Mythic humanoids

Africa

• Jengu – Beautiful, mermaid–like creatures.
• Mami Wata – Mermaid–like water–dwelling humanoids from West African mythology
• Ogbanje – spirit who is born into the same family repeatedly and dies young on purpose to drive them into grief.
• Werehyena – Hyaenidae therianthropic creature common in the folklore of North and East Africa, and West Asia.

  Americas

• Adlet – Dog-like humanoids in Inuit folklore.
• Anung Ite – female spirit with two faces and spikes protruding from elbows. Variations from other tribes known as Sharp Legs and Sharp Elbows.
• Asin – Often called the Basket Woman, this was an ogre-like monster who sneaked up on and captured naughty children, throwing them into a basket on her back to take home and eat.
• Baykok – skeletal monster. Ghost of human cursed for horrific acts in life.
• Biboon – Winter Spirit. Descends from Hudson Bay to cover everything in winter. Described as an old man.
• Bigfoot – Large, hairy, and bipedal ape-like creature taller than a human and said to inhabit forests in North America.
• Boo hag – A shapeshifting witch in Gullah Geechee culture that feeds on the lifeforce of people vampirically in the night. Has also absorbed aspects of elf and Night Mare beliefs from European culture.
• Buffalo People – Race of shapeshifting witches who inhabited the earth before humans. The gods and the Buffalo People intermarry to create the first humans, who are initially rivals over control of the earth. Later, the Buffalo People make peace, gift earth to the humans and become the actual Buffalo. Several prominent mythological figures in Siouan mythology are Buffalo people- including Kakaŋka, Wazija, Gnaski, Anung Ite, etc. Buffalo Witches also appear in some Ohio Native lore- particularly Wyandot and Shawnee.
• Chindi – The dark side of the soul, which can often separate in death and remain behind in a place as a sort of dark spirit.
• Ciguapa – Mythical women who live in the high mountains of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Of human female form with brown or dark blue skin, backward facing feet, and very long manes of smooth, glossy hair covering their bodies; nocturnal, hostile, to be avoided.
• El Cucuy – Boogeyman to scare children into being good in Spain, Portugal and South America. Name comes from the word for "head". Seen as shadowy figure prowling on rooftops, said to eat or kidnap children.
• Encantado – Amazon river dolphins said to occasionally take human form in South American folklore.
• Faceless Spirit – appears as female maiden with no face. Collects life force of dead things in her basket and returns it to the Creator to be recycled into new life.
• Fiura – Evil creature in Chilean mythology, a small, nasty woman with large breasts.
• Headless Corpse – headless body that runs around on all fours with gaping mouth where head should be.
• Heyoka – People chosen by the Thunder Beings to be Medicine Men. Possessing supernatural abilities. A Heyoka must have a vision of a Thunder Being or be struck by lightning. May have visions of the future or other abilities. Appear to others as backwards. Acts in backwards behaviors. They are mysterious and move between worlds. thunderbirds.
• Ijiraq – shapeshifting childnapper with red eyes and a sideways face.
• Inipi – Mostly known from the Kawaiisu people, this is the shapeshifting ghost of a human. It may take virtually any form, with given stories depicting it as looking normal, or as a skeleton with extremely long nails. Like modern western ghost lore, it may be aware of its surroundings, or just going through the motions obliviously. They say it starts walking once a person's death is assured, even before they actually die. To get rid of one, a person blows across one's open palm at it.
• Kalku – A Chiloe and Mapuche mythological sorcerer who controls crows and contains dark magic and negative powers.
• Kushtaka – Shape-shifting otter creature found in the folklore of the Tlingit and Tsimshian people.
• Little People – various fairy/elf-like beings believed in across North America. Some are a couple inches tall and look like humans, some a couple feet and are hairy or look ugly, some take the form of human children. Different types can be mischievous, evil or beneficial.
• Mesingw – Lenape name for the spirit of the forests. Hairy dwarf who wears a wooden mask to hide deformed face and rides on the back of a white stag.
• Mothman – A winged, legendary man with the features of a moth.
• Pombero – Mythical humanoid creature of small stature being from Guaraní mythology.
• Qalupalik – female entities with green skin, webbed hands and claws that emit shrieks that paralyze men.
• Sabuqwanilnu – Migmaaq name for a mermaid like being believed in across Algonquian speaking peoples. Top half human, bottom half fish, able to control and predict the weather and travel between the human world and the underworld through water. Anishinaabeg myth refers to one trying to take a human husband, the act of bringing him to their world and going through with the marriage turning him into one of them.
• Sasquatch – see Bigfoot.
• Shade – Spirit or ghost of a dead person, residing in the underworld, believed to be a shadowy place. Common to beliefs in the Near East, e.g. Islamic Jinn and the Choctaw Nalusa Chito.
• Shadow people – dark, nonspecific apparitions in folklore, often taken to be neutral, or harbingers of events.
• Skin-walker – Type of witch with ability to disguise themselves as an animal or turn into one.
• Squawkowtemus – Female spirit that resides in swamps. Its cries lure people close. If it touches them, they die.
• Stick Indians – monsters who materialize from out of the roots of trees and bushes and attack men.
• Stikini - A witch that primarily transforms into a were-owl monster at night, after vomiting up its soul and organs and hanging them in a tree.
• Tariaksuq – anthropomorphic caribou people who exist as their own separate society in a parallel universe. Only their shadows can be seen in this world, though sometimes glimpses of them can be caught out of the corner of the eye. Only become visible when killed.
• Thunderbirds – most tribes in Eastern Woodlands claim Thunderbirds often shapeshift into people. They live in secret villages atop mountains. Shawnee say they speak backwards.
• Towiŋ – Female spirit who guards the road to the afterlife in Lakota lore. Souls stop at her lodge while she judges their worthiness to progress on to Wanagi Tamakoce. Said to mean Blue Woman, but can also translate as Aunt. Pronounced tow-wih
• Trauco – Dwarf or goblin-like creature that inhabits the woods of Chiloé islands in Chile.
• Tzitzimitl – female demons who worked for several deities and were worshipped by midwives. Attacked the sun during eclipses and were alleged to be the prophesied cause of the end of the world. Their queen, Itzapopolotl, was a skeletal obsidian butterfly demon. Several other Uto-Aztecan peoples as far north as the Shoshone had similar mythological creatures to her in their lore.
• Wanaģi/ Wanuŋchi – the spirits of the dead, almost always take form of shadow people. The word is also the word for soul and shadow. Sometimes referred to as the Night Spirits. Commonly seen at night around burial grounds/mounds. Pronounced wah-nah-khee/ wah-nuh-chee.
• Water Babies – evil spirit who resides near springs or ponds and takes the form of a crying baby, luring people to pick it up, after which, it becomes so heavy that it crushes them to death.
• Wechuge – Cannibal said to be a person who has been possessed or overwhelmed by the monster, or a demonic presence. In return, the person becomes "too strong". Related to the regions of Canada.
• Wendigo – A human possessed by evil spirit to cannibalize humans and is never sated.
• Werecoyote – A canine therianthropic creature.
• Yacuruna – Hairy beings with deformed feet and their heads turned backwards.
• Zombie – An undead human which preys on the living, originating in Haitian folklore.

  Asia

• Äbädä - protective forest spirit. Can take human form, but usually portrayed as having blue skin, green hair and horns.
• Abasy – One eyed, one armed, one legged monsters. Souls who serve the underworld god, cause madness and disease and ride two headed, wingless dragons like horses.
• Alyp Khara Aat Mogoidoon – chief of the Abasy. Described as a giant with three heads with six arms and legs and made of iron.
• Angel – Divine messengers in Abrahamic religions, often depicted in humanoid form.
• Anito – Ancestor spirits and heroic spirits and evil gods
• Aswang – Shapeshifting Philippine human eating ghouls, vampires and demons.
• Bak – Assamese aqueous creature that can take human form after killing them.
• Diwata – Philippine fairies and celestial beings and deities/spirits.
• Dokkaebi – A mythical being in Korean folklore or fairy tales. Although usually frightening, it could also represent a humorous, grotesque-looking ogre or goblin.
• Ebu Gogo – Human-like creatures in Indonesian mythology.
• Engkanto – Elf-like creatures in Philippine mythology most are slender fair skinned and fair hair, some are completely jet black
• Garuda – Vishnu's bird-like mount.
• Ghoul – Monstrous flesh-eating spirits, jinn, or shayatin associated with graveyards.
• Gwisin – General term for a Korean ghost.
• Hibagon – The Japanese equivalent of Bigfoot.
• Hitotsume-kozou – A Yōkai that takes on the appearance of a bald, one-eyed child.
• Jiangshi – A being in Chinese legends and folklore similar to zombie or vampire.
• Jinn – Genie-like beings.
• Jorōgumo – A spider that can change its appearance into that of a seductive woman.
• Kappa – A turtle-like yōkai which is about the size of a child.
• Kinari – Beautiful, slender and androgynous creatures with bird wings from Hindu and Buddhist mythology.
• Kitsune, huli jing, kumiho, and hồ ly tinh – Fox spirits in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese folklore respectively.
• Manananggal – A self-segmenting humanoid which preys on humans in Philippine folklore.
• Mandurugo – Harpy-like vampires with the body of birds of prey and the faces of beautiful women
• Mangkukulam – Tagalog for Filipino witch employing black magic or using hexes for revenge and punishment reasons.
• Nāga – Divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld, and can occasionally take human or part-human form. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism mythology.
• Nukekubi – Rokurokubi whose heads come off and float about.
• Nuno – Dwarf-like creature in Philippine mythology.
• Oni – Yōkai which are similar to ogres or demons.
• Pugot – Mythical fiend found in the Ilocos Region.
• Rannamaari - Sea monster/demon with similar mythology to Orochi. Defeated entirely just by the existence of Islam and nothing else.
• Rokurokubi – Yōkai with long necks or removable heads.
• Tengu – Legendary creatures with human and bird features in Japanese folklore.
• Tennin – Spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhism that are similar to western angels, nymphs or fairies.
• Tikbalang – Tall, bony creatures with the features of a horse.
• Tiyanak – Vampiric creature in Philippine mythology that imitates the form of a child.
• Vanara – Man-ape species with human intelligence in Hindu scriptures.
• Yama-uba – Monstrous crone with cannibalistic tendencies.
• Yeren – Legendary creature said to be an as yet undiscovered hominid residing in the remote mountainous forested regions of western Hubei, China.
• Yeti – An ape-like entity taller than an average human said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet.
• Yuki-onna – Spirit or yōkai in Japanese folklore associated with snow.
• Weretiger – Feline therianthropic creature, Asian version.