kushtaka

kushtaka

English

Etymology

From Tlingit kóoshdaakaa (“land-otter man”).

Noun

kushtaka (plural kushtaka or kushtakas)

1. A mythical part-otter, part-human shapeshifter, in Tlingit and Tsimshian folklore, sometimes represented as tricksters and at other times as helpful beings who save (and turn) drowning victims.
   • 1994, Resources in Education, page 114:

     Written by a non-native scholar, this book contains nine Tlingit and Haida tales concerned with shamans and kushtakas. Land otters were fearful hybrid beings of the spirit world. Able to live on land and in water, they had the special mission of ...

   • 2003, Mary Giraudo Beck, Shamans and Kushtakas: North Coast Tales of the Supernatural, Graphic Arts Books (→ISBN):

     Ordinarily they can't be seen at all, but sometimes kushtakas reveal themselves in elusive shadowy forms; sometimes they are only heard; sometimes the contaminated victim experiences their reality in the furriness of his own arms and legs ...

   • 2010, Lynn Schooler, Walking Home: A Traveler in the Alaskan Wilderness, a Journey into the Human Heart, Bloomsbury Publishing USA (→ISBN), page 20:

     If a body could not be recovered and cremated, a drowning victim might become a kushtaka, a half-man, half-otter changeling that occupies the realm between life and death.

   • 2010, Mark A. Zeiger, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska, Yeldagalga Publications LLC (→ISBN), page 85:

     I learned that kushtakas “saved” drowned people by transforming them into their own kind. Most of the stories told of drowning victims who used their newly acquired supernatural powers to help their living relatives. That seemed pretty benign.