>>83828I'm currently reading a book about Yaqui Indian "Shamans" or "Sorcerers" and it talks about something called a "Diablero" which seems to fit the description for these large dog/wolfman stories.
A "Diablero" is supposedly a man who has learned methods of dark sorcery (taught to him by another sorcerer through an apprenticeship, with the aid of psychotropic plants such as Peyote) which allows him to transform into an Animal such as a Crow or a Coyote.
Some stories of Diablero's depict an enormous Dog or Coyote "twice the size of a regular Coyote" who are able to move in eerily human ways such as "Standing on their hind legs". Although most Indians will tell you Diablero's are nonsense and don't exist anymore, many of the older generation (probably dead by now) will tell you Diablero's used to exist perhaps 100 years ago and talk about it as if it's common knowledge.
The book is called "The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" the first in a long series of books on more or less the same subject. It was written by Carlos Castaneda who supposedly became the apprentice of one such sorcerer.
Interestingly enough he became rather famous and even made it onto the cover of Time Magazine without his face ever actually being shown, there are very few photos ever taken of him and a whole lot of mystery surrounded most of his later life.
