Consider the Wampus Cat
Dispatches from a ghost town community in the piney woods of East Texas, where a bump in the night could be anything from a feral pig to a panther. Unless it’s a ghost with a grudge, an animal not found in nature or perhaps your decisions catching up to you.
In honor of this episode’s near-Halloween release, I’ll be sharing the scariest East Texas legend I know of - the Wampus cat.
It’s a dark, dreary night and you’re riding in the car with your aunt and uncle. Their car weaves down a narrow road, cutting through pine trees that soar on either side of you like a canyon. You could be anywhere, here in the Big Thicket. Suddenly, your uncle turns into a clearing. Stops the car. “What’s that?” He asked. “What?” You reply, suddenly alert after dozing from the motion of the wheels against asphalt.
“That.” Then you hear it. A soft rustling that gets louder. A muffled caterwaul. You start to fidget in your seat.
“Do you hear it now?”
You nod. Swallow. “Y-yes.”
The sound comes closer. Why isn’t your aunt worried? How can she just sit there and shake her head when something SOMETHING is obviously approaching the car.
“Look over there!” He exclaims. You turn your head as a feline wail fills the car, hightening into a screech then declining into a low growl.”
“I don’t see anything.” Your hair stands on end.
Your uncle puts the car in gear. “I saw it.” He says, slowly backing out to the main road. “It was a wampus cat. A mighty big ‘un.”
In the passenger seat, your aunt sighs again. “For Heavens' Sake” she says. “Just stop.”
In the rearview mirror you detect a twinkle in his eye as you head back toward home. Safe as can be. No wampus cats got you tonight.
Just when you put the incident out of mind, it happens again, always along abandoned roads at night, and exclusively with that aunt and uncle. You always escape, thank the lord.
So, what did you dodge? Something pretty scary. A wampus cat has been described as, "a kind of amphibious panther which leaps into the water and swims like a colossal mink. yikes.
It is a cryptid, a not-found-in-nature creature that varies widely in appearance, ranging from frightful to comical, depending on region. Even in Angelina County, the Wampus Cat is something of a niche creature, its appearances passing down through family and cultural stories instead of publications or scholarly works. But to me, that just makes it all the more frightening, as the unexplained often is.
In Arkansas, the Conway High School’s wampus cat, has six legs; four to run and two to fight.7
In Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. There, the wampus cat has eight legs, four atop and four beneath, so as to always land feet first.
Others say that rather than six or eight legs, the Wampus cat’s legs, a typical four, are longer on one side than the other, the better for scaling hillsides with, my dear.
Wampus Cats have been traced back to Cherokee Mythology. In this origin story, the cryptid is the cat-like embodiment of a female onlooker cursed by tribal elders, as punishment for hiding beneath the pelt of a wild cat to witness a sacred ceremony. Another version says the Wampus Cat is Running Deer, a cursed native American woman who fought a demon, called a Ewah, that had possessed her husband. These myths were prominent in Appalachia, although the Cherokee did inhabit deep East Texas, settling in present-day Rusk and between the Angelina and Neches rivers after being forcibly removed from their homelands in the southeastern US and further resettled by existing Texas tribes in the prairie region.
But “Wampus Cat” tales were popular from the 1920s through the 1950s - my grandparents’ generation. Hence the cats’ attraction to 1960s-era sedans, I suppose. It’s also been aligned with the word “catawampus,” which has been used to describe a mysterious animal, something that's placed on a corner, and the cause of many unusual events.
A wampus cat needs a wail, and that’s where Texas ingenuity… and a little bit of waxed twine across stretched rawhide came in handy. The twine acted like the bow of a fiddle, and even a scratch as small as a fingernail would produce an unearthly howl, which could echo and amplify based on the other materials and the instrument’s location.
But there were never any such instruments in the car, just a sound coming from the trees. Nobody ever mentioned a Cherokee woman to you, or a Ewah. All there was, was enveloping darkness and the feeling of safety and near misses. It never occurs to you to ask questions, even as your hair stands on end. You just want the car to roll, and eventually, mercifully, it does every time.
Not nearly as popular as Bigfoot, the Wampus Cat can’t be found on air fresheners or coffee mugs (although a handful of schools have claimed her for a mascot.) Rather than making her less scary, I believe this adds a fearsome dignity to her. “Put me on a sticker,” I imagine her saying. “Just try it.” Perhaps she would raise an eyebrow and sneer while licking lake water off her minky paw.
But the Wampus Cat is her own thing, and as much as we might try to get to know her, I believe that we can’t even come close. She was rewarded for her bravery with banishment and disfigurement, turned into a convenient entity to blame. We greased a string and called it her voice. No wonder we are scared. We should be.
