The typical image of the cannibal-monsters was that of the cynocephalus. The first references to fantastic dog-headed peoples living in Asia date from the pre-Socratic period. They then come to inspire the medieval imagination. Marco Polo discovers, on an island, anthropophagi with dog’s heads. Columbus is the first to mention the presence of man-eaters in the New World, whom he claims have dog’s heads.

XREF: Connects to themes of monstrous humanoid races in classical and medieval travel literature, e.g. Pliny's Natural History and other paradoxography traditions.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 580