Editing Demon (section)

== Ethnic and folkloric ==
=== Aboriginal Australian cultures ===
[[File:Bunyip 1890.jpg|thumb|upright|A depiction of a [[Bunyip]].]]
[[Aboriginal Australian]] cultures have various beings translated into English as "demons" or "devils". The most notable is the [[Bunyip]], which was originally a term applied to malevolent spirits in general.<ref>See for example, "[[Oodgeroo Noonuccal]]", Kath Walker's story collected in ''Stradbroke Dreamtime''. [http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/bunyips/html-site/abor-stories/biami.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206012750/http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/bunyips/html-site/abor-stories/biami.html|date=6 February 2012}}</ref> [[Aboriginal Tasmanians|Tasmanian]] mythology in particular has many beings translated as "devils"; these include malicious spirits like ''Rageowrapper''<ref>Plomley, N. J. B. (1991). The Westlake papers: records of interviews in Tasmania by Ernest Westlake. Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery.</ref> as well as spirits summoned in magic. Tasmanian Aboriginal people would describe these entities as "devils" and related that these spiritual beings as walking alongside Aboriginal people "carrying a torch but could not be seen".<ref>Plomley, N. J. B., ed. (2008) [First published 1966]. Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson (2nd ed.). Hobart, Tasmania and Launceston, Tasmania: Quintus and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. ISBN 978-0-977-55722-6.</ref>

=== Ancient Egypt ===
[[File:Ram-headed demon.jpg|thumb|upright|Ram-headed demon. The hands probably outstretch to hold two snakes. From a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt. End of the 18th Dynasty, around 1325 BCE]]
The exact definition of ''demon'' in [[Egyptology]] posed a major problem for modern scholarship, since the borders between a deity and a demon are sometimes blurred and the ancient [[Egyptian language]] lacks a term for the modern English ''demon''.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=2}}<ref name="BhayroRider2017">{{harvnb|Bhayro|Rider|2017|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Xq28DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA53 53]}}.</ref> Both deities and demons can act as intermediaries to deliver messages to humans.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=3}} By that, they share some resemblance to the Greek {{Lang|grc-latn|daimon}}. However, magical writings indicate that ancient Egyptians acknowledged the existence of malevolent demons by highlighting the demon names with red ink.<ref name="BhayroRider2017"/> Demons in this culture appeared to be subordinative and related to a specific deity, yet they may have occasionally acted independently of the divine will. The existence of demons can be related to the realm of chaos, beyond the created world.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=2}} But even this negative connotation cannot be denied in light of the magical texts. The role of demons in relation to the human world remains ambivalent and largely depends on context.

Ancient Egyptian demons can be divided into two classes: "guardians" and "wanderers".{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=3}}{{sfn|Bhayro|Rider |2017|p=55}} "Guardians" are tied to a specific place; their demonic activity is topographically defined and their function can be benevolent towards those who have the secret knowledge to face them.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=4}} Demons protecting the underworld may prevent human souls from entering paradise. Only by knowing the right charms is the deceased able to enter the ''Halls of Osiris''.{{sfn|Greenbaum|2015|p=120}} Here, the aggressive nature of the guardian demons is motivated by the need to protect their abodes and not by their evil essence. Accordingly, demons guarded sacred places or the gates to the netherworld. During the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom|Ptolemaic]] and [[Roman period]], the guardians shifted towards the role of [[genius loci]] and they were the focus of local and private cults.

The "wanderers" are associated with possession, mental illness, death and plagues. Many of them serve as executioners for the major deities, such as [[Ra]] or [[Osiris]], when ordered to punish humans on earth or in the netherworld.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=4}} Wanderers can also be agents of chaos, arising from the world beyond creation to bring about misfortune and suffering without any divine instructions, led only by evil motivations. The influences of the wanderers can be warded off and kept at the borders of the human world by the use of magic, but they can never be destroyed. A sub-category of "wanderers" are nightmare demons, which were believed to cause nightmares by entering a human body.{{sfn|Lucarelli|2010|p=2}}

=== Chinese folklore ===
{{Main|Mara (demon)|Yaoguai|Zhiguai xiaoshuo}}
{{See also|List of supernatural beings in Chinese folklore|Spiritual warfare in China}}
[[File:夜叉鬼.JPG|thumb|Carving of a [[yaksha]] ({{Lang|zh|夜叉}})]]

Chinese folktale, legend and literature are replete with malevolent supernatural creatures who are often rendered "demons" in English translations. These include categories of beings such as the ''[[Yaoguai|yao]]'' {{Lang|zh|妖}} – shapeshifters with the power to cause insanity, to inflict poison, and to bring about disease, and the mo {{Lang|zh|魔}} – derived from Indian mythology and entering through the influence of Buddhism. In folk belief, these beings are responsible for misfortune, insanity, and illness, and any number of strange phenomena that could not easily be accounted for. Epilepsy and stroke, which led to either temporary or permanent contortions, were generally seen as the results of demonic possession and attacks ({{Lang|zh|中邪}}).

Belief in wilderness demons<ref>{{Cite book |last=Strassberg |first=Richard E. |title=A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures in the Guideway through the Mountains and Seas |pages=42}}</ref> haunted China from the very earliest periods and persisted throughout the late imperial era. In the Xia dynasty, nine bronze cauldrons with their forms were cast to help the common people to identify and to avoid them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Strassberg |first=Richard E. |title=A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through the Mountains and Seas |pages=201}}</ref> Classical texts in the Zhou and Warring-States period distinguish between the demons of mountains and forests (the seductive [[Chi (mythology)|Chimei]] {{Lang|zh|魑魅}}),<ref name="De Groot-1907">{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=495–496 |chapter=2, On Spectres of Mounts and Forests}}</ref> demons of trees and rocks (a necrophagous fever-demon, the [[Wangliang]] {{Lang|zh|魍魎}}),<ref name="De Groot-1907" /> subterranean demons of the earth and of decay (the goat-like and necrophagous Fenyang {{Lang|zh|墳羊}} ({{Lit|grave-goat}}),<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=535–536 |chapter=4, On Ground-Demons}}</ref> who caused disease and miscarriage) and fever demons born from water (Wangxiang {{Lang|zh|罔象}}, a child-like being with red eyes).<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=521–522 |chapter=3, On Water-Demons}}</ref> These demons were said to be born of aberrant [[qi]] (breath or energy), known to accost and kill travellers, and held responsible for sickness. People also feared the Muling {{Lang|zh|木灵}} {{Lit|tree spirit}} (also muzhong {{Lang|zh|木肿}} {{Lit|tree swelling}}) – demons forming over time in trees of immense age, capable of inflicting disease and killing human passers-by and birds flying overhead. Examples include the [[penghou]] {{Lang|zh|彭侯}} ({{Lit|drumbeat marquis}}), a demon associated with camphor trees in mountain forests, and which takes the form of a human-headed dog, and in the southern provinces, the banana-leaf spirits.

From the Tang dynasty onwards, belief in shapeshifting foxes, tigers and wolves, amongst other creatures, also featured in Chinese folk belief, partly due to the existence of outlawed fox-spirit cults. Fox demons ({{Lang|zh|狐妖}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=576–599 |chapter=5, on Animal-Demons}}</ref> are described as cunning and lustful, capable of clairvoyance, and of inflicting disease and poisoning at will. They are sometimes seen as beings requiring worship to be appeased or placated. Tiger demons ({{Lang|zh|虎妖}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=544 |chapter=5, on Animal-Demons}}</ref> and wolf demons ({{Lang|zh|狼妖}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |year=1907 |pages=563–565 |chapter=5, on Animal Demons}}</ref> are ravening beings roaming large territories for prey, taking the form of humans to conveniently insert themselves into communities and settlements. Tiger demons are described as being enslave the souls of humans they have killed, turning them into minions. In the superstitious climate of the previous centuries, people mistaken as tigers and wolves in human disguise were often put to death or starved in their cells by magistrates.

Fish ({{Lang|zh|鱼妖}}) and snake demons ({{Lang|zh|蛇妖}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=Religious System of China, Volume 5 |publication-date=1907 |pages=626–633 |chapter=5, on Animal Demons}}</ref> are said to have attempted to assault Confucius. Even insects are capable of being demonic. In one tale, the sighting of a centipede demon ({{Lang|zh|蜈蚣妖}}) in the form of an old woman without eyes is said to have led to the sickness and death of an entire household.

One notable demon not in the above categories includes the Heisheng or Heiqi {{Lang|zh|黑气}} ({{Gloss|Black Calamity}} or {{Gloss|Black Air}}), a kind of roving vapour demon that inflicts damage to persons and property wherever it roams, sometimes killing where it goes. Another are undefined Poltergeists, sometimes afflicting monasteries, causing serious nuisances, and unable to be exorcised.

==== Disambiguation ====
The terms Yao ({{Lang|zh|妖}}), Mo ({{Lang|zh|魔}}), Gui ({{Lang|zh|鬼}}), Guai ({{Lang|zh|怪}}) and Xie ({{Lang|zh|邪}}) are their various two-character combinations often used to refer to these creatures, but of these terms, only Mo ({{Lang|zh|魔}}) denotes demons in the religious sense.

China has two classes of beings that might be regarded as demons, and which are generally translated as such:
* [[Yaoguai|Yao]] ({{Lang|zh|妖}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=The Religious System of China: Volume 5 |pages=469}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=The Religious System of China, Volume 5 |page=814}}</ref><ref name="De Groot">{{Cite book |last=De Groot |title=The Religious System of China, Volume 5 |pages=466}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Dore |first=Henry SJ |title=Researches into Chinese Superstitions |pages=241, 277}}</ref> – a kind of uncanny supernatural creature, usually with the power to shapeshift, to poison or to cause disease, and to bewilder or enthrall. They are associated with sorcery or sorcery-like powers. They are not always evil in the sense that Western demons or the Chinese {{Lang|zh-latn|mo}} ({{Lang|zh|魔}}) are but are represented as having malevolent tendencies and as creatures of ill-omen. They are often invoked as an explanation for strange events, bizarre occurrences, mysterious diseases and horrible accidents. They resemble the ''unseelie fae'' of Celtic legend and folklore in their powers and predisposition - and are sometimes translated as {{Gloss|faeries}} or {{Gloss|daemons}} rather than {{Gloss|demons}}.
* Mo ({{Lang|zh|魔}})<ref name="De Groot" /> – derived from the "Mara" of Buddhism and are almost always evil. This kind of being is morally corrupted and rebels against the moral law and heavenly principle. Taoist cultivators, fallen Buddhist monks, gods and mortals who have succumbed to an evil inclination are said to have become demonic or become diabolical – {{Lang|zh-latn|ru mo}}. ({{Lang|zh|入魔}}). As such it is often a condition and a state, rather than always being directly the result of a certain innate heritage. Furthermore, certain beings derived directly from Indian mythology, such as the {{Lang|zh-latn|luocha}} ({{Lang|zh|罗刹}} or {{Lang|zh-latn|raksasha}}) and {{Lang|zh-latn|yecha}} ({{Lang|zh|夜叉}} or {{Lang|zh|yaksha}}), however are classed as being innately demonic ({{Lang|zh|魔}}) types by heritage but are nevertheless represented as being capable of repentance or turning to good.

=== Native North America ===
{{Main|Wendigo|Wechuge}}
The [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] people traditionally believe in a spirit called a [[wendigo]]. The spirit is believed to possess people who then become [[Human cannibalism|cannibals]]. In [[Athabaskan]] folklore, there is a belief in [[wechuge]], a similar cannibal spirit.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}