of

Constantinople. "It was in 1852," says he, "that I saw for the first

time a tailed negress. I was struck with this phenomenon, and I

questioned her master, a slave dealer. I learned from him that there

exists a tribe called Niam-niam, occupying the interior of Africa. All

the members of this tribe bear the caudal appendage, and, as Oriental

imagination is given to exaggeration, I was assured that the tails

sometimes attained the length of two feet. That which I observed was

smooth and hairless. It was about two inches long, and terminated in a

point. This woman was as black as ebony, her hair was frizzled, her

teeth white, large, and planted in sockets which inclined considerably

outward; her four canine teeth were filed, her eyes bloodshot. She ate

meat raw, her clothes fidgeted her, her intellect was on a par with

that of others of her condition.



"Her master had been unable, during six months, to sell her,

notwithstanding the low figure at which he would have disposed of her;

the abhorrence with which she was regarded was not attributed to her

tail, but to the partiality, which she was unable to conceal, for

human flesh. Her tribe fed on the flesh of the prisoners taken from

the neighboring tribes, with whom they were constantly at war.



"As soon as one of the tribe dies, his relations, instead of burying

him, cut him up and regale themselves upon his remains; consequently

there are no cemeteries in this land. They do not all of them lead a

wandering life, but many of them construct hovels of the branches of

trees. They make for themselves weapons of war and of agriculture;

they cultivate maize and wheat, and keep cattle. The Niam-niams have a

language of their own, of an entirely primitive character, though

containing an infusion of Arabic words.



"They live in a state of complete nudity, and seek only to satisfy

their brute appetites. There is among them an utter disregard for

morality, incest and adultery being common. The strongest among them

becomes the chief of the tribe; and it is he who apportions the shares

of the booty obtained in war. It is hard to say whether they have any

religion; but in all probability they have none, as they readily adopt

any one which they are taught.



"It is difficult to tame them altogether; their instinct impelling

them constantly to seek for human flesh; and instances are related of

slaves who have massacred and eaten the children confided to their

charge.



"I have seen a man of the same race, who had a tail an inch and a half

long, covered with a few hairs. He appeared to be thirty-five years

old; he was robust, well built, of an ebon blackness, and had the same

peculiar formation of jaw noticed above; that is to say, the tooth

sockets were inclined outwards. Their four canine teeth are filed

down, to diminish their power of mastication.



"I know also, at Constantinople, the son of a physician, aged two

years, who was born with a tail an inch long; he belonged to the white

Caucasian race. One of his grandfathers possessed the same appendage.

This phenomenon is regarded generally in the East as a sign of great

brute force."



About ten years ago, a newspaper paragraph recorded the birth of a

boy at Newcastle-on-Tyne, provided with a tail about an inch and a

quarter long. It was asserted that the child when sucking wagged this

stump as token of pleasure.



Yet, notwithstanding all this testimony in favor of tailed men and

women, it is simply a matter of impossibility for a human being to

have a tail, for the spinal vertebrA in man do not admit of

elongation, as in many animals; for the spine terminates in the os

sacrum, a large and expanded bone of peculiar character, entirely

precluding all possibility of production to the spine as in caudate

animals.



FOOTNOTES:



[27] "Actes of English Votaries."



[28] "Voyages de Jean Struys," An. 1650.