New World monsters were projections of anxieties about Otherness, not observed reality.

Evidence

The cynocephalie and dragons seen in Europe and the Americas were not alone. Other monsters appeared in colonial spaces. Much like Jewish and Muslim cynocephalie, Black Saracens, and giants of the Middle Ages, New World monsters were a product of anxieties about the Other that were “imbedded within or distorted by demonizing fantasies.” The European fantasies of the Wild Man and Woman are evident in descriptions of American Indians as “savage and incontinent,” “unable to manage their own affairs,” with a “child-like mentality.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 582

Categorization

• QUESTION: The ‘Wild Man and Woman’ fantasy is a distinct archetype from the Muslim monster — worth investigating whether it has its own genealogy or is a re-skinning of the same template.
• XREF: connects to: Genuine alterity is reciprocal, whereas mythic Otherness denies reciprocity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 652