October Monster Challenge 2014
This creature belongs in a race of forbidden monsters called the Anaye, the Tsetahotsiltali.
The Anaye, (“Alien or Foreign Gods”) similar to the Nephilim of religious texts, are a race of giants, monsters, and horrors born through mortal woman. In the Anaye’s case, born of virgin women through unnatural means, or by a Begochidi, a trickster deity.
The story goes that apparently the men and women of the Navajo had an argument over which gender needed the other more, so both genders split up to live on opposite sides of the river and whoever gave in and swam from the opposite side towards the other was declared the loser. In some versions of the story, the men lost. In others, the women lost but experimented with some interesting means of self-pleasuring which the tools used for the pleasure spawned the monster. Many of these beings were slain by the Hero Twins, Nayanezgani and Thobadzistshini, but even their might couldn’t slay them all. With the help of their father, the Sun-Bearer, Tshohanoai, who bestowed them four magical hoops to entrap the Anaye, and a terrible storm brought forth by their mother, Estanatlehi, the Earth Goddess, they were able to wipe out all but four of the Anaye. The storm, however, also reshaped the world as well.
The surviving four Anaye; Cold, Hunger, Poverty, and Old Age, were allowed to live by convincing Estanatlehi, that humanity could not appreciate the joys in life, or enjoy life in general if they were destroyed.
Among the known Anaye was the Tsetahotsiltali, a hairy headless monster who terrorized humans. Known as Cliff Dweller, this monster would push or knock people over cliffs to feed its numerous offspring at the bottom of the cliff. It uses its long hairs as anchors to keep itself from falling over. He met its end when one of the Hero Twins, Nayanazgeni, engages in an epic brawl that almost made Nayanazgeni fall to his death as both hit each other with such force that it nearly sent Nayanazgeni fall over. He solved this problem by cutting off the Tsetahotsiltali hair anchors and used his chain lightning arrows to send him plummeting to its death, devoured by his own offspring. His surviving offspring were turned into the vultures of the modern world.
This version of the Tsetahotsiltali was made really on the fly. I did different versions of a headless horror and made rather creative methods of how it used its hair as anchors. I made the neck region serve as a beak as its mouth and a hairy mess around the beak as indicators of its future form for its children.