Kushtaka or Kooshdakhaa is an intelligent, scary and deadly creature from the myths of Native Americans living in Alaska.
There are stories about kushtaka in the Indian tribes of the Tsimshians and Tlingits, and the most famous specialist in kushtaka in our years is the researcher Dennis Waller.
In 2014, Waller published the book "In Search of the Kushtaka", which was followed by a documentary of the same name in the same year.
According to descriptions in the legends, kushtaka is a cross between an otter and a man.
Although this creature is also a werewolf and can appear both in the form of a huge wolf and in the form of a man with a wolf's head.
Sometimes the kushtaka is described as a big hairy man, and here the kushtaka passes into the realm of Bigfoot researchers. According to many cryptozoologists, the kushtaka is actually the Alaskan counterpart of the Yeti.
According to Waller, the kushtaka is still not a yeti, just in Indian myths there are often creatures that can take on a different guise. For Indians, the ability to change appearance is only an indication of the great power and strength of a certain creature.
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An interesting aspect of the otter in the description of the appearance of the kushtaka. For the Alaskan Indians, the otter is a very intelligent and social animal. Otters live in structured communities and are very similar to humans. Otters are always perceived by the Indians as a friendly creature.
Kushtaka, however, is not a friend to people at all, and according to the Indians, Kushtaka deliberately looks like an otter in order to lure a person to him and attack him. According to legends, kushtaka also often lures people into dark thickets, simply imitating a crying child or uttering cries for help.
When a person falls into the trap of a kushtaka, he can kill him or take his soul for himself. And then you need to find a shaman and ask him to take the soul of a person from the kushtaka.
Kushtaka can also lure a fisherman in a small kayak into the open sea, where death awaits a person. However, there are stories where he, on the contrary, saves someone. However, there are very few such stories.
Most of the stories about meeting with kushtaka come from the Indians, but Europeans probably also met him. Among other things, it is possible that gold digger Harry D. Colp met with kushtaka in 1910. Kolp encountered a group of monsters in Thomas Bay in southeastern Alaska.
Kolp was exploring a section of the coast, when he suddenly felt someone watching him. When he turned around, he saw scary creatures running towards him, similar at once to people and monkeys.
He described them as asexual, as he could not see the genitals and breasts due to their thick hair. The creatures screamed terribly and a terrible smell emanated from them, from which Kolp almost fainted. Fortunately for him, the creatures soon retreated.
This case can be attributed to meetings with the yeti, but Kolp himself called these creatures kushtaka.
By the way, in 1750, a terrible landslide came down from the mountain in this area, which killed 500 inhabitants of the Indian village and the Indians considered that it was caused by the kushtaka. This area also has a characteristic name for them, which can be translated roughly as "Devil's Country", and they call Thomas Bay "Death's Bay".