Mi-go
From Free net encyclopedia
The Mi-go (or Fungi from Yuggoth) are a race of fictional aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos. They were created by H. P. Lovecraft and first appeared in his short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931).
Contents |
The Mi-go in the mythos
The Mi-go are large, fungoid, crustacean-like entities the size of a man with an orb covered in sensory appendages in place of a head. Although they originate from beyond our solar system, they have set up an outpost on Pluto (known as Yuggoth in the mythos) and sometimes visit Earth to mine for minerals and other natural resources. The Mi-go normally communicate by changing the colors of their orb-like heads and by emitting odd buzzing noises, but they can also speak any human language with the appropriate surgical modification.
The Mi-go can transport humans from Earth to Pluto (and beyond) and back again by removing the subject's brain and placing it into a "brain cylinder", which can be attached to external devices to allow it to see, hear, and speak.
The Mi-go worship the beings Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and Shub-Niggurath, among others, although their religious beliefs seem to have relatively minor importance compared to their scientific interests. In addition, the moon of Yuggoth (Pluto's Charon), holds sacred designs to the Mi-go. The symbols inscribed upon the moon are useful in various processes described within the Necronomicon, but it is said transcriptions of these designs can be sensed by the Mi-go, and those possessing them shall be hunted down by the few remaining on earthTemplate:Fact. Their moral system is totally alien to us, causing them to seem highly malicious.
Hastur apparently despises the Mi-go. His cult, servants of "He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named", are dedicated to hunting them down and exterminating the fungoid threat.
Other appearances
The Mi-go's inaugural appearance in comic books was the first three issues of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness that featured the Miskatonic Project, created by Mark Ellis and Darryl Banks. The Mi-go are also prominent antagonists in Pagan Publishing's Delta Green sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.
Origin of the word
It is possible that Lovecraft encountered the word migou in his readings. "Migou" is the Tibetan equivalent of the yeti, a semi-mythical humanoid being who lives in the high mountain ranges of that country<ref>"Mi-Go" is the compound word for "man-swift" (fast-moving man) in the Tibetan language. (Pearsall, "Mi-go", The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 278.)</ref>. While the Mi-go of Lovecraft's mythos is completely unlike the migou of Tibetan stories, Lovecraft seems to equate the two, as can be seen in the following excerpt from "The Whisperer in the Darkness":
It was of no use to demonstrate to such opponents that the Vermont myths differed but little in essence from those universal legends of natural personification which filled the ancient world with fauns and dryads and satyrs, suggested the kallikanzarai of modern Greece, and gave to wild Wales and Ireland their dark hints of strange, small, and terrible hidden races of troglodytes and burrowers. No use, either, to point out the even more startlingly similar belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded Mi-Go or "Abominable Snow-Men" who lurk hideously amidst the ice and rock pinnacles of the Himalayan summits. When I brought up this evidence, my opponents turned it against me by claiming that it must imply some actual historicity for the ancient tales; that it must argue the real existence of some queer elder earth-race, driven to hiding after the advent and dominance of mankind, which might very conceivably have survived in reduced numbers to relatively recent times — or even to the present.